Accidental Champion of Earth - Chapter 11: Who Knew Choosing A Mage Class Would Have Me Bashing In So Many Skulls

Xavier sprinted into his university’s courtyard, straight at eighteen goblins, all of which wanted him dead. The sun was slowly beginning to drop below the horizon. The sky was no longer the blood red it had been that morning. The lamps in the courtyard all came on, but it was the portal behind the goblins that was giving off the most light.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, which was far faster than it had been that morning. He didn’t cast Spiritual Trifecta. Not right away. He hadn’t used the spell before, but he had to assume that it only lasted for three seconds and that the cooldown on the spell remained at nine seconds.

Xavier wasn’t made for stealth. He had the element of surprise, but he already knew he wouldn’t be able to sneak up on these things. They would have spotted him if he’d tried, so his best bet was hitting them as hard and as fast as he could, then getting the hell out of there until he could use his spells again.

One of the goblins turned at the sound of his swift strides. It let out a little startled yell, which notified its kin of his imminent arrival.

The goblins scattered backward a bit, no longer neatly clustered as they had been before. But a second later they rallied, all eighteen of them running to intercept him.

Good. He’d rather them not run away—rather not have to hunt them down. That didn’t stop a small shudder of fear from running up his spine. He swallowed as he was only a few feet away. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s acting despite fear.

When he was one step away, Xavier cast Spiritual Trifecta for the first time. He felt the energy drain from him, then infuse his body and mind. Maybe even his soul, assuming those existed.

He felt stronger and faster than he ever had. His mind moved more swiftly than ever. And his magic. It was crackling. Ready. Eager to burst forth.

All three qualities of the Spiritual Trifecta spell enveloped him, powering him beyond his imagination.

Xavier didn’t hesitate. He cast Heavy Telekinesis. The eighteen goblins had spread out around him, so he wasn’t able to hit them all at once even if the spell was capable of that. But he still managed to throw four of them straight up into the air. He didn’t know how far they flew—it wasn’t as though he could stop and watch.

As they flew up off the ground, Xavier swung his staff into the head of the nearest goblin and watched it practically explode in green blood. The goblins were surrounding him now, striking him with their swords, but they weren’t causing him any damage. They couldn’t cause him any damage.

Not while Spiritual Trifecta was active.

He managed to slam his staff into another goblin’s head, then he high-tailed it out of there.

As he ran, he heard the goblins he had thrown fly into the air slam into the ground. The kill notification for the two goblins he’d struck with his staff, along with four more he’d used Heavy Telekinesis on, popped up. He rapidly dismissed the notification, glad that throwing those four goblins had been enough to take them down.

There was also a seventh notification, but he didn’t have the time to read it. It said something about reaching his Spirit Energy limit.

I just killed six goblins in three seconds. He couldn’t help but be surprised about how well that had turned out. Though the second he started running away, the silver sheen of Spiritual Trifecta dissipated, and with it, all of the power it had infused within him.

He was ready for the exhaustion. He’d been through this before. Many times, now. He knew how to push through it. Knew how to run while feeling like this.

What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was that using all three of the spell’s qualities at once exhausted him three times as much as when he’d only been able to use one.

That certainly hadn’t been in the spell description.

He gritted his teeth and pushed on. His body felt heavy. Weary. Weak. But he knew that exhaustion was just an illusion of the spell.

With a nine second cooldown, and it lasting three seconds, I just need to run for six more seconds before I can use it again.

Now that the spell gave him physical strength anddefence, he wouldn’t need to wait for Heavy Telekinesis to be ready again. He could just pummel a few more of the little green beasts with the head of his staff.

Who knew choosing a Mage class would have me bashing in so many skulls…

Though he supposed it could have gone quite differently had he not had the Spiritual Guidance spell. I could be setting these goblins on fire, or using some sort of chain lightning spell. Maybe he would be flinging spells down at them from the second floor of a nearby building.

This was far more hands on, but he had to say… he didn’t regret his decision.

Xavier could feel when the spell reached the end of its cooldown. He whirled around. His legs being longer than the goblins’, he’d actually made some space between them in his little sprint.

He waited for them to come to him before activating the spell once more. He twirled his staff around him in an extravagant move, then slammed it into one of the goblin’s skulls, casting Spiritual Trifecta mid-swing to give him the most time with the spell active.

Two more strikes took down two more goblins. Then he whirled back around, ready to run.

Only he couldn’t. The little green beasts—the little green bastards—had surrounded him, closing off his path of escape. They must have seen through his plan and come up with one of their own.

Xavier panicked. It wasn’t the first time he’d been surrounded by goblins, but these ones weren’t hesitating like the first lot he’d killed back in the lecture theatre had, and there were still nine of them left.

More than enough to do him in.

Xavier slammed his staff into another of the goblin’s heads, but the silver sheen about him fell away before he’d hit. The exhaustion slammed into him once more. It felt even worse than before. The goblin was still struck, but the strike hadn’t killed it. It stumbled back two steps before regaining its footing, a wicked gash in its forehead.

He swung his staff around him wildly, just like he had back in the lecture theatre. He’d already killed half of the group, surely they would be afraid of him now.

But if they were afraid, they didn’t look it. And they certainly didn’t act like it. One of the goblins leapt up and grabbed his staff, weighing it down. Though the little beast was small, it must have weighed at least sixty pounds.

Sixty pounds at the end of a staff, and he hadn’t put a single point into his middling Strength attribute.

Another goblin pounced on his staff, and before he knew it the damned thing was already out of his grasp, pulled straight out of his hand. He hadn’t been strong enough to keep a hold of it. Not good.

Xavier didn’t hesitate. No matter how tired was—no matter how afraid he was—he wasn’t going to let these goblins win.

Them or me.

He pulled the short sword he still kept at his belt and slashed straight at a goblin leaping up at him. Took the goblin in the eye. It yelled but still tumbled on top of him, taking him straight to the ground.

No, no, no, no. The ground was the last place he wanted to be. None of this was going to plan! Maybe I would have been better off picking Cast Element, flinging spells from a rooftop down at them. But it was too late for that now.

One couldn’t walk backward on the path.

Xavier tried to throw the little beast off him with his left arm even as he felt something bite into him. The little bastard is biting me!

Then he felt something stab into his legs. Then another. Blood was pouring out of him.

He tried to cast Heavy Telekinesis.

Heavy Telekinesis has a cooldown of 29 seconds. It cannot be used for another 3 seconds.

Three seconds. I can survive for three seconds. At least, he bloody well hoped he could.

He jammed his short sword into the goblin on top of him. Felt the blade slide into its flesh and further soak his robes in warm, green blood. Saw the kill notification come up and dismissed it instantly. The goblin went slack on top of him.

Finally, he pushed the goblin straight off him. Its teeth were still clamped onto his forearm, and doing so ripped a chunk from his flesh. Now only that, when he shoved the goblin off, it revealed all the remaining goblins standing over him, thrusting down with their swords.

Xavier didn’t know how many times they had stabbed him in the legs, and now that he’d pushed the goblin off him, he had exposed his torso and face to their strikes. He thought he’d felt pain before. Back in the lecture theatre. The first time he’d been injured by these invading monsters. But this… this was so much worse. I’m probably only still alive because I put 3 points into Toughness. But I won’t be able to last much longer.

He was lying on his back, feeling more defenceless than he ever had.

I’m going to die here, aren’t I?

Every decision he’d made that day flashed through his mind. He should have chosen Warrior. Maybe that class would have given him armour. He should have put points into Strength, then he wouldn’t have let go of his staff. He should have never chosen Spiritual Guidance in the first place. Or maybe he should have kept running away from these goblins until Heavy Telekinesis had reached its end.

He saw a dozen ways this could have gone differently. A dozen ways that this would have ended up with him surviving, instead of lying in the ground riddled with holes and gashes by short swords and vicious little axes. Not to mention a damned bite in his arm.

At least he’d gotten to go on an adventure, though he wished it would have lasted far, far longer.

Xavier gritted his teeth and waited for the strikes to fall.