It had taken until the Thirtieth Descent for Xavier to find enemies worthy of grinding for his own levels.
He had gained a title for the first twenty-nine descents of the Hell Moon Thazamar, and his theory about how the percentages would accumulate had been correct. He now had a +14.5 percent boost to all of his stats, along with a modifier of +14.5 percent damage against demons.
Xaiver had only gained a few levels along the way—not that he’d expected to gain many.
His c...
2025-03-19 18:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The notification that popped into Xavier’s vision was a title.
When Xavier’s companions had cleared the First Descent, even though Xavier had cast Time Alteration, he hadn’t actually dealt any damage to any of the Bladed Crawler demons, meaning he hadn’t gotten the title then. Time Alteration wasn’t a support spell in the same way healing or a buff might be, so he hadn’t gained even a portion of the credit for any of his companions’ kills.
Which was actually Xavier...
2025-03-18 18:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“This is not how I prefer to fight, Xavier.” Romalda held her chin high as he stared at him. “I need to be able to cast my spells. Reanimate these corpses. Build my army.”
The E Grade necromancer was breathing heavily. Her staff was covered in demon blood, and she had a stricken expression on her face, somehow looking even more pale than usual.
Rhaalir stepped forward. “The necromancer is right. Without anything cooling down, I lack the power of the spells ...
2025-03-17 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Xavier, Volkarin, Rhaalir, and Romalda entered the First Descent of the Hell Moon Thazamar.
Thazamar was the first of the Hell Moons of Demonica, three dungeon-like moons that lay on the other side of the universe to Earth.
The moons inhabited one of the first sectors to have ever been integrated by the System. They were ancient—almost as ancient as Adranial’s ancestor.
Stepping inside a place that had been around for a billions years was a surreal feeling. The rock wall...
2025-03-13 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Xavier felt energised.
More than he had in a while.
He had returned to Collinsville only briefly, to inform those that were there that he wouldn’t be close enough to contact for the foreseeable future.
Guardian would be more than strong enough to protect Collinsville, and those he was leaving in charge were the strongest people on the entire planet when the Champions were in the tower, and the old members of his party still hadn’t returned. He would have gotten a message...
2025-03-12 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Xavier returned to Earth. He hadn’t wanted to, but he knew he needed to come up with a plan. He couldn’t simply step through any random portal he wished and hope he would end up somewhere that could make him stronger.
He’d also been through the different hunting grounds the gnome information broker had given him enough times to know that while he could get stronger in some of them, they wouldn’t really be enough.
Though they could potentially be good...
2025-03-11 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The Class Grafting process was a painful one, though Xavier had endured worse.
Empress Larona did not explain the procedure as she performed it—apparently, she’d ended up requiring more focus than she’d initially expected. Xavier’s frequent and obsessive use of the spell Soul Harden had made him unreceptive to this particular ritual.
He’d had to focus on his own soul. Had to delve into the protections the spell had given him and alter them slightly. This was something th...
2025-03-10 18:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The door Empress Larona stepped through opened onto a long hallway filled with doors on either side. She stepped swiftly down the hallway with a graceful stride. Xavier followed behind, glancing at the different doors as they passed them.
None of the doors had any markings on them, saying what might be inside. A closed door, a secret behind it—Xavier had the intense desire to open every single one to peek at what might be there.
The empress stopped at a door roughly halfway down...
2025-03-06 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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“Only one?” Xavier asked, sitting across from the most powerful Denizen in the sector. A Denizen that had seen glimpses of the future—a future with him at the centre.
And he was in space. The back room of that bookstore was through a portal to space.
Whenever he forgot that, he would simply turn his head and look through the window at the stars out there in the void.
“That is more than I give others.” The dark-haired woman looked out the window he...
2025-03-05 18:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Xavier sat across from the woman who claimed to be Elitsa Flian, a humble bookstore owner in the city of Mareketh, and a Level 102 Inscriber.
He sat in a plush chair, on the opposite side of her desk, in a luxurious office that suddenly didn’t feel right. He almost clutched the armrests to dig his claws into them when his mind clicked, as he thought he figured out who this woman truly was.
Xavier had been taken off guard many times before since being integrated into the...
2025-03-04 18:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood in front of the portal to the frozen world. The necromancer he’d freed from the dungeon blinked at him, tilting her head to one side in slight confusion.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, Xavier Collins.” Romalda raised her chin. “But it looks to be a fun one.” She grinned. That same sinister grin she’d worn when she’d been freed only a few minutes ago. “Where are we off to?”
Xavier retraced his steps.
T...
2025-03-03 18:00:19 +0000 UTC
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Night had fallen in the dark wood. Shadows from the nearby trees encroached on the clearing, the light of the silver moon hanging in the sky only falling about the area in small slivers. The elf spirit Rhaalir raised his translucent hand, examining it as a moonbeam cut straight through it.
No matter how long he had been in this state, he wasn’t sure he would ever truly grow used to it. Wasn’t sure it would ever feel normal, or right. Even though he had been a spiri...
2025-02-27 18:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Standing in the middle of a large, frozen landscape, an army surrounding him at his back, front, and both flanks, Xavier watched as two portals on either side of him appeared—portals big enough that not a single one of his enemies ranged attacks would get through.
The attacks slipped straight through the portal and fell back on those that had cast them. The twin portals to the ones he had created had materialised directly above the ranged attackers.
Dozens of kill notifications ...
2025-02-26 18:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Inside the mausoleum, in the Deathly Dungeon, with undead breaking out of their crypts all around Xaiver, the young dragon Volkarin burst from the Companion Cube.
The dragon expanded his wings and sniffed the air.
“Where are your enemies? What happened?” Volkarin hadn’t been summoned since before Xavier had been about to face the C Grade Elite Hunt Squad. The young dragon’s eyes were wide as he looked around the mausoleum, then Volkarin relaxed. “Level 60 undead mi...
2025-02-25 18:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Class Grafting was more sinister than Xavier expected it to be, though he supposed it was all in the name.
It required two things—a skilled Inscriber, and the corpse of someone whom you wished to “become.”
At the first instance, Xavier couldn’t help but be repulsed by the idea. He was no stranger to killing, but seeking someone out in such a way…
“There’s a black market for these sorts of things,” Alexic had told him, back when he’d been in the war room in ...
2025-02-24 18:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Xavier had remained on the moon that held the hunting grounds until the Portal Block had been lifted. Another Portal Block did not come into effect.
He had worried that it would.
When he’d left the Chains that Bind and the Divine Helper alive, he’d thought it might be a huge mistake. If they lived, and reported back to their B Grade master, couldn’t they simply lock down the world for longer? Until reinforcements could arrive? They might not know his exact loca...
2025-02-20 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Elspeth whirled around.
Elspeth: [Illuni? Where the hell did you go?]
Illuni: [I don’t know! But he’s coming back!]
Elspeth could feel the Divine Helper’s panic even through their party-connected Communication Stone. Illuni had always been prone to panicking, but never to this degree. She was, after all, a C Grade—and a very competent one at that, despite the way Elspeth thought about her.
Elspeth had felt her target, marked, jum...
2025-02-19 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Xavier breathed heavily, his chest expanding and contracting. He stared at the man that was now in his control. The C Grade binding specialist.
I can’t believe that worked. The elf spirit, Rhaalir, was leaning forward, peering into the eyes of the binding specialist as he stood, a little slack jawed, stock-still, on the grass where the portal had taken them. Rhaalir waved a translucent hand in front of the man’s eyes and garnered no reaction—not that he was l...
2025-02-18 18:00:04 +0000 UTC
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“How long does this field of yours work for, anyway?”
The bored-sounding voice came from above Xavier. Xavier couldn’t respond. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink his eyes.
The Chains that Bind stood over him, peering down at him as though waiting for a response that he surely knew wouldn’t be able to come.
Maybe you should have kept running, a voice sounded in his mind. Rhaalir appeared, standing beside the Chains that Bind, the elf spirit ...
2025-02-17 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Xavier hovered in the air inside of his time dilation field, one dead enemy at his feet. It had taken him longer than he’d imagined to kill the Walking Shield, something he should have anticipated, but he’d whittled the man’s health down, slowly, methodically, after he’d broken through the tank’s barrier spells.
He hadn’t cast a single spell on the tank. He’d not wanted to waste any, as he had no cooldowns at his disposal.
Xavier couldn’t help but be a little disap...
2025-02-13 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Xavier lay on the ground, miles away from where he’d been fighting the C Grade Elite Hunt Squad.
Three arrows, invisible until they’d hit him, had made his right arm, right wing and both his legs completely immobile. Keeping his breathing steady was difficult, but he’d been through worse scrapes. Been in more danger. And he’d come out of it.
Hadn’t he?
Xavier pulled the remaining two arrows out of his legs. The skin had already healed around the wounds. Yanking the...
2025-02-12 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Xavier flew through the air above the clearing with the party of C Grades sent to capture him, a portal he’d summoned hovering between him and his enemies to act as a shield.
The Archer of Fortune’s arrow that had sailed through the portal slammed straight into the Chains that Bind. The man hadn’t been swift enough to dodge it. It hit him square in his exposed chest. Though the archer was clearly a damage dealer, the effect of the arrow seemed to be a crippling one. Despite the fa...
2025-02-11 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood, surrounded by a myriad of D Grade Great Shell corpses in an ancient forest on a moon somewhere in the Silver River sector. His Spirt Golem was back inside of his inventory. The young dragon that was his beast companion, Volkarin, was safe inside of his Comapanion Cube.
A C Grade Elite Hunt Squad comprising of four party members sent by Gregori, the B Grade from a neighbouring sector that was Alexic Kalcav’s former master, was currently searching for him.
Xavier was...
2025-02-10 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The Spirit Golem rose in ranks incredibly fast.
Those first levels came a lot faster than the ones after. Xavier was now convinced that both the dragon and the Spirit Golem had actually gotten some sort of boost to the number of Mastery Points they received for their first kill, but he also had no idea how many points each of them required for their levels. It certainly seemed different to the number of points he’d needed.
Xavier got into a rhythm as he killed one ...
2025-02-06 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Volkarin wasn’t the only reason Xavier had come to these hunting grounds.
He had a Spirit Golem to train up.
According to Rhaalir, the Spirit Golem, unlike a Denizen or a beast, could be powerlevelled effectively.
A Spirit Golem didn’t gain skills and spells in the same way. In fact, without a spirit inhabiting them, they were considered to be rather weak.
Xavier ventured back over to where the D Grade Great Shells were. He moved swiftly, this time, making his way ...
2025-02-05 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stared in mild shock at the scene before him.
He had just stepped through the portal back from his quarters in Collinsville, returning to the moon where he’d left Volkarin. The D Grade Great Shell that he had prepped so the dragon could kill was dead, and the baby dragon that Xavier had left behind was no longer a baby dragon.
Volkarin had grown, considerably.
When Xavier had left the dragon had been Level 0, and it had been roughly his height. Now, it was half as b...
2025-02-04 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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The plan was a simple one.
Xavier would lower the health of the Great Shell while it was still under his control, then he would leave the planet using his Portal Stones.
The Portal Stone pair that he intended to use was sector-restricted. The connecting Portal Stone was back on Earth, in Collinsville. He could open the portal, step through it, and then close the portal on the other side.
The instant he closed the portal, he would lose the mental connection he had with the Gr...
2025-02-03 18:00:16 +0000 UTC
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Xavier and Famarial stepped out of the portal and arrived at the hunting grounds he’d selected. Xavier had paid for Famarial’s fee. The elf had been useful to him, and he didn’t mind having him around. He certainly wouldn’t be able to become party member material—he was far too low level, and he was focused more on business than training—but he would be more useful to Earth if he was a bit stronger, and the elf seemed to what to stick around.
They stood at the bottom of a ta...
2025-01-30 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Xavier sat in the Stone Ways tavern, a warm mug of coffee rested in front of him along with a plate of food with something that approximated bacon. The book he was reading lay open on the table. He was already halfway through. Part of Xavier was absolutely thrilled that he now possessed the ability to speedread faster than anyone back on Earth, but he found he was trying to slow himself down so he wouldn’t go through the book too quickly.
He didn’t want to run out of all the books h...
2025-01-29 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Xavier walked through one of the main marketplaces in the middle of Mareketh Proper. Famarial walked beside him, having to rush a little to keep pace with him.
Xavier had thought to summon Volkarin. It would have been nice to have the dragon trotting by his side. It didn’t seem as though doing so would garner him too much extra notice, either. He certainly wouldn’t be the only one walking around with a beast companion.
In fact, there were more beast companions around here than...
2025-01-28 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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