“I was right,” Nalthair said after he’d delved through Xavier’s memories, having free rein. “You are insane.”
The elf stood a few feet from Xavier in the middle of the arena, sweat dotting his brow, heart thudding—the mask he’d worn to hide his fear gone.
“Does knowing what I know, seeing what I’ve done, change anything for you?” Xavier asked.
This was the part Xavier was least sure of. You can show someone the truth, pile irrefutable evidence in front ...
2025-11-10 18:00:17 +0000 UTC
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The walls to The Collector’s city were absurdly large. Xavier craned his neck all the way back and peered up at the top. The battlements above were so high he couldn’t see them with his Farscope lens.
Xavier’s spiritual sense washed over everything. He ceased the cycling of his eight energies and narrowed his focus to Reality, Celestial, and Spirit Energy—all of which increased the power of his spiritual sense with the appropriate cycling patterns.
He’d burned a good amo...
2025-11-10 18:00:16 +0000 UTC
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The arena was dead silent.
Xavier stood at the centre, staring at the body of the elf. The elf—Nalthair—lay on his back, eyes open, mouth agape, face slack. Pale as a corpse, he looked like he’d slipped into the afterlife. The only hint the elf was alive was the shallowest of breaths and the slow, lazy beating of his heart, something that only happened twice per minute.
The young dragonkin had been counting.
“You said this wouldn’t hurt him much,” Xavier muttered...
2025-11-06 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“I’m not leaving this house!”
The woman’s words shook the very walls they were so loud.
“Three hundred years I’ve been in this house. Made it just perfect. Raised several generations of Damascus here. Still am! Your great-great-great-granddaughter is about to have her first, and I am not abandoning her to galivant off to some backwater world in a weak sector because you made a rash decision!” Erina Damascus sighed. Shut her eyes. Then looke...
2025-11-06 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The mental construct was silent for a time. I’ve also told you that I will only provide you with information that I think will actually help you.
Xavier sighed. The mental construct had been cagey about providing him with this ability in the past. Not providing him with the ability seemed, more than anything, like a way for him to exert control over Xavier.
An image of Roln appeared on the arena floor a few steps away. The man looked entirely solid, tho...
2025-11-05 18:00:13 +0000 UTC
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The vast grey throne room inside the Sovereign’s Satellite Fortress fell eerily silent for one long, stretched out moment following Xavier’s request.
“You want Damascus as your boon?” Sovereign Rewke Fouran raised his chin, turned his gaze to Damascus somewhat thoughtfully. “Why, so you can kill him?” He frowned, returning his attention to Xavier. “No. That is out of the question.”
“I want him freed from your service so he may come into mine.” Xavier faced Pali...
2025-11-05 18:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Xavier inclined his head as he felt the depths of the man’s power. He was stronger than The Collector—but not by as much as Xavier had suspected. In fact, that little “trick” The Collector had had up his sleeve with the void portal and the Soul Energy might just have been enough to do this man in.
The elf’s hand shook. “What… What the hell was that?” His bow remained trained on Xavier, but he looked about the arena, as though expecting another presence to be the...
2025-11-04 18:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Sovereign Fouran didn’t utter a single word as they passed the gulf between them. The True B Grade ruler folded his hands in front of him and waited with a silent patience until the two men stood before him.
Sovereign Rewke Fouran looked exactly as the Information Packets had shown him. He appeared as though he were a man in his early forties by unenhanced human standards, with slight lines marring his otherwise smooth face. The advancement to B Grade would have erased any signs of ag...
2025-11-04 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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“You look confused.”
Palini heard the voice behind him. Fear shot through his body like lightning. Every hair stood on end. There hadn’t even been a perceptible shift in the air to alert him of someone’s presence.
He turned. Slowly, for that voice, the shock, had frozen him. Never once in his hundreds of years of life had he responded to a threat without alacrity.
Xavier Collins, the dragonkin Palani had just killed and placed inside his Storage Ring, was standing tw...
2025-11-03 18:00:13 +0000 UTC
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You have 24 hours to lay claim to the fallen ruler’s capital world.
Laying claim to the fallen ruler’s capital world will initiate a world-wide System notification allowing anyone on the world to challenge your claim in single combat. A selection of arenas will be provided. You and the challengers will be teleported by the System to the arena. Challengers cannot be avoided. More than one challenger may apply. You must fight each one after the other with a br...
2025-11-03 18:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Palini Damascus was a strike or two away from incapacitating the infuriating B Grade dragonkin that was proving to be far more of a nuisance than he’d imagined when his opponent disappeared again. His sword would have cut off the Denizen’s hand at the wrist or at least injured his dominant arm if he’d a chance to follow through.
Mind still as stone.
Palini did not falter at the sudden teleportation. His enemy had already shown that ability, even if he shouldn’t ha...
2025-10-30 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Palini didn’t understand.
Xavier Collins, the young, brave, and incredibly idealistic dragonkin he’d chosen to follow had always been more powerful and more skilled than he should be, but something fundamental had changed. And it wasn’t his advancement to C Grade he was seeing. That had changed him drastically. Yet there was something else going on.
The moment—well, technically a few moments after—Xavier switched to using a spear, his physical combat ability had skyrocke...
2025-10-30 18:00:05 +0000 UTC
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The way Xavier saw the space in front of him shifted instantly. A faint glow only he could perceive fell over Palini. That wasn’t the only thing that changed. It was as though there were another dozen Palinis standing in the exact same spot, striking out at Xavier in several different ways.
Each of these Palini’s had a varying level of transparency to show they weren’t the man himself.
At first it was disorientating, but his brain adapted inhumanly fast to the chang...
2025-10-29 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Xavier had never moved faster in his life.
The instant he arrived inside the Roving Seed Base, he was able to cast all his spells again. Teleportation and Time Alteration were the first ones he’d cast, and he’d had Pocket Time Stream active briefly after creating that first portal to rejuvenate his cooldowns. Body Cultivation, of course, was active as well.
Celestial Energy and Reality Energy coursed through his channels, cycling in their respective patterns, strengthening his...
2025-10-29 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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What in all hells!?
One moment, Palini had been inside Containment Room 238B, the next he was rolling on the grass under a grey sky that looked startlingly like the containment room’s ceiling, except several hundred times larger.
Back in the room, he’d seized the D Grade swordsman by the collar and slammed him into the wall. The man had been insolent, acting all cavalier, as though he wasn’t afraid of where he’d found himself. The physical threat should h...
2025-10-28 18:00:26 +0000 UTC
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Roln smiled. “Honestly, I haven’t figured that part out yet.” The mental construct ran a hand through his hair. He looked over at Palini. “Though, I’ve got a few ideas…”
Xavier bit his lip. Having chosen to believe this man was the genuine article, someone actually here to help him—the same being who’d created that spark of light.
The light that saved me…
Well, it didn’t exactly banish all his misgivings. Xavier had refused th...
2025-10-28 18:00:23 +0000 UTC
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“You’re dead? So, you are a ghost.”
Inside The Collector’s former throne room, Xavier stood across from the man who’d invaded his mind.
“No. I suffered a true death. The death of not just my body or my Living Soul, but my Immortal Soul as well. Technically, my mind was also destroyed. This”—Roln looked down at himself—“is merely a copy. A mental construct, placed into your head by someone very powerful. Someone with a vested interest ...
2025-10-27 18:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Xavier sat on a very uncomfortable chair and drummed his fingers on the steel table in the middle of the interrogation room. His heavy, reinforced bones and hardened skin, coupled with the increase to the gravity in the room, made each impact sound like a large stone slamming into a steel wall. He could have made the drumming gentle, except he didn’t want to.
The man across from him narrowed his eyes at Xavier’s fingers but otherwise didn’t mention, or seem bothered, by the noise....
2025-10-27 18:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Palini narrowed his eyes.
Something had changed. Something small, but he was trained to notice such things. The person he was observing—a mere low-level D Grade swordsman—shifted almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t the first strange thing about this man. Palini could have sworn the man’s form had flickered a moment ago, as though a field had engulfed him, but only for the barest moment, happening so swiftly even he couldn’t perceive what it was.
Time dilation, perhaps?
2025-10-23 18:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Once Xavier had told those in the throne room his plan, he’d recast Time Alteration. With the help of the other time mages in the room, he’d managed to do it with less than a split-second passing in the rest of the universe.
He could have done it easily enough by drawing up a spell pattern, but he would need a little practice to become precise enough to draw runes with the same swiftness as he had before, still adjusting to being C Grade as he was.
When Xavier cast Time Altera...
2025-10-23 18:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Reinitiating advancement to C Grade.
…
…
Checking spells…
Denizen’s spells deemed as: Unmatched
Checking skills…
Denizen’s skills deemed as: Unmatched
Checking Spirit Core…
Denizen’s Spirit Core deemed as: Unmatched
Checking Willpower Core…
...
2025-10-22 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stepped out of the portal he’d created into a bustling city. His time dilation field was still wrapped around him, altered so time outside of it moved as slow as he could manage.
The marketplace he now stood within was filled with tall buildings on either side that stretched upward at least twenty floors each. The first few floors of those buildings housed different stores, while the floors higher were all apartments. Various different species of Denizens walked the streets. Hu...
2025-10-22 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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You are no longer classed as an anomaly. Your actions and their consequences are being assimilated into the System Governed Rules.
The eye of the System remains fixed on you.
The fear and panic, the utter helplessness, that Xavier had been feeling receded, though it did not disappear completely. His body was no longer frozen in time, but everyone else in the room still was—even though they shouldn’t have been.
The System still had someth...
2025-10-21 18:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood outside the Roving Seed Base. Gathered behind him were his old party, Howard, Siobhan, and Justin, along with the members of their family. All people he considered family now.
He raised his chin as he stared at the base. He couldn’t see into the base from outside of it—not anymore. Over the years they’d been inside of it, he’d acquired several upgrades. One of those upgrades was a sort of cloaking mechanism. To the outside, the base looked like nothing more...
2025-10-21 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The blue-robed man smiled. “Ye—” He frowned at the ceiling. “Technically, no. You are not my father. But Xavier Collins is my father. Honestly, I’m surprised you came to that on your own. You’re not always that fast.”
Xavier was surprised himself. When the idea occurred to him, it felt… Foolish. Like he was grasping for something. Like he was wanting there to be more to the story. More to the interaction.
Yet the spirit couldn’t lie.
“Wh...
2025-10-20 18:00:11 +0000 UTC
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To the gathered Denizens who had newly sworn their allegiance to Xavier Collins, time had completely stopped. Even the B Grades among them with the greatest perception speeds were unable to discern what had happened from one fraction of a second to the next.
When the time dilation field stretched to encompass them once again, the Void Being flickered in and out of existence. This was, however, simply the motion of light catching up to them. In its new place, closer to Xavier, the Void B...
2025-10-20 18:00:10 +0000 UTC
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I held three hundred spell patterns all active at once, Xavier said in response to the blue-robed spirit.
And the spell patterns would have been glowing, as energy was primed and ready to enter each of them. This is akin to holding all of your energy pores open to a dam of energy ready to flood into you. The pressure you felt at simply doing this must have been incredibly intense. It would have served as a warning not to continue. Is this true?
Xavier pur...
2025-10-16 18:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Haroln Abdicas Vandeerink ran.
Though “ran” perhaps wasn’t the right word when speaking of moving through different planes of existence, realities, and universes—it would be more accurate to say he fled. As fast as he ever had. He slipped from one place to another, moving through the void between realities, slipping in and out of spirit sanctuaries that went by so many different names depending on which corner of the multiverse he was in. He passed through more than a hundred Ot...
2025-10-16 18:00:08 +0000 UTC
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In the frozen pocket of time, experiencing the Universal Pressure of holding the spell pattern for Pocket Time Stream active, Xavier stared across at a serious-looking man in blue robes that had eyes that could pierce solid stone.
The spirit didn’t utter a single word as Xavier explained how the pressure was presently pushing down on him.
He did not stop there, either.
For the first time, he explained the events that happened inside the Arakashinai Queen’s chamber to som...
2025-10-15 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Palini Damascus bore witness.
The man had heard of Void Beings before, but only in passing. Spirits, the Otherworld, souls… These were things he’d known existed, but not once had he delved deep into those realms. They were, he’d thought, not things that actively concerned him. He was mired in the physical world. The mortal realm. He knew enough to face necromancers and reapers and other spirit summoners in combat—what more insights were needed for someone such as him?
Pali...
2025-10-15 18:00:07 +0000 UTC
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