For an entire year within the time dilation field at the Roving Seed Base, Xavier felt confident suspending his instruction of his students to pursue his goal of mastering—at least to a degree—Pocket Time Stream.
This was the only period in which Xavier stopped participating in their shared meals. Gaining proficiency for himself would only help him guide the others toward gaining the same, and they didn’t resent nor mind that he would essentially be in seclusion for this time. The...
2025-08-21 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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It was five years ago by RSD time that Xavier had experienced the A Grade Time mage’s memory and attained the spell pattern for Pocket Time Stream.
It had come as an absolute shock that the exact thing he needed to permanently learn the spell was in the Information Packet he’d received. It took a great deal of training and skill to be able to read the blueprint that was a spell pattern in one’s own mind, let alone in another’s. Xavier, having taught eight people besides hi...
2025-08-20 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Xavier smiled at the description of his newly acquired temporary spell.
He froze the world around him, stepping back farther along the battlements of Eldaarn’s last remaining stronghold. He took in the long, clear space around him, free of defenders, as none were in reserve. As he did, he had an intense feeling of déjà vu. The first time he’d done what he was about to do was on battlements much like these, under four suns blaring down.
Though much was similar, the situation ...
2025-08-20 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Xavier ended up spending at least three hours each with Michael, Rebecca, Rose, Kelly, Miranda, Howard, Siobhan, and Justin on their final day in the Roving Seed Base—a day that ended up being much longer than twenty-four-hours by the end of it.
As always, he was thoroughly impressed with each of their abilities. While all eight of them had the same class and much of the same advantages, none of their fighting styles were all that alike, nor were the majority of the spells they chose ...
2025-08-19 19:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Perhaps it would be prudent to first learn the strength of one’s enemy before vowing to kill them, Bones said in Xavier’s mind.
Xavier smirked at the soul bound weapon’s words. Bones had been silent, up until that moment when, atop the Kingdom of Eldaarn’s castle battlements, Xavier had proclaimed to King Elric that he was going to kill the Arakashinai Queen.
You know, you’re probably right, Xavier relied. That would have been wise.
...
2025-08-19 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Xavier sat on one of the couches inside his massive library. The main room of his house inside the Roving Seed Base was three times larger than it had been when it had first been grown. He snapped the book he’d just finished reading closed and gazed out at the shelves.
Every single one of the shelves lining the walls was packed so full of books that he’d had to stack them horizontally atop the ones shelved vertically. Xavier liked to keep his physical books sorted by genre and subje...
2025-08-18 19:00:10 +0000 UTC
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The king lowered his head. “We ventured to a new world. We were not looking to conquer. The universe is far larger than we could have imagined. There must be places we could go. Our world was riddled with beasts. They almost destroyed us. Surely, there were worlds where that happened. Beasts, I have no qualm clearing out to make way for my own people. They are savage things, after all.” The king spat on the stones. “We encountered the Araks the moment we stepped out of the port...
2025-08-18 19:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stood on the battlements on the one-hundred-and-fifty-fourth floor of the Tower of Champions, speaking to the King of Eldaarn, prompting the man to tell him more of what had happened to his world.
The man blinked, raised his head, looked Xavier in the eye. He seemed to see something, then, and nodded to himself.
King Elric began to talk. Once he got started, it seemed he would never stop. Three hundred years ago, they had opened a portal to another world. They hadn’t know...
2025-08-14 19:00:06 +0000 UTC
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“Ten years?” Xavier asked.
“At minimum,” Howard replied. “We think it would be enough time for us all to gain a strong foundation and push through to high D Grade like you are now, at least for us three.” He nodded at Siobhan and Justin. “Especially when you move this base to other worlds and expand the time dilation field to cover training grounds filled with beasts and high-level dungeons, as we know you intend.”
Xavier intended to do a lot more than that. ...
2025-08-14 19:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Xavier soon got into a rhythm with the tower floors again.
His approach to them wasn’t altogether different to what it had been before. He still spent as little time on each floor as he could manage, quickly getting the lay of the land before moving on—with the exception of ranking up Recursive Analysis, as he wanted to get it to Rank 150.
There were other spells he could have tried to rank up, but for those his time would be better spent doing that when he was facing more pow...
2025-08-14 07:00:08 +0000 UTC
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For Xavier, another year had gone by since his cores had been shattered.
This year had been different to the others. Different to any he’d had his entire life. Because he hadn’t spent the time alone.
Living at home with his mother, before he’d left and found his own place when he’d went to university, he’d never felt like he was a part of a family. Never felt like he had a home. In the evenings, if he ate dinner with his mother, it was often in silence. If it wasn’t in...
2025-08-13 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Days, weeks, and months rolled by as Xavier trained his old party members inside the Roving Seed Base.
It didn’t take long for Howard and Siobhan to gain the ability to split their minds, though to Xavier it felt like a long time. Two weeks went by until Siobhan gained the skill. Two weeks after that, Howard gained it too. They had a theory about why that might be—Howard had been an unenhanced, mortal human for far longer than the other three. The neural pathways in his mind, and th...
2025-08-12 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
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When Xavier returned to the Staging Room, he didn’t instantly head toward the next tower floor. Instead, he took a moment to think.
Well, maybe a little more than a moment.
He cast Time Alteration and sat on his comfortable armchair within the time dilation field, thinking through the different things he wanted to achieve. The new impossible goal he’d set for himself to take down the System wasn’t what was foremost on his mind, even if it did linger at the edges of his thoug...
2025-08-12 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
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Xavier’s old party members stepped into the clearing that had just formed in the forest, staring around at the structures that had sprouted from the ground—the four three-bedroom houses on the left and the large tavern-like building on the right.
“Whoa.” Justin looked about. “This is much nicer than the last clearing you trained in, I have to say.”
“Is this a Seed Sanctuary, like Collinsville?” Siobhan frowned as she looked at the edges of the clearing. “There ar...
2025-08-11 19:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Nothing happened.
Xavier was not struck down by a lightning bolt from nowhere, nor was he teleported into a volcano, or thrown into a sun. The Voice of the System didn’t materialise in front of him. A notification didn’t appear. The air in the room didn’t so much as shimmer.
He sat, sunk back in the armchair, coffee mug still clutched in his fingers, eying the space around him nervously and feeling a little foolish for doing so.
A moment ago, a thought had flickered th...
2025-08-11 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
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In a dark tavern a mere few minutes before dawn’s kiss would bless Collinsville with its golden light, Justin sat at the edge of his seat.
Xavier still had that same foolish grin on his face. He raised his chin and summoned a mug of coffee from his Storage Ring. Steam wafted from the mug, and he took a small, casual sip.
“So, what did you find out?” Justin asked. “Come on, man! The suspense is killing me!” He looked as though he would jump right out of his chair.
X...
2025-08-07 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
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You have completed this floor faster than any other Champion before you. However, as the parameters of the floor were changed, and the challenge you completed was different to that of other Champions in your universe, you will not be given the top spot in the leaderboard.
Xavier sat on the floor of the Staging Room, going through the notifications he’d received from completing the one-hundred-and-twenty-first floor of the Tower of Champions. He seethed a little as he ...
2025-08-07 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
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You have gained the spell: Untethered
Xavier sighed in relief. When the pattern of runes he’d drawn with Celestial Energy had solidified within his mind, he’d been confident things had worked exactly as planned.
But he hadn’t been sure. Not until he read that notification.
It was like a weight lifted from him. He suddenly felt ten times lighter than he had a moment ago, which he supposed was only fair, given he’d gained a gravity spell. He couldn’t...
2025-08-06 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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“Another System!?” Justin had been sipping tea and did a spit take. He wiped his mouth after his outburst. “Wait… So… You’re telling me you advanced in another System? What… What does that even mean?”
Siobhan, wide-eyed, shook her head. “That’s insane, Xavier. Like, a totally new level of insane for you.” Her voice sounded calm, but Xavier sensed the amount of control she was forcing on it.
“How the hell...
2025-08-06 19:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Xavier’s physical body sat, cross-legged on the Bright City of Aethisa’s battlements, the world frozen around him, both sides of the conflict on the hundred-and-twenty-first floor now aiming all their efforts toward killing him.
Xavier’s mental apparition, however, stood in a room within his mind, not giving what was happening in the real world a single thought as he focused.
His stylus soared through the air as he drew runes after rune inside of that room.
When he’d...
2025-08-05 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Sitting in the corner table in Collinsville’s main tavern, Xavier considered the best way to answer Siobhan’s question.
Before he replied, Justin raised an eyebrow at the redheaded woman. “The man just got back here. Who knows how many months he spent inside that time dilation field. Maybe the questions can wait a few minutes?”
Siobhan blinked, shook her head, looking a little sheepish at the young swordsman’s sudden admonishment. “Right, sorry.” She smiled again. ...
2025-08-05 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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This notification has been translated from a competing System Version.
You have discovered your Reality Core.
You have gained a new energy source: Reality Energy.
…
Loading more details…
Translating related information…
…
You have already partially adapted to the new energies inside of you when you underwent the proces...
2025-08-04 19:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Xavier frowned.
The dwarves and the Phoexians banded together, throwing everything they had at him. Streams of fire poured forth from the closest Phoexian flights. Ballistae bolts arced toward him from the dwarven battlements. Spells were cast by every mage along the walls.
The leaders, too, joined the fight. Which was something Xavier hadn’t seen the last fourteen times he’d been on this floor, though he’d never pushed until the end. Perhaps they would have been revealed if...
2025-08-04 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The four suns above the Bright City and the cracked desert beyond illuminated a stunning sight. Dwarves and Phoexians were floating in the air, untethered from natural gravity. It wasn’t only these Denizens, either. Everything not bolted down gently made its way up. The pebbles and rocks along the desert floor. The chairs, boxes, and stone stacks around the battlements. A myriad of items from within the city, leaves and fruit and vegetables that had fallen from the plants among the...
2025-07-31 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Xavier stared at the strange notification with a blank look on his face.
He had seen System Errors before, but he’d never seen anything like this. Universe Iteration? He imagined that referred to his universe, though which universe that was had been redacted—which was something he’d definitely not seen before.
And… System Version?
He’d never supposed that there would be different versions of the System, but now he realised he was foolish ...
2025-07-31 19:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Eleven years.
Xavier had aged eleven years since the System had been integrated, yet only a fraction of that time had actually passed.
After the time dilation field had abruptly shut down, Xavier drew another Time Alteration spell pattern and sat, cross-legged in the middle of the clearing with his eyes closed.
He hadn’t intended to spend so much time experiencing the changes his body had gone through before looking inward. He was still blown away by what had happened—by...
2025-07-30 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The pattern glowed with an intensity the previous patterns hadn’t possessed. If Xavier’s vision had been weaker, he would have needed to shield his eyes from the sight. The glow was brighter than the four blaring suns above the world he stood upon.
The glow had reached the far corners of the pattern, lighting up every single one of the thousands of painstakingly drawn runes within it.
Xavier felt something, then. The pulling that was still happening. Except it was different no...
2025-07-30 19:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Xavier gazed upon the massive pattern of runes he’d drawn over the battlements of the Bright City of Aethisa. The pattern was contained within his time dilation field, the dwarves along the wall as frozen as the Phoexian flights above.
The pattern contained thousands of different runes. From where he stood, it was difficult to take it all in. There was a beauty in the way the runes were put together. The way they slotted in, side by side. Not as mundane as a jigsaw puzzle, nor as engi...
2025-07-29 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
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The process of pushing out the impurities from Xavier’s body didn’t take as long as he’d imagined.
When he’d begun, pushing out that first bit of terrible-smelling sludge, he’d thought the entire process would take him weeks, maybe even months. But once he’d gotten started, pushing more and more of it out of him—the smell overwhelming him no matter how hard he worked on compartmentalising it—the process seemed almost…
Automatic.
It spurred somethin...
2025-07-29 19:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Are you sure that will work? The Lost Bone of a Dead God sounded dubious about Xavier’s idea.
The hot stone beneath him continued to bake the young dragonkin as he sat cross-legged on Aethisa’s battlements. The four suns blared down, but they did not add their heat. The rays of sunlight were stopped short at the edge of his time dilation field.
The female dwarven mage he’d stolen the Untethered spell stood frozen outside the field, her staff raised high, a l...
2025-07-28 19:00:09 +0000 UTC
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