Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 59 - True Progenitor (Patreon)

Samericalian cleaned the bar, despite the fact that it was already pristine, subtly observing the patrons in the tavern. Samericalian—or Samas he liked to go by with people from this planet—was an E Grade Denizen. Not the most gifted Denizen about, but he had some skills, though he wasn’t much of a combat fighter.

What he was, was good at infiltration. At gathering information. And not being noticed.

Being E Grade also gave him the benefit of having abilities that those of F Grade lacked. One of those abilities was rather valuable when it came to this kind of work—heightened senses. In this case, particularly that of hearing.

He could hear every conversation within the entire tavern. With his level of Intelligence boosting his cognition, he was even able to split his attention and fully follow the thread of several conversations at once.

Though there hadn’t been much of anything worth listening to in this place as of yet. He flitted in an out of the different conversations happening, hoping to find what he was looking for.

“… this damned System don’t make no sense. There’s a god damned invasion happening, we chose to be Champions, yet we’re torn away from Earth? And ya know what the worst of it is? The bastard thing took my guns! It’s worse than the government, I tell you. Worse than the god damned government!”

“…if one floor takes a week, seven days, on average to complete, and there are one thousand floors, not including time away from the tower, that’s almost twenty years. When I chose this, I didn’t think I’d be stuck here for twenty years. How much of my kid’s life am I going to miss?”

“… we need to figure out the optimum allocation of stats so that we can distribute them in a logical fashion. We need to gather as much information as we possibly can and factor in every variable before making any decision, maybe survey other members of our cohort, interview them on their experiences in the tower, or else we’ll go down the wrong path, and if we go down the wrong path we’ll die, and I don’t want to die. I thought I could handle this. I feel like all my life I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen so I can prove myself, and now I just feel frozen in fear by every tiny decision…”

Sam suppressed a sigh. He’d been placed here for a reason. He knew that. But he felt like he was wasting his time. It was difficult getting a position like this. Being put somewhere where he could watch those from a newly integrated world as they struggle with how their reality has changed.

Trust in the empress.

In the last thousand years, since Samericalian’s own world had been integrated long before he was born, the empress was yet to steer them wrong. The woman had been a priestess of the Old Religion—a pre-system fable about a pantheon of gods based on the elements and the celestial bodies in the night sky—and had valued the Spirit attribute above all others.

At least, that’s how the story goes.

She was in the Seer line of classes. She won battles before they ever started.

Becoming a cohort’s caretaker, like Sam was standing behind that bar, meant knowing something about the people in your instance, meant learning about their ways—that’s why he had alcohol from Earth, and knew a thing or two about their culture. And the people of Earth, well, they would look at a chess grandmaster and marvel at the fact that he or she had the ability to look fifteen or twenty moves ahead.

The empress of Sam’s world? She wouldn’t look twenty moves ahead—she would see a million games ahead. She was a grandmaster of strategy in this sector of the Greater Universe. And even though she was only a C Grade Denizen, it was said she was capable of insights equivalent to that of an A Grade.

Because she was a Progenitor. Now just any Progenitor, a trueProgenitor, one that had taken full advantage of their potential.

And she Saw another Progenitor, one that might soon be on the rise, one from a newly integrated planet by the name of Earth.

Samericalian didn’t know much of what she’d seen, only that if he were placed here, he would come upon the Progenitor. A part of him thought he already had, but he couldn’t be sure.

Progenitors had something most Denizens lacked—an absolutely unending well of potential. But that potential, like all potential, could go nowhere.

Take the people in the tavern. It may only be the end of the fourth day since the System integrated their world into the Greater Universe, but it was easy to tell how far some people will go. Today was the day entrance to the first floor of the tower opened for these folks.

All those with true drive would be in the tower, not sitting here complaining, endlessly talking, warming stools and seats and knocking back pints of beer.

They should be acting. Fighting. Practicing. Learning.

Leveling up.

And yet they were here.

And then there was the Progenitor. Sam thought he’d met the man. It would be the first person to walk into his tavern, wouldn’t it? That kid he’d talked to. The first one he’d warned about invaders having access to his world.

He was just a kid. Barely looked twenty of their years.

But he was the first to arrive. While the other Champions were still completing their first quests, he was here.

But the potential the kid—the man, he supposed—had could already have been snuffed out. As the caretaker of the cohort, Sam was restricted by what he could say. Heavily restricted. He couldn’t tell Xavier much, especially not right away, but the more floors he completed, the more those restrictions would be lifted.

He seemed eager enough, when I told him about Progenitors. But he might have been too hasty. He could have jumped straight into the first floor and gotten himself killed trying to clear it too quickly.

There were several ways to take advantage of the Tower of Champions, and a Progenitor just so happened to be in a position to have the potentialto take advantage of all of them.

If they realised what was possible.

He could realise soloing will get him an extra title, that being the first to clear a floor will give him an extra title, and, the least likely, he could realise that reaching the top 100 could give him an extra title. But if he just figures farming the floors is the better option, like many Denizens who enter the Tower of Champions, then he’ll miss out on being first.

That’s how true Progenitors were born. They took a lead that wasn’t possible by anyone else, and they never let up. If Xavier had been lucky enough, determined enough, or both, to hit upon this confluence of possible titles, then he might just be who the Seer hoped he couldbe.

Who the empress hoped he could become.

A force to be reckoned with. Not just a pawn in the empress’s game, but another player. Someone who could help her change the game completely.

Samericalian did the math.

He figured if this Xavier turned out to be the real deal, in two days’ time he would stroll into that tavern having completed the first three floors and already be on the Tower of Champions forced rest between Milestones. The first in not just this cohort, or from Earth, but the first of all five worlds competing in this instance of the tower.

Then maybe, just maybe, he could be the one the empress had been waiting for. The Progenitor who wouldn’t only become the defender of his planet, but—ultimately—the defender of this entire sector.

But he—as well as the empress—knew the chances of that were slim. This wasn’t the first time Sam had stood behind a bar, awaiting to see a trueProgenitor, only to find himself disappointed. Only to find the Progenitor he’d been observing die, or whittle away their unspent potential, lost before it could be used.

He’d been at this for a hundred years, after all.

Trust in the empress.

He’d been saying that mantra for a long, long time.

The door to the tavern opened. Sam’s gaze casually flicked up, still wiping down the same stretch of sparkling-clean bar. A tall man in Warrior armour—the first Warrior armour the system handed Denizens—stepped in. The man had a close-cropped, dark brown beard streaked with grey and a serious look about it. He looked forty or fifty of Earth’s pre-integrated years.

Can’t be too serious if he’s walking in here on day one.

He’d seen the man in here before the first floor opened, chatting seriously with a few others, learning all he could.

A kid walked in after him. This fellow must only just have been old enough to be integrated into the System. Sixteen and fresh faced, though he looked sharp enough.

Behind them was a redheaded woman wearing a bright smile that felt out of place in a cohort from a newly integrated world. Her blue eyes were just as bright as her smile, and her red hair was down, swaying a little as she walked.

It was the final member of their party that got Sam’s full attention.

Xavier. The one he suspected of being the Progenitor. The first Champion to arrive. Why was he walking in already? He should be in the tower, trying as hard as he could to clear the first floor as fast as possible!

More unspent potential. Another Progenitor that could have been…

Then Sam saw two things—the man’s aura, and the man’s eyes. These two details had him stop cleaning the bar. They made his mouth fall open. And suddenly he felt like a complete amateur, unable to remain in character despite having filled this role for a hundred years. Unable to stop himself from gaping at what he was seeing.

Day one, and Xavier had already reached level 10 and chosen his first class. And whatever that class was, it must be powerful to have changed his eye-colour like that.

His eyes have turned silver. A Spirit-based class.

The stronger the aura, the more an effect it had on the Denizen, going as far to change eye colour and even hair colour later down the line. Though these effects can be veiled and hidden. One could shut down their aura and choose which elements—like eye colour—it changed, once they grew adept enough in aura-control.

Something a Denizen four days into the System wouldn’t know a damned thing about, of course.

None of the others here, none even in his party, can see his aura, as they haven’t even achieved their first real class, which would grant them aura-sight.

And the amount of power the man was giving off? It could only be possible one way—titles. A hell of a lot of titles.

If Xavier were a true Progenitor, Sam had been expecting him here at the end of the third day of the Tower of Champion’s opening, having cleared three floored, attaining his first Milestone.

Now, here he was, on the first day. Wired. Fidgety. Hands clenching and unclenching. Jaw working. Teeth grinding. Like a hungry beast pacing back and forth in a cage, raring and waiting to get out.

To attack. To kill.

That wasn’t the demeanour of someone choosing to take a break between floors, that was a man who’d hit their first forced break and didn’t know how to shut off and accept that he had to wait a little longer to keep progressing.

He’s cleared the first three floors on day one. This may very well be the one the empress is looking for.

The next true Progenitor. The Denizen that could change the course of the sector.

Assuming he can survive the threats the tower has instore, and the invasion and alteration of his home world, which will be far worse than he could ever imagine.