Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion - Chapter 65 - Absolutely Impossible (Patreon)

Xavier felt like the universe wanted to open up to him. Like there was so much still left to learn. To discover.

And he didn’t know how to access any of it.

Ten hours had passed since he’d first discovered his Spirit Core. Gaining those 10 points in Spirit and discovering there were three skills for him to learn had lit a fire underneath him.

But he felt like he was a child trying to understand the heart and human body’s circulatory system by staring at a crude drawing of it. Sure, it got the point in a rudimentary way, but it lacked any deep understanding of what was actually going on.

He could feel his Spirit Core. Knew it was there. He could even feel, when he concentrated hard enough, his Spirit Energy moving around his body. He could see and feel his aura emanating out from him, too, but controlling that was like trying to grab smoke with his bare hands.

It just kept slipping through his damned fingers.

Once again, Xavier felt like he was doing nothing more than wasting time. But he’d already gained +10 Spirit points by going down this path, and three shiny new skill quests, not to mention the knowledge that he had inside himself something called a Spirit Core.

So he persisted. Trying to wheedle out any bit of understanding from the three different skill quests.

Aura-Control seemed straight forward, but again, actually controlling his aura and somehow containing it? That was proving to be absolutely impossible.

And the quest wanted him to do it ten times. Managing it even once would be a miracle at this point.

The second Skill Quest, for Core Strength, again sounded reasonable. It wanted him to cycle Spirit Energy through his core. One hundred thousand points of it.

But how exactly did he do that?

The way he kept seeing it… it was one thing to understand that you had a heart and it pumped blood through your veins, another thing completely to actively control how that blood flowed.

Yes, he had a Spirit Core. Yes, he had Spirit Energy. But what in the world—in the Greater Universe—was he supposed to do to controlit? Other than cast spells and use Spirit Infusion, he simply didn’t see how it was possible.

The last of the Skill Quests, Cultivate Energy, was the most maddening of all. The skill wished him to draw ten thousand points of something called Celestial Energy into his Spirit Core.

But Xavier had no clue what Celestial Energy was. It had the feeling of something that might come from the sky, given its name, but that’s about as far as he’d gotten with it. He’d tried to sense “energy” around him, wondering if it was just hovering out there in the air somewhere. But if it was, his senses weren’t acute enough to feel it.

Xavier looked at the timer again.

The Tower of Champions will be locked to you for 90 hours. You have 26 hours and 42 minutes remaining.

Damnit!

Had he really spent ten hours like this? Not achieving a damned thing? He sighed and stood up, stretching out his back. Despite the fact that he’d been sitting down, cross-legged on the floor of his room for half a day, he didn’t actually feel sore.

A little sluggish, maybe, but he brushed away the cobwebs with a single stretch, then headed down to the tavern.

Maybe I can wheedle some information out of that bartender, now that I know what questions to ask.

Xavier headed down the spiral staircase that led to the ground floor of the tower. He saw a couple of Champions in the hallway, though it was hard to tell if any of them were from his cohort.

The hallway had thousands of different doors and stretched just about as far as he could see. Every one of those rooms was for another Champion from Earth. But once they got down to the tavern, opened the door, they stepped into a different instance. One only for their cohort.

And there were countless sets of stairs leading down. Just as there were countless sets of stairs leading up, toward the Staging Room—another instance that no doubt had infinite copies of itself, just like the very floors of the Tower of Champions itself.

Xavier had tried heading down a different set of stairs, and stepping through the doors of the tavern, to see if he might end up in a different instance. But of course, that hadn’t worked. He’d just ended up in the same place he always did. It was probably the same strange magic that seemed to let him know exactly which room was his own.

Apparently the others—Howard, Siobhan and Justin—had tried to talk to Champions from outside their cohort in the hallways, but they… hadn’t been able to. They could see each other, but they couldn’t hear each other.

The System clearly didn’t want them communicating with others outside of their cohort.

Those aren’t the people I want to talk to, anyway.

Candles flickered atop tables. A fire roared in the hearth. The tavern was as empty as it had been the first time Xavier had walked into it. He glanced around the place. He had to admit, he loved the atmosphere of the tavern. It had that old, classic, medieval feel that he enjoyed from all the epic fantasy he’d read. Like he was stepping into the Prancing Pony in Middle Earth, or the Waystone Inn in Temerant.

He could imagine taking a seat in one of the booths and pulling out a doorstopper fantasy book like the Wheel of Time, nursing a drink as he flipped from one page to the next, or popping out his laptop and getting some good writing done.

My laptop broke when I was fighting the goblins. Even if it hadn’t been smashed the battery would be long dead by now. And even if I did write something… who would read it?

He felt a pang of sadness, a slight mourning for his old life. But he shoved that away. Things were different now. He was different now. The thoughts that had slipped into his mind were remnants of a life he no longer lived.

A life he wasn’t sure he’d return to even if he could.

Sam raised an eyebrow when he saw him walk over to the bar. “Still trapped here, I see. What have you got, another day?” The man grabbed a glass and a bottle of whiskey, then gave a questioning tilt of the head.

“Yeah, another day.” Xavier sighed at the bottle. “Might as well.” He had plenty of Spirit Energy. So instead of using Lesser Spirit Coins from his Storage Ring, he simply created some and deposited the difference.

Sam smiled and shook his head. “You’re probably wondering how our economic system works when everyone can just ‘make’ money.”

Xavier had wondered about that. But it wasn’t really on his mind right now. Besides, he knew the amount of money he could ‘make’ was nothing compared with those of a higher advancement level.

Grand Spirit Coins are worth so, so much more than these little things…

He sat on a stool and sipped the whiskey. “I have questions.”

Sam nodded knowingly. “Must be desperate if you’re coming to me. There’s only so—”

“So much you can tell me, yes. I know. But…” Xavier took another sip. “I feel like we’ve been thrown into this mess without… without being given anything that will help us get through it,” he said, thinking, except for my titles. Feeling like he’d wasted so much time as it is, Xavier didn’t beat around the bush. “What can you tell me about Spirit Cores?”

That seemed to get Sam’s attention. He’d been idly polishing a glass when the words had slipped from Xavier’s mouth. He placed the glass down, leant heavily on the bar, and looked into Xavier’s eyes. “And how in the Greater Universe do you know about Spirit Cores at level 10?”

Xavier smiled. Even if he didn’t get anything out of Sam, that surprise in the man’s voice was worth it. Part of him had been worried that Denizens from established worlds were able to find their Spirit Cores on day one of being integrated.

“I discovered it today. Doing so earned me 10 Spirit points and three Skill Quests.” Xavier held his whiskey glass in both hands, looking down at the dark liquid, figuring there was no point in lying to the man. “The first skill is something you clearly already know how to do.”

“Aura-Control.” Sam chuckled. “Was wondering if you’d figure that one out.” He looked him up and down. “Though clearly you haven’t gotten a handle on it yourself.”

Xavier let out a long sigh. “No. I haven’t.” He stared the man in the eye. I’m not able to scan him. I can’t see his aura, and all Denizens have auras. Level 10s don’t usually have access to their Spirit Cores, and he clearly has Aura-Control, so clearly has access to his own core. “What level are you?”

Sam gave a knowing smile. “Not something I can say, I’m afraid.”

“Well, what can you tell me, then?” Xavier ran a hand through his hair. “Aura-Control. Core Strength. Cultivate Energy. I haven’t figured out any of it.”

Sam raised his chin. He gave Xavier a deep, appraising look. One so heavy that it made him shift on his stool. “Well…” He glanced up at the ceiling. The look was somewhat familiar. It reminded Xavier of someone checking if their boss was nearby before doing something they probably shouldn’t. “There are a few things I can say.”