Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 11 - Metaphysical Manifestations of Power (Patreon)

Sitting on the flagstone floor of the castle’s battlements, deep in concentration, Xavier sharpened his focus to a point and aimed it toward what he’d just sensed.

As he’d followed the Spirit Lines within him that led to his primary core, he’d noticed a discrepancy. The energy he could sense all around him, the energy that entered his body and flowed through the Spirit Lines all the way to his Spirit Core, was Celestial Energy. A pure energy that could theoretically be put toward any of the six cores within a Denizen’s body. Now Xavier’s awareness over his body and mind had improved, he could easily feel when that energy entered him. Could easily feel its journey. With his Core Strength and Cultivate Energy skills he’d even learnt how to control that energy. What he felt wasn’t strictly quantifiable. He couldn’t see the exact number of points of energy that entered into him—he could simply sense a vague amount. But as he was examining these Spirit Lines, he felt some of that energy being siphoned off.

Interesting.

The moment he’d first sensed this, he’d lost it again. It was such a minute amount—probably one hundredth of a single point of Celestial Energy—that he was surprised he’d managed to feel it at all.

But now that he’d sensed it once, he was sure he would be able to sense it again.

“Ten minutes,” Adviser Kalren said.

Xavier’s brow furrowed at the interruption, even though he’d instructed the man to announce time warnings so he was always aware of when the next wave would arrive. Usually the short warning, said with a soft voice, wouldn’t be enough to knock his concentration. This particular task felt more delicate than other tasks in the past, however. A few more minutes passed before Xavier felt the discrepancy a second time. The moment he did, he seized his mind upon it. The energy was like a single grain of sand on a beach that stretched for a hundred miles, and the only thing extinguishing it from the other grains was that it was a shade darker than the rest.

Xavier managed to follow it through his body for a full six second before Adviser Kalren spoke again.

“Five minutes.”

Xavier muttered a curse under his breath. This. This was why he’d had so much trouble finding his secondary core. Adviser Kalren told him it was because his level wasn’t high enough to unlock it. Xavier believed otherwise—he thought it was simply because he hadn’t gained enough time meditating in this particular manner. He was able to meditate while in combat now. Doing so provided him with unique, combat-related insights that helped his fighting ability in the long term, but it had the shortcoming of slowing his effectiveness in battle even with those insights, as it slowed his reaction time.

Still, at least it had given him the chance to rank the skill up.

But the time he had between waves? When he wasn’t eating, resting or seeing to personal hygiene needs—those didn’t just stop because one was in a never-ending battle—he rarely had more than a few minutes to sink into this state.

For a third time, Xavier homed in on a tiny fraction if the Celestial Energy he was bringing into his body. Once more he followed the energy, hoping to find its destination—he was sure it must be feeding one of his other cores, though he still had a very limited understanding of how that all worked.

“One minute,” Adviser Kalren announced, in a louder voice than before.

Xavier, knowing the interruption would be coming, didn’t let it knock him out of his concentration. He kept following the speck. It appeared to be headed toward his heart. Kalren had quoted a passage to him about the locations of each of the cores. Apparently their locations within a Denizen’s body held little to no meaning. Cores were metaphysical manifestations of power, ones that could not be observed with the naked eye. One could not slay a Denizen and fish out their cores with a knife—it simply didn’t work like that. Once a Denizen was slain, the energy within their cores dissipated back into the Greater Universe.

And so, one couldn’t simply look for the cores within their heart or their brain, as the placement was symbolic. They did not technicallyreside within the physical plane.

The whole explanation had given Xavier a headache, even after the third time Adviser Kalren had gone over it. Finally Xavier figured he didn’t need to have a full grasp on the theory for him to put things into practice—hopefully he would gain insights along the way that would make everything more clear as he went.

“Ten seconds.”

If Xavier wasn’t deep in concentration he would have muttered a curse. The speck of Celestial Energy was travelling through his body tremendously slowly, as though something were blocking it from moving. As it wasn’t travelling through one of his Spirit Lines, Xavier had difficulty discerning what could be slowing it down.

Horns blared. War drums sounded. Roars and shouts were unleashed from the thousands of soldiers and beasts that made up the thousandth wave of the Endless Horde. Xavier ignored it all for as long as he could, knowing the seconds he had were dwindling by.

“One second,” Adviser Kalren said.

“There!” Xavier said at the same time. He sensed a weak knot of energy. To his mind’s eye, it appeared to be inside his heart. He got a senseof what the energy was and found it to be familiar. “Willpower.”

Xavier opened his eyes as the notification popped up in his vision.

You have gained +10 Willpower!

You have discovered your Willpower Core.

Spell Quest Unlocked: Willpower Infusion

To unlock Willpower Infusion, you must:

1. Cultivate 1,000 points of Celestial Energy into your Willpower Core, turning it into Willpower Energy.

2. Successfully cycle 1,000 points of Willpower Energy through your Willpower Core.

Progress:

1. 0/1,000

2. 0/1,000

He couldn’t help but release a laugh as he sprang to his feet. Adviser Kalren had an eyebrow raised and a worried look on his face. The enemy wave began its approach, their stampeding charge like rumbling thunder. Xavier turned to Kalren. “I unlocked my secondary core,” he said before sprinting to the parapet and leaping over it.

Xavier ran toward the enemy, summoning Soultaker to his hand, a great big grin on his face. It had been a while since he’d felt this level of excitement. He’d quickly scanned the notification the moment it came up, but as he had less than a second by that point, even with his speed-reading abilities he hadn’t taken in all the details.

He went over those now as he sent off a powerful Soul Strike toward the ranks of the Endless Horde surrounding Queen Alastea’s castle. He infused every soul in his soulkeeping reserve into the strike, and since he’d gained Rank 50 in each of his Soul Reaping spells, that threshold had stalled out at 1,000, which meant it would be 16 minutes and 40 seconds until he was able to use the spell again.

That was another reason he’d trained Heavy Telekinesis up. His Soul Reaper spells were incredible, but their cooldowns were as limited as the spells were strong. Despite the fact that he’d gained a huge number of points in both Spirit and Intelligence since gaining Soul Strike and Soul Block, the spells’ cooldowns were still limited—one second per soul infused. That had not budged, and Xavier didn’t see it doing so any time soon. Which meant if he were one day able to cast a Soul Strike with 10,000 infused souls, it would take close to three hours before he’d be able to use the spell again.

And long gone were the days when Xavier could send out a Soul Strike and take out an entire wave. The enemies had been growing in strength faster than he was—something he hoped to remedy by evolving to E Grade.

As the Soul Strike arced toward the enemies, powerful apparitions of beasts and soldiers coming to life, Xavier went over the notification again. If this wave was like the last dozen he’d dealt with, the Soul Strike should be able to deal with roughly a quarter of the enemies. The rest would come straight for him, completely ignoring the castle itself. Considering how many waves had come for him—and how many he’d taken down—it often made him wonder about the leader of the Endless Horde, and why they didn’t simply pull out of this world. The Endless Horde was forced to come at him in waves by the System—something that still didn’t make much of any sense to Xavier—but did that mean they couldn’t surrender?

The words, said by Sergeant Bradley on the third floor, ran through his mind: The System doesn’t stand for cowards.

Maybe the leader of the Endless Horde would incur the System’s wrath if they were to turn back. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind as he looked at the notification he’d received for discovering his Spirit Core.

A frown lined his forehead. Discovering his Willpower Core hadn’t done near as much as he’d expected. For one, there weren’t any Skill Quests. He’d expected to gain the equivalent skills that he had from the Spirit Core. Interestingly, though, discovering the core had unlocked a Spell Quest. His first Spell Quest. Willpower Infusion. Xavier could imagine what infusing Willpower Energy into himself might gain him, and the requirements to gain the spell looked awfully similar to what he’d needed to do for some of the Spirit Core’s Skill Quests.

What made his grin fall straight from his face, however, was that he couldn’t see any mention of evolving to E Grade. He’d thought all he would need to do was discover his secondary core and some sort of quest would reveal itself—or perhaps a “Would you like to evolve?” notification prompt…

Perhaps that had been wishful thinking.

Xavier turned his focus toward the approaching enemies. He couldn’t let whatever was going through his mind affect his ability to fight off this wave.

I just gained my secondary core. I will figure out how to get to E Grade.