Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 24 - Winged Bears (Patreon)

Xavier leant back against the parapet, arms still crossed at his chest, and frowned at Siobhan. He’d tried so hard to get Assimilate Properties to work that he couldn’t help but suspect she must be wrong about this. He didn’t voice his doubts, however—that would have just been rude.

“What does he have to do?” Justin asked. The teenage duellist stood straight with a hand resting on the pommel of his sword. There was something different about him, as though he’d changed in these last six weeks—come into himself a bit more. He’s comfortable here, confident. It was nice to see.

“This book talks about a skill called Purge Impurities,” Siobhan said.

Xavier raised an eyebrow, leaning forward. When he’d gained the Assimilate Properties skill, it had been just as he’d reached the 100-point threshold for Strength. A notification had come up, saying, “Metal impurities detected during Toughness upgrade. Attempting to purge metal impurities…”

He’d tried to recreate the situation several times without any luck.

“Go on,” Xavier prompted.

Siobhan turned the page. “Now, it doesn’t say a great deal, but it appears as though Toughness helps the body dispose of different ‘impurities.’ These impurities aren’t explained in great depth, but what is explained is that there is a way to control—or rather guide—this process.” She turned the book to face the others, holding it open with her fingers. There was a two-page spread. A diagram of a humanoid’s body, standing with their arms spread at each side. Lines ran through the body.

Spirit Lines? he wondered. Then frowned. Or are those… Toughness Lines?

“What is this diagram trying to show?” Xavier asked.

“Impurities being pushed out of the body, and the process by which that happens.”

“What does it even mean by impurities?” Justin’s forehead was creased, making him look older than his sixteen years. “Like, toxins?”

Siobhan shrugged. “I’m really not sure.”

Xavier stepped forward and gestured for the book. Siobhan handed it over, only slightly reluctantly—she didn’t like relinquishing books. He supposed he could understand that. He had a small collection of his favourite novels back in his apartment on Earth that he would never want to part with. I wonder if they’re still even there. Those aspects of his old life didn’t seem all that important anymore, what with the threat to his world. Still, it would be nice to have those old comforts available to him. Especially if he were going to live for hundreds, even thousands of years.

He shook those thoughts away and focused on the diagram. The lines spread out from the stomach. There were far more lines than he’d first thought. Hundreds of them, as though they were trying to cover every inch of someone’s skin. Maybe they are.

Xavier tilted his head to the side. “Is this something I can even do?”

“There’s no level restriction on the Purge Impurities skill. At least, none that I can find,” Siobhan said. “I’m sure it would be possible.”

Xavier turned back to the pages before the diagram. With his Speed and Intelligence as high as it was, it didn’t take him long to read through it and commit the words to memory.

The only problem was, the text didn’t explain how to do the skill. It didn’t even name the lines in the body that were drawn in the diagram. This fact made his frown only deepen. Still, this was a step closer than they’d been before. And if he could find a way to gain more ranks of Assimilate Properties and assimilate more materials into himself—if that was indeed how it worked—then should be able to make good progress toward his goals.

Xavier handed the book back to Siobhan. He now had a better idea of what he needed to do. According to Adviser Kalren—ever the timekeeper—there was now only ten minutes left until the beginning of the next wave.

One day, I’ll have more time than this. And more variety. A selfish part of him still craved being done with this fight. With this floor. With the Endless Horde. I’m sure I must have gone through enough waves to be at the top spot by now.

But that would leave Kiralla in the lurch. No, not in the lurch. It would leave the poor woman dead. Besides, he still had plenty of fight in him.

Xavier sat cross-legged on the stone of the battlements and closed his eyes. He fell into a deep meditation, something he could do at a moment’s notice nowadays. As he sat there, he went over what the book had said, and what the System notification had told him.

Metal Impurities detected… Purge Impurities…

He understood how metal could be an impurity, but were there other things within his body that might need dispelling? And as the last thing he wanted to do was actually dispel them, how could he assimilate them?

Xavier let out a long breath. He was thinking about this in the wrong way. Something told him he’d been right at the start, when he’d tried to rub pebbles and other things into his wounds. But he’d just gotten a step missed. He opened his eyes and leant over to the parapet. Summoning Soultaker to his hand, he cut a small chunk of stone from the wall.

He stared at the stone chunk for a moment before nodding to himself, then swallowing it.

The stone went down hard. It scraped his throat, though it didn’t make him bleed—his insides, like his outsides, were much tougher than they used to be. He made a big gulp sound, throat bobbing, wondering if this was a foolish thing to do.

Xavier closed his eyes once more, falling back into that meditation. His awareness of his own body had improved dramatically since he’d been integrated into the System, and he found he was able to feel where the stone was. It had made it down to his stomach. He wondered if, with his high stats, his stomach acids would be strong enough to dissolve stone now.

An odd thought.

He pushed the thought away and focused, simply trying to feel the stone and what his body was doing to it. Purge Impurities might be a skill, but that didn’t mean his body didn’t do it naturally—that had been clear enough when he’d tried to progress Assimilate Properties in the past.

Sure enough, the weight in his stomach lessened as the seconds passed. Whatever was inside of him was starting to dissolve. It was a very strange feeling. Once the weight was completely gone from his stomach, Xavier could no longer find out where it went—it must have been turned into minuscule fragments.

Remembering the diagram, Xavier looked at his skin. “Huh.” Tiny pebbles were pushing themselves out of his pores, breaking to the surface of his skin, creating pinpricks of blood. Wounds that healed the instant they were created. His body, as he suspected, was purging the impurity all by itself.

Now I need to slow that progress down… assuming I can figure out how.

Xavier turned his mind toward this task for the next few minutes, eating chunk of stone after chunk of stone. It reminded him of a disease he’d read about once called pica, where people eat all kinds of things that weren’t food. Nails, screws, safety pins. The idea should have made him shudder, but if he were honest he’d started to wonder what else he could get his hands on.

The more he ate, the more he was able to examine and feel what was happening inside of his body. Just like when he’d identified the Willpower Lines when he’d found his secondary core, he was soon able to follow some of the lines that the dissolved bits of stone followed as they flowed through to the surface of his skin.

The more aware he became, the more he understood what was happening. But ten minutes was hardly enough time to figure the process out. And, unlike running, this wasn’t exactly something he would be able to do while on the battlefield.

When the wave started, he knew what his focus—other than defeating the enemies in the wave—would be. Running. Each rank he gained in running would gain him a further percentage increase to his Speed attribute. He quickly got into a rhythm, finding it easier and easier to run while throwing out a myriad of spells, and dishing out melee attacks and Soul Blocks to keep nearby enemies at bay.

Over the weeks, he’d become more and more at home on the battlefield. It was strange how comfortable he was out here. How relaxed he managed to be whilst in the heat of battle. Though he knew that was only because the enemies were something he could handle. That relaxed feeling had been cracked when he’d faced multiple waves and E Grade bosses at once—at least until he’d managed to triumph over them.

In fact, now he felt even more confident than he had before. He knew, to a certain degree, what he was able to handle. He could take down E Grade enemies. Hell, he could do more than take them down—he could make them fight for him. He could control their minds and have them turn on themselves.

And the stronger he became, the more F Grade enemies he was able to control as well. To the point where when he ran around the battlefield, purple mist flowing from his staff, the enemies around him were almost like a personal army. An army he could use to fight his own battles.

Then when that army died, he could feed upon their souls.

During that wave, he gained a few more ranks in running. It was kind of insane just how fast he could run. I must be able to run faster than some cars, considering how quickly I managed to gain the running skill.

He wasn’t at super-speed quite yet, however. At least, what he considered to be super-speed. He didn’t think he’d be anywhere near as fast as Flash, for instance. But maybe one day. The thought made him chuckle, wondering just how fast he could become.

And all of this while I’m still only F Grade.

He struggled to imagine just how much stronger the evolution to E Grade was likely to make him. Would he gain more stats? Would his body transform, somehow? The E Grades that he’d fought were certainly a lot stronger than the F Grades. He could take Level 90 soldiers and beasts down with a single strike, and several at once with his spells. Hell, he could take several down with a strike with Soultaker if he swept it around in the perfect arc. Not to mention all the damage he could do when he controlled them.

But he had to put far more effort into killing the E Grade enemies. Of course, part of that could be the stats they’d gained as they levelled—but he didn’t think so.

I’ll find out soon enough.

Xavier worked his way around the castle, running laps over and over again as he continued to thin the enemies in the wave. This wave was a mixed one. It contained beasts he hadn’t seen before.

One of those beasts was a Flame Chimera. It was the strangest looking beast he’d ever seen. It had the head of a lion—and the head of a goat. Not the most frightening beast to mix with. On top of that—or rather, behind—it’s tail was literally a snake.

A three-headed, weird looking beast.

Oh, and it breathed fire. Hence the “flame” in the name.

Xavier had read about such beasts before back on Earth. Again, he had to wonder how Earth knew of these creatures and different humanoid races—elves, dwarves, demons—that turned out to be real. As though somehow the knowledge of the universe, even before the System, had wheedled its way into humanity’s subconscious.

Along with the chimeras, there were other beasts. Such as Giant Spiders—these were easy enough to kill, but they still made his skin crawl whenever he saw them—massive, elephant-beasts called Frozen Mastodons that shot spikes of ice from their tusks.

And Winged Bears. The name said it all for these beasts. They were furry and looked positively cuddly until they opened their giant maws and roared.

It was the strangest wave he’d faced yet.

Once he’d dealt with these, the wave boss revealed itself.

When he saw it, Xavier actually took a step back. Holy crap. It was a variant of the Winged Bears. Except it wore full plate armour and carried a large halberd.

Xavier cast Willpower Infusion on the beastman.

Nothing happened.