Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 8) - Chapter 5 - No, I Don’t Think It’s a Good Idea

Xavier inclined his head as he felt the depths of the man’s power. He was stronger than The Collector—but not by as much as Xavier had suspected. In fact, that little “trick” The Collector had had up his sleeve with the void portal and the Soul Energy might just have been enough to do this man in.

The elf’s hand shook. “What… What the hell was that?” His bow remained trained on Xavier, but he looked about the arena, as though expecting another presence to be there. He shuddered. “Someone powerful is watching. I thought I felt them pierce my veil earlier, now I’m sure of it.” He gritted his teeth. “The System shouldn’t allow anyone to be here!”

Xavier chuckled, imitating the way the elf had only moments ago. “Oh, the System hasn’t allowed anyone else here.” He snapped out his wings. “Only me.”

The elf’s eyes widened. He loosed the arrow. With a flap of his wings, Xavier left the arrow beneath him. The young dragonkin avoided the arrow with the smallest of movements. The elf looked shocked at the very idea Xavier could move that fast. Another arrow was nocked on the string in an instant.

Xavier didn’t see the need to use a time dilation field in this fight, but he also knew what happened to people when they became overconfident—and that he more than most was prone to overconfidence. When he’d first met Palini, if he hadn’t had used a clone, the man would have been able to kill him with that Strike Out spell of his.

So Xavier cast Time Alteration, slowing everything down, snapping the time dilation field around only himself.

The moment the time dilation field came into effect he picked something up behind him with his Farscope. It was nothing more than a slight, unusual visual shimmer in the air. On closer inspection, however, Xavier found that it was an invisible arrow.

How did that get there?

He blinked, searching around the area with every one of his senses until he solved the puzzle. The first thing he realised was the fact that it wasn’t only one invisible arrow in the air.

There was a dozen, and they each came toward him from a different direction and angle.

The second thing he discovered was it wasn’t only arrows that he’d missed. There were portals, too. That was how the arrows had gotten around him.

Invisible portals? I didn’t even know that was a thing… But of course it is.

Peering over at the elf’s bow, with the arrow pulled taut, he noticed that shimmer again. The man had thirteen arrows ready to be loosed, with only one of them visible.

How in the hell did he manage that?

Xavier looked down at his hand holding his sword hilt. He was incredibly proficient with a bow, but he couldn’t imagine himself holding that many arrows at once.

Must be a powerful spell.

The greedy part of him wanted to get the man to use the spell again so he could steal it with Recursive Analysis, but that would mean putting himself at risk. As he stood there, a notification appeared. Not a System notification—a notification from his mental construct. This was something he was used to receiving by now.

 Combat Assistance Overlay has identified 13 minor and major possible adjustments to your combat style to aid you against this opponent.

Do you grant permission for these adjustments to be made?

Xavier didn’t think twice about granting permission for the adjustments. As those two years had passed inside the time dilation field, it wasn’t only The Collector’s former guards or Palini who’d become people he learnt to trust more deeply—it had been the mental construct himself, Roln. Every adaption the dead Wanderer had made to his combat style had benefited him greatly, and the knowledge he’d provided over that time…

The mental construct had quickly become an invaluable asset.

Xavier felt the telltale shudder of the adaptions to his neural network coming into effect. Sometimes he wondered how he came to deserve the mental construct, or what the inevitable catches of utilising the Combat Assistance Overlay might end up being in the future. Even after two years of training with it, using the mental construct’s powers felt an awful lot like cheating.

But Xavier would go to great lengths to become powerful. His goal was too important to leave something behind simply because he wasn’t sure of the ultimate consequences.

Xavier stared over at the elf and wondered something. Roln, I have a question.

Yes, and I know what that question is.

Xavier sighed. Of course you do. Well, what’s your answer?

Yes, it is certainly possible to break the man’s contract with his master. No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

I don’t recall my question being about your opinion…

Sometimes you’re just going to have to deal with getting that.

Only sometimes? That hasn’t been my experience. Xavier grinned. The mental construct went silent.

Xavier flapped his wings lazily in the air. Unity… How do I unite the universe if all I do is kill those who get in my way? How does that promote unity? He made sure to point the thought inward in the hopes Roln wouldn’t respond to it.

Before Roln had been inserted into his mind, Xavier had only known of one way to break contracts without there being adverse consequences, or without having to kill the contract holder to do it.

Now, he knew several ways. At least, he knew the theory around them. He’d never actually done it before—not even in a virtual simulation within his own mind. Roln had warned him of what would happen if he did it improperly. Breaking a System contract in ways the System didn’t allow was a very dangerous thing to do, especially in a universe governed by a System like this one.

After Xavier had granted permission for the Combat Assistance Overlay to make its adjustments, his vision had suddenly shifted. The invisible arrows and the invisible portal were now significantly easier for him to see. Xavier had experienced several transformations like this. At first, he’d thought they shouldn’t be possible. The mental construct couldn’t improve one of his body’s fundamental functions, could it? It could improve a technique, provide him with a new one, get rid of inefficiencies…

But wiring his brain this way or that shouldn’t make him faster or stronger, and it certainly shouldn’t make him able to see or hear better.

He’d been wrong about that, of course.

His speed and strength could be improved by rewiring neuronal circuits in his brain. By making those circuits more efficient it reduced the time it took for the mind to communicate the action to the body. If he were an unenhanced human, the difference each of these microscopic modifications to his speed would have been impossible to catch without the use of advanced equipment. As a C Grade Denizen and a Tier 2 Cultivator, the changes were evident the moment they came into effect.

A similar thing happened with his strength—his body was able to utilise the strength more effectively. This was a familiar feeling, and it should have been, because whenever these adjustments came about, he gained notifications from the System itself. Notifications that alerted him of the fact that his attributes were becoming further attuned.

His senses were a different animal to his strength and speed. There was no specific attribute that controlled his senses—not in this System, anyway. Roln had told him that there were other Systems out there that provided people with the ability to finely adjust and improve the difference senses they possessed. Not just hearing, vision, smell, taste, and touch either—they could directly affect their vestibular apparatus that controlled a sense of balance, and their proprioception which allowed them to sense where they were in space.

From experiencing these different Systems, Roln had gained the knowledge of how to adapt senses on the fly with the use of neural connections.

This had been a startling thing to discover when Xavier first experienced it. Roln was very particular to tell him that when his hearing improved it wasn’t his actual hearing that got better, but rather his listening ability. He was better able to hear different frequencies and filter out distracting noise while in the middle of combat.

With each new adjustment the world became clearer and clearer. Not only more clear… It became more detailed. His vision could spot things it never had before. Again, another thing that wasn’t necessarily his eyesight improving, but rather his ability to see details. An unenhanced human would gain a similar effect if they became an artist and slowly strengthened their ability to see the detail of what was actually there, rather than what the brain thought was there.

It increased the depth at which he could use what he already possessed.

After the adjustments had been made and the arrows and portals became easier for him to see, he received several notifications saying his Eyesight skill had improved. That was another thing that had been happening quite frequently since the mental construct had been inserted into his brain and he’d started to utilise its abilities—the System had been frantically assigning him dozens of different skills for everything he was improving at, giving him ranks left and right without Xavier having to lift a finger.

He kept thinking that at some point the System would catch on to what he was going and pull the rug out from under him for “cheating.” But it never came to that. And why would it? The System needed him. It had already allowed him to use an advancement path from another corner of the multiverse. Why wouldn’t it allow him to use this?

Besides, it doesn’t know Roln—or, what’s left of the man’s mind—is inside me.

Being able to see the dozen invisible arrows and portals more clearly wasn’t all he gained. He also, to his great surprise, spotted a hundred more arrows in the air. These ones were significantly harder for him to spot than the first dozen he’d seen, and the sight of them shocked him to his core, because it took a few seconds of hovering there in the air, his wings flapping lazily as he thought about what to do with this new elven enemy that worked for Jhanku, to even notice them.

Good thing you stopped time when you did, Roln said as Xavier stared at the different arrows.

His Farscope, despite how useful it was, couldn’t spot any of the invisible arrows. The more Xavier’s ability to see improved, the more he realised the limitations the Farscope lens had. His gaze washed over the entire arena, trying to spot if there was something else he’d missed.

The Combat Assistance Overlay, once Xavier had spotted these extra one hundred arrows—and the tiny, almost impossible to spot portals those had come from—provided him with another notification for further adjustments. Even once those adjustments came into effect it was hard to see these new arrows.

“The first dozen arrows were only a decoy,” Xavier muttered. These arrows were farther out. The elf had said he would torture him for information—Xavier wasn’t sure how that would have been possible if these arrows had been given a chance to pincushion him.

The man might be more than an archer, Roln said.

Xavier scoffed. That much is clear.

Examine the energies in the air.

Xavier did as Roln recommended. The moment he did, he saw what the mental construct was getting at. Xavier was, of course, rather familiar with how the different energies interacted outside of the body to create the changes in reality that were most often called “spells.” Since he’d gained Recursive Analysis, he’d made it a goal to recognise a spell from the energies he spotted alone.

There were thousands—millions—of different spells out there, and so Xavier of course wasn’t able to spot them all. But what he was able to do was roughly tell what a spell might do by the energies it produced and how those energies moved.

The mental construct was right. There were whisper thin threads of energy around all the arrows. Energy that he could only see when he flew straight up to the arrow and looked at them from an inch away. The type of energy surprised him momentarily—it was Intelligence Energy.

These arrows are being controlled telekinetically. He’s more a mage than anything else.

If you’re still thinking about liberating him from his contract with his master, I’ll remind you that he is a powerful B Grade from the inner sectors and an assassin that doesn’t appear to have any qualms killing you. Liberating him from a contract is unlikely to bring forward your desired consequence. In fact, it may only end in your death. Considering I died for you I’d rather you not take that course of action.

Xavier grunted his response instead of actually providing the man with one.

The mind-man is right, Bones said. You’d be a fool to keep this elf alive.

Xavier blinked. You included my soul bound weapon in this conversation?

He usually has a better time of talking sense in you than I do. Don’t know why. I’m far more experienced, Roln replied.

This wasn’t the first time he’d found himself arguing with Roln and Bones. Often, he had more conversations going on inside his mind than he did outside of it. With the number of voices he was beginning to hear in his head, more than once it had become difficult to hear his own thoughts.

It wasn’t until Xavier had access to the mental construct for a full year while they’d been training that he allowed Roln to start talking with Bones, giving the mental construct permission to communicate through his mind to the soul bound weapon. The two were now able to chat without him even hearing. Xavier imagined that they were often colluding, discussing all of his mistakes and shortcomings, though he doubted that was actually true.

Still, at times he wondered if allowing them to converse had been a good idea or not.

Now, he knew adding Rhaalir into the mix would definitely be a mistake. That would just cause all kinds of trouble.

It’s a good thing neither of you are the ones who make these decisions, Xavier replied, muttering his thoughts back at them.

Xavier, after he finished examining all the arrows, released a thin stream of Reality Energy into the air that branched off from where he stood and shot away in many different directions. This strand of energy interacted with the Intelligence Energy connected to the arrows. With Xavier’s level of control over the Reality Energy, he was able to use it to overpower the foreign energy.

It was only after he’d converted that foreign Soul Energy and used it to empower himself that he’d thought to use Reality Energy in this way. Once he overpowered the Intelligence Energy, he connected his own Intelligence Energy to the arrows and cast a few spells over all 112 of them.

In theory, those spells should make the arrows impossible to be tampered with by an enemy. At least, an enemy of this level of power.

After taking control of the arrows, he spent a moment dispelling the portals. The portals were more powerful than he’d expected, and this took a little more effort than he’d anticipated. Still, he was able to do it without much trouble.

Invisible portals… God, I need to learn how to create these.

Of course, they weren’t completely invisible. He wouldn’t have been able to spot them, otherwise. Still, they would be difficult for the average enemy to spot.

Xavier expanded his time dilation field to include all of the arrows. Then he brought each of those arrows to within an inch of his enemy.

Roln, I’m going to need your assistance on this one. You’ve said more than once that you can help me break contracts. Now’s the time to show me how.