Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 30 - Your Request Has Been Denied

Xavier sat on a very uncomfortable chair and drummed his fingers on the steel table in the middle of the interrogation room. His heavy, reinforced bones and hardened skin, coupled with the increase to the gravity in the room, made each impact sound like a large stone slamming into a steel wall. He could have made the drumming gentle, except he didn’t want to.

The man across from him narrowed his eyes at Xavier’s fingers but otherwise didn’t mention, or seem bothered, by the noise.

“I do not think you appreciate the seriousness of the situation.”

“Yes. You said something like that already.”

Xavier did, in fact, appreciate the seriousness of the situation.

He was in a grey, stone room with no exits, and gravity wasn’t the only weight pushing down on him in here. Every single one of his energy channels was being suppressed. At first, he would have said they were blocked. He’d experienced something like this before after all, and he hadn’t been able to do a damned thing with his energies because of it.

But Xavier had come a very, very long way since then.

His energy channels were far more robust than a normal D Grade. Far more robust, perhaps, than the B Grade across from him. He didn’t have a way to compare. What he was sure of was that this prison wasn’t designed to hold someone like him, even if it did hinder him to a significant degree.

His cores were greyed out, which had surprised him at first. His six attribute cores that other Denizens possessed were artificial, and yet the spell and the runes had been effective against them regardless. That was interesting, and required further thought, but he needed all his mental energies on the problem at hand, so he put it aside.

Still, it meant that he was no longer cycling all eight energies he had access to. When he’d entered this room through the redirected portal, one of the spell effects had ejected all of the energy that was currently cycling through his channels. His spiritual sense was one of many things that was being suppressed, but even so he could tell that there was no ambient Celestial Energy here. Even if his energy channels worked perfectly normally, he wouldn’t be able to pull it from the air.

With his cores greyed out, he couldn’t pull energy from those either—which made casting spells out of the question.

There was one core, however, that wasn’t greyed out. This core hadn’t been targeted by the spells or the countless runes etched into the wall. How could it be? Knowledge of the core he possessed wasn’t exactly available in this universe, let alone this corner of the multiverse.

Not even the System had known what it was at first.

Xavier did not act. Not yet. He needed to better understand the predicament he was in. Besides, though he was somewhat confident he would be able to defeat, or at least evade, the B Grade across from him if he were in possession of his full capabilities, in his current, limited condition, something told him that wouldn’t be possible.

And how would I even get out of this room without casting Teleportation or Portal, or being able to activate my Storage Ring and take out the Sector Travel Key? Perhaps I could simply punch through the walls…

Xavier sighed. “Why, exactly, am I here? And who are you?”

“My name is Palini Damascus.” The man across from him raised an eyebrow. “As to why you’re here, we’ll get to that. First, allow me to enlighten you.” He waved a hand around room. “You can’t see them, but there are thousands of suppression runes etched into these walls. That’s why its so hard for you to move, even if you’re putting on a good front, the weight must be crushing. If you’ve tried to cast a spell, you’ll notice that’s impossible, too.”

The man reached for the collar of his armour, tucked a pinkie finger beneath it, and took out a chain with a talisman at the end. “This was created by the same Runemaster Inscriber who designed this room, freeing me of its effects.” He smiled. “I’m sure you’re thinking of snatching it from me. How hard would it be to overpower a single opponent, after all? You can’t scan me, you must have noticed, but here’s why you shouldn’t, even though I’m eager to let you try.”

Palini Damascus dropped his veil. The force of his B Grade aura fell upon Xavier. It wasn’t the full force. The full force was likely to leave any D Grade Denizen unconscious with its power—and it would be hard to ask Xavier questions if he were unconscious.

But Xavier wasn’t just any D Grade.

He eyed the talisman and let the aura wash over him as though it were nothing more than a gentle breeze, not so much as giving him a headache.

All right, so it wasn’t as pleasant as a gentle breeze, more like a hurricane-wind, but after how much Universal Pressure he’d endured over the years, resisting a weakened B Grade aura was child’s play.

Xavier continued the loud drumming of his fingers, still eyeing the talisman. In his peripheral vision—for the Farscope lens was inactive now his channels were suppressed—he saw Palini twitch at his lack of reaction and suppressed a smile.

Nice to see him off-base.

“Now,” Palini continued, as if Xavier hadn’t just resisted his aura with ease, “if you want a chance of getting out of this predicament with your life, you best sign a truth-contract immediately. Remember that if you refuse, there will be consequences. As you have no rights, those consequences can be anything I wish.”

The man casually crackled his knuckles and leant back in his chair.

Xavier drew his gaze up from the talisman—which Palini tucked back under his armour—and looked the man in the eye. “A forced contract? I thought Rewke Fouran was above such things.”

Palini raised his chin. “He is. I’m not. Sovereign Fouran is more aware than anyone that certain realities are necessary to protect our citizens and our sector from outside threats. For you, I am one of those realities.”

“That’s what you think I am, a threat?”

The contract appeared in his notifications.

“If you aren’t a threat, there’s no harm in signing the contract. If you are, it remains your only option. Better to do it before I lose my patience.”

Xavier could sign it. It would make things easier. Reading the contract, it wasn’t one that forced answers from him on pain of death, loss of cores, or taking him back to Level 1. Besides, the man was unlikely to stumble on questions that would reveal his personal secrets. It simply required that when he speak, he speak the truth. He’d used such a contract plenty of times in the past. Admittedly, he’d forced a contract or two himself.

Yet he recoiled from the very idea. Not only that, he recoiled from the situation he was in. Xavier had chosen this sector to train his students in not only because of the abundant beast hunting grounds, but because of the reputation of Sovereign Fouran. He had hoped the man would be above stripping a Denizen of their rights without what he deemed sufficient cause. Perhaps he should have known better—this society had been forged inside the System, after all.

And since when did a nation saying they cared about freedom actually mean that freedom applied to everyone within its borders?

He understood doing such a thing to someone deemed a threat, but what exactly had he done that was threatening besides appear and pay for a portal? Even if it was to the Ventorin sector…

Xavier narrowed his eyes at Palini. “You think I work for The Collector? Is that it?”

“Sign the contract.”

Xavier shut his eyes. Released a breath. Then stared at the man. He raised his chin in defiance. “No.”

Palini stood. The movement was so abrupt and fast that it made the chair he sat upon slam into the rock wall behind him. The interrogation room’s wall was unscathed. The corner of the metal chair that hit the wall, however, had crumpled significantly.

Xavier’s complete lack or reaction visibly frustrated the man.

“Sign it,” Palini commanded through gritted teeth.

“I request an audience with Sovereign Fouran.”

“Your request has been denied.”

With those words, Palini Damascus launched himself over the table in a flash. He did not draw his blade. He surely assumed he didn’t need to. He moved so swiftly that no D Grade would likely be able to perceive him.

He snatched Xavier by the collar and slammed him straight into the wall, his feet dangling above the ground. Palini brought his face close to Xavier’s. “You’re only making this worse for yourself, spy. Now, sign the contract, or else I’ll stop being so gentle.”

Xavier, unperturbed even with the man holding him aloft, smiled. “Your request has been denied.”

Several things happened.

As they had been having their lovely conversation, and Xavier had been discovering the extent of how much his powers were suppressed, he had discovered a few things. His robust energy channels weren’t completely blocked, and his Reality Core was unaffected.

And so, trickle by trickle, Xavier had been pulling Reality Energy from its core and pushing it through his channels. Cycling the energy through his suppressed channels was no easy task, but compared with when he’d first started cycling Celestial Energy after the shattering of his cores it only proved a little difficult.

By the time Palini had brought up the contract, Reality Energy flowed through every single one of Xavier’s channels in a pattern that strengthened his mind, body, and spirit, shrugging off some of the rune and spell effects’ chains—though not all.

But cycling wasn’t all Reality Energy was good for.

The first of those several things that happened was Xavier burning a healthy portion of Reality Energy for fuel, empowering every part of him significantly.

Second was the spreading of Xavier’s large, black dragon wings, which had been retracted and hidden by his heavily rune-marked armour. The room was big enough to allow them to extend to their full length.

Third was Xavier plucking a chain from beneath the collar of his own armour—the locket that held the Roving Seed Base. Xavier had personally locked this locket to the unique signature that his energies gave out, but he did not restrict it to Spirit Energy.

He allowed for all nine of the energies he usually had access to unlock the locket.

And so, as the locket was plucked from his collar it sprang open at his touch and will, flinging the seed through the air to land nearby. Though the Roving Seed Base tended to require ambient Celestial Energy to function and grow, it could be, and was, charged with Spirit Energy. Xavier’s energy channels may have been suppressed, but the bond he shared with the Roving Seed Base hadn’t been affected—just as the bond with his soul bound weapon hadn’t been when his cores had shattered.

The seed landed on the ground. The Roving Seed Base dug into the stone, then formed into its outward-facing shape. It looked as though the rock floor was growing a large protrusion, as the Roving Seed Base took on the appearance of a large standing stone.

“What the…?” Palini said, seemingly baffled by the turn of events. Before the man caught his wits fourth and final thing that happened was Xavier—his strength and speed significantly enhanced by not only the cycling of Reality Energy, but by the burning of it—launching forward, grasping Palini by the shoulders, and flying him straight into the large standing stone.

They landed on the outer edges of the Roving Seed Base, tumbling and rolling in the soft, Earth grass that grew inside it.

The instant they arrived, Xavier sighed inwardly in relief. His hunch had been correct—the effects of the interrogation room could not pierce the Roving Seed Base spatial device.

Xavier cast Time Alteration, locked down the Roving Seed Base with a mental command, then activated Teleport and materialised above where the stunned B Grade rolled to a stop.

Xavier’s wings flapped lazily, keeping him hovering in the air, and he peered down at Palini. “Now, perhaps I should explain the seriously of your situation.”