Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 59 - Suffice to Say, I’m Here to Help

Once Xavier had told those in the throne room his plan, he’d recast Time Alteration. With the help of the other time mages in the room, he’d managed to do it with less than a split-second passing in the rest of the universe.

He could have done it easily enough by drawing up a spell pattern, but he would need a little practice to become precise enough to draw runes with the same swiftness as he had before, still adjusting to being C Grade as he was.

When Xavier cast Time Alteration again, he was doing it with all the power he now possessed. He encompassed the entire throne room again. With his newfound power—both from the Soul Energy that he’d infused himself with and now from the advancement—time was all but stopped outside.

Xavier used this time wisely.

He took up Palini’s offer of sparring. But this wasn’t merely a short sparring session to feel out the way he now moved. This was a marathon sparring session—one that lasted for several weeks without ceasing for more than a few seconds at a time to give Xavier a chance to consolidate his gains.

Neither Denizen used a single spell as they fought.

This was a physical fight.

As they sparred, Xavier learnt everything he could about the way Palini moved. Back when Xavier had first fought the man, when he’d dragged him into the Roving Seed Base, he’d noticed instantly that he was a better swordsman. Xavier was stronger and faster—still something that came as a surprise—but Palini’s skill and technique, his grace and efficiency of movement, made him the superior swordsman.

If they’d been fighting with swords alone, without any added spells thrown into the mix, Palini would have been the sure winner.

Xavier knew he could learn a lot from this man.

Xavier wasn’t purely a sword fighter, of course. He could shift Bones into any weapon he wished, and he was skilled with many. He possessed a type of fluid fighting style that required a great amount of intuition and creativity.

Even fighting in that particular style, Xavier knew he wasn’t as skilled as Palini—especially not if their speed and strength were equal. Their speed and strength, however, were not equal. Palini, with his ability to cycle Reality Energy through his body, was faster and stronger than the last time they’d fought, and it showed in the way he moved.

His gains were nothing compared with Xavier’s.

And yet he found himself learning something with every movement he observed. With each turn of Palini’s foot. Each twist of his wrist and sweep of his blade. Every strike, thrust, parry, or block. His footwork was on another level, and his body moved as though the sword were a part of him.

At first, Xavier used Bones only as a sword—after all his gains, he still wasn’t able to defeat Palini in a straight swordfight. In this arena, they had become equally matched.

This quickly changed, however.

In the beginning, they both fought slowly, each becoming reaccustomed with the way their bodies moved. Palini didn’t need as long as Xavier did for this as his changes were far less pronounced, but it still took time for him.

Then, their movements became increasingly smooth and fluid, swift and solid. After every hour that passed they would pause for a brief few seconds and Xavier would sit cross-legged on the marble floor and retreat into his mind. Though to the outside it looked like he was at rest he never was—his brain worked unceasingly.

Again and again, he ran virtual simulations in his mind, using the knowledge of how he now moved and the knowledge of how Palini moved to improve his body mechanics and swordsmanship. Though the meditations appeared brief, to him it felt like more time passed in his mind during those few seconds than the entire hour of sparring that preceded them.

As each hour and day passed, Xavier’s skill increased. His movements became more and more refined.

He had Palini on the back foot.

At the end of the first week, Xavier was easily the better fighter.

At the end of the second week, his pure swordsmanship—though not yet at Palini’s level—had improved dramatically. Palini couldn’t keep his awe from showing. The other man kept telling Xavier his improvement in that short time, even taking into account his advancement, looked to him like many decades of training had passed.

Xavier simply smiled. Their sparring was not over yet.

He had other weapons to perfect.

It was at the start of the third week that something strange happened. Xavier had refused to look at his notifications until he felt as comfortable as possible with his new level of power. He knew the System would have a class change option available, and that there would be titles to look at, but he also knew nothing would change after he looked at them. His class, Wayfarer of the Infinite Path, wasn’t something he was about to change. The titles wouldn’t change anything, either.

Still, looking at them felt like a reward. Though he didn’t need such motivations to train, he did enjoy the prospect of them at the end of what he knew would be a long, long training session.

His fifteenth day of training and sparring with Palini, Xavier turned his sword into a spear.

The change startled Palini. The other man, thus far, had only seen Xavier use two weapons—a sword and a scythe. He was clearly aware the soul bound weapon could shift, but a spear was the last thing he’d expected.

Xavier sat on the marble floor, spear gently gripped in both hands and lying over his crossed legs, then he closed his eyes to retreat into his mind. Before he so much as took a step holding the spear he intended to run a simulation accounting for how he now moved.

The moment he closed his eyes, however, a flash of text appeared across his vision.

What the…?

His first thought was that it was a System notification. Except, he couldn’t see System notifications with his eyes closed. Such a thing was possible—there were Denizens out there who’d lost their sight, and though regaining sight was possible if the damage was strong enough it could take a long time to heal. Those Denizens developed the ability to read notifications with their eyes closed.

Though it was a skill Xavier saw use in, it wasn’t something he’d learnt.

Is the System annoyed I haven’t looked at its notifications yet? Is this its way of forcing me to see them?

Except, the text looked different. The System text, to his eyes, was always in the exact same font. This text was not. When Xavier opened his eyes, the strange notification disappeared. Closing his eyes once more, it returned.

It also didn’t sound like the System.

The text read:

Well, this is weird, and certainly not what I expected.

Xavier’s forehead creased. So as not to make his sparring partner wait, or the other Denizens who’d quietly been observing the match, Xavier snapped the time dilation around only himself as he stared at the text in his mind’s eye.

After a moment, the text disappeared and was replaced with something else.

Are you seeing this, Xavier? Hello?

Xavier opened his eyes. And kept them open. With the text gone, he took a moment to think. The unexpected intrusion of the words in his mind had thrown him off balance.

Ah, Bones?

Yes, Xavier?

Are you—are you the one doing this?

There was a pause.

Doing… what?

Xavier stretched his spiritual sense, reaching out slowly at first. Like everything else, it was significantly more powerful than it had been when he’d been D Grade, and he hadn’t yet practiced with it.

He didn’t sense anything unusual in the area. The Old Man wasn’t even watching him right now. He pushed his senses harder, farther, as he got a feel for their new boundaries. There were other eyes on him, he knew. Eyes that were far, far away, but he couldn’t sense those either.

Doesn’t mean they’re not there, he thought to himself.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes.

I’m not your soul bound weapon, Xavier Collins.

Xavier calmed his mind. There was no use panicking or stressing about whatever this was. He turned his spiritual sense inward, scanning every inch of him, looking for something strange. Looking for… an anomaly.

It was then he recalled what he’d felt before his advancement, when he’d spoken to the Denizens in the room. There had been a spark, a flicker in his mind. He hadn’t known what it was. Hadn’t thought much of it at all.

Which was odd. Why hadn’t he thought about it again until now…?

He’d forgotten about it!

Since when did he forget about things?

Mentally clearing his throat, Xavier willed a response. He simply directed his thoughts, as he might when speaking telepathically to a spirit, his soul bound weapon, or through a Communication Stone.

Who is this?

The response was instantaneous.

Hah! You can see this! Wonderful! I’ve been trying to communicate with you non-invasively for what feels like an age! As for who I am, my name is Haroln Abdicas Vandeerink. Those who know me simply call me Roln. As I’m currently residing within your mind, I feel familiar enough with you for you to use that moniker.

Xavier took a moment to digest the text and its implications.

Panic and stress, he’d told himself, were not useful. But suddenly finding out that someone was residing within his mind… Well, that was a difficult thing not to have a strong reaction to. His mind was his final sanctuary. The place he was safest. While enemies had invaded his mind in the past, they were all dead now.

Not even the System read his mind. If it knew his plans for it…

Haroln—

Roln, if you please.

Roln. What the hell are you doing in my mind?

As Xavier responded, he once again examined his mind with his spiritual sense. At the same time, he retreated into his mind with his mental apparition and began walking all the rooms he had access to, trying to find something out of the ordinary.

Whoever this invader was, he would find them. Then he would kill them.

That’s a rather good question. I’m not sure if giving you the answer would be wise. Suffice to say, I’m here to help.

Forgive me if I don’t believe you. Xavier cleared room after room, walking paths he knew before working on entering doors that had so far been locked to him. And not answering me isn’t a great way to earn my trust.

Yes, I suppose you’re right. You won’t find me, you know.

Xavier paused his mental apparition and swept the room he was standing in. You can see me?

Oh, Xavier, I’m in your mind. I can see everything. Every thought, every memory. I feel what you feel. I know what you know. I know more. I can interact with every neuron you have.

That startled him. Even being murdered didn’t sound so violating as that.

Why should I believe you?

“You don’t have to act on faith. I can prove it to you.”

Xavier whirled. He’d just checked this room and yet on the other side a man now stood. The man was tall with strange clothes. He had the pointed ears of an elf, but the long, sharp horns on his head made him look more like a demonkin.

Some kind of hybrid?

“Forgive my appearance,” the elf-demonkin hybrid said. The man looked down at himself with a sigh. “This isn’t how I usually look. It’s simply the last face I wore.”

Xavier moved. A sword appeared in his mental apparition’s hand and was through the elf-demonkin’s heart in a fraction of a second. Blood poured from the wound. The man’s eyes widened in shock. He spluttered, coughed out blood. Xavier pulled the sword out and watched as the elf-demonkin—Roln—fell to his knees then dropped to the ground, issuing a final, strained breath before going silent.

Xavier frowned at the body, tilting his head to the side.

“You didn’t actually think that would work, did you? We aren’t even in a real space.” The voice came from behind him.

The body flickered away. Xavier turned. The man stood, unharmed, in the middle of the room.

The elf-demonkin raised a hand in a small wave. “As I was saying, I can prove what I can do, if you wish.”

Xavier’s jaw worked. Anger rose and swiftly turned to rage. “Why are you here?”

Roln sighed. “This wasn’t my idea, you know.” A chair appeared behind him, and he sat down.

He’s manipulating my mind…

“Yes. I am.” Roln tapped his forehead. “Can read your every thought, remember. Gods, you’re an angry one, aren’t you? I mean, I suppose I should have known that. I’ve been watching you a while.”

Xavier tried to use those tricks to relax and calm himself again, finding them far less effective. “What do you mean, this wasn’t your idea? And why, exactly, would I want your help?”

Roln closed his eyes. “Both good questions.” He sighed, placed a hand on his head. “This is very strange for me too, you know.”

Xavier was trying to assess the situation as best he could. Trying to calm his panic. Every instinct was telling him he needed to do whatever he could to eject this thing from his mind. Yet he couldn’t sense a single threat with his spiritual sense. Rifling through his memories he couldn’t find any change to his mental defences. As far as he could see, they hadn’t been breached.

Except, they must have been.

He examined the memory of that strange spark he’d felt. The one he’d forgotten about. But there was nothing there but the tiniest of sensations. A sensation so small he was surprised he’d even noticed it the first time.

The amount of power one would need to do something so subtle must be—

“Astronomical,” Roln said, interrupting Xavier’s private thought.

Xavier glared at the man—or whatever he was. “Would you stop doing that!”

Roln shrugged. “Hard not to. Your thoughts are loud.”

Xavier brought every mental defence and attack he had to bear, aiming them all at the invader, and yet nothing worked at all.

“If I meant you harm, don’t you think I would have kept hiding? Or, you know, hurt you?”

Xavier remained standing. “The thought occurred to me. Though if what you say is true and you can interact with all my thoughts, memories, my damned neurons, maybe you already have done me harm and erased evidence of it.” He tilted his head to the side, remembering the presence of the Void Being—how it must have influenced The Collector subtly over the years.

How could Xavier ever trust what he thought or felt again?

“I’m not a Void Being! And I wouldn’t do those things to you. I’m not an asshole.”

Xavier scrunched his mental apparition’s eyes shut and opened the eyes of his real body. He stared into a fixed position on the other side of the throne room and took some real breaths, wondering what the hell was going on. He could use Otherworldly Communion. There might be a spirit out there who would know how to help him…

Something flashed in his vision. A blurry, transparent silhouette. It flickered away as fast as it came. Then it returned, less transparent than before. It did this several times until it appeared solid—except none of his senses, not even his spiritual sense, told him anything was there at all.

“Ah.” Roln looked down at himself, shook out his legs and arms, turned his neck from side to side. “Looks like I’m getting the hang of this.”

“How are you outside my mind?” Xavier asked through gritted teeth. “If you’re not a Void Being, are you a spirit—a ghost?” Rhaalir often appeared to him in a similar way. Except… Rhaalir, even after he’d been boosted by the Soul Energy Xavier provided him with, had never been this solid. Not only that, Rhaalir’s voice—like other spirits—only ever sounded in his mind.

In a different way to how this man’s voice sounded right now.

The elf-demonkin raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m not outside your mind. And I’m not a ghost, either… Not really. I’m simply manipulating your visual and auditory cortexes so it appears and sounds as though I’m standing out here.” He repeated the forehead-tapping gesture he’d done before. “I’m making your neurons fire in a very specific pattern for this work. Took a little while to figure it out, but if I can do this…” His image flickered. The horns disappeared and his ears became rounded. His clothes changed and now he was wearing soft, blue robes with large sleeves that fell over his hands. The robes were long enough to gently brush the marble floor as he moved. They even made a sound as he took a step. The not-ghost nodded, looking down at himself. “That’s better.”

His voice had a deep, powerful resonance. It echoed off the walls—which was, in itself an impossibility as Xavier had contracted the time dilation field around only himself. The sound wouldn’t be fast enough to echo off the walls and back to him…

As that occurred to him, he realised the not-ghost stood outside the time dilation field.

Xavier narrowed his eyes. He wanted to attack this man. Wanted to destroy him. He scanned the area Roln was standing in but again couldn’t sense a damned thing. Everything the man had told him seemed to be true from what he could glean. Though Xavier was sure it was futile, he stood from the ground holding Bones as a spear, took one lunging step, then thrust the spear through the not-ghost’s neck.

Roln sighed. Shook his head. “Why, when you knew it wouldn’t work?”

“Sometimes I don’t know if what I know is actually what I know.”

Roln blinked. “Well, that’s a roundabout way of saying it. Though I suppose it isn’t such a bad philosophy to doubt one’s own assertions. You wouldn’t have gotten so far if you simply worked on what you though you knew you knew, hmm?”

Xavier pulled his spear back, which had passed through Roln as though he wasn’t there—because he wasn’t there—and rested the butt on the marble. He raised his chin and stared at the not-ghost who’d invaded his mind. There was a part of him beginning to wonder if he wouldn’t be able to purge this thing. At least not right away. And if that was the case, and he couldn’t even trust his own senses, how was he supposed to do what he needed to do?

How was he supposed to do anything?

I feel like I’m going insane.

“You aren’t going insane, Xavier Collins. I understand this will take an adjustment period. Honestly, if this were my idea—which, I’ll reiterate, it wasn’t—I would have done this all so differently.” Roln looked off in the distance. Though there was nothing there but the walls of the throne room, his expression made it seem as though he saw something else. “We should have been given a choice.” The words didn’t sound like they were for Xavier.

Xavier released another long breath. If this thing was here to stay, and it was telling him the truth, then what would be the harm in talking to it—to him? But if it was some sort of mental-virus The Collector had somehow inflicted him with…

He clutched his head with his free hand and scrunched his eyes shut. He was getting a headache. Considering his vast powers, one would think that an impossibility.

“I think you owe me an explanation for your being here,” Xavier said. “A real one. None of this I’m not sure if telling you is wise bull. If you’re really here to help me then you have to tell me the truth.”

Roln looked contemplative for a moment before he gave a weak smile. “Fine. In your shoes, I imagine I would want the same.” He raised his index finger and pointed at Xavier. “Though remember that I told you I don’t think it’s a good idea.”