Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 58 - Reinitiating Advancement to C Grade

Reinitiating advancement to C Grade.

…

…

Checking spells…

Denizen’s spells deemed as: Unmatched

Checking skills…

Denizen’s skills deemed as: Unmatched

Checking Spirit Core…

Denizen’s Spirit Core deemed as: Unmatched

Checking Willpower Core…

Denizen’s Willpower Core deemed as: Unmatched

Checking Speed Core…

Denizen’s Speed Core deemed as: Unmatched

Checking Intelligence Core…

Denizen’s Intelligence Core deemed as: Unmatched

Unmatched.

Xavier had read a fair amount on advancement since becoming D Grade, and he’d spoken to his fair of spirits on the matter, too. Not once had he ever encountered the word “unmatched” applied in this context. The only time he’d ever seen that was when he’d gained certain titles…

The last time he’d advanced, the System had given him a title for being the strongest E Grade. An unmatched title. Just as he’d just gotten now, for being the strongest D Grade.

Yet nothing about him had been deemed “unmatched” back then.

While it wasn’t exactly a surprise, he still couldn’t help but stare blankly at the words.

Advancement to C Grade initiated.

Advancement cannot be interrupted.

Prepare yourself.

Xavier braced himself for what was to come next.

The last time he’d experienced this he’d thought he’d been prepared. This time, he didn’t come into the advancement holding any expectations but that of pain. He was elated, but also worried. This would be the first time he advanced in the Denizen path after gaining two tiers in the path of the Cultivator. His body and mind were about to be broken down on a molecular level and stitched back together.

The words from the initial notification flashed through his mind, warning of what would happen if he wasn’t prepared—of the damage that could be done to his spells, skills, attributes, cores, or even the possibility of his death.

But surely nothing like that could happen to him. He was more powerful than any D Grade had ever been. The System had assimilated his differences. It would account for what he’d done.

Wouldn’t it?

As the advancement began pain split every part of his body and mind. His thoughts were ripped apart. It was as though he were being crushed by the weight of a thousand planets while trillions and trillions of insects the size of atomic particles were using deadly sharp pincers to strike everywhere inside him.

He could and could not bear the pain. It was unimaginable and yet happening. It was worse than the last time. A hundred or a thousand times worse he did not know. If a scale for this level of anguish existed, he wanted no part of it.

But just as the last time he’d advanced, as his whole being was torn asunder, there were pieces of his mind that came alert. Despite the added pain and intensity of this advancement, these pieces of his mind were more alert. And deep inside the rooms of that mind of his there was a sanctuary that appeared to be protected. A part of him stronger than any other.

Xavier clung to that part. It was the most alert—the most aware. It felt strange and yet at the same time completely natural that it should exist at all. He knew, instinctively, why it did. This was a part his other path. The path of the Cultivator.

It wasn’t the only part of him that wasn’t touched by the advancement, either.

His Reality Core remained where it was, as pristine as it had been before the commencement of his advancement, though still in need of more Reality Energy.

More aware than last time, he once again felt a presence watching him. Since his last advancement he’d spared barely a thought for this presence he’d detected. And yet now it was here he couldn’t think of anything else.

With the part of his mind that remained intact, Xavier examined the presence. He knew, as he’d known last time, that this wasn’t the System. He could feel the System around him, its energies reforming him, its control over his fate complete. This presence was different. Other. He stared at the presence and felt it staring back. For a moment he wondered if it was one of those eyes he’d felt on him—or perhaps it was what had caused that bright spark of light, the one that had jolted him back to awareness, preventing his death and allowing him to regain control of the influx of Soul Energy he’d been inundated by…

Something beyond the System.

But he didn’t know what it was, only that it was there.

Did it leave when my last advancement ended? Or has it been with me this whole time?

His mind came back together and he tried to point his full awareness—all that he could muster—at the presence, but he could no longer feel it there. He did not think it had gone, rather he realised that when his mind had been torn asunder it had given what was left an odd sort of clarity. A clarity that allowed him to sense in a way he normally couldn’t.

As he wondered how he might gain that clarity another way his mind was once more torn apart.

Dozens of times this happened. Over and over. Mind, body, and Living Soul were ripped and torn and shredded and healed and stitched and glued back together. He began to push his awareness toward what he could feel of the System’s presence, for he never felt it so strongly as when he advanced. He had thought of the energy that surrounded him as System Energy the last time he advanced, but that was simply because he hadn’t had a name for it.

Is there such a thing as System Energy?

Saying that his understanding of the System was incomplete would be a vast understatement. He remembered the conversation he’d had with himself—a significantly older version of himself—back in that cave on another world in another universe. The same cave that he’d spoken to the Voice of the System in the first time. That man had told him things about the System. That was when he’d learned that the System had been created in order to solve the problem of every universe’s inevitable end. And that every universe under its control was simply a “simulation” to it. That it was akin to a computer program.

That version of him had also said the System didn’t create levels and titles but rather facilitated them. He still wasn’t exactly sure how that worked. According to that man, titles had existed before the System, simply in another form.

The System gave me titles when it recognised that I walk two paths of advancement, yet those titles didn’t actually offer me any benefits…

The titles were “unrewarded.” The section of Xavier’s mind that was most intact worked at that problem, trying to figure out exactly what it might mean, all while he was experiencing more pain than ever before.

At first, he’d thought the System had not rewarded what he’d done out of some sort of spite. Now, he wondered if he’d already been rewarded for what he’d done—back when it actually happened. A reward that simply hadn’t been quantified in the form of a notification.

I wish I could see more. See what’s really going on behind the scenes…

Another thing the older version of him had said was that there was something else behind the System, a powerful force or entity, that had existed before the System, that granted people power. Though the older version of him didn’t seem to understand anything about what that thing or being could be. Xavier thought it might simply be energy itself, but maybe…

Maybe that’s the presence I can feel when my mind has been torn apart.

As he pushed the section of him still aware to focus more acutely on the System’s presence and contemplated all of this, he sensed something. In his current state he didn’t have access to his physical senses. All he had access to was a sliver of spiritual sense. That was what felt things.

What he noticed about the System’s presence was faint at first. A whisper. Flashes of indiscernible images. A feather-light touch. He reached out to whatever this was and examined it in more and more detail.

It felt like… words. Like a language being spoken. A language with shape and substance both auditory and physical. There was a rhythm to it, too. It wasn’t merely words. It was… a song. Xavier could almost grasp what was being said, like when watching two people argue in a different language. The words didn’t make sense but there was something of the motions all humans made that almost made it made it comprehensible. Or when listening to a symphony—the music might not convey meaning in the traditional sense, but it conveyed feeling.

Whatever this song was, he recognised it.

The more he reached for it, the more he was able to grasp it, and the more defined it became.

Until it was clear: These are runes.

It was a language that was being spoken. The language of the universe itself. A language that Xavier, with his advanced use of runes in spell patterns along with the experiments he’d made with them and the others back in the Roving Seed Base, understood a very, very small amount of.

But he’d never experienced runes like this before.

The System weaved the magic of the runes, the language of the universe, not like an artificial intelligence wrote code in a programming language. No, these runes moved with a natural grace only the most masterful artist could possess. The song was beautiful and powerful—and it was the song of his advancement.

Now that he could hear it, the pain he was in drifted into the background. The beauty of what he experienced overshadowed all other sensation until it abruptly ended and Xavier found himself lying on the throne room’s marble floor, staring up at the stars through the glass ceiling, coming back to consciousness in a body that felt entirely different to how it had before.

He hadn’t undergone another racial shift. His body didn’t feel different because he was suddenly another race as it had the last time.

It was the power it held.

He felt like a bomb on the verge of exploding. Felt like a spring as large and tall as Mount Everest compressed down to the thinness of paper. Any movement he made felt like that energy would be released.

People stood over him, staring down at his face. Palini was foremost amongst them. They didn’t speak. They’d all gone through advancements. All been in a similar position as him. Knew he shouldn’t be interrupted. When it was clear he was conscious again, Palini took a step back, and the others took several more.

 Xavier blinked up at the glass dome above. Blinking felt wrong. His eyelids crunched together faster and with more force than he’d intended. He’d long grown used to growing in power and the changes it wrought on his habitual movements. A slow gain in strength allowed one to adjust over time, barely noticing the difference in everyday movements.

That was not so for a Denizen. Least of all a Denizen such as him.

All his neural pathways, especially in his motor cortex, had been built for a weaker Xavier. Once more, they would need to be altered. Updated. This would happen fairly naturally if as he started to try and move normally, but if he allowed it to happen naturally it would take longer and more mistakes would be made along the way.

With this kind of power at his disposal, he couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

Slowness. Awareness.

As long as he moved with intention, as long as he was the one controlling each of his muscles and movements rather than falling into automatic motions, he would better be able to avoid those mistakes.

With the smallest of movements that took the least amount of effort he could muster, Xavier moved to sit. He was lying on his back, so he simply bent at the waist, moving his torso upward.

He came up like a bullet shot from a rifle. The “small” movement created enough momentum that he found himself briefly in the air. His feet touched down and finding his balance was an interesting thing.

As Xavier stood, he looked like someone on the edge of precipice worried they’d lose their balance and fall.

Smaller movements, more awareness.

Everyone was staring at him even more intently than before. Palini had an eyebrow raised a smirk tugging the sides of his lips. Xavier straightened—carefully—and faced Palini. Already he felt like he knew this body more. Already he felt the adaptions being made. He sighed, and the force of the exhalation made Palini’s hair flutter about.

Well, maybe he still had a ways to go.

“You look like a child trying to control the body of a giant.” Palini chuckled.

Xavier couldn’t argue with that assessment. “The advancement to C Grade brought more power than I expected,” he muttered. “I’ll adjust.”

Several notifications had already popped up into his vision. Notifications he wanted to read. But first, he needed to ensure he could actually move as he wished.

Xavier frowned, noticing something about Palini. The man’s arms had regrown. “How long was I out?”

Palini scratched his head and looked glad that he could. “A couple of hours.”

Xavier whistled. He tried to make it a small sound but of course it echoed about the hall and made a few of the C Grades flinch. “Impressive.”

While it had only been Xavier and Palini inside the time dilation field, when the Void Being was still alive and trapped by that time prison, Xavier had taught the B Grade swordsman a thing or two about Reality Energy, even going so far as to offer him some.

Xavier had provided other Denizens with Reality Energy in the past—his found family—and taught them how to create their Reality Cores. His own Reality Core had manifested seemingly spontaneously, though of course it had been anything but. He’d gained a drop of the energy when Universal Pressure had been pushing down on him and shattered him along with his cores. That drop of Reality Energy had been enough to solidify deep within his energy channels. Over time, as he’d relearnt how to cultivate Celestial Energy, the drop of Reality Energy attracted a trickle of everything he brought into himself until finally it had enough to form a core.

The process had been a long and difficult one. But that was because his energy channels had been incredibly damaged and at the start he hadn’t even had the ability to cultivate—and also because he hadn’t known it was even happening.

Knowledge and experimentation allowed him to help such things happen in other Denizens far more swiftly than they’d happened in himself. He’d found that a Reality Core could be formed incredibly quickly in another Denizen if enough Reality Energy was provided.

Though he imagined there was great benefit in allowing such things to happen over time—primarily the way the Reality Energy remoulded and strengthened the body, mind, and soul, and the skill in cultivation one gained from doing it in such a way—it wasn’t necessary, and Denizens, assuming they weren’t very low level, had already become strong enough to handle the change.

So, when the System notification had said it was deciding whether or not to destroy all the anomalies present, it wasn’t just the lives of Xavier’s found family that were threatened, it was Palini as well, for in that short time he’d been able to form a Reality Core.

And it was energy from that Reality Core that had helped him regrow his arms so fast. Xavier had provided him with the Reality Energy, taught him how to grow his core with the intention of it helping the man heal faster. But still…

“I didn’t expect them to grow back so quickly,” Xavier said.

Palini held up his arms and looked at his hands, turning his palms forward and back and wiggling his fingers. “Neither did I. Damage like that… Well, while B Grades have incredible powers of healing compared to the lower grades, certain things can take much longer as there is more to be restored.” He shook his head, in awe.

Though he had developed a Reality Core, the man was still only Tier 1 in the other advancement path. Xavier hadn’t yet shown him how to expel impurities. Something told him that would be a rather difficult process for someone who’d lived for hundreds of years and was already B Grade. Ten percent of this man’s impurities—which was needed to advance from Tier 1 to Tier 2—would likely be a massive amount.

But Xavier had shown him how to use the Reality Energy as fuel along with how to cycle it around his body and several different cycling patterns, mostly those that promoted his healing. The cycling of the Reality Energy alone around his body would make him stronger, even if that strength shift wouldn’t be as pronounced in a B Grade than it would in someone of a lower advancement—especially as he was only benefitting from a very small amount of Reality Energy that was comparatively weak to what Xavier possessed.

One of Palini’s hands came to rest on his hilt. “Care to spar?” He grinned, and the man looked more carefree than Xavier had ever seen. “I’d like to exercise these new arms of mine, and, well, it looks like you could use the practice.”

Xavier laughed and looked down at his own hands. His soul bound weapon was sheathed as a sword at his side. He had to admit, he itched to draw it. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? I was faster than you before I advanced to C Grade. And now…”

“Oh, you’re worried you’ll accidentally hurt me, are you?”

“Hurt? No. I’m worried I’ll accidentally kill you.”

“Well, what better time to learn control than when there’s a little risk?” Palini winked. For some reason, he was having fun with this.

The rest of the Denizens in the hall were quiet. What felt like minutes ago but had actually been hours, Xavier had told them all that there was work to be done—then he’d gone ahead and activated his advancement without telling them what that work was.

And they’ve just been standing there the whole time…

Xavier’s hand had come to rest on Bones’s hilt as he’d spoken to Palini. He released his grip and turned, as slowly and smoothly as he could manage, to face the others. While they remained in a time dilation field, the work that needed to be done wasn’t exactly imminent, but he didn’t want these people thinking it was unimportant by seeming to dawdle.

So he told them his plan. Told them how he was going to solidify his rule over the Ventorin sector and ensure peace came as swiftly and bloodlessly as was possible.

Every Denizen including Palini looked at him with wide eyes as he shared the details with them.