Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 21 - Pocket Time Stream

Xavier ended up spending at least three hours each with Michael, Rebecca, Rose, Kelly, Miranda, Howard, Siobhan, and Justin on their final day in the Roving Seed Base—a day that ended up being much longer than twenty-four-hours by the end of it.

As always, he was thoroughly impressed with each of their abilities. While all eight of them had the same class and much of the same advantages, none of their fighting styles were all that alike, nor were the majority of the spells they chose to use.

Like Xavier, they each had Time Alteration—and that wasn’t the only time spell they all possessed.

They also each possessed the Pocket Time Stream spell.

The Pocket Time Stream spell didn’t do what Xavier had expected when he’d first encountered the name. For a moment, considering “Time Stream” was in the name, he’d thought that it would give them the ability to create alternate universes and paths into—then back out of—those universes. Much like the Spirit of Time could with her use of creating different unfoldings of time.

An ability like that worried him. He knew the risks of damaging the walls of reality by using too many unfoldings in a particular place. He also knew the number of unfoldings that would do such a thing was different depending upon the location the spell was cast.

That wasn’t the case. Instead, the Pocket Time Stream only altered the being it was cast upon—in a very unique way.

It allowed the user to connect with the time stream of a different universe, while still remaining in their own universe. The spell was incredibly rare. The first time he’d read the name had been when he was one-thousand volumes deep into He Who Fights With Beasts by Pantaloon.

At first, after the narration explained what the spell could do, Xavier had thought it was pure fiction. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d encountered a fictitious spell in one of these serials. It almost made him dismiss it. But the author of He Who Fights With Beasts, unlike some other authors he wouldn’t mention, had never put something in their story that didn’t actually exist. They’d always been factual with their spells, even if the story itself was clearly wish-fulfillment.

So, Xavier had pushed himself to discover more about the spell, and where he might be able to find it. He’d used the System Shop to hire an Information Broker—being more careful than the first time he’d used one—who could find out more about the spell for him. He’d had to pay an exorbitant amount of spirit coins for the service, especially since he wanted it as a rushed service so that he wouldn’t have to make too much time pass in his universe.

That was the problem with trying to interact with the outside world while essentially frozen in time. You had to actually stop freezing time to get anything done. It was always a pain.

The Information Broker he first contracted wasn’t able to find what he needed, but he found someone else—even more expensive—who might be able to. While Xavier had still had to pay for the “rushed” part of the job, the deal with most brokers was that you didn’t have to pay for information that wasn’t actually found. Unfortunately, because most Denizens didn’t need something done quickly, it still ended up being expensive.

That second broker pointed him to a third. This went on until he’d reached the fifth broker. This Information Broker was physically located in a sector on the other side of the universe, one of the early galaxies that had been integrated by the System billions of years ago. The System Shop didn’t even show the broker’s service as available to him when he went searching for it. The only reason he’d been able to make this connection was because of the middlemen he’d employed.

Though Xavier had the intention of taking down the System because of the conflict and death it caused, he couldn’t fault the sheer usefulness of its marketplace.

Perhaps some of its functions could be preserved, or another version of the System could be used or created to be put in its place…

This final Information Broker mostly provided Xavier with rumours. The spell was something only A Grade Denizens of a specific line of time mage class could acquire, as far as the broker knew. A Grade Denizens didn’t tend to share the spells they had access to, or how they were able to acquire them. The broker had only secured information of A Grade Denizens possessing this spell at all because it was a part of his trade. Often, what he traded for wasn’t spirit coins but information for information.

When someone unique came to him, desperate to learn something, it put the power in his hands.

That was, in fact, the only way Xavier was able to afford access to the man. Even if he could have connected to him through the System Shop, he wouldn’t have been able to afford an Information Broker A Grades used—especially since the Denizen was A Grade himself. And he certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford a rushed job from them.

But Xavier was someone unique, with unique information. He even had knowledge no one else in this universe possessed—except for those he had told. The System Shop allowed for truth contracts between broker and customer and allowed for anonymity in this process.

Xavier had almost backed out at this point. He’d spent a great deal of spirit coins to get there, but that loss could be recouped. The information he possessed was valuable, but also dangerous if it ever got out.

He thought long and hard about what he could tell the man—about what the man might even care to know.

Their brief conversation, conducted through the System Shop and under truth contract, was a short one:

Broker: [The System reads you as D Grade. I am only opening this conversation out of curiosity. No one below B Grade has had the gall to try and contract my services in a billion years. Are you some noble brat who thinks because their mother or father is powerful, they have permission to throw that weight around? Say so now so you don’t waste my time.]

Receiving the message had actually made Xavier chuckle. The man’s flippant tone—actually, Xavier wasn’t sure if the broker was a man or woman, as their identity was concealed—intrigued him.

Xavier replied almost instantly, as he was making time move incredibly slowly outside the time dilation field so he could think about his responses, then speeding it up until he received the broker’s.

Customer: [I am the son of no one of importance. I have information you might find valuable, if you have what I need.]

Broker: [I have what you need, though I don’t know why you need it. I doubt a D Grade of no import could have information I want, even if the truth contract shows you believe it’s so.]

Customer: [I did not say I was of no importance. The System is watching me, as is the Old One, the First Progenitor. Does this pique your interest?]

Despite how much Xavier was speeding up time for the broker’s response, there was a quite notable delay.

Broker: [Are you offering me your identity? Intriguing as that might be, what little conscience I possess that remains requires me to inform you that that would be a very poor decision on your part.]

Customer: [No. I am offering you information of importance to every Denizen in our universe.]

Broker: [So you believe… But the System, and the Old One, they must be watching you for a reason.] Another pause. [Fine. You have a deal. If only because my curiosity is further piqued. But do not think this generosity will be extended a second time, mysterious D Grade child.]

Customer: [The universe is coming to an end. The System knows this. The First Progenitor knows this. It is why the System exists in the first place. This is not something I merely believe, as per the terms of the truth contract. This is an immutable fact. I can prove this if you wish to buy Confirmation from the System.]

Buying Confirmation from the System was something Xavier only recently discovered. It was something only Information Brokers had access to, and only then when they were C Grade or higher. The System had a functionality that could confirm whether information attained was not only believed by the person giving that information through a truth contract, but whether it was actually factual.

Those two things were not always the same. And the System, after all, would know.

Buying Confirmation was expensive, however, and it was up to the Information Broker to pay for. Usually, from what he’d learnt, a broker was unlikely to use this method—at least not as their first step toward ensuring the information they were attaining was correct. The truth contract was the first step, and usually enough, though it could sometimes prove faulty. The second step was the customer providing memories where the proof was evident. This was another function the System Shop could mediate if a broker was of a high enough level.

The final step was buying Confirmation, if the Information Broker wanted iron-clad insurance about what they were attaining.

Xavier worried the Information Broker would want to sift through his memories. That was something he was unwilling to offer. It would show far too much of who he was.

Xavier’s message to the broker brought a silence that stretched for an entire day of universe time before the broker finally responded.

Broker: [Here is an Information Packet with everything I know about the spell you requested. I may have been too hasty with my former pronouncement. If you have any more information regarding what you shared, I am willing to deal with you in the future.]

Xavier was more than a little surprised that what he’d tried had actually worked and relieved the broker didn’t mention wanting his memories as proof. He thought he might be able to get the broker’s attention with certain information, but he didn’t even know if he’d be able to get them to respond in the first place.

When the Information Packet arrived, Xavier had discovered something very interesting. Denizens weren’t the only ones found to possess the Pocket Time Stream spell—so the rumours told. There was a beast out there who possessed the spell. This beast existed on a world in the First Sector—the very sector the Old One, the First Progenitor, and Adranial’s ancestor, was born in and ruled from.

The first sector the System, at least in this universe, spread to.

The beast itself was B Grade and, according to the Information Packet, had been in hiding for roughly the last million years. It could have advanced to A Grade by now. It could be long dead. Though there had been sightings more recently than a million years that pointed toward it being alive.

Pocket Time Stream was merely one of the spells it possessed. The beast had been hunted for as long as knowledge about it had passed from one Denizen to the next, as one of the spells it had was rumoured to be the ability to pass from one universe to another.

The beast was a Universe Hopper.

So there are Denizens out there aware of Universe Hoppers.

The only Universe Hopper Xavier knew about was the woman who’d created the Hell Moons of Thazamar—and the only things he knew about her were that she was a woman, a Universe Hopper, and that she’d created those moons before the System had spread to the sector that contained them.

Whether she was dead, alive, in this universe, or any other was a complete unknown.

One of the reasons the universe hopping beast was hunted was because Xavier wasn’t the only Denizen in his universe who possessed the ability to attain another Denizen or beast’s spells. Even if there were no other Wayfarers of the Infinite Pass but himself and those he’d trained in this universe, there were others with similar classes. There were also powerful Denizens out there who believed they could bond this beast to them, effectively allowing them to use its spells.

Then, there were those who thought a beast with the ability to hop universes was too dangerous to fall in another’s hands, and so they wished it dead.

Though the beast had been in hiding, there had been sightings, always on the same world. Though the Information Broker noted that many of these sightings were difficult to confirm, he did have proof of some of them. The rumour was that though the beast could hop universes it was still tied to this one, so it always had to return.

Xavier was both disappointed and determined as he read about this beast. If others, those more powerful than himself, had been searching for it for so long, what were the odds he would find it? It was true that he possessed abilities other Denizens in this universe didn’t—he could pierce another being’s veil. That would be an asset for sure in a hunt like this.

But the sightings had been once every few hundred years. Sometimes a sighting wouldn’t happen for millennia. The last confirmed sighting the Information Broker had proof of was 625 years ago.

On Earth, we were still in the Late Middle Ages, and the hundred-year war was a little over half way through…

Considering the sightings were so far apart, it probably wouldn’t matter if he could pierce the beast’s veil or not—it could be in an entirely different universe.

Reading this, his mind was constantly concocting and disregarding plans of how to find the beast and capture not only its Pocket Time Stream spell with Recursive Analysis, but its universe hopping spell as well.

He could get to the other side of the universe. He had a Universal Travel Key, and he could actually use it. But there was no telling if he’d ever be able to find the beast—certainly not in a short period of time. He might have to wait on the world for a hundred years before encountering.

Maybe even longer.

Not only that, his spiritual sense might be powerful, but it wasn’t yet powerful enough to spread across an entire world. It certainly wasn’t strong enough to cover an entire while world while maintaining the ability to pierce the veil of a B Grade beast.

The spells, however, were incredibly tempting to him.

After a time, he forced himself to read through the rest of the Information Packet. It named several A Grade Time mages who possessed the spell and had details of the spell’s description as well. The description was very, very promising—even if the spell’s abilities would be diminished at his current grade, assuming he could learn it at all—it looked as though it should do exactly what he needed.

He was biting his lip as he wondered how he might be able to approach one of these powerful A Grade Denizens and have them cast the spell in front of him, or how he might manage that stealthily, hiding in the shadows while they used it so he could snag it with Recursive Analysis… but he didn’t have any answers. None that he liked, anyway. He could contact Adranial now—he’d been able to do that for a long while—and ask her to get him into contact with her ancestor.

A man like that would be able to make such connections, assuming he were willing, but Xavier knew it would come at a cost. As valuable as the spell would be to him, he didn’t know if that cost would be worth it.

That didn’t stop the ideas from flowing through his mind. As he continued to read the Information Packet, however, he was starting to believe acquiring this particular spell was beyond them—at least at this stage.

Then he came to last part of the Information Packet. It almost seemed as though it had been added as an afterthought.

There was a memory included in the packet. Proof of the spell’s abilities.

Xavier’s eyes widened as he hovered his will over the memory. Instantly, he was pulled into it, locked into the mind and body of another. The memory was strange. Altered. People stood around him, but their faces were blurred, and his spiritual sense was blunted—all his senses were blunted.

Or rather, the senses of the person in the memory were blunted.

The area in which the person stood was a vast expanse of white that stretched on forever.

He’d experienced other people’s and beast’s memories before. This was not what it was usually like. This memory was edited down so nothing of the person whose memory it was could be identified by someone experiencing it.

What the memory did contain, however, was a full System description of the Denizen’s Rank 275 Pocket Time Spell.

Xavier read the description before him. It was more detailed than what had been in the Information Packet.

Pocket Time Stream – Rank 275

Pocket Time Stream is an incredibly rare, high grade time spell. This spell can be self-cast or cast on another being.

When Pocket Time Stream is in effect, it connects a being’s body, mind, and soul to another universe. This effectively allows the user to benefit from another universe’s time stream, speeding up the cooldown times of their spells. This spell can also have the opposite effect of slowing down a cooldown, depending upon the speed time is travelling in the target universe.

This connection also makes the being appear as though it originated from the target universe. This particular attribute of the spell adds the benefit of confounding precognition abilities, making one’s fate essentially invisible.

When cast, this spell will connect to either a random universe, a universe the user has connected to before, or a universe the user has visited.

Though this is a time spell and primarily uses Speed Energy, it requires all six energies to cast and is incredibly difficult to maintain in combat.

Xavier’s eyes widened as he read through the description. This… This would be perfect. He already knew exactly which universe he would connect to if given the chance—the universe that the one hundredth floor of the Tower of Champions was based on. At least, the version of that universe he’d visited.

Time moved far, far more swiftly in that place.

The cooldown problem that happened within a time dilation field—even outside of one—would be incredibly improved. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a great start.

Though he did wonder about connecting to the universe where the fifth floor had been located, though he wasn’t exactly sure how time moved there. On that floor, only an hour could ever pass in his own universe.

The System must alter the time streams on the fly.

He tilted his head in thought when he discovered connecting to another universe—having one’s origin universe appear to be different—would confound precognition abilities. It instantly made him wonder about Empress Larona. The woman had said his line of fate had disappeared. If Xavier followed the logic of the information he now had, it implied that Xavier’s “origin” universe was no longer the one he was born in.

Did I somehow connect to another? Or… Has my origin been untethered?

He had no idea what that might mean if it were true. It certainly wasn’t something he knew how to find the answers to in that moment.

Still experiencing the memory, the description of the spell disappeared. Xavier felt his spiritual sense light up. Where it had been entirely blunted, now he could feel the energies within the person’s body moving. Speed Energy was the strongest of these energies, but as the spell’s final paragraph noted, this spell required every energy—energy from all six cores.

Xavier, before his cores were shattered, had discovered his Spirit, Willpower, Speed, and Intelligence Cores. To reach C Grade, having a fourth core discovered was a requirement. A high C Grade would have their fifth discovered in order to advance to B Grade.

And a high B Grade would need their sixth discovered if they were to push to A Grade.

With that information in hand, only a high B Grade—like the hunted beast that also possessed this spell—or an A Grade was even able to cast Pocket Time Stream.

This should have dissuaded Xavier. And for a moment, it most certainly did. But as he continued to experience the memory, feeling and watching as the A Grade Time mage cast Pocket Time Stream, another of his senses flickered into being.

Huh.

Something curious had happened. Suddenly, though it had been entirely blocked from him before, he was able to enter the caster’s mind. The mind, like his own, was shown to him as a room. This, he knew, was only a construct that helped him interact with the mind, and not what it actually looked like—he doubted he’d be able to comprehend that.

The room had several different doors leading out of it, but they weren’t only locked, they were blurred. Several other things in the room were blurred as well, but not everything. A painting stood out on the wall of a small child. A boy. The young boy stood on the edge of a cliff with a massive smile on his face, looking up at something—the perspective was facing down at him, as though hovering in the sky above the mountain’s edge.

But that painting—a small remnant of the caster’s mind that had accidentally been left behind in the memory—wasn’t what drew Xavier’s attention.

This room was like Xavier’s main room in his own mind. It was everything that was at the top of the A Grade Time mage’s thoughts. And in the centre of the room was the very thing that he needed.

The spell pattern for Pocket Time Stream.