Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 7) - Chapter 26 - The Crux of the Issue

The blue-robed man smiled. “Ye—” He frowned at the ceiling. “Technically, no. You are not my father. But Xavier Collins is my father. Honestly, I’m surprised you came to that on your own. You’re not always that fast.”

Xavier was surprised himself. When the idea occurred to him, it felt… Foolish. Like he was grasping for something. Like he was wanting there to be more to the story. More to the interaction.

Yet the spirit couldn’t lie.

“When I saw that anger in your eyes.” Xavier shook his head. “I’ve seen that look before. In the mirror. Back when…”

“When you lived with your mother.”

Xavier blinked. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you knew that.”

Xavier had encountered a lot of strange things since he’d been integrated into the System. This, however, was one of the strangest. He forgot all about why he’d summoned the spirit to him in the first place. Forgot why they were standing in a room in his mind.

All he could see was a man that might one day be his son.

“You never did tell me your name,” Xavier said.

“I don’t intend to.”

“And your mother?”

“You should know better than to think I would tell you about your future, what with the countless ancient sci-fi shows, movies, and novel references you’ve thrown at me about how very dangerous such a thing can be. Not that it’s your future. I don’t always exist, you know.”

“Because I don’t… Meet her? Because I miss my opportunity?”

“Oh, if you live long enough you always end up together. Far as I’ve seen, at least. Living long enough is the hard part for you. I shouldn’t say anymore. Said far too much as it is. I can already feel the spell wearing off. The System has given us far more leeway than usual. I suppose that has to do with you. Still, it should not be pushed.”

“One more question.”

The blue-robed spirit sighed. It was a sigh of reluctant indulgence. Xavier could easily see a son giving that same sigh to their father.

“Fine,” he replied sullenly.

“Why did you want to root around my memories? What were you hoping to find?”

The spirit looked away, became sheepish. “Suppose there’s no harm in telling you.” He looked at Xavier. “I wanted to see her. My mother. Not every spirit makes it to the Otherworld, and with all the versions of her I’ve heard about she never does have any Otherworld spells either.” He shook his head. “I know it wouldn’t be her, just as you aren’t him. When I was alive, I had a perfect memory. The same cannot be said now. There is so much of my life that is faded. When I became a spirit, I didn’t even know what I was for a stretch of time I cannot identify. I had to rediscover everything about myself. Had to rebuild those memories. And I did, for the most part. But I can’t walk the rooms of my mind and find memories of her. I know her name, but I can’t remember her face.”

Xavier was taken aback by that. He didn’t understand it. His own relationship with his mother was… Well, it was what it was, and it wasn’t good.

The same clearly couldn’t be said for this man and his mother. Billions upon billions of years he would have gone without seeing her. He was long dead, and yet even in the Otherworld, all he wanted was a glimpse of her.

That’s a kind of love I don’t understand.

Xavier suppressed a frown. While he didn’t understand that kind of love, there was a part of him that longed for it. Spending so much time in the Roving Seed Base, getting to know everyone there, and for the first time feeling like he had a family. That, and now this, made the small part deep inside him that wanted more from his life grow.

Maybe he would find it one day. The kind of love that lasted for billions upon billions of years.

More impossible things have happened, haven’t they?

When Xavier had first noticed the man rooting around his mind it had felt like a betrayal. Worse, it had felt like he was being violated. He had extended a level of trust to this spirit and the spirit had tried to break that trust.

He’d reined in his anger because he needed information from this man. And something else had blunted his anger, too. The look on the man’s face. There must have been a part of him that had known. A deep part, perhaps his soul, that knew they were connected—even if not in his own universe.

He no longer felt betrayed.

“You just wanted to see her,” Xavier said. “You must have loved her very much.”

“Love. I still love her. It is not a thing of the past.”

Xavier motioned toward the door the man had been trying to get through. It opened seemingly of its own volition. “Go.”

The blue-robed man looked at the door. He seemed about to burst through it when he hesitated, then shook his head. “No. As powerful as you are in your mind, you would be able to feel the memories I accessed.” He sighed. “You would know who she was before you were meant to—that is, of course, assuming you have even met her yet. I can’t be certain of that, and it is not as though I can ask.”

 “You’re so sure that my knowing would be a problem?”

“Knowledge is not always a gift.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that,” Xavier said.

The blue-robed man chuckled. “Of course. And yet, you were the one who taught me that. Perhaps because you didn’t believe it in your youth.”

“Perhaps the version of me that was your father was simply wrong.”

The spirit scoffed. “Well, I suppose that could be the case.” He gave Xavier a mischievous look. “It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.”

The two simply stood there for a long while, inside the centre room of Xavier’s mind, both with creased forehead, both with their heads drooped in deep thought. Xavier was coming to terms with everything he’d discovered—and it wasn’t the information about Universe Pressure that was currently on his mind.

I have a son. No. I don’t have a son. But a version of me, many versions of me, do. Or… Did.

There were infinite paths his life could take, yet this man had said…

I always end up with her…

Xavier didn’t believe in fate. Or, well, he often liked to give fate a swift kick in the teeth and instead walk down his own path undisturbed.

Perhaps I don’t always end up with her. That could just be what this man has seen, what he thinks, what he believes. It’s a very romantic notion. Certainly something one might think of their parents. But what were the odds, that in every life, should I live long enough, I end up with the same woman?

There was no way of answering that. He wasn’t really looking for an answer. But he couldn’t help but think about who this woman might be. Fate. He’d embraced his so-called fate of being the one to defeat the World Destroyer, if only because it was the right thing to do and no one else was about to do it. He’d embraced his fate of one day becoming the Weapon of the System, even if the System had kicked him out of the Tower of Champions after his cores had been shattered—even if he ultimately wanted to bring down, or at least fundamentally change, the System. That didn’t stop him from wanting to prevent the end of the universe.

So maybe he didn’t always give fate a swift kick in the teeth like he thought. Maybe fate, if that was what this was, wasn’t always a bad thing, either.

A wife, a son. A family of my own…

He shut his eyes, saw a picture of it what it could be like.

That actually sounds pretty good.

Xavier took a deep breath—both his mental apparition, and his physical self back in that frozen pocket of time—and let it out. This revelation had thrown him, but it wasn’t the reason he had called upon this spirit.

He put his wish for a family of his own into a box somewhere deep in his mind, ordered his thoughts, and opened his eyes.

Xavier looked at the blue-robed spirit. “Let’s experience that memory together. The death of the Arakashinai Queen.”

“And the shattering of your cores,” the spirit replied.

~

When the memory was over, they returned to the physical world. Xavier, in his own body. The blue-robed man as a spirit, hovering in front of him.

I’m still surprised you’re alive. The spirit gave him an unfamiliar look.

Xavier tilted his head to the side. Concern. That was what it was. The man was concerned for him.

I often find myself feeling the same surprise, Xavier said. But here I stand, stronger for what happened. Now you have all the information. Tell me, what is this Universal Pressure doing to me? This Weight of Reality? And if you’re right, and an even smaller amount than this should have killed me, how am I still breathing?

The spirit raised his chin. Body Cultivation. That was the missing piece. One of them, at least.

Xavier raised an eyebrow. That is what saved me?

In the memory, I could feel your energy channels. Even for someone as powerful as yourself, someone who had capabilities far beyond your grade before you attained this new core and alien advancement of yours, your energy channels were far superior to what they should have been.

And that was enough?

The spirit sighed. No. Not that alone. The amount of pressure… I felt it. The mere memory of it was almost too much for me to bear, and I’m not even alive. He shook his head. But you somehow managed to keep Body Cultivation going for a good portion of the time you were enduring that pressure. Celestial Energy was further strengthening your channels as it cycled through you.

Xavier frowned. He hadn’t known it did that—that having Body Cultivation active, Celestial Energy cycling through him, improved his energy channels. It made sense in hindsight, however.

Reality Energy strengthened his channels while he cycled it, after all. And Reality Energy was, to his understanding, simply a far more potent version of Celestial Energy, rather than the more specific versions of energy that the six Denizen cores created.

During that fight, Celestial Energy had been flooding through his muscles to keep him standing. It had been flooding into his brain and strengthening his mind to keep his concentration strong. It hadn’t been enough. He’d still fallen to the ground. Still succumbed to the pressure and fallen unconscious.

But he hadn’t died.

So, because his energy channels were stronger than normal, boosted by the fact that he had Body Cultivation further strengthening, that was why he survived…

I don’t understand, Xavier said. You have experienced this pressure before. Did you never use Body Cultivation?

I was not aware of Body Cultivation, Xavier. As far as I know, that art never found a home in my universe. Even back then it was a long-lost art. Those who look at me and think I am a child, they remember it, and so I have heard of it since coming here. But as I understand you are the first in many iterations to use it again. The spirit chuckled. At least, in this corner of the multiverse. Perhaps our System isn’t quite as omniscient as we thought…

And you said that was only one of the missing pieces?

The spirit pursed his lips. As I said, I’m still surprised to see that you’re alive. Even after experiencing it. The strength of your energy channels and Body Cultivation… These things helped, but the fact you didn’t succumb to death… Well, maybe the missing piece has been in front of us all along. This was, after all, when Reality Energy entered you. Perhaps that is what ultimately kept you alive, in the end.

You don’t sound convinced.

There may very well be something more at play here, but if there is… It’s above my paygrade, as you were once so fond of saying.

Xavier wasn’t sure he’d ever uttered those words. He could imagine another version of him saying them, though.

And as for what this pressure is doing to you, it’s breaking you down, Xavier. On a fundamental level. Not just your Living Soul, either.

Xavier blinked. Living Soul? You make it sound as though I have more than one soul…

In a way, you do. Though technically they are different aspects of the same soul. The blue-robed spirit frowned. For someone as powerful as you are for your grade, and who has discovered so much, and was once wholly of the Reaper line of classes, there appear to be quite large gaps in your knowledge. I suppose you are still very young…

The spirit flicked his gaze upward, just for a moment, then shrugged and continued on.

You have your Living Soul—that’s the one you can feel inside you, and I know you can feel it. I sense that you have drawn upon its energy before. The mark has been left on your channels. It is that soul that you strengthen when you use Soul Harden. Having a hardened soul, well, that is another reason you still live. The pressure that shattered your cores should have done more than merely damage your soul—it should have crushed it.

Then, you have your Immortal Soul. The spirit patted its chest. A spirit inhabits only its Immortal Soul. It is how we live beyond… Well, life. An Immortal Soul is also what you take from your enemies when you reap them. It is what you shatter when you use Soul Shatter, too, and that is why you cannot reap a shattered Immortal Soul, for it is gone. But when you use Soul Strike it causes a great deal of soul damage. Have you ever wondered that even though you are damaging a soul, and soul damage is what is killing these enemies, why you are still able to then reap them? The spirit raised an eyebrow.

Xavier merely blinked and shrugged. “No. I don’t think that had occurred to me.”

The spirit sighed. Well, no matter. Your Living Soul is what you draw strength from when you use Soul Energy. You could deplete all of your Soul Energy and have you Immortal Soul survive you. There are very few things in the universe that are able to harm an Immortal Soul. That is why reapers are so feared—not just by humans and beasts who are aware of the afterlife, but by spirits too.

The universe, when it applies this pressure, does not distinguish between your physical body, your cores, your Living Soul or your Immortal Soul. Its only goal is to crush, to stop what it perceives—if such a thing as perception can be applied to the universe itself—as a threat to the very fabric of reality. And it’s crushing everything you are.

That is why you feel so exhausted when that pressure is pushing down on you, and for a long time afterward. Your energy channels have been hardened. When you have Pocket Time Stream active, they can bear the weight even if it is a struggle, and what they can’t bear they recover from quickly. Your Living Soul, too, has been strengthened. Hardened. It appears as though it takes no damage at all.

But your Immortal Soul? Well, that is another story.

Xavier inclined his head in thought. Having a soul at all was only something he started to believe when he’d become a Soul Reaper. He hadn’t realised that he technically had two souls.

Or, at least, two aspects of his soul. Living, and Immortal.

So, even though my energy channels are strong, they need to be stronger in order for this pressure to cease?

Indeed. That is the crux of the issue.

Xavier ground his teeth. If I need to become strong enough to wield these spells to use their spell patterns without harming my Immortal Soul, then how am I to recreate what I did in the Arakashinai Queen’s chambers?

The spirit frowned. He looked as though he was about to answer the question when he disappeared, the Otherworldly Communion spell pattern flickering out of existence at the same time.

Xavier sighed as the spell’s effect on time was taken away.

I suppose he finally answered the main question—about what the pressure was doing to me.

It was the longest conversation he’d ever had with a spirit he’d summoned using Otherworldly Communion, yet that didn’t stop him from feeling frustrated that it ended before he found out more.

Universal Pressure was harming his Immortal Soul… That was why it was taking longer and longer for him to recover, despite the fact that he was able to hold the Pocket Time Stream spell pattern active for longer. Each extra second or minute the spell pattern remained initiated was piling more pressure onto him. While the rest of him could resist this pressure more effectively than before, his Immortal Soul was taking damage he couldn’t account for.

So how do I heal it? Hell, how do I strengthen it?

While Xavier was glad he’d found an answer to his question, it only left him with more questions.