Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 54 - A Thing of Beauty

Are you sure that will work? The Lost Bone of a Dead God sounded dubious about Xavier’s idea.

The hot stone beneath him continued to bake the young dragonkin as he sat cross-legged on Aethisa’s battlements. The four suns blared down, but they did not add their heat. The rays of sunlight were stopped short at the edge of his time dilation field.

The female dwarven mage he’d stolen the Untethered spell stood frozen outside the field, her staff raised high, a look of utter determination gritting her teeth and lining her face. Phoexians hovered, unmoving in the air above, their wings stopped mid-flight, the flames of their streams of fire no longer flickering.

Xavier barely registered these things. They were nothing more than an interesting backdrop to his racing thoughts.

The soul bound weapon’s lack of confidence didn’t make Xavier any less excited to try out what he wished to do.

He’d yet to experiment extensively enough with Inscribing. He placed runes on his armour and on the bone arrows that he crafted, and his Inscribing spell had improved tremendously.

But there was still more to do, and nothing he’d done with the spell had been something outside of what he’d found in the handbook he’d received from the Empress Larona.

Nothing, at least, until this idea.

That made him wonder if the handbook had been holding him back—at least a little.

There was something to be said about gaining an understanding of a field, technique, or path of power from someone who was incredibly knowledgably and proficient. But sometimes, when you are so thoroughly engrossed in something that you’ve become an expert, it can be difficult to teach the small steps that a beginner would need in that area.

It wasn’t only that, either.

Well before Xavier had become integrated by the System into the Greater Universe, he’d seen something interesting in the advice given by the authors he admired. Something that had made him wonder what the truth of things were.

The advice was contradictory. There was the camp of people like George R.R. Martin and Stephen King. Writers who arrived at the page without a plan. Without knowing what was going to happen next in the story.

And then there were those who outlined. Who planned. Who got all their ducks in a row before putting fingers to keys. The Sandersons and the Peter F. Hamiltons.

Often, when many of these writers penned advice about writing, they would say their way was the right way.

Xavier wondered if that was the same when it came to different disciplines. If so-called experts became so enamoured by the way they did things, so stuck in their own unique set of steps, that they failed to see other ways…

Did that mean there were hidden ways of doing things, forgotten ways of doing things, that he could discover? Ways that the “experts” refused to even acknowledge, as they were not the ways they found success with?

Though he remained steadfast in his belief that he shouldn’t be guided in everything, that he shouldn’t have his hand held by a more powerful being, he had taken instruction before. Liana’s instruction on time magic had been invaluable to him. Rhaalir, who currently inhabited the Spirit Golem, had also been key in him learning a great deal about his Otherworld spells.

There were other teachers he would find if he could. People who would be able to help him in ways that he didn’t even know he needed help in—like how Liana helped him with his attunements of his different attributes.

He was far more powerful for her guidance.

But there were often boxes these people thought one must remain inside. Or perhaps it wasn’t as simple as them thinking one must remain inside them, but that they couldn’t even see the box’s walls as they’d been stuck inside it for so long.

Xavier wasn’t going to let that happen to himself.

And so, that was where this idea had come from.

From memory, Xavier took up the stylus and began to draw the pattern of runes he’d examined within his minds eye. He didn’t know if it would work, and this was merely the first step in what he wished to accomplish.

But it was an important step.

In the past, Xavier had failed to get any rune he didn’t fully understand to do anything. Which was why attempting this had never occurred to him. That was also the reason The Lost Bone of a Dead God remained dubious about his idea.

The Untethered spell—like all spells Xavier had examined—had thousands of runes within it.

Xavier understood perhaps what a few dozen of them did, and he’d used only a handful of them. He had no idea what the thousands of other runes were. And, unfortunately, his soul bound weapon lacked the knowledge of them as well.

Xavier could use Otherworldly Communion to discover more about the other runes, but as there were so many he knew he’d only be able to get the answers to one or two of them each time he cast that spell.

The cooldown on Otherworldly Communion was too long for him to do such a thing, especially when he gained levels so infrequently—he hadn’t gained a single level since he’d returned to the Tower of Champions.

As Xavier drew more of the runes from the pattern in the air, he found he had to stand and expand the time dilation field. Each rune took up far more space out here than they had within his mind. He expanded the time dilation field in a line along the battlements in such a way that it didn’t touch any of the dwarven defenders.

He wondered what kind of sight he would be to anyone with the power to observe him. A man, standing on the hot stone atop the dwarven battlements of a great city on fire and besieged, his forehead creased and his tongue sticking out slightly as he concentrated, drawing rune after rune in front of him.

It was a baffling position to be in, but Xavier was used to doing all kinds of things inside of his time dilation field.

This probably wasn’t even the strangest one.

His Inscribing rank was at 109. It hadn’t had any movement since he’d left the Hell Moons of Thazamar. He’d not had any need to practice or use Inscribing since returning to the Tower of Champions, though he did miss the act of drawing runes.

There was something innately absorbing about it. When Xavier began drawing the runes, it was as though it was all he could see. He didn’t split his mind into a hundred pieces, each working on this or that or the other thing. His whole mind was sharpened to a point, his focus like the sun filtered through a magnifying glass, burning upon the task in front of him.

Each stroke, each line, each curve of the stylus. All were important. He didn’t know how long drawing those runes took. The ones he’d used before—such as the simple elemental runes that concerned wind, fire, earth, and air—were easy. He knew them as though they were a part of him. They had become as familiar to him as the weapon he wielded. The ones he was merely familiar with took more intention and concentration. For these, he had to slow down and take more care. The ones he couldn’t put a name to, whether the lines and curves of them were simple or as intricate as a needle-point drawing, took the majority of his mental energy. They required a type of slowness he was as yet unfamiliar with. It wasn’t the slowness of meditation; it was something altogether different.

Movement without haste, and an attention to detail that he doubted the unenhanced human brain would be able to sustain for more than a very short period.

It was with these runes he strained the most. Sweat dotted his brow as he finished the hundredth such rune, and that sweat had nothing to do with the heat of this world.

In the past, he’d lost himself down tangents as he’d examined the different spell patterns and the runes they were comprised of, wondering why such runes would be a part of this or that spell, when from his perspective they appeared to have nothing to do with it. Elemental runes certainly didn’t seem relevant to gravity magic.

But as he drew, those concerns didn’t enter his mind.

There was only the stylus and the runes.

He had a vague awareness, every now and then, of notifications entering his vision. They were dismissed out of hand, not an ounce of his focus diverted from his task.

There came a point when Xavier couldn’t walk farther down the battlements to keep drawing the runes. The pattern did not simply stretch to the side, it stretched upward as well.

And so he flapped his wings and hovered in the air to draw them.

When he began drawing these runes, it was perhaps the most difficult thing Xavier had ever done. If he told that to someone, assuming they knew of his other accomplishments, he was sure they wouldn’t believe him. Sure they would think he was overexaggerating, making this into something more than it was. But flying while drawing runes that required all of him took… all of him.

Time lost all meaning as he worked.

Eventually, when the final rune in the pattern for the temporary spell had been drawn, Xavier’s shoulders sagged. He alighted back on the battlements’ hot stones and released a long breath. A large bottle of water appeared in his hand from his Storage Ring. Xavier could go a long time without water. He wasn’t even sure how long. So he was surprised to discover his mouth felt as dry as the cracked earth beyond Aethisa’s walls.

After gulping down the entire bottle, Xavier sighed. He summoned a comfortable chair behind him and collapsed into it. The muscles in his right hand ached. His wrist, his bicep, his shoulder. Even his wings.

As strong as he was, how could that even be possible?

I must have been using new parts of the muscles. Parts that helped with stabilisation. Ones required for slow, intricate work, not for the swinging of scythe or sword to decapitate a foe.

The soreness eased quickly enough. After a few seconds, it was as though the pain hadn’t been there at all.

Xavier tilted his chin up and took in the recreated pattern in its entirety. A smile slipped onto his lips as he gazed upon it.

A thing of beauty.

He simply sat there and admired it, taking the whole thing in. A sense of awe filled him. He didn’t know if the idea he had held water, but in that moment he didn’t care. He’d produced a work of art worthy of the time and energy he’d put into it. Pride mixed in with the awe he felt.

It was then that he recalled the notifications that had appeared. The ones he’d ignored. He cocked his head to the side as he brought them up.

His eyes widened.

Inscribing has taken a step forward on the path!

Inscribing is now a Rank 110 spell.

…

Inscribing is now a Rank 120 spell.

…

Inscribing is now a Rank 130 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier threw his head back and laughed, then he read the notifications again, ensuring he was seeing things clearly.

He had gained twenty-one ranks in Inscribing! And all he’d done was… draw runes. Though he knew there had been a hell of a lot more to it than that.

Xavier couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. This was a step in the right direction. Whatever he’d done, the System had recognised it as progress. A lot of progress.

He couldn’t recall having gained that many ranks that easily in a spell that was already above Rank 100. It was absurd to even think that was possible. Though, he couldn’t speak to how quickly he’d actually gained those ranks, considering he had no idea how much time had passed as he’d drawn the runes.

Xavier looked at the stylus in his hand—the Lost Bone of a Dead God.

What do you think?

I think I’ve never seen anything like it before, the soul bound weapon responded within his mind. But the question remains: Does it work?

Xavier was about to find out.

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