Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 51 - Fire Stream

Xavier hovered in the air on the hundred-and-twenty-first floor of the Tower of Champions. Below him lay a cracked desert. Behind lay the Bright City of Aethisa, its walls burning as it was being attacked by the Phoenix Empire. And above, four suns blazed in the sky.

He was inside a time dilation field expanded large enough to encapsulate thirty D Grade Phoexians—humanoid Denizens with wings of flame and sharp talons and fangs.

Having cast Recursive Analysis for the first time, Xavier grinned as he read the description of the spell he’d caught.

Fire Stream – Rank 60 (Temporary Spell)

Casts: 1

Fire Stream is a powerful fire spell that allows the user to shoot a constant stream of flame toward their enemy. This stream is easily maneuvered and difficult for an enemy to dodge as long as they remain within range, as its direction can be changed faster than most enemies can move.

Fire Stream has a constant cast time—it can last as long as the caste desires it to, as long as the energy is available.

Fire Stream has a chance of causing severe burning damage to the enemy, which has a damage-over-time effect.

Recursive Analysis has taken a step forward on the path!

Recursive Analysis is now a Rank 2 spell.

…

Recursive Analysis is now a Rank 4 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

Xavier grinned as he read the description. He was interested to see the rank the temporary spell had gained—Rank 60. That was right between the rank of his spell and the enemy’s spell.

Something tells me if a Level 1 mage had cast Rank 1 Recursive Analysis to try and capture a Level 120 spell, it wouldn’t have worked. The only reason it worked for me was because I have the attributes to back it up. Hell, even if it had worked, the enemy spell would have killed them.

Disappointingly, those attribute points didn’t help him have more casts of the temporary spell. He was only able to use it once.

At least Recursive Analysis gained a few ranks on its first usage.

More streams of fire were coming his way from the enemy, slamming straight into him. He still didn’t pay them any mind. Though the heat of this world coupled with the heat of all the flames hitting him was beginning to make sweat stream down his brow.

Xavier transformed The Lost Bone of a Dead God into a mage’s staff. He hadn’t cast a fire spell since the very beginning, when he’d learnt the spell Cast Element. The System notification had said he couldn’t walk backward on the path when he’d abandoned that spell.

Yet here he was, about to fling flames at an enemy once again.

Loopholes. There’s always a way…

With a manic grin alighting his face, Xavier cast Fire Stream. There was something very interesting in the description of the spell he wished to experience.

The spell had a constant cast time as long as the caster had enough energy.

And Xavier had plenty of energy.

The Fire Stream spell, like the majority of spells that weren’t connected to a specific core, pulled from his reserve of Spirit Energy.

He couldn’t help but release a laugh as the spell was channelled through his staff. Flames sprang to life and streamed toward the Phoexian who’d first cast the spell.

The stream of flame slammed into the creature and instantly incinerated it, turning its body to ash in the air.

The low rank of the spell didn’t seem to hinder its effectiveness at all.

Xavier’s eyes widened at the sight. He shouldn’t have been surprised he’d one-shotted the thing, considering his Intelligence attribute had reached over 200,000 points with all the titles he’d gained on the last few floors.

The spell only drained a small amount of his Spirit Energy from his core.

Xavier angled the stream of flames toward the next of the Phoexians.

When he’d crushed and broken the neck of the first Phoexian to provoke his enemies into using a spell against him, Xavier had finally sensed fear leak from these creatures.

That fear, however, had been merely a seed compared to what he experienced coming from them right now. But he didn’t need to be able to sense fear to see it in these creatures. The sheer panic of the Phoexians was clear. Eyes widened more than was natural as they turned to flee.

None of them made it as far as the barrier. Not that getting there would have helped them.

Xavier turned the stream of flame on every single one of the enemies. Ash fell, getting stuck at the bottom of the time dilation field where it was frozen in time, collecting in a pile of black like a blanket below him.

When the final of the thirty D Grade Phoexians had turned to ash Xavier cut off the stream of flames.

The temporary spell Fire Stream has been forgotten.

The notification made him feel a pang of disappointment.

Xavier looked in slight awe at what he’d just done. He hadn’t realised how powerful such spells would be, though he knew he could have easily dealt with these enemies in several different ways—a single cast of Soul Shatter likely would have killed half of them. He probably would have been able to use Willpower Infusion to take over each of their minds, too. Soul Strike, certainly, would have killed every single one—hell, he could kill every Phoexian in the sky with a cast of Soul Strike if he wished.

Xavier looked at the staff in his hand. At the ash gathering at the bottom of the time dilation field. He shook his head.

God, this was going to be fun.

Xavier hunted down every single flight of Phoexians headed toward the Bright City. He didn’t head to the Bright City itself. He feared he would accidently finish the floor if he took care of the ones over there.

Dozens of flights were soaring through the sky, all of them consisting of at least thirty of the creatures. Though sometimes there were a few more.

He learnt Fire Stream over and over again. Each time he learnt it, the spell’s rank would go up. It wasn’t until he reached Rank 10 in Recursive Analysis that he gained 2 casts of the spell, which meant he had to contend with the spell’s cooldown.

Recursive Analysis itself had quite a severe cooldown, at least to begin with. The cooldown lasted for half an hour—at least, it did to begin with—which felt like an ungodly amount of time to him.

Xavier had expanded his time dilation field, making it possibly larger than he ever had before, encompassing all the Phoenix flights and the Bright City of Aethisa itself so he could speed that cooldown without effecting what happened around the tower floor.

As he pushed the limits of his time dilation field, he couldn’t help but wonder just how large he might one day be able to make it.

What if he could make the time dilation field large enough to encompass an entire planet? He had to imagine that one day something like that would be possible. What would the ramifications of that be? What would that mean he, or the people on that planet, could accomplish?

What if it were large enough to encompass an entire sector?

There was a seed of potential in that idea, and he filed it away in his mind as he worked.

He was a long way from being able to do something like that.

By the time Xavier had dealt with the different Phoexian flights, his Recursive Analysis spell had reached Rank 60. Rank 60 was roughly where a Level 120 E Grade might have their spells up to.

He was making good progress.

The spell’s cooldown had reduced dramatically over that time, and the number of casts of the enemy spells had gone up as well. The more powerful his Recursive Analysis spell, the more casts he received of Fire Stream. It also made Fire Stream a higher rank spell each time, reducing that cooldown.

Xavier adjusted the speed at which time moved inside of the field each time his cooldown changed.

When all the flights had been defeated, he shifted time within the field once more, contracting it so it only held himself. With time frozen outside his barrier, Xavier returned to the trap door in the cracked desert that was the floor’s exit. He landed gently beside it, pulled it up, then jumped through.

He would grind the floor at least one more time before he cleared it. He wanted to experience the different spells that those within the Bright City possessed.

Xavier didn’t know what the requirements of completing the floor were, but annihilating as many of the Phoexians as he had hadn’t triggered anything, so he had to assume he needed to deal with every single one of the enemy attackers—that was, of course, depending on which force he ended up choosing to fight for in the end.

Did that mean, when he chose to fight with the Phoenix Empire, that he would need to kill everyone within the Bright City to pass through the floor?

That seems like a lot…

Xavier returned to the floor in a heartbeat, not bothering to spend any time in the Staging Room. Experiencing the use of Fire Stream had been exhilarating. He hadn’t realised how much enjoyment he would gain from using an elemental spell. He remembered discarding Cast Element, forgetting it without a second thought, when he’d been moving through his old university fighting against goblins.

He didn’t regret that decision. Heavy Telekinesis wasn’t something he often used in his arsenal these days, but it had been integral to those early floors.

Could he have completed those floors in the same amount of time with different spells?

Probably.

Would he want to try it all again and risk using something else?

Definitely not.

Xavier stood on that cracked desert, four suns blaring down on him, flights of Phoexians above. He cast his gaze toward the burning Bright City of Aethisa. He didn’t know who inhabited that city. What race of Denizens they would be. But he was about to find out.

As he chose which faction to fight for, Xavier had to remind himself what the description told him these people were doing to the Phoexians—capturing them to use as batteries to power their defences.

Xavier didn’t know how that worked. Though it sounded incredibly barbaric and despicable, he couldn’t help but be interested in the mechanics of how something like that functioned.

From where he stood, the Bright City didn’t have adequate defences.

Xavier leapt in the air and flew toward the city. He hadn’t cast Time Alteration yet. He’d stepped back onto the floor so swiftly that the cooldown hadn’t reached its end.

He flew far more swiftly than the flights of Phoexians and knew he would easily reach the city before any of them.

When he touched down on the Bright City’s wall, his cooldown still hadn’t ended, but it was getting pretty close.

Besides, he didn’t wish to freeze time in that moment. He wanted to get an idea of what the enemy were doing in their so-called Bright City.

Phoexians were shooting streams of flame down at their enemies. Xavier’s Farscope had reached the city well before him, and as he’d flown he’d gotten a good look at what he was dealing with.

Dwarves. Or, at least, a dwarf-like race. That hadn’t been what he’d expected. He’d never encountered dwarves in a city like this. But as he looked out at the buildings, he could see it had been dwarven hands that had made them.

The buildings were squatter than he was used to. Everyone made from large, cold blocks of stone. The craftsmanship was practical yet pleasing to the eye. And his Farscope didn’t merely stretch outward, it stretched downward.

Usually, when Xavier was near the ground, his Farscope saw nothing beneath the surface but dirt and rock.

The dwarven Bright City or Aethisa had subterranean levels. He could see several of them—at least five—each with ceilings tall enough for the floors to hold buildings within them.

This was where the citizens of the city that couldn’t fight were huddled. Xavier swallowed. There were children down there. Not just children, either. The adult male and female dwarves that were down there weren’t fighters. They looked as though they’d taken on strong, non-combatant roles as miners, crafters, or even healers.

When he’d thought of who to fight, he hadn’t wondered about the innocents that might be among them, not when he’d heard of what those of Aethisa did to the Phoexians.

But of course there would be innocents. The children wouldn’t have the System. Wouldn’t be fighters. Wouldn’t be able to chose what those around them did to their enemies.

Xavier suddenly felt a surge of guilt at having chosen to fight for the Phoexians.

Then his awareness moved toward the pens. They were on the second basement level of the subterranean part of the city.

Hundreds of Phoexians were trapped in cages. Each had strange wires stuck to them. No, not stuck to them—stuck in them. Needles were lodged directly into the energy channels of their bodies.

Energy fed through those wires. Energy that came directly from the Phoexians’ cores.

Xavier paused on that wall. Dwarves filed out of a nearby door. A myriad of different classes. They flung spells at him or came in close and slammed their hammers and axes at his head and neck and shoulders.

He ignored them as his mind’s eye examined the pens holding the Phoexians. He followed the wires until they reached what looked like a massive crystal.

Almost a dozen dwarves stood around that crystal. One had their hands on it. Another nodded.

As the dwarf nodded, the dwarf with their hands on the crystal cast some sort of spell. A pulse of violent energy rippled outward from the massive crystal and up into the city. The energy ignored the dwarves, but when it reached the Phoexians it pushed them back, shooting them high into the air above the city. Some of the Phoexians had their necks broken in the process. Others had their wings crushed by the sheer impact of the force field slamming into them.

Even Xavier was repulsed by the force field—if that was indeed what it was. It didn’t injure him. None of the attackers had been able to cause any real damage to him. But it did push him straight up into the air. His wings caught him. He glared down at the city.

Once he was up in the air, a volley of massive bolts shot by ballistae were launched, skewering the Phoexians too dazed to dodge.

Xavier didn’t dodge.