Free Tier - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 13 - The Pattern

Xavier blinked at their question.

Yarien had asked him whether his Time Alteration spell could be used through a portal. Xavier had opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly, for he realised he… Didn’t know.

“I’ve never tried that. I’ve opened portals inside of a time dilation field, but I’ve never pushed a time dilation field through a portal before…”

His thoughts whirled and he wondered at the utility of being able to do something like that. He had an idea of why the elven woman might be curious if he could do such a thing.

Xavier turned away from the new party he’d found. His companions, Volkarin, Rhaalir, and Romalda, had left the five of them to go train. They were still on the Fifteenth Descent—they really hadn’t been there all that long, what with how much Xavier had been freezing time.

Xavier cast Portal. A portal materialised directly in front of him, while another appeared behind Yarien. Then, Xavier cast Time Alteration. With Avadina’s help, he didn’t have to wait for it to reach the end of its cooldown. She would refresh the spell whenever it was necessary.

He created a small time dilation field, one that only held himself. It didn’t stretch to the portal in front of him. That was just outside the barrier.

Xavier then moved the time dilation field forward, through the portal. As he did this, he wasn’t sure how he’d never considered this application in the past. Even if he didn’t believe it would work—and that was what he believed in this moment—it would have been easy enough for him to test it. Especially when he’d been back on Earth.

Xavier was met with some sort of resistance the moment the time dilation field reached the portal’s opening.

He frowned. The resistance was both mental and physical. It was like the time dilation field was coming up against a brick wall, while at the same time something was blocking his mind from even believing what he was trying was possible.

But Xavier wasn’t about to give up on the first try.

For the first time in a little while, he was all alone in the time dilation field. Just him, his thoughts, and the problem before him.

As much as he enjoyed the company of others—and he found that despite being a bit of a loner both pre- and post-integration, he did like the comradery—he found he most certainly felt most at home when it was just him.

Solitude would always be his sanctuary.

Not for the first time, that made him wonder if he would be able to acquire something like Empress Larona’s Personal Space. A portable homebase. Especially if he were able to extend his time dilation field through a portal…

It would make the breaks he took while inside a time dilation field a lot more satisfying, if he had somewhere to spend them.

Xavier set himself toward the task at hand. He split his mind in several ways, so he could put his full focus on each aspect.

The physical barrier had to be imagined, for there should be nothing stopping something from moving through that portal. Xavier had seen other spells move through his portals before—he’d used it as a shield for that very purpose, to redirect enemy attacks.

The mental block was interesting as well. The doubt he experienced at this being possible felt artificial somehow. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but it did.

Xavier looked from one portal to the other. They weren’t spaced very far apart, though he didn’t think that would be a consideration. While he didn’t truly understand how the portal worked, he had to imagine it bent space time somehow, making the space between two points shorter.

He took a deep breath.

Xavier had come upon many “impossible” things in his time. He’d come up against the odds over and over again, and he’d succeeded. This was one of those situations where he didn’t want to use Otherworldly Communion and ask if what he was trying was possible.

He didn’t want some spirit telling him he couldn’t do it.

He simply had to believe it was possible. That was the first step.

Xavier came up against the mental barrier once more as he tried to push the time dilation field through the portal. Only this time, he was able to shift the mental block—to move it to the side. If only very slightly.

It wasn’t enough to get passed it, however.

While doing this act, something strange happened. Xavier’s forehead creased. He sensed something deep within him—something about the Time Alteration spell he’d just cast. He tucked his chin down near his chest and narrowed his eyes in concentration.

What is that?

There was… An unusual thought pattern somewhere deep within him. He couldn’t tell if it was in his mind, body, or soul—perhaps it was embedded into all three of them.

He didn’t know how much time passed as he focused on the pattern. He turned multiple parts of his mind toward the task of deciphering it, looking at it from several different angles.

The pattern felt familiar. Like something that was a part of him. At the same time, it felt artificial, just like the mental block that he’d been feeling felt artificial.

Could this be…

It clicked. The separate parts of his mind all came together at once as the realisation hit him. He knew exactly what this pattern inside of him was—a pattern that related to the Time Alteration spell he was using.

It was the blueprint that allowed him to use the spell in the first place!

That was how the System worked. When one gained a new skill or spell, the System would imprint the blueprint of how that spell worked into the Denizen, which would allow them to use it without having to learn it.

That was one of the biggest advantages of using the System in the first place. Denizens didn’t have to create things from whole cloth. They were cut to the exact shapes and sizes they needed. Skills and spells were designed in such a way that a Denizen could use them almost the instant they learnt them, with only slight adjustments and learning curves.

But Xavier knew this wasn’t the only way to learn how to use a spell. He knew that before the System was created, there were people out there who were able to perform amazing feats… People that were able to create the very System itself.

Xavier spent a good long while trying to decipher the pattern. Even if he knew what it was, that didn’t mean he actually understood it.

This pattern was something incredibly valuable. Every Denizen had patterns like this, for each of the different skills and spells that they’d learnt. But this was the first time Xavier had felt it. That seemed significant to him.

It also made him wonder why he’d felt it. What might be different.

He didn’t abandon the original task he’d been trying to achieve. While this was a tangent, he ultimately thought the better he understood the pattern, the better he would be able to circumvent it and do something the spell was trying to tell him he wasn’t ready for.

The longer Xavier examined the pattern deep within himself, the more it felt familiar. Not because it had been a part of him for some time, but for another reason which he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Xavier idly tapped his boot on the stone floor beneath him as he thought on this.

How could this be familiar? Am I just imagining that it is?

“No…” Xavier muttered. “It couldn’t be that, could it?”

Xavier focused, dipping himself into the specific meditative state that allowed him to draw runes, and sense their connection to the universe when the runes were used to perform rituals.

In this state, he was not only able to draw runes or sense those connections, but he was also better able to interpret runes he saw—though that ability was something the skill was only just starting to impart to him the more ranks he gained in it.

The moment he fell into this deep meditative state and used it as a lens to look at the pattern within him for his spell Time Alteration, he saw why the pattern had been feeling familiar to him.

The pattern was made up of thousands of different runes. In his mind’s eye, it looked as though they had been stitched together like a quilt, or that they were different links on a chain. He couldn’t quite articulate how they were connected, only that they were.

Runes. The pattern is made up of different runes!

The revelation lit a fire under him. He summoned the handbook on inscribing into his hand and gripped the cover between his fingers, as though it were some sort of talisman.

All the time he’d spent reading the book, delving deeper, contemplating, practising with runes…

It was all worth it—there’s something here. Something amazing.

This only confirmed the theory that runes were the language of the universe, a language that the System used to do what it needed to do.

It made him wonder if similar runes to the ones he’d found in the very floor and walls and ceiling of the Hell Moon Thazamar could be found in dungeons created by the System, or if when he returned to the Tower of Champions, he’d be able to sense them in the walls there. In the tavern. In the staging room. In his own quarters.

Xavier shook his head.

The blueprint was written in runes!

Though Xavier spent a great deal of time trying to examine the different runes that he could see in the pattern, he was finding it incredibly difficult to understand them.

There were maybe one in a hundred of them that he knew the meanings of, and in the context of the spell he didn’t know why they would be a part of the pattern at all.

Wind… Light… Protection… How could these runes be a part of a Time Alteration spell?

After what must have been several hours just standing there examining something deep within himself, Xavier gained five ranks in his Inscribing spell.

He blinked.

All of the ranks had come at once. He didn’t even know why—he didn’t feel like he understood the pattern all that much better, or the runes inside of it.

But the moment he gained more ranks, his understanding seemed to move forward a little bit.

Had he understood something subconsciously? Was that why the System triggered more ranks?

He pulled himself out of the deep meditative state. He had a different task that was set before him.

The portal still stood, just outside of his time dilation field.

Once again, he tried to push the time dilation field through the opening in the portal. The mental block that he’d first felt came up, but this time, he understood it. He understood it so well that the feeling it was trying to impart in him simply… Didn’t have an effect.

Xavier smiled, then he pushed.

Time Alteration has taken a step forward on the path!

Time Alteration is now a Rank 140 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

The field pushed about a millimetre into the portal opening.

Xavier took a step forward and pushed ever harder.

Time Alteration has taken a step forward on the path!

Time Alteration is now a Rank 141 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

He took another step. And another. He pushed with everything he had.

Time Alteration has taken a step forward on the path!

Time Alteration is now a Rank 142 spell.

Time Alteration is now a Rank 143 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

The field suddenly slid straight through the portal as though there was barely any resistance at all. It crept through the twin portal. Xavier pushed it forward until it engulfed Yarien.

The elven woman blinked. She looked at her party members, all outside of the barrier, then looked at Xavier. She smiled. It was a genuine smile—he’d seen very few of these from the elf. “That… Was very impressive.”

Sweat dotted Xavier’s brow. He was breathing heavily. A final notification—Rank 144—appeared in his vision for Time Alteration. The strain of pushing the spell as hard as he had had drained his mind.

Rank 144… As a D Grade, I can only get it to Rank 150 before I hit a wall. I’m getting closer.

He didn’t expect to gain any ranks trying this, let alone as many as he had.

Xavier nodded. “Thank you for the idea.” He tilted his head to the side.”You want me to use this to help sneak your party into places like the Hell Moons, don’t you?”

The elf’s smile deepened. “You are a clever one, aren’t you?” She took a step backward, straight into the portal the time dilation field now connected. When she came back out, directly in front of Xavier, she turned gracefully on her heel and faced him, her sharp, beautiful features coming into focus only a few inches from where he stood. “It looks like it’s not only that key of yours that are going to be a valuable asset.”

Xavier tilted his head back. He looked from the woman, to the other members of her party, then back to her. He had enjoyed fighting by their side. Enjoyed the swiftness with which they cleared the floors. But he hadn’t felt an ounce of challenge since he’d been with them—even if he had gained a lot of 1,000 clear titles.

The challenge he’d just felt inside of his time dilation field, in solitude, as he’d figured out how to push it through the portal—and uncovered a truth behind how the blueprints the System used to help Denizens learn skills and spells worked—had lit a fire under him.

“I’ll do it,” Xavier said with a sharp nod. “But it’s going to take time—I won’t always able to travel wherever I wish with this.” He tapped his foot on the ground in thought. “But I can’t keep fighting by your side.”

Yarien raised an eyebrow. “You can’t? Why not?”

“I want to go to all those places—I’ll need your help for that. I don’t know anything about them, and the Universal Travel Key needs that information to create a portal there. I could get it in other ways, through information brokers, even through communing with the Otherworld, but I think we can figure out some sort of deal between us where you provide the information, and I provide the means of getting there.”

The elf nodded slowly. “Yes, I believe we can come to an arrangement.”

“But clearing these floors with your party, gaining these titles… I haven’t learnt anything. I haven’t challenged myself. I haven’t become stronger in anything except attribute points. It’s simply too easy. I’m not going to grow as much as I need to if I use the four of you as a crutch—that’s why I won’t be going past the Thirtieth Descent with you all.”

Yarien smiled again. “Yes. You are clever.” She raised her chin. “It will be a loss, no longer having your ability to stop time. But we, I think, have far more time at our disposal than you do. I can see there are things weighing on you—no one gains as much power as you have as fast as you have without reason.”

The elf produced something from her Storage Ring. Xavier recognised it instantly. “This is a Communication Stone with a universal restriction. We’ll be able to talk no matter what end of the universe you’re at.” She handed it to him.

Xavier took it without questioning its worth.

“Thank you,” Xavier said. He wondered, for a moment, if he was making the right choice. He could gain a lot more titles, a lot faster, if he let this party of true C Grades carry him.

But the thought was dismissed as quickly as it came.

Xavier needed to stand on his own two feet. Short of making a contract with a powerful Denizen in one of the sectors in the centre of the universe, Xavier wasn’t going to get anyone to come to Silver River and do his work for him.

And there was no way Xavier would ever sign his life away. Some might consider that selfish—making a deal could save his entire sector, fighting alone might doom it.

Except Xavier knew it wasn’t only his sector that was at risk. It was the entire universe. If he was to truly become the Weapon of the System in the future, he couldn’t allow himself to be tied down to another’s will.

It would be up to him and him alone to defeat the threat.

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