Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 31 - Accidental Champion

Xavier stepped out of the portal onto a different world. He stood in Ravni, the capital city of Laracon. It was nighttime here, though the light of the city made it as bright as the major cities back on Earth used to be when the sun went down.

The buildings to his left and right were built from ancient grey stones, but they were built as tall as skyscrapers. Xavier’s gaze turned upward, and upward, his neck craning to see to the very tops of them.

The towering buildings were so tall that he wasn’t able to see the tops even with his Farscope ability. The upper floors looked to be living quarters, apartments filled with Denizens, some lounging about on their balconies, drinking tea or simply looking out at the city. At the bottom of these buildings were different businesses. Blacksmiths and apothecaries, fletchers and bowyers, inns and taverns, restaurants and even cafes selling…

“Coffee.”

Xavier’s eyes lit up at the sight of one of the cafés. The sign hanging over the store window was of a steaming mug on a saucepan. He almost took a step toward the place when he remembered why he was here, and just how much time he had.

People were looking at him. Stopped in the street, staring. The portal he’d stepped through was still open directly behind him. He wasn’t on some sort of portal platform. He was simply standing in the middle of what appeared to be a market district.

It was clear from the looks on these people’s faces that they were actively scanning him, ascertaining whether or not he was a threat. Xavier’s gaze narrowed toward a pair of heavily armoured Denizens who were making their way toward him. One of them was a tall woman who looked like she might be half-troll. She had a scowl on her strong enough to curdle milk. The other one was a male gnome, of all things, who looked incredibly short compared to his companion. He had an easy smile on his face and his helmet was painted a colourful red.

They each had the same signet on their pauldrons.

City guards, the Lost Bone of a Dead God said in his mind.

I suspected as much.

Xavier wasn’t here to make any trouble. He also wasn’t here to dawdle. A minute must have passed since he’d stepped through that portal, and although he did wish he could explore this place—especially the café, with enticing scents wafting through its open door—he had other things to attend to.

Casting Time Alteration, he made the time dilation field as small as he could manage while still covering his entire body. This way, he could walk through the city like a ghost. There would be few with perception fast enough to see him moving through these streets.

Everything looked frozen around him. The Denizens standing around, their gazes hazed over. The steam from a mug of coffee someone was blowing the contents of as they brought it up to their lips. The sign of a blacksmith’s store that had been gently swaying in the wind.

And the two city guards who’d been striding purposely toward him.

Xavier walked through the city, carving his time dilation field through the crowds on the streets until he finally came upon what he was looking for—a System Shop pedestal.

He rested his hand upon it and accessed the System Shop. Though he could have looked at different armour or other items, that wasn’t why he’d come here. He was fortunate that the System Shop worked perfectly fine even when he was inside of a time dilation field. That was something he’d already tested in the past.

Xavier went straight to the Entertainment Feeds in the System Shop, something that wouldn’t be available to him when he went back to the Tower of Champions. Apparently, the System didn’t want people distracted by the feeds while in the tower.

He supposed he could understand that.

In his time dilation fields, Xavier had spent a good deal of time working on the story he wished to upload onto the feeds.

He’d also done a good deal of reading in that time, which helped him hone his writing style as he practiced. It was good to get an idea of what people liked.

Xavier was surprised to find he had already written million words of content—and it hadn’t even taken him that long.

He’d put the story into five different volumes. He didn’t intend to publish them all at once. The other stories on the feeds he’d encountered were all published one chapter at a time, and that was what he was intending to do.

It took a little while for Xavier to familiarise himself with the publishing interface. When it came time to input his story, he paused.

It wanted him to input a title for the story. Xavier had been so focused on working on the story itself he hadn’t even thought what to name it. He tapped his foot on the cobblestones beneath him, then smiled.

“Accidental Champion,” he said softly, then inputted that into the correct field.

The story had a… Strong autobiographical component, detailing his exploits, but changing all the names and the sector he originated from, along with his abilities.

Xavier decided to use a penname. Another thing he hadn’t thought about until he came here. He racked his brain until something came to him, then he nodded.

Matt Brink.

He wasn’t sure where the name had come from, though it did sound vaguely familiar. He only hesitated briefly before confirming it.

Xavier wasn’t sure when he’d be able to access the Entertainment Feeds again, so when he found the scheduling function, he scheduled every single chapter of the five volumes of the story he’d written, publishing the first twenty of them immediately.

His heart was racing. It beat harder against his chest than it did when he was facing life or death. He gave a nervous laugh and shook his head.

He released a breath. He’d started a timer with his interface the moment he’d received the notification about being returned to the Tower of Champions in an hour. The timer told him he still had 55 minutes—longer than he’d expected, if he were honest.

Xavier could do a lot with that time, if he truly wanted to, but with his task done, he walked back through the streets until he came upon the cafe he’d spotted when he’d first arrived on this world. The city guards were still standing exactly where he’d left them. Still all but frozen in the middle of the street.

His time dilation field still active, Xavier stepped into the café. When he was inside, he didn’t fully cancel it. Instead, he made time within it flow at the exact same speed as his universe. The field would still be visible to those powerful enough to see it, but now he would be able to interact with others just as though it wasn’t active at all.

It also meant he could utilise it at any moment if he wished.

The woman standing behind the café’s counter gave a jump when Xavier appeared directly on the other side, though she seemed to compose herself quickly enough. Xavier wondered if people appearing from out of nowhere was a regular occurrence in this place.

The woman smiled. “Can I help you?”

Xavier ordered a coffee and took a seat in the corner by the window. While the coffee was being made, he looked out at the city guards. The half-troll woman was scratching her head, her mouth having fallen open. The gnome had a frown on his face, but that quickly disappeared, the smile returning as he gave a shrug.

The two city guards turned and walked off.

“Here you are,” the woman said as she placed the mug in front of Xavier.

Xavier thanked her then took the mug of coffee into his hands. The mug wasn’t made from ceramic, but some other kind of material he didn’t recognise. Still, it had that same satisfying feeling of warmth.

He took a sip, then sighed.

“That is wonderful, thank you. Just what I needed.”

Xavier decided to order some food to go with it. He hadn’t indulged in a long while. The slice of cake that was brought over to him looked awfully rich and decadent. He speared a chunk from it with the dessert fork and ate quietly, taking sips from his coffee between bites.

He didn’t take enough time for things like this.

The timer slowly ticked down as he ate. He wasn’t stressed about returning to the Tower of Champions, even though the abrupt return had taken him by surprise. The System might be one to change the rules on him out of nowhere, but in the grand scheme it had always worked to his advantage.

The rage he’d felt when the notification had appeared was entirely gone now, replaced with burgeoning excitement. He took a moment to bask in just how much progress he’d made over the last few months. When he returned to the tower, he intended to take a good look at his attributes and spells, and detail all the runes he’d learnt.

But for now, he simply enjoyed the moment. The coffee. The cake. He pulled a book from his Storage Ring and leafed through the pages, but found he couldn’t concentrate on reading.

When there was only 10 minutes left on the timer until the System teleported him back to the Tower of Champions, Xavier altered the time dilation field once more and returned to the System Shop pedestal.

He once again accessed the Entertainment Feeds.

Xavier wasn’t expecting much. The story he’d written had only been out in the world for less than an hour. Still, he was curious to see if it had gotten any views. He was also curious to see if anyone had left any comments—the feeds had that ability, though he was still dubious about whether he should read them.

Xavier’s eyes widened in shock to find that the story had received a hundred thousand views since he’d put it up. He shook his head in wonder until he remembered there were literally trillions upon trillions of people in the Greater Universe who accessed the Entertainment Feeds every day. If he took that into account, a hundred thousand views wasn’t a staggeringly large number.

Still, it was far, far more than he’d been expecting.

And there were comments. A lot of comments.

Xavier hesitated before opening the ones on the first chapter. The first comment was something rather negative.

Zog113: Seriously, this idiot got to the Tower of Champions because someone surrendered? That is totally unrealistic! If this weren’t fiction that dumbass would be very dead!!!

Xavier blinked. Unrealistic. It had actually happened!

He almost responded to the comment but thought better of it.

Most of the comments, however, were positive, which again took him by surprise.

He read a few on the following chapters. More and more people were saying how unrealistic the story was, and how it would be impossible for the main character to have gained a record title in the tower being from a newly integrated world. There were even a few people who said he should kill the other party members and solo the floor without them around. A surprising number of people were… Rather violent.

They also didn’t seem to understand his desire to save innocent people on the different tower floors.

Xavier just shook his head at them. He decided to simply find them amusing, otherwise he might just go mad.

He spent a good while—more than was probably healthy—reading through the comments and analysing how many views he’d gotten on the different chapters.

When he finally stepped back from the System Shop pedestal, he felt a sense of… Invigoration.

He’d put his story out there, and there were people out there who liked it.

He had even gained a few paying customers.

Xavier couldn’t help but smile as he cancelled out the time dilation field and watched the timer tick down to zero.

There was a part of him that was glad he wouldn’t be able to access the Entertainment Feeds while he was in the Tower of Champions. Something told him that doing so would become rather… Addictive.

He released a long breath as the timer reached its end and he was teleported back to the Tower of Champions.