Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 6) - Chapter 27 - There’s That Stubbornness Again

Xavier sat, cross-legged on one of the steps in a stairwell of the Hell Moon Thazamar.

It was the stairwell between the Forty-Ninth and the Fiftieth Descents.

He was examining one of the spells within his mind—his Portal spell. It had taken him some time, and just about every ounce of his concentration, but he could finally perceive the pattern that made out its blueprint.

And the runes that made up the pattern.

Xavier still couldn’t read over 90 percent of the runes that he saw in the pattern but examining them had been helping him further his Inscribing spell.

The more he stared at the intricate pattern of runes, the more seemed to be revealed to him. Though he knew this would be a tremendously slow process, he also knew that in the long run, it would all pay off.

Hell, it was paying off plenty in the short run.

Xavier had the Lost Bone of a Dead God lying across his legs in the form of a sword. He still hadn’t named the soul bound weapon, though the weapon was becoming insistent that he should come up with something soon—apparently it didn’t like the name the System had given it.

Xavier had asked what its name had been in life, but the weapon refused to tell him.

Once Xavier had finished his examination of the Portal spell pattern, his yes flashed open. Just a few steps beneath him was the threshold to the Fiftieth Descent.

Halfway through the first Hell Moon.

These last few floors had been taking everything out of him. He’d still been facing C Grades, something which he was thankful for, but those C Grades had been becoming more and more powerful.

He was no longer able to rely on simply looking at the level of one of the demonic beasts to see how powerful it would be. This was something Rhaalir had warned him about—Denizens and even beasts could have such varying degrees of power and yet be at the same level. Despite the fact that Xavier was living proof of this very thing, it always took him by surprise when a beast the same level as one he’d been able to easily crush was almost too strong for him to take on.

But he was adapting.

The annoying thing about many of these beasts was just because they were more powerful didn’t mean killing them offered additional Mastery Points. A total rip off, if you asked him. He would shake his fist at the System, but considering how well things were going for him… Such a petty move seemed unnecessary.

Besides, the System already had it out for him, sending him into challenges he wasn’t ready for simply to help him progress faster with the threat of death ever looming over his head.

Yeah, because I’m not throwing myself into those situations all by myself as it is…

He was getting worried that the next descent would be too much for him. Sometimes, the difficulty from one descent to the next was a considerable jump, and while not every descent locked you there until you killed every enemy like the Thirty-First Descent, he’d encountered several more that did.

And this was the halfway point. That had to mean it would be significant in some way—had to mean that it would be different to the last descent he’d cleared.

He was still doing the 1,000 clears on each Descent. Still gaining a title for each one as he went. It had done wonders for his stats, as did the percentage boosts he’d been gaining along the way from the normal clears. He had shot up to Level 280 along the way. It still baffled him that he hadn’t managed to reach level 300 yet—he could have sworn that he would have gotten there by now. He didn’t think the System was restricting his Mastery Points, though. If it could take a thousand years to get from F Grade to C Grade, than it didn’t matter how long it was taking him—he was still going to get there significantly faster than that.

Xavier stood up and walked over to the threshold. He didn’t step over it. He couldn’t see any enemies on the descent, but that wasn’t unusual. It was rare that the enemies hung around the stairwell.

You don’t have to move forward, the Lost Bone of a Dead God said in his mind. If you feel the risk is too great, there are other options.

Xavier frowned. That was something he was getting used to. While the soul bound weapon was blessedly quiet if they were in the middle of combat and it knew that Xavier needed all his concentration, when they were outside of combat… It liked to make its opinions clear.

You can ask Yarien and her party for information. They know everything about this place.

The more I know about a descent, the less of a challenge it will be. Those challenges help me to become stronger. I’ve told you this before.

Hmm. Perhaps. But being overly stubborn could mean you end up dead. It’s okay to ask for help. You’re going to have to eventually.

Xavier sighed. The annoying thing about the soul bound weapon talking to him like this was it tended to have a point. Xavier was well aware of how stubborn he’d been.

He couldn’t learn more about the Tower of Champion floors because of the restriction the System had put onto him. But the different descents were another story—no information about them was barred to him, yet he’d been avoiding learning about each one so he could experience them himself.

And each time he’d come across a new challenge, it had helped him push his abilities ever forward.

Still… Was he being stubborn about this?

Why, exactly, didn’t he want to ask for help?

Because I’m the one who will become the Weapon of the System, he thought to himself. I’m the one who will have to face the threat at the end of the universe.

Whenever he thought about that threat, he imagined standing alone in front of it. But he supposed that wouldn’t necessarily be the case.

Maybe he would be the only one who could stand against it—assuming he survived long enough to try—but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have help along the way.

There was two other Hell Moons of Demonica that he’d yet to set foot in. If this descent was too much for him, he could always train in the other two Hell Moons, exactly as he had here. Gaining titles from them would be incredibly helpful, too—though he didn’t know if the Hell Moons would provide the same titles or not.

He tapped his foot on the smooth stone steps. He wasn’t currently inside a time dilation field.

Xavier shut his eyes, coming to the conclusion that the blasted weapon was right. It was about time he asked for help—or at least some knowledge.

He may have been able to clear the last descent a thousand times, but god had it been brutal. It had taken far longer than he wished as he’d needed to use Soul Strike to manage it, returning to higher descents to reap thousands of souls to refresh his reserve each time.

His Soul Strike spell’s cooldown was still restricted to lasting a second for every soul he used in it. Now that he’d been able to push his soulkeeping reserve to holding 10,000 souls, he was an absolute force to be reckoned with.

He didn’t need to use every single one of those souls to defeat what he considered the boss of that descent, but he had needed to use a large amount of them.

That meant it took roughly two hours for his Soul Strike spell to reach the end of its cooldown unless Xavier gained a level, and levels—while he’d been gaining them—were still few and far between. They weren’t exactly something he could rely on, especially when he was going for as many clears as he was.

There’d been a part of him that had thought it could be a waste of time to keep trying to clear a single descent rather than moving deeper, but he knew doing such a thing wouldn’t be sustainable.

He’d only be able to go down so deep before something was able to stop him.

Because clearing the descent took two hours, Xavier had now been at the Hell Moon for over three months.

Only two months remained before he would be sent back to the Tower of Champions.

He’d progressed far more in the four months he’d spent out of the tower than he’d expected to. Far, far more. But he was still a little frustrated that he’d stalled on that last descent so much—he’d tried to complete it a different way, but it simply hadn’t been possible.

His ability to freeze time and loose arrow after arrow simply didn’t work on every enemy—especially when they were completely resistant to physical attacks. Even though the arrows had runes that produced magical damage, that still hadn’t been enough. This thing had been an absolute tank.

Soul damage had been the only thing to cut through it.

He took another step back from the descent, although he didn’t like to. Releasing another long sigh, Xavier dropped his head.

He shut his eyes and took a moment to remember something very important—he was mortal. He was not invincible. There were things out there that could kill him in an instant without breaking a sweat.

Sometimes, the risk simply wasn’t worth taking.

Memories played through his mind. Memories of experiencing his own death in other timelines, when he’d used the Spirit of Time, and she had shown him the different unfoldings. He’d died several times when trying to take down the Elemental Dragon.

Each time, he knew he’d thought he would be the one to succeed. How many times had he managed to push past death? Every time he did, it reinforced that resilient part of him that rose above whatever he came up against.

But it also emboldened his sense of arrogance. He sense of stubbornness. It made him feel as though he could come up against anything.

There was even a part of him that did believe he could always turn a fight around. That those other versions of him had died because they weren’t him.

But that part of himself was one he needed to be wary of.

After a long moment stuck deep in thought, playing back the memories of experiencing his death, he sat down on the smooth steps and contacted Yarien.

Xavier: [Yarien, are you still on the Hell Moon?]

Yarien and her party had taken a while to surpass him on the descents, but once Xavier had gotten stuck on the Forty-Ninth Descent—well, not stuck, just… delayed—they’d overtaken him. They’d graciously skipped over the descent he’d been clearing to move onto the next one, though they had offered to work with him so they all gained the title, it was something he felt like he needed to do on his own.

There’s that stubbornness again.

There was a side benefit to having to wait two hours for his Soul Strike spell to reach the end of its cooldown. That side benefit was he couldn’t be in the time dilation field, which meant he had the opportunity to rank up his spells.

In that time, he’d managed to push the majority of his spells to their limits. More than half of them had reached Rank 150, the highest rank he could reach with them while he was still D Grade.

As that was something he would need to do anyway, it was good to use it to his advantage.

Besides, he hadn’t stopped using his Time Alteration spell completely.

He’d been working on more than just his spell ranks between cooldowns—he’d been writing more of his story, the one he intended to put up onto the System Store the next time he had access to it.

Yarien: [Yes. We have reached the Seventieth Descent. It is proving to be… Beyond our abilities to conquer.]

The regret in the woman’s voice was palpable, even through the Communication Stone.

Xavier couldn’t imagine what they must be facing on the Seventieth Descent that they couldn’t get past. Despite how much he’d grown since he’d been training with them on the first few descents, he knew they were well ahead of him.

Xavier: [I’m sorry to hear that. Do you intend to leave this place soon?]

Yarien: [Maricus is stubborn. He thinks we can win this. But I’ll be calling it within the day. It’s time for us to move onto another Hell Moon.]

Xavier nodded to himself. At least he wasn’t the only one who was stubborn, but it sounded like she was making the right decision.

Yarien: [Is there something I can help you with? This is the first time you’ve contacted me since we parted ways, not including when we passed you on the descents. I had been hoping out communication would be more… Frequent than that.]

Xavier raised an eyebrow, remembering—vividly—how stunning the elven woman in the blood red robes had looked. There was a part of him that stirred at her words, but he clamped that down.

Xavier: [I’m on the stairwell between the Forty-Ninth and the Fiftieth Descent. I know I haven’t been one to ask for your insights on the descents… But I’m wondering if stepping forward would be biting off more than I can chew.]

Yarien: [Ahhh. You wish for assistance. Of course. I would be happy to provide some information to you, Xavier. Free of charge. Honestly, I’m more than a little surprised you made it this far. We didn’t expect you to get down to the Forty-Ninth Descent on your own, let alone clear it a thousand times by yourself.]

Xavier smiled. He liked the sound of this woman impressed. She was far more powerful than himself, the whole party was. He still had trouble believing they’d all lived for hundreds of years—it was simply a difficult thing to imagine.

But it wasn’t as though they were the first people he’d met that were that old–he’d met those who were far older. 

Like every single one of his current companions for one…

Yarien: [I can’t be the judge to whether or not the Fiftieth Descent is something you can handle. When I first met you, I would have said it was beyond your abilities. But you have surpassed my expectations even after you trained with us and we saw what you were capable of. What I can tell you is that your unique abilities won’t be near as useful to you on this descent as they have been on others.]

Xavier blinked. There was something ominous in her tone.

Xavier: [And why is that?]

Yarien: [Because the demon that inhabits the Fiftieth Descent is a mimic.]