Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 76 - Walking Before You Run

Xavier tapped his fingers on the bar as he watched Sam. The barkeep picked up the Sanctuary Seed again, then held up the Seed Garden, then finally looked at the Portal Hub.

“Having all this…” Sam shook his head. “It’s rather amazing, you know.” He smiled, wistfully. “I’ve been doing this caretaker gig for a while. Seen a lot of Progenitors. Seen them strive, succeed, fail. Many of the Progenitors I’ve encountered haven’t had to deal with invaders. You would think that would make them stronger. Safer. In a way, it did. But the ones who’ve had something to protect right away. The ones who’ve had massive amount of pressure on them…” He locked eyes with Xavier. “They’ve gone farther than I could have imagined.” He placed the Portal Hub back on the bar, the little heavy coin making a loud clink. “But the higher they’ve risen, the farther they’ve fallen when they failed.”

“That doesn’t sound particularly motivating,” Xavier muttered.

Sam shook his head. “You’re going to be the exception.” He nudged the Sanctuary Seed with a finger. “Possessing something like this so soon after your world has been integrated…” He bit his lip. There were still many things he clearly couldn’t say.

Xavier sipped his drink, patiently waiting. He knew the man would get around those blocks if he could. It was much easier for him to do so when it wasn’t about information regarding the tower itself.

“You’ve gained a lot of titles for being the first to do something,” Sam said. He nodded at the items. “You’re going to gain a lot more when you return to Earth.”

Xavier smiled down at the items. He had wondered about that. A part of him imagined that the invaders would have already established strong bases in his world. Fortresses like whatever the Seed Sanctuary would grow for him. That they might have access to the System Shop, or to a Portal Hub like the one he’d just gained. But he supposed that all of the invaders on Earth would be quite low level. Maybe they wouldn’t be capable of doing such things?

I wonder how strong the people back on Earth have managed to become. How many levels they’ve managed to gain. It can’t be much, without the help of the Tower of Champions, all the advantages we’ve gotten…

Then again, he had no way of knowing that. He just assumed he was right. Though he couldn’t imagine that any of them had spent six weeks in basically what amounted to a time chamber fighting increasingly higher level enemies.

“This Portal Hub says it can be upgraded. Would I be able to use it to travel to other planets?”

Sam chuckled. “You really care nothing for the concept of walking before you run, do you?”

Xavier shrugged. “Running tends to get me where I want to go a lot faster.”

“There isn’t much I needto tell you about these items. For one, I’ve never actually used any of them myself. I’ve certainly seen what they’ve created, but I haven’t been the one in charge of their operation.”

“Huh. I suppose that makes sense,” Xavier said. “You come from a well-established world. Why would you need things like this?”

“Oh, people from worlds like mine are familiar with these. Don’t get me wrong. It’s difficult to establish footholds on other worlds without them, after all.”

Xavier decided to ignore that. He still didn’t exactly feel good about cultures who invaded other lands and took over. Though many humans from Earth certainly had a long history of doing exactly that…

Not what I’d like us to be known for.

Though he had to admit, after thinking on it for a bit following the last time he’d spoken to Sam, he certainly knew he’d been very naive. Protecting Earth wouldn’t be as simple as making himself strong. He would need to make Earth strong. To do that, in the long run, he would need access to resources Earth didn’t have. And if he wasn’t able to get them through trade, he might have to resort to other means, else Earth would never be strong enough to hold its own without threat of being taken over by other empires and conglomerates in the sector…

Though he still had trouble imagining himself invading other worlds. Right now, that certainly wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. He knew that sometimes, there simply weren’t better options. But on the other hand, often people didn’t realise what allof their options were, and they only took the obvious ones that were right in front of them.

That wasn’t the person that Xavier wanted to be.

“What do you mean when you say you don’t need to tell me much about these items?” Xavier asked.

Sam shrugged. “You’ll be able to figure out plenty about them on your own. Some items have the ability to give the user quests, like when you have a spell that needs upgrading. I believe items like these would have such power.”

“That does make sense.” Xavier touched a finger to each of the items, returning them to his inventory. “I suppose you can’t tell me anything about becoming a Base Leader, then?”

Sam shook his head. “No. Not yet, anyway.”

Xavier sighed. He supposed he should have expected as much. It wasn’t that he hadn’t gotten anyanswers to his questions. He’d certainly learnt a thing or two from the man. But it was never quite as much as he wanted.

Is anything quite as much as we want? he mused.

He held his drink in hand, turned and leant backward on the bar, looking out at the other patrons. Howard, Siobhan, and Justin were holding court, taking turns to explain everything about the tower floors they’d just been through. The parties were staring at the three of them, their attention rapt. Justin was the one talking right now, using big, expressive gestures with his arms and hands. Xavier stopped for a moment and listened.

Turns out the kid’s a good storyteller.

Xavier had often observed people who were good oral storytellers, considering he was a big fan of stories himself. For a long time he’d thought he would be a terrible writer because he wasn’t good at telling stories to people. But he’d come to realise those were two very different skills. It was far easier—and probably always would be—for him to put words on the page rather than express them aloud.

Justin, however, appeared to be a natural oral storyteller. It made him wonder what the teenager’s life had been like before the System had come down. He’d imagined him as quite serious, considering he was an Olympic-level athlete before all of this, but that didn’t necessarily ring true.

Xavier glanced back at the barkeep. “Anything you can tell me about the tenth floor?” He didn’t expect much of a response, but he figured a question was always worth asking.

Sam’s face became expressionless. “Just… be ready. You won’t have any trouble.”

After those words, the barkeep stalked off and grabbed a broom. He stepped out from behind the bar and idly swept the ground—yet it was already perfectly clean.

Huh. That was a bit odd.

He frowned at the man, watching him sweep for a moment, listening to Justin talk about the eighth floor on the peripheral of his attention. He replayed the barkeep’s words.

Why did he emphasise that I wouldn’t have any trouble?

Xavier looked over at the members of his party. The tenth floor would have a Safe Zone, right? It was only floors three, six, and nine that didn’t. But the way the man had spoken… it almost sounded like Xavier would be safe, but the others wouldn’t be.

He still got the sense that there was something different about this next floor. Probably because he knew it would be his last before being sent back to Earth. He’d asked Sam how long he would have on Earth before. The man hadn’t been able to answer.

I’ll find out soon enough.

He had a few things on his mind, now. One of them being the fact that the barkeep must be about Level 150. Xavier’s levels hadn’t moved since he’d come back from the fifth floor. He hadn’t needed them to, to achieve his current goals. Now, he had another goal he wished to achieve.

Xavier was fairly confident that he would be able to convince Sam—or rather, the Empress Larona—that the barkeep should come to Earth and help protect it. He knew it must be a very unusual proposition. Something that normally wouldn’t be granted in a situation like this.

But these weren’t exactly normal circumstances, were they?

I need to get myself to Level 150. As fast as I can.

Considering how few Mastery Points he’d been able to gain lately, he struggled to see how that would be possible, especially on Earth. Even when he came back to the tower…

He touched his Storage Ring, thinking about the Sector Travel Key, along with his Portal Stones, wondering if there was somewhere within the Silver River sector he could travel. Somewhere that would help him achieve his goals.

I would need a pretty powerful insight to gain that kind of knowledge.

He smiled, thinking of one of his newly attained spells.

Otherworldly Communion.

He brought up the spell’s cooldown.

Otherworldly Communion currently has a cooldown of 1 month. It cannot be used for another 27 days, 20 hours and 32 minutes.

It’s only been two days since the last time I cast it. I’m going to have to wait a while until I can use it again.

Xavier slowly sipped his drink as he drifted into thought.

The long game.

In the grand scheme, he supposed twenty-seven and a bit days wasn’t all that long to wait for an answer to his problem. Besides, he might very well find the answer before then…

And wouldn’t all of his spells’ cooldowns refresh once he’d gained another level? If he got to Level 101, he would be able to use the spell a lot sooner. Unless these otherworldly spells worked differently.

When his drink was finished, he ordered another, contemplating the barkeep’s words, wondering if his friends were truly in danger or not.

I’ll talk to them about it. See what they think. Either way, I’m going to the tenth floor when this drink is done.