Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 74 - Planetary Wide

For the second time, Xavier materialised on the Tower of Champion’s ninth floor. He’d felt a little foolish when he’d grabbed the doorhandle, assuming a sprinter’s position, his scythe-staff still within his Storage Ring—he figured holding the weapon as he ran might slow him down, even if only by a small amount.

There were many hundreds of spiders within the dungeons, though Xavier hadn’t kept an exact count, he had been able to significantly replenish his soulkeeping reserves. His Soul Strike spell had reached the end of its cooldown while they’d been exploring the dungeon on their first go through.

He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

The instant Xavier arrived on the floor, he took off like a shot, leaving the others behind. There wasn’t a Safe Zone on the ninth floor, but he wasn’t worried about his friends. If any spider-beasts came to bother them, Howard’s Bulwark spell would keep them at bay easily enough.

It wasn’t as though they’d be spending much time here.

As he ran, he used Heavy Telekinesis to shove spiders out of the way. If one of the spiders was on the other end of a long hallway, he’d kill it then use the Soul Step imbued ability to teleport to the corpse.

God, I’m glad I don’t have to go through all of these halls again.

He had barely any doubt that he would have lost out on the record if he had. Champion parties from other, long-integrated worlds would have already had knowledge of this floor. They would know about the Spider Queen summoning the rest of the beasts straight to it at the end, and though he doubted they could deal with the enemies as swiftly as he could, they could likely do it faster in one place—if they were sturdy and powerful enough—faster than he could going hall by hall.

Xavier left dozens of squished spiders in his wake as he skidded straight through the entryway to the final chamber, coming to a halt in the middle of it. He stood, a smile on his face, as he looked up at the beast.

“You dare enter my domain, foolish human!” The Spider Queen’s voice was exactly as harsh and screechy as the first time around.

“Yes!” Xavier laughed. “I dare!”

The Spider Queen shook in what Xavier assumed must have been rage, said he made a grave mistake, then screeched, ear-splittingly loud, about summoning its children.

The web’s purple glow brightened. And this time, the floor boss’s spell worked.

The Spider Queen cackled, loudly and proudly, as it slowly lowered down from its large, purple web, down a single strong string. The spider was the most terrifying-looking beast that Xavier had ever seen, but his fear of it the first time he’d seen the thing had vanished completely the moment it had talked.

Now, he couldn’t help but smile up at it.

Around him, many hundreds of large, eight-legged beasts appeared, making screeching noises of their own. Just like the first time he’d entered this place, Xavier had sunk straight down into the floor. He didn’t bother to fight it, and he didn’t kill the Spider Queen before it had happened—if he hadn’t let the thing summon its children, this would be a failure, after all.

Xavier summoned Charon’s Scythe into his hands, gripping it as he unleashed his spell.

Soul Strike!

Hundreds of bolts of pure white lightning shot forth from his weapon, making the chamber brighter than a sunny day.

Then the soul apparitions materialised. The translucent spiders launched themselves through the air at the real ones.

Once again, Xavier was glad he’d deactivated his kill notifications, as they would have flooded his vision, making it impossible to see around him.

None of the spiders ever even got a chance to strike him a single time before they were all dead, free of wounds, all around him.

Xavier drew in a deep breath as he harvested their souls. He looked up, just in time to see the Spider Queen—clearly dead—fall straight on top of him.

He couldn’t teleport out of the way—not now that he’d harvested all of the souls. There was nowhere to teleport to.

The beast wouldn’t really hurt him if it fell on him, but it would probably eventuate in him being covered in dead-monster goo. Even if the monster-goo would be all cleaned off by the System when he was teleported back to the Staging Room, it wasn’t something he wished to experience.

He cast Heavy Telekinesis, throwing the massive beast into the chamber wall, crushing some of the spider corpses behind it and cringing at the sound that made.

Xavier straightened up, and cut the stone around him as notifications began to appear in his vision.

He’d finished the ninth floor of the Tower of Champions.

A flood of power entered him as all of his stats were changed.

Now, it was time to figure out by how much. He grinned.

Xavier skipped over most of the notifications. The attribution for the floor was all for him, as always, and the other titles were always the same as every other floor.

It was only the final notification that he was really interested in reading.

Ninth Floor Ranked 1 – RECORD HOLDER (Completion Time – 2 mins 7 secs): Out of all the Champions from all the worlds in the Greater Universe who have completed the Ninth Floor of the Tower of Champions in every possible instance, you have completed it in the fastest time.

This title is a Temporary Title. If your record is edged out of first place, your title will be turned into a normal top 100 title.

If your record is edged out of the top 100, your title will be lost.

You have received +140 to all stats!

Note: As you have similar titles, each has been combined with this title and shares their stats. You may still view the previous titles and your standing on the leaderboards, if you will it.

Xavier let out a sigh of relief, then he smiled.

Two minutes and seven seconds wasn’t too bad, especially considering he’d had to sprint through the hallways using his memorised map of the place, and wait for the Spider Queen to summon all of its children.

He was still stuck in the stone the Spider Queen had trapped him in, but he deposited Chaon’s Scythe into his Storage Ring, put his hands behind his head, and waited for the floor to end. He didn’t bother placing the corpses of the dead spiders into his Storage Ring, they were simply far too low level for him to get much of any benefit from.

Though Xavier was confident he had the ability to get the top record for every floor, he knew that it wasn’t something which was guaranteed. There was no way for him to see what the record for a floor that he hadn’t already gained a record for was, which meant he would never know which record he needed to beat. And even though he was incredibly strong, there might be others out there with abilities better suited toward a particular floor.

He tilted his head to the side for a moment in thought.

Is there a way to get that knowledge outside of the tower? Knowledge of what the best times on the leaderboard were?

When he brought up the leaderboard for floors he’d completed, he was able to see the records of other Champions. What if, somehow, when he was outside of the tower, he were able to contact previous record holders?

The information certainly wouldn’t be able to be shared via text, which means I might have to talk to them in person, or at least through some sort of telepathic or video communication method.

He wondered what the odds of encountering a record holder in his own sector even were. There were only 100 spots for record holders to have on each floor, and yet there were countless sectors that had been around for far, far longer than Xavier’s sector. There might be the occasional record holder out there. Ones who had the record for perhaps a single floor. But finding them sounded like quite the task.

He wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Maybe there are information brokers out there, somewhere, in our sector, people who specialised in memorising things like this.

He shook the thoughts away. It wasn’t something he could work on right now.

He basked in his victory, getting number 1 on yet another leaderboard, and waited for the countdown timer to run out.

~

The others congratulated Xavier on their return to the Staging Room. He couldn’t help but smile. It was becoming expected that he would gain the number 1 title now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an achievement. He had to remind himself that just because he made it look easy, didn’t mean he wasn’t accomplishing something that literally no one in the entire Greater Universe had.

At least, in this reality, he thought.

He often forget to consider the fact that the floors of hisTower of Champions weren’t the same floors that Champions in the other, alternate universes that he visited through the tower had.

Their floors could be completely different…

It was a little mind-bending to think of things in that way. Something he knew he would be spending a long time wrapping his head around.

He rubbed his hands together as he looked over at the loot boxes. He honestly had no idea what to expect to have gained from this floor. The items he’d gotten lately would go a long way toward helping him set up a base back on Earth.

Would the next item he found within the loot box be something to help that as well? Something that could enhance his Sanctuary Seed?

Only one way to find out.

Xavier walked over to his loot box. The other members of his party did the same. This was becoming a familiar ritual for them. Xavier was glad they’d been going through the last few floors much faster than the ones before them.

Only one more floor until we’re back on Earth.

He knelt by the box, undid the latch, and threw the lid open in a dramatic gesture.

You have gained 5 Mastery Points (E Grade).

You have gained 275,000 Lesser Spirit Coins.

You have received a Portal Hub.

The Mastery Points he received, yet again, barely made a dent. But they were something. Step by step, he would get to Level 101.

Only eighty-five more points to go… Maybe that will be easier as I move up through the floors. There are 1,000 floors in this toward, after all.

That made him wonder what floor 1,000 would look be like, and what grade he might be when he finally got there. Considering the strongest Denizen in this entire sector was C Grade, he didn’t think that Champions who finished the tower could be much stronger than high E Grade—especially considering how big a deal a D Grade was back on the fifth floor.

The variance on the floors later down the line mustn’t be as strong as between the first ten floors.

It might not take him as long as he thought to finish all these floors, especially considering the rate he was going.

The spirit coins, again, weren’t all that much either.

He moved on to the unique item. He smiled at the name, long before he knew what the description actually was.

A Portal Hub sounded incredibly useful, however it ended up functioning. The item had materialised in his hand. It was shaped like a… coin? A thick one. It was rather weighty. If he had to guess, he’d say the little coin weighed about twenty kilos.

What kind of dense metal is this thing made of to weigh that much?

He examined it, turning it over in his hands. It had a single marking on one side. A circle, etched into the metal.

Is that supposed to be a portal?

He used his Identify skill on the item.

{Portal Hub – Restriction: Planetary Wide – Upgradeable}

This Portal Hub connects a registered base to a planetary wide system of portals. For a price, it can open portals to other registered bases around a single planet.

Each planet will have its own registry of Portal Hubs.

A Base Leader can set their Portal Hub to open or private. If a Portal Hub is open, any other Portal Hub on the planet will have the ability to connect to it. If it is private, only accepted allies will be able to make a connection.

Identify has reached Rank 27!

Xavier smiled after reading the description. The Portal Hub sounded just as helpful as he’d imagined, though it did bring up a fair few questions.

For one, how did he make his base a registered base? What did that even mean? Would it receive some sort of official designation, given to it by the System?

And what, exactly, was a Base Leader?

Is that what I’ll be, when I plant my Sanctuary Seed?

That made him wonder what he might be called if he had multiple bases. It certainly seemed like something that would be inevitable in the long run.

Then there was the fact that this Portal Hub would be able to connect with other Portal Hubs around Earth.

What if my enemies have Portal Hubs?

And, last of all, it was upgradeable. Would he one day be able to connect with Portal Hubs on other worlds?

They were all good questions. Maybe Sam, down in the tavern, would be able to answer them. He’d decided he needed to visit the man before he entered the tenth floor, anyway.