Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 61 - Cohorts

Xavier walked into the tavern at the bottom of the Tower of Champions. His gaze panned around, taking in the different parties. There were currently ten parties in the tavern, more than he’d ever seen before. Warriors. Mages. Most parties had at least two of each. Only a couple of them wore equipment that hadn’t been handed to them at the time of integration, though the majority had a single piece of new equipment—something they must have gotten after clearing the first floor.

He took in each of the faces but found he didn’t recognise anyone here. His cohort had comprised of five hundred people before they’d entered the first floor of the tower. That made him wonder how many of those Champions had survived.

It hasn’t been near as long for them as it has for me and my party.

“Xavier.” Sam waved at him as he stepped over to the bar. “Care for a drink?”

“Coffee. Make it strong.”

“Alcoholic strong?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

Xavier shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood for that kind of drink. He’d never been a huge drinker before the integration. Coffee had always been his vice of choice.

Sam nodded and poured him a cup. All the while, the barkeep hadn’t taken his eyes off him. He was looking him up and down, taking in his new robes. “Something’s changed.”

Xavier had thought about how much he would tell Sam on his return. The man had told him he should be cautious. That he shouldn’t be so trusting. Xavier knew far more about what the Greater Universe was like now, after how much time he’d spend on the fifth floor, and all of the things he’d done there—he knew the man’s words had been wise ones.

But he found he still trusted the man. To a certain degree.

I’ll be honest with him. To a point.

He tilted his chin up, looked the man in the eye. “I’m E Grade.”

Sam was mid pour. He stopped. “What?”

Xavier leant on the bar. “I’d reveal my aura, but I fear it would be too painful for the rest of your clientele.”

Sam continued pouring. The man usually had a fairly good poker face. He should, considering he was basically a spy. His face was a mess of emotions he couldn’t control. He pushed the cup across the bar and looked like he needed to sit down. “That’s impossible.”

“You know what’s on the fifth floor?”

Sam nodded numbly. “I do.”

“I defeated it.”

“What? You defeated what?”

Xavier sipped the coffee. “The Endless Horde. The one who ruled them.” He paused. “A D Grade Denizen.”

Sam stepped back. “You can’t be serious.” His eyes glazed over. As though he was looking at something. “I…” He shook his head. “Why can’t I scan you?”

Xavier smirked. Before coming down here, after the other members of his party had headed to their rooms to sleep for the night—they needed far more rest than Xavier did, he still didn’t feel tired after having reached E Grade—he’d spent a good while looking at items in the System Shop, until he’d found what he needed.

Something that could prevent others from scanning him.

He didn’t know how powerful the item was. Already his own party weren’t able to see his level when they tried to scan him. But he had to be able to block the scans from people of his own grade.

People like Sam.

Now he knew it worked.

“Oh, you won’t be able to scan me,” Xavier said. He remembered the first time he’d tried to scan Sam. The sharp pain he’d felt in his head.

He tried scanning him now.

???

Still too high. Guess I can’t scan him either. But there was no stab of pain this time around. So that was a plus.

Sam poured himself a glass of something far stronger than coffee. He downed the drink in one, then poured another. He let out a long breath, staring off into the middle distance, just holding that second glass in his hand but not yet drinking from it.

Finally, his gaze returned to Xavier. “You killed a D Grade. You… you defeated the Endless Horde and killed a D Grade?”

The man’s eyes were wide. Though he stared at Xavier, it didn’t appear as though he were actually looking at him. His mouth had fallen open. He looked like a surprised fish.

“You killed a damned D Grade?” The man swore under his breath. “And you’re telling the truth, aren’t you? I mean, of course you are… What reason would you have to lie about such a thing? I told you to be careful who to trust. To keep things close, yet you’re telling me this. Why? I still can’t make a contract with you. My employer will know of this.”

Sam kept shaking his head, mumbling something inaudible.

Xavier sipped his coffee. “I’ve thought about that. Had a lot of time to think, actually,” he said, thinking, over six weeks of it. “I imagine your employer already knows what I’m capable of. I bet they’re one of the people watching me.” He didn’t follow that up with the fact that he thought they were the weaker of the two presences he’d sensed. Not that it mattered—they were both well beyond his power. “If you’re here looking for threats for them, well.” He shrugged. “I’m already a known quantity.”

He sipped his coffee again. Savoured it. God, he’d forgotten how good coffee tasted. He doubted caffeine really did anything for him anymore. He felt plenty of energy. But he still loved it all the same.

“Besides, I don’t think that’s what you’re here for. You wouldn’t have helped me, otherwise.” Xavier sat on a stool, turned and faced the other patrons, holding the ceramic coffee cup in both hands as though using it to warm them. He considered his next words carefully.

“You’re the caretaker for this cohort, and something tells me we haven’t been taking full advantage of your services. The last time we spoke, you said you couldn’t make a contract with me yet. You’ve just said so again that you can’t… but what if this contract wasn’t to keep my secrets, but rather do me a service?”

Sam frowned. His face had gone a little pale, but his colour was slowly returning. If this was him hiding his reaction as best he could, Xavier couldn’t help but wonder how he was really feeling right now.

“What… kind of favour?”

Xavier motioned at the patrons. “These people need help, but I really don’t have the time to help them myself, and I don’t want to give up any of my party members for that cause. We all have too much to do, and we’ll be returning to Earth. Very soon.” He summoned a Minor Spirit Coin to his hand. He deftly made it play across the top of his fingers. “If I were to give you a large sum of money, would you be able to distribute it fairly between all the different parties that enter into the tavern?”

Sam tilted his head to the side, his eyes glazing over again. “I can do that, yes. You want them all to be outfitted with equipment?”

“Yes,” Xavier said. He almost sighed, then. He’d wanted to write a guidebook that could be disseminated out to the other Champions, too, but that unfortunately wasn’t an option, as the System restricted information about different tower floors being written about or recorded in any way.

Another advantage those from integrated worlds had. They would have heard stories from their parents, mentors, or friends about the different floors. He imagined there was a strong oral tradition when it came to speaking about the tower.

He’d spoken to parties in this place before. Asked them to tell others what he’d told them. But he knew that wasn’t enough. They didn’t have to tell anyone anything, if they didn’t wish to. And there would be so many paths that simply didn’t cross—that fact was clear, as he didn’t recognise anyone in here from his last few times in the tavern.

He frowned. He didn’t really trust any one of these Champions to give out the spirit coins. Even if he contracted them to do so, he didn’t want to trap another Champion down here. But Sam was always here—that was simply part of his job as caretaker to this cohort.

A plan formed in his mind. A way that information could be better shared in this place. A way for the Champions of Earth to do… better than they were.

He wasn’t worried about how long these Champions took to get to Earth. Not right now, anyway. Xavier wanted them to farm the floors, to linger here as long as they could. There were many things they needed to know—things he would regret not telling them, like that the people they encountered on the floors were real, and they should—if at all possible—be helped.

But not at the expense of their lives.

He would build an oral tradition of his own, and there was a way to ensure the Champions would pass on his words…

“But there will be some conditions.”

Xavier outlined what he had in mind to Sam.

Sam would hand out money to each party that entered—and not just to one member of the party, but the individual members, so that none of them ripped off the other.

But before a party was given their spirit coins, they had to make a contract promising that they would return to the tavern every time they completed a floor, and share everything they knew about the tower floors with other parties.

This made him wonder if there was a way to do this with more than just the members of his cohort. Before they entered the first floor, they’d had their orientation. The hologram had said roughly a million people from Earth had made it to the tower. Those people were split into different cohorts. And if the cohorts each had five hundred people, then there would be about two thousand of them.

He couldn’t enter the taverns for those cohorts. Whenever he went down the stairs, no matter which staircase he chose, it always led to thistavern. But technically, he could talk to other cohorts. The hallway outside of his room in the tower appeared to go for miles.

Xavier might not be able to enter another cohort’s tavern, but he could find other Champions, couldn’t he? He wanted to outfit the members of his cohort with better equipment, but he certainly wouldn’t be able to outfit allthe Champions of Earth.

I still have over 10,000,000 Minor Spirit Coins. If I used 10,000,000, which is far more than I want to spend, that would be 100,000,000 Lesser Spirit Coins. Split between a million people, I’d only be able to hand out 100 Lesser Spirit Coins per person. Even if only half that many people had survived, I still wouldn’t be able to give them much.

Not enough to make a difference.

“What is it?” Sam asked. “You went quiet.”

Xavier flipped the Minor Spirit Coin he’d been playing with up into the air absently. Flip, catch, flip, catch. “I’m trying to see how I could scale this. I’m simply not rich enough to outfit everyone, but I know coin isn’t the only important thing here. Even a little bit of knowledge will help the other cohorts.”

On the fifth floor, he’d learnt that making contracts was a simple thing, even if he’d never done it before. “All right. I know how this will work.”