Xavier stared in mild shock at the scene before him.

  He had just stepped through the portal back from his quarters in Collinsville, returning to the moon where he’d left Volkarin. The D Grade Great Shell that he had prepped so the dragon could kill was dead, and the baby dragon that Xavier had left behind was no longer a baby dragon.

  Volkarin had grown, considerably.

  When Xavier had left the dragon had been Level 0, and it had been roughly his height. Now, it was half as big as it had been before. It still had soft features that seemed to pin it as an adolescent, but the Mastery Points it had gained from killing the Level 242 D Grade Great Shell and claiming all the credit for the kill had done wonders.

  Xavier gave the dragon a quick scan.

  {Level 65 – Adolescent Dragon}

  “Level 65!” Xavier blurted.

  Xavier wondered at how the dragon might be an adolescent, and not fully grown, at its level. But he imagined it might have something to do with the fact that it hadn’t grown naturally with time. He’d encountered plenty of full grown, adult beasts of a lower level than 65, but they likely hadn’t gotten there through Mastery Points alone.

  He’d known Volkarin would gain a lot from this kill, but he hadn’t known exactly how much. He also didn’t know if the Mastery Points would be enhanced or reduced somehow. Xavier knew that the System sometimes capped how many Mastery Points a Denizen might receive from an enemy based on their strength. It had done that to him, in the past, when he had been fighting the waves and waves of enemies back on the fifth floor.

  He wouldn’t be surprised if there might be some sort of cap on how many Mastery Points a Denizen or beast might be able to gain from a single kill relative to their level, so he hadn’t known what to expect from this encounter.

  Finding Volkarin at Level 65 after a single kill, no matter what Xavier might have thought could happen, was a complete shock. He hadn’t anticipated how much the dragon would physically change either, even though he most certainly should have.

  “You’ve gotten so big!” Xavier said, speaking as though he were talking to a child he hadn’t seen in a few years. He couldn’t help but grin up at the dragon that had, until seconds ago, been only a baby.

  Volkarin had a satisfied smile on his face. The dragon opened his mouth and spoke—he actually spoke. Not with his mind. The voice came out in a somewhat high growling tone.

  “Do not speak to me as though I am a child, dragonkin.”

  The dragon’s neck had become more slender. The spikes along its spine sharper. Its features significantly more defined.

  Xavier paced around the beast, looking it up and down. “Have you chosen a class? Have you gained any spells?”

  The dragon sighed. “Classes do not work the same for beasts such as I as they do for other Denizens, but I have gained several spells along with my levels, and with my knowledge… There are more I know I can develop.”

  Xavier was aware that the dragon was one of the few races of beasts in the Greater Universe that was also considered a Denizen by the System—a race that had come to sapience before the System had integrated their kind.

  This had been news to him when he’d read the description of the Elemental Dragon. He still couldn’t imagine a Tower of Champions with dragons. They were too large to fit inside the rooms! And what did they have in place of the tavern at the bottom of the tower?

  He pushed those thoughts away.

  “What do you need to do?” Xavier asked.

  “The spells I gain, and the way I fight, will direct my path. It is a more primal method of mastery than the ones you humanoid Denizens have.”

  Xavier thought about that a moment. “Dragons… Did dragons have magic before being integrated into the System?”

  Volkarin huffed a puff of smoke from his nose, which he seemed delighted by, then his serious expression returned. “Of course we had magic. We weren’t savages.” He got a wistful look about him then, the dragon staring off into the distance. “I was a Progenitor to my world, just as you are to yours.”

  Xavier’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t heard much of the dragon’s history, only that he wished to get revenge upon whoever had killed him. He certainly hadn’t known the beast had been around pre-integration. “I didn’t know that.”

  The young dragon’s wistful look evaporated. Volkarin looked down at Xavier. “I must keep training. This time, I will not need your assistance.” The dragon grinned. It was a sinister grin, and it reminded Xavier of the beast’s former visage. “I have bones to crush and blood to drink!”

  The dragon released what almost sounded like a cackle. Its wings spread wide, and it was about to take flight when it paused and looked over at Xavier.

  “Ah, could you escort me away from the D and E Grade beasts?”

  Xavier withheld a small laugh. He imagined the dragon’s pride was taking a hit by asking that question. Xavier spread his own wings at his back and took flight. He kept an eye on the beasts below as they flew over the trees, but nothing came up to attack them, and no spells were flung from the ground, they were likely out of the range of any of notice from the beasts below.

  It feels good to fly again! The dragon soared through the air, communicating telepathically now that the wind howled around them. The dragon swooped down and then back up. He spun around and flew in a loop-the-loop before steadying beside Xavier. I can feel the wind on my scales. I can taste the blood on the air from the recently slain!

  Xavier and the young dragon soared for several minutes before they returned to the ground. When the young dragon landed, he looked at Xavier in a way he never had before. “Thank you, dragonkin. You have given me something I never imagined I would again receive. Not only the breath of life, but a brother in arms that I know I can trust. What you did for me, returning me to the world of the flesh, and helping me kill that D Grade… I promise I will repay you. You will not regret having me at your side.”

  Xavier found the words to be incredibly sincere. He lowered his head in a small bow. “I am honoured to have you fight beside me, Volkarin.”

  “Now,” Volkarin growled. “I am hungry for blood!”

  The part of the hunting grounds that Xavier took the dragon to now was all F Grade beasts, ranging from Level 10 all the way to the high 90s.

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  Xavier watched in fascination as the dragon bore down on a Level 50 Gorgan Stag—a deer-like that had snakes where their horns should have been. The way the dragon tore into its throat with such glee was almost hard to watch, if it wasn’t for the fact that he hadn’t done something similar. Watching the dragon fight, a bloodlust grew inside of him, a primal part of his dragonkin race bonding with that of the young dragon before him, wishing to fight and rip and tear and eat by its side.

  He pushed that bloodlust away.

  The dragon had shown itself to have several different spells now. It had gained the ability to breathe fire, and it could also fire bone spurs at its enemy. On all fours the dragon would arch its back and lower its head. A bone spur would shoot forth like a spear from its spine and slam into an enemy beast, usually the attack was so accurate that it struck the enemy’s neck.

  It also had the ability to freeze an enemy. As Xavier watched the young dragon freeze a beast on the spot, he was reminded of when the C Grade Elemental Dragon had done the same to him, and all he’d done—and learnt—to escape the freezing spell.

  The dragon didn’t explain how classes worked for it, but it was interesting to hear the beast had said they were more primal in how they worked. He couldn’t help but be reminded of all he knew about universes that existed before the System. Volkarin had existed before the System had come to him, just as Xavier had. But unlike Xavier, the beast had possessed magic. Their world must have been much, much denser in Celestial Energy than Earth had been before the System had integrated it into the Greater Universe.

  Xavier couldn’t help but be interested by a time before. The System had brought him power—or, at least, it had brought him the potential for power—but it seemed as though having knowledge from before was only a good thing.

  A lot of knowledge has been lost to time, because of how the System works.

  At first, when Xavier had learnt about the System’s ultimate goal, he had wondered if each iteration, each new universe that sprouted into existence since the System came into being, would hold more power than the last. That the knowledge would, in a way, accumulate.

  But the universes were all but cut off from each other, and the System’s ability to help Denizens along with skills and spell had the side effect of meaning some things, like Body Cultivation, simply got lost.

  Xavier stayed with the dragon for an entire week as it trained on this world. Though the dragon had said it wouldn’t need his assistance any longer, they had soon changed their tactics once they had realised the beast was strong enough to—with a little help—fight the E Grades around here.

  The dragon wasn’t as strong as Xavier had been when he’d been at an equivalent level, but he was still incredibly strong for his level because of the title he’d gained when he’d struck down the D Grade Great Shell.

  They augmented the young dragon’s training by setting it against E Grade beasts with Xavier’s help. They didn’t need to use Health Stop potions for this, which Xavier was glad for. He couldn’t very well afford one for every kill Volkarin racked up as he became stronger and stronger.

  When the week of training was up, the dragon had reached Level 100. He had powerlevelled the dragon far faster than he’d ever been able to powerlevel someone in the past, and that was all due to him portalling back and forth from Earth and giving the beast the full kill credit—it was a definite cheat to the System, but one he was more than willing to exploit.

  It made him wonder how many other people in the Greater Universe had discovered something like this.

  Xavier had a unique set of skills that made what he was doing not only possible, but easy. Even so, there would be plenty of other Denizens in the Greater Universe that were either capable of powerlevelling another in the way he had or would be able to do it with help from other Denizens.

  He could see a party of dedicated powerlevellers gaining a lot of wealth doing something like this. It could be an entire profession. He remembered there were people in video games you could pay real money to to powerlevel you back before the integration.

  He tilted his head to the side in wonder. After the dragon had reached Level 100, Xavier asked him about this.

  “Couldn’t someone be powerlevelled to such a degree that they might be able to gain huge rewards in the Tower of Champions?” Xavier asked. It was the first thing he’d thought of.

  The young dragon had sat on his haunches next to Xavier. Xavier was perched atop a rock near the area they’d been training.

  “It has been tried, but powerlevelling in this way is not very common, even to those who have the knowledge and skills to perform it.”

  Xavier frowned. “Why is that?”

  Volkarin turned to Xavier. “Think about all we have just done. Do you imagine that I have gained a great deal of ranks in my spells or skills by gaining Mastery Points in this way?”

  Xavier had wondered about that. “No. But you will have gained a lot of raw power. A lot of attribute points, and free points to allocate.”

  “Indeed. But it hasn’t taught me much from a practical standpoint.” The dragon sounded different to usual as he spoke, almost like a teacher to a student. It was strange, given the dragon’s usual demeanour. “If a Denizen or dragon were to train this way and move straight onto E Grade, they would not gain much from it. They would be a very weak E Grade. Though the System doesn’t penalise one for training in this way, the consequences are already there. Though I gain full kill credit, I don’t gain what I would were I actually killing them. My skills don’t improve. My spells don’t improve.”

  Xavier had powerlevelled several people to E Grade back on Earth, and this was the exact thing he’d worried about with them.

  “The young elites from powerful worlds may go through something like this to gain power quickly, but they will not move straight on to E Grade. They will hone their abilities for as long as they are able to resist the advancement, or until their betters advise them that they are ready.”

  Xavier nodded. “And it’s far easier to rank up skills and spells when you’re more powerful facing higher level enemies, then it is when facing lower level enemies.”

  “Indeed. That is where the advantage comes, and that is why it will be some time until I make the jump to E Grade. However, were I training a new Denizen, I would not do it in this way. I would not powerlevel them. I would not help them gain the full kill credit for something they barely touched. From the first moment, I would throw them into situations they weren’t ready for. I would have them push as hard as they could. I would take away the safety net. This is how one learns how to be strong. I spent many lifetimes doing this. I have learnt much of these lessons, though I daresay I have more to learn, and so powerlevelling, for me, at this stage in my life… in my new life… was what made sense.”

  Xavier thought on his own training. He had done exactly what the dragon recommended. And he had, perhaps, done it to the extreme. He had never had any sort of safety net, even if one took into account what the Spirit of Time could do.

  “If one were trained that way, the Denizen might die,” Xavier said.

  “Then they were not strong enough for this universe.” The dragon rose from where he sat. “I have more training to do, but I feel as though I am slowing you down.” The dragon sniffed the air. Bared its teeth. Volkarin’s awareness turned toward the trees. “You have much you need to do before you return to the Tower of Champions. Training me, I am sure, has been a respite from that, but you must push forward.”

  Xavier frowned. He rose from the rock he’d been perched atop. “You wish to train without me here?”

  “I need to train alone for a time. Remove the safety net. You have brought me enough strength to feel confident in this new form. Now, I must make the best of it. When I advance to E Grade, perhaps powerlevelling will be the right path for me once more. I am not sure. I will have to think on that and see how my training goes.”

  Xavier felt a pang of loss at the idea of leaving the dragon to train alone. He had only just brought Volkarin to the Mortal Realm from the Otherworld. He had gone to so much effort for the dragon to have a body once more. To be alive once more.

  He also knew that he didn’t have to leave the dragon. The dragon was a soul bound beast companion. Xavier could command it to come with him… But why would he do that? Volkarin was right—he needed to gain this strength on his own. If the dragon was truly going to become an asset in more than just the knowledge he held, then Xavier needed to let him train in the way that worked best for him.

  It made Xavier wonder if the beast would ever truly be able to catch up to him in power. He would certainly be able to catch up to him in grade, training the way they just had… But Xavier had been taking an absolutely insanely accelerated path to power, one he had no clue as to how to recreate for the dragon.

  If only spell cooldowns worked normally inside a time dilation field…

  That would make me even more overpowered than I already am. I doubt such a thing could truly be possible.

  “I will return here, periodically,” Xavier said. “To see how you progress.” He raised his chin. “But you will return to the Tower of Champions with me when it comes time. And… there are other times when I think your knowledge will be most important, so your training may need to be interrupted.”

  The dragon bowed his head. “This is not the end of our brotherhood, dragonkin. This is only the beginning. I do this so I will be better able to serve you. I will always be at your behest, and for as long as I am contracted to you, my training comes second to your goals. But right now, I must take my leave.”

  Volkarin turned from Xavier, then. He ran across the ground then expanded his wings to their fullest and took flight, hunting for the next thing to kill.

  Accidental Champion!

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