Xavier walked through one of the main marketplaces in the middle of Mareketh Proper. Famarial walked beside him, having to rush a little to keep pace with him.

  Xavier had thought to summon Volkarin. It would have been nice to have the dragon trotting by his side. It didn’t seem as though doing so would garner him too much extra notice, either. He certainly wouldn’t be the only one walking around with a beast companion.

  In fact, there were more beast companions around here than he’d imagined there would be. He’d even seen a few people flying up in the air upon the backs of Giant Eagles, ones reminiscent of those in Lord of the Rings.

  Shame Frodo couldn’t have simply flown one of those straight to Mordor and dropped the ring in… Would have saved that guy a lot of time and heartache.

  But the risk was too high to bring Volkarin with him, what with how low level the dragon was. As powerful as Xavier was, and as vigilant as he was, there could still be a chance that someone around here attacked faster than he could stop them.

  So far, no one had seemed to even notice him. He doubted anyone around here knew who he truly was. Famarial told him that this city had thirty million people in it. Xavier struggled to imagine that many people in one city, though he knew that places back on Earth had once had just as many.

  The crowds of people walking the street were certainly large enough for him to believe what the man said was true. Despite Xavier’s initial hesitancy to scan others around here, he couldn’t help doing that from time to time. So far, most of the people around here who he scanned were very low level. Between Level 10 and Level 50. He’d come across a few people who were higher level. There had been a group walking together—they looked like two parties of four, as they were clustered in two small groups—who had been middle E Grade. And he’d seen a single D Grade among the throng—that woman had been given a wide berth. Though Xavier wasn’t sure if that was because she was D Grade, or because she was a necromancer. She had a skeletal minion of a large bear that walked by her side at all times.

  Xavier had given the woman a nod after scanning her and she’d simply frowned back in his direction and kept walking.

  “Why are so many of these people so weak?” Xavier asked.

  Famarial glanced over at him. “Weak? Hmm, yes, well… This city is well protected. Most people here have the option of not fighting. They gain only the levels they need to operate the professions they’ve taken, developing their skills in non-combat roles.”

  Xavier nodded. He’d wondered about that. The System desired conflict, but there was no way that every single person in the entirety of the Greater Universe was a fighter, was there? It might be different for newly or recently integrated worlds, but even places like that needed people to run shops and inns and craft weapons and items. Not to mention keep the place clean.

  Though how could they ever craft high level items if their levels were so low?

  Though Xavier had to wonder about that. Perhaps their levels were simply low from his own perspective. He was an outlier, and that was something he should never forget.

  I may be an outlier, but I’ve also got the feeling that this is a particularly weak sector. Just because this city is massive, and they seemingly have so much to offer here, doesn’t mean the average person around here is powerful.

  He had to remind himself just how young the Silver River sector truly was. It was older than a thousand years, that was true, but effectively it wasn’t, as any who’d been alive in the integrated sections of the galaxy had been wiped out during the last purge.

  A thousand years isn’t a long time, not compared with the rest of the Greater Universe. Adranial’s ancestor has been around for billions of years. These aren’t the supremely long-lived beings that populate much of the Greater Universe.

  He suddenly understood why the more… enlightened might call his planet a backwater baby planet, and he was beginning to realise his entire sector was essentially a backwater, being so close to the expanding integration as it was.

  Yet there were still trillions upon trillions of living beings alive within the sector who deserved to be protected, even if they were essentially out in the middle of nowhere when compared with the rest of the Greater Universe.

  Xavier shook himself out of his reverie. It was hard to contemplate something so vast. He decided instead to focus on the things that were around him.

  Famarial had tried to drag him into what he called an entertainment venue. When Xavier had stepped in, he’d simply sighed and turned back around. He’d been expecting some sort of movie theatre, or perhaps an actual theatre—he didn’t know what type of entertainment there would be in a place like this—instead the elf had taken him somewhere with exotic dancers. Women (and some men) of different races wearing varying degrees of clothes dancing on stages.

  Famarial had been surprised when he had walked back out. Though admittedly the sights had been eye-catching, Xavier hadn’t come here to spend his time in what was essentially an alien strip club.

  Considering the little he knew about Famarial, he should have known the elf would have pulled a stunt like that.

  “You said you wanted to expand your horizons!” the elf had said with a shrug. “How could I know that wouldn’t be to your tastes?”

  The marketplace held countless different stalls that varied from those that looked as though they were put up each morning and broken down at the end of the night, to ones that were permanent structures. It had stores and taverns and inns larger than some apartment buildings back on Earth.

  Xavier didn’t really know what he was searching for here, he just couldn’t help but look at all the sights in awe and imagine the history in this place.

  He passed a blacksmiths selling armour and weapons inscribed with some sort of magical runes that was run by an elf inscriber and a dwarven smith. Rhaalir, who’d been mostly silent hovering by Xavier’s side, hidden from view to anyone there—though Xavier could have sworn the D Grade necromancer Xavier had seen earlier had given him a quick glance—had scoffed at the sight of the elf and dwarf working together.

  Working with a dwarf? Really? That’s what the elves in these parts have stooped down to doing?

  Xavier hadn’t replied, simply walking on.

  It was when Xavier had come upon a bookstore that he’d stopped dead in his tracks. There was something strange about how the place looked. Well, no… It wasn’t strange, it was simply that it didn’t look strange at all.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  It looked like a type of antique, collectable bookstore that he might have found in some hideaway off the main streets back in Fronton. A large sign hung off a metal rod above the door with a painting of a book on it. The sign creaked gently in the wind.

  The building was made from brick that looked almost like it might have come from Earth, except for the fact that it was bright blue. The door was made from glass and glowed ever so slight.

  Xavier pushed open the door and stepped right in. As he did, a bell jingled somewhere deep within the stacks.

  He smiled at the sight of all the books.

  Famarial stepped in behind him, raising an eyebrow. “A bookstore? If you’re looking for information on the sector, there’s a broker that provides information packets a few blocks from here. She works out of a tavern called Stone Ways. I could get you a good deal. Information packets are much more digestible. They include recorded images and the information goes directly before your eyes like System notifications.”

  While that was a great idea, it wasn’t why he had stepped into the bookstore.

  Xavier had always loved books, but ever since he’d been integrated into the System, he hadn’t exactly had time to read. That, however, had changed once he’d gained the Time Alteration spell. Seeing the way Liana read while inside a time dilation field had sparked an interest inside of him for books that he’d been holding dormant.

  Now, he thought he had earned the right to indulge that interest.

  The bookstore was a beautiful place. The shelves were packed full of old leatherbound, and normal-looking paperbacks and hardbacks that looked remarkably like ones back on Earth. Xavier tilted his head as he read from the different titles, but he couldn’t gain any rhyme or reason as to how the shelves were categorized.

  The bookstore had about four different levels, and the shelves went up the sides of the stairways, as though the proprietor had ensured that every nook and cranny in this place would be made use of to display his wares.

  Someone stepped down the stairs at the sound of the bell, their hard shoes clacking on the solid wood. The woman looked to be in her mid-forties, though Xavier had no idea how old she actually was. She could be in her mid-forties, or she could be several hundred years old. She wore simple grey robes that looked somewhat like mage robes but reminded Xavier more of a scholar than a true magic user. Xavier scanned the woman.

  {Level 102 - Human Inscriber}

  Inscriber?

  He’d read that class already today. The elf that had worked with the blacksmith. Xavier couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the fact this woman was E Grade, considering he hadn’t seen a great deal of E Grades around here.

  The woman smiled pleasantly at the two of them. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  Xavier couldn’t help smiling back. He barely glanced at the woman, as he couldn’t help but look at all the books in awe. He hadn’t felt like this since he’d seen Queen Alastea’s tower library.

  His mind worked, wondering what kinds of books he should ask for. His first thought was to find books that might help him in his class, or with his spells or skills, but he dashed that. There might be nuggets of wisdom in the tomes found in this place, things that could help him on his journey, but he doubted those nuggets would be more significant than what he could gain from Volkarin, Rhaalir, and any other trainers he gained in the future.

  There might be books in other sectors that could provide him with the information he really needed to push forward, but he wasn’t sure he was about to find that here.

  Besides, that wasn’t what had made him step into the bookstore. The reason he’d come here was because he wanted to, well, look at the books. He wanted to peruse the stacks. He wanted to find something that drew his interest. That allowed him to escape into another world, even just for a little while.

  He hadn’t had that feeling in a long time.

  Xavier was already in a world that went beyond his wildest imaginations. He wasn’t trying to actually escape from his life, he just missed the act of reading and getting lost in a book. His responsibilities were literally save the entire universe. It might not be a bad thing for him to have an outlet beyond that. And, if he were honest, he missed the act of writing as well—a passion like the one he held before the System came didn’t simply disappear.

  “Have you got any fantasy books?” Xavier asked.

  The woman tilted her head to the side. “Fantasy books?” She frowned, clearly not understanding what he was getting at.

  A few back and forths, including an explanation that he was from a different world, cleared up the matter easily enough. The woman soon nodded with excited interest. “We do not call those fantasy! They are simply fiction.” She chuckled. “Hard to imagine elves and dwarves and magic not being real!” She shook her head in wonder. “Now that is a fantasy, if a strange one.”

  The woman raised a finger, tapped it on her nose. Her gaze moved around the bookstore, rapidly moving from one shelf to another until it locked onto something. Then the woman raised her hand. A wand appeared in it—no, this wasn’t quite a wand. She held it like a pen and drew a symbol into the air made of pure blue light. It looked like some sort of runic symbol. Once the symbol was complete, she drew another beside it.

  Her wand disappeared—back into her Storage Ring—then there was a flash of blue light on one of the bookshelves on the ground floor.

  Blue light flashed in the woman’s open hands and the book materialised in it, the two symbols disappearing at the same time.

  Xavier raised an eyebrow. “Handy little trick. How did you do that?”

  The woman smiled. “Haven’t come across an Inscriber before, have you?”

  Xavier shook his head.

  “Well, I could tell you all about it, or…” She drew another two symbols in the air, and another book appeared in her hand just like the first had. This second book was smaller. It would fit in Xavier’s palm. She offered both books to Xavier.

  Xavier picked them up. First, he looked at the title of the smaller book.

  An Inscriber’s Handbook, from F Grade to E Grade, by Elitsa Flian.

  “That one is signed by the author.” The woman winked.

  Xavier smiled at her. “I presume you’re the author?”

  Elitsa Flian nodded. “Indeed. And my explanations flow far better on the page than they do from my mouth. That one’s on the house, for I admire curiosity in all its forms.”

  He inclined his head at Elitsa, finding that he liked this peculiar woman. “I look forward to giving it a read.” Instead of depositing the handbook into his Storage Ring, he tucked it under his arm.

  “Thank you, Elitsa.”

  The bookstore’s proprietor gave him a small bow. “I’ll let you look at that other book in peace.” She gestured toward a few stacks of shelves. “In case you’re looking for similar books, that is where you will find them. If that isn’t to your tastes, I can help you find what is.”

  She turned around and disappeared back up the stairs.

  Xavier looked at the cover of the book. He’d noticed there were armchairs dotted around the place. He came to sit on one and withdrew a flask of coffee from his Storage Ring and sipped on it.

  Famarial still stood near the door. “I have to say, the place is nice. I’ve never actually been in a bookstore before. Always thought they were a bit, well, quaint.” He looked around, then his eyes caught something and widened. He hastened over to a shelf of books. “Oh, these look rather interesting.”

  With the elf occupied, Xavier took a look at the book in his hand. The cover was of a man in a flowing, many coloured cloak. It looked… Well, it looked just like a normal fantasy book from back home might, or maybe like one of those long web novels he’d heard about but never gotten into.

  He turned the book around and read the back cover, pleased to find that just like a book from Earth it had some information there. The book chronicled the fictional adventures of a man that had been summoned from a non-integrated world to an integrated world, gaining the System the instant he arrived—something Xavier wasn’t even sure was possible.

  Could someone be summoned from a non-integrated world? He shrugged and read on. The tone had a humorous nature to it that Xavier was drawn to. He flipped the book over and read the title.

  He Who Fights with Beasts, by Pantaloon.

  “Pantaloon,” Xavier muttered. “Why does that sound familiar?”

  He shrugged again and cracked the book open, reading the first few pages. He didn’t realise how immersed he’d become until he reached page fifty and raised his head to see Famarial purchasing a great stack of books from Elitsa. The elf had a flush in his cheeks and Xavier couldn’t help but notice the covers were of scantily clad women.

  Xavier chuckled and closed the book in his hands.

  He found twenty similar books on the shelves—similar to the book he’d found, not Famarial’s—before leaving the place with a smile.

  Accidental Champion!

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