Xavier headed for the bar after the Liana and her husband Ardon had left the hundredth floor of the Tower of Champions, wondering what their life would be like now.

  He still held the Communication Stone the woman had given him. He looked at it for a moment before depositing it into his Storage Ring.

  I’ll meet the two of them again.

  He just didn’t know when.

  “You really are something,” Felicia said, placing a mug of hot coffee in front of him.

  Xavier sipped the coffee. He hadn’t looked at the notifications from that fight. Now, he figured it was time.

  “I’ll be back for the Hunt Quest reward soon.” He nodded at the people in the bar. “I think they are proof enough of its completion.” He walked over to the corner table he always sat at. He couldn’t help but notice Gimble the dwarf wasn’t here, and neither was his party. He wondered where they’d gotten off to. Probably fulfilling a Hunt Quest.

  Sitting at that corner table, he looked at the different people in this place through his Farscope, wondering if any of them were truly a threat as Felicia had told him they might be.

  He found he didn’t care if they were.

  Xavier brought up the notifications, flicking past all the different ranks he’d gained. He had gained a lot during that fight. His Willpower Infusion spell was stronger than ever, and his Body Cultivation spell—which he’d gained in that fight—already felt as though it was incredibly powerful.

  He skipped fast all the different skill and spell ranks. While he was glad he’d gained all of them, it was the title he was looking for.

  Title Unlocked!

  Changer of Fates: You have changed the fates of over one thousand people in the Greater Universe. The accumulation of these changes has led to the gaining of this title. There are few in the Greater Universe who are able to read the webs of fate, and even few others who have the power to change it.

  The gaining of this title has allowed you to unlock a new energy source.

  You have gained 1 unit of Universal Control.

  Xavier tilted his head and stared at the description.

  He read it over, three times, then shook his head.

  Changer of fates? One unit of Universal Control?

  He dipped his head and closed his eyes in thought. He had never heard of anything like this title before.

  He had saved a thousand people from their fates?

  Looking back at all he had done, he was sure that in his time in the Greater Universe he had saved far more than a thousand people… But perhaps that wasn’t what this title meant.

  Are there truly people out there who have been destined to die… People I’ve stopped from dying?

  He hated the thought of being destined to die, just as he’d always hated it when bad things happened and people said, “Everything happens for a reason.” As though that made it okay.

  Being destined to die. God, that would be a total rip off.

  With an infinite number of alternate universes, it seemed incredibly unfair that people were marked for death by destiny—if that was indeed what this notification implied.

  Still, he stared at the last part of the title and brought up what he had unlocked.

  Universal Control: 1

  When he looked inward, he could feel the new energy source somewhere inside of him, but he had no idea what it meant—and no idea what to do with it.

  On defeating The Nightmare, Xavier thought he would gain a very different kind of title. Something to do with killing something of a higher level than himself… But he supposed he’d gained a lot of titles like that in the past. He doubted killing The Nightmare qualified him for that.

  A part of him thought he didn’t gain a great deal from the fight if he’d only earned one title, but he knew that wasn’t the case. If not for that fight, there was a lot he wouldn’t have done.

  Gaining the Body Cultivation spell was a huge one—and that in itself had gotten him a title. A considerably powerful one.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He breathed in deeply, then let out a long sigh. Whatever this new energy source called Universal Control was, it couldn’t be a bad thing that he’d gained it.

  He would learn more about it in time, and he knew exactly how he would learn about it—Otherworldly Communion.

  But there was a problem there. Despite him defeating an incredibly powerful C Grade entity, the Mastery Points he’d gained from the defeat of the demonic beast hadn’t been enough to bring him all that close to gaining Level 204, as he’d only just reached Level 203 during that fight.

  The cooldown for the spell was generally a month long. That meant he would need to be very careful about the next question he asked. He didn’t want to linger in this place longer than he had to.

  I’m going after that dragon the moment I can.

  Xavier walked to the bar and nodded at Felicia.

  The woman was staring at him with a mix of awe and respect. And something else he couldn’t identify. She didn’t say anything on his approach, so it was Xavier who spoke up first.

  “I’m here for the Hunt Quest reward.”

  Felecia merely nodded. She put down the mug she’d been cleaning and made a motion with her hands. “Which option would you like to choose?”

  Xavier didn’t need a notification, or for the woman to mention which options there were—he’d done this enough times to know. The three rewards were monetary, Mastery Points, and Ability Acquisition.

  This was the most powerful beast that he had ever defeated while completing a Hunt Quest. There had been other C Grade beasts that he’d come up against—both within the raid party and without—that he had claimed Hunt Quests for.

  But this was different. This fight had almost killed him. He’d been an inch away from death when he’d unlocked that new spell, Soul Born—yet another thing he’d gained during that arduous fight. He couldn’t remember the last fight that had tested him so much, that had brought him so close to losing everything…

  The thrill of the experience still ran through him.

  He drummed his fingers on the table as he thought about the different options before him. He skipped straight over the monetary reward. Then, he seriously considered the Mastery Points reward. There was a part of him that seriously considered choosing that one. He didn’t like the feeling of taking so long to gain levels now that he’d reached D Grade, and as he could stall his advancement when he reached Level 300, it would only be a positive thing to be a higher level, wouldn’t it?

  The stronger I am when I come up against the Elemental Dragon, the better…

  That thought had him almost make his selection, but he stopped himself short.

  His strength wasn’t only in the levels and attributes he gained. It was in the spells and skills that he mastered. If not for the different abilities he possessed and the unique ways that he utilised them, he wouldn’t have won that fight against The Nightmare.

  He would have died or been consumed by the things mind.

  Xavier shook his head. Mastery Points were helpful. Gaining levels was helpful.

  But for what he wanted to do, gaining levels would never be enough.

  He smirked as he recalled Ardon’s assumption about him—that he was a C Grade Denizen. Yet Xavier knew there were C Grades out there who lacked the kind of power that he possessed—there had to be, if he was already defeating C Grade beasts.

  No. Levels aren’t what I need here.

  Xavier chose Ability Acquisition, because of course he did. He was itching to see if the System was going to assign him another random spell, or if it might assign him something else. It had given him powerful items in the past, after all—that was how he had gained his soul bound weapon, the Lost Bone of a Dead God, in the first place.

  Maybe it would assign him an interesting skill. Something he’d never even thought to gain, but would help him in the long run…

  He thought about his soul bound weapon a moment.

  I wonder how much more powerful the weapon would be if I instilled Soul Energy into it…

  His new Soul Born spell was definitely something he needed to experiment with. That spell, along with Body Cultivation, had come out of nowhere for him, but he knew that they would end up making a massive impact on whatever fights he got into next.

  “So, you gonna stand there smirking all day, or are you going to choose something?” Felicia asked.

  “Huh?” Xavier blinked. “Oh.” He realised he hadn’t made his choice known. When he did, she simply waved in the air and a notification appeared in front of him.

  The Nightmare Hunt Quest

  Reward: Ability Acquisition

  You may receive:

  - Ten ranks in the spell Body Cultivation

  - Ten ranks in the spell Soul Born

  - Ten ranks in the spell Willpower Infusion

  Or:

  Do you wish to trade these ranks to receive an unknown spell reward?

  Xavier stared at the notification, a little dumbstruck. Ten ranks in all three of those spells? That… That was a lot. That was the greatest number of ranks he had ever been offered, and now that he was D Grade… Ranks were a little harder to come by.

  He could even delay when he received this reward. He could head out of Hunter’s Home tavern in that very moment and grind the spells to the highest rank he could manage on his own then come back and claim this reward, that way the ranks would have the most possible impact on him.

  He considered how long it would take him to gain 10 ranks in each of these spells by himself. He tapped his foot on the sawdust strewn floorboards and let out a sigh.

  His eyes couldn’t help but be drawn down to the last part of the notification. The spell he gained could be a dud, for all he knew, but as he didn’t know what the spell was, it could also become the most powerful asset at his disposal.

  Decisions… Decisions…

  Just like with the Mastery Points, Xavier figured he would gain these ranks in time on his own. Though… They would make a difference in the fight with the C Grade Elemental Dragon that had killed a massive raiding party in the past…

  Still, he couldn’t pass up the chance to learn another spell. It was like a burning itch that he just needed to scratch.

  If he didn’t take that spell he would forever be wondering what the hell it could have been.

  I choose the random spell, Xavier willed.

  The last time he’d gained a spell this way, it had been based on what he’d done during the fight. Xavier thought back to the fight. He had used a lot of different spells. Willpower Infusion, Body Cultivation, and Time Alteration had been the big ones—which was why he could have gained ranks for them. He wasn’t sure how whatever he gained would ultimately relate back to those, but he supposed he was about to find out.

  The notification he’d just been staring at disappeared, and another one took its place.

  You have gained the spell: Chronomantic Mindforge

  Xavier was a little taken aback by the name of the spell. Chrono, he knew, had to do with time. Mindforge… he wasn’t sure exactly what that referred to. He smiled broadly.

  Over the bar, Felicia raised an eyebrow. “What spell did you get?”

  Xavier shook his head. “Not telling.” He grinned.

  The look on the woman’s face was not a kind one, but Xavier liked to keep people guessing.

  Accidental Champion!

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