Xavier watched in mute fascination as the Elemental Dragon slipped out of existence. He reached out as though to claw the beast back into this world, but there was nothing left to grab onto.

  That dragon had been close to death after his use of Soul Strike. He couldn’t see the enemy beast’s health, but he was sure of it.

  Not only that, it had been mere seconds from death before that Void Being had come from literally nowhere and slipped straight into the dragon’s body.

  That wasn’t even something he’d been aware was a possibility! He felt cheated—in more than one way.

  He shut his eyes. One of his split minds had been keeping track of how long had passed since the Elemental Dragon had had its spirit knocked out if it’s body. That count just reached five minutes. A notification appeared on his vision.

  A kill notification.

  You have defeated a Level 390 Elemental Dragon!

  You have gained 2,500 Mastery Points (D Grade).

  Xavier’s eyes widened.

  “What?” he muttered. Then, to the elf spirit, he spoke telepathically, I just got a kill notification for the Elemental Dragon! But… It left this world. I don’t understand?

  Rhaalir was still staring at the space where the Void Being had disappeared into with the Elemental Dragon’s body. He blinked, looked over at Xavier. Xavier was almost going to repeat what he’d said when the elf responded. The Elemental Dragon’s spirit expired from the Mortal Realm. Even if its body survived, technically, you defeated it.

  Xavier felt the victory was rather mixed. Part of the reward for defeating an enemy as powerful as this one was getting to loot the body. He could only imagine what type of armour could be created from the scales of a powerful C Grade dragon, and he was no longer restricted to using the robes of a Reaper, not now that his class was the Wayfarer of the Infinite Path.

  That was something he should really take advantage of.

  However, to attain the win against the Elemental Dragon at all…

  Xavier oscillated between being immensely proud of himself and desperately disappointed, but before he could delve deeper into what the hell a Void Being was, there was something that he needed to do.

  He created a portal that would return him straight to the top of that mountain where the Elemental Dragon’s cave had been. Inside would be its nest—and inside that nest would be the egg he’d been aching to steal.

  He would sort out his feelings about this win later. The kill notification, at least, would mean he could still claim the Hunt Quest reward.

  Xavier leapt through the portal. On the other side, he expanded his wings and flew through the cave entrance. He couldn’t create a portal directly inside of the cave as he hadn’t been inside the cave before, and so didn’t know the area well enough to do so. The cave was more than large enough to accommodate his massive black wings. Compared with the size of the Elemental Dragon, he would be considered rather small.

  That made him wonder about how large Volkarin would end up growing in the future. If Xavier was successful in summoning the dragon from the Otherworld and implanting him into the vessel, cementing the beast’s soul squarely in the Mortal Realm, then Xavier knew he would eventually find out.

  Xavier had expected the cave to be incredibly cold, considering all of the surrounding area was completely covered in ice. But it was actually rather warm in here. There wasn’t a hint of ice on the ground of the cave or on the walls.

  For a short while as he flew, the cave tunnel was completely pitch black. He should have slowed down, traversed the tunnel more carefully, but if a dragon could fit through this surely there wasn’t a dead end ahead.

  He was proven correct when he spotted a light at the end of the tunnel. Heat emanated from somewhere ahead of him. He could feel the flames long before he saw them. The sight of them made him worry that this cave wasn’t as deserted as he’d expected it to be.

  Originally, he had only expected to fight one dragon and had ended up fighting two. If there was a third…

  He shook that thought away. There was no point catastrophising. If there was a third dragon, then he would simply deal with it. And if that third dragon had remained within the cave it would mean that it wasn’t powerful enough to impact the fight, for during all of the different iterations of this battle, he hadn’t encountered anything more than the Skeletal and Elemental Dragon.

  Both of which were no longer a problem.

  The way that Void Being looked at me before it disappeared…

  It almost looked as though the spirit that now inhabited the Elemental Dragon held a grudge, but that wasn’t something he need worry about—he would be off this floor soon, and would never again return to this universe.

  This was his final task on the hundredth floor of the Tower of Champions.

  The fires were even more massive than he realised. They covered the bottom half of the entrance to the dragons’ den, meaning anyone coming into this place on foot would have to move through those flames.

  I wonder how much health doing that would take from me. Surely I would be able to manage it.

  But it wasn’t something he would need to find out. Xavier simply flew straight over the flames and landed on the other side.

  His eyes widened in awe.

  It turned out the egg wasn’t the only prize in this place.

  He took a step forward. With his Farscope, he tried to take in everything around him—at least, everything around him within a 100 metre radius, but his true gaze was locked onto the thing that resided in the centre of the dragons’ den.

  The dragon egg.

  “It’s bigger than I expected,” he muttered.

  The entire chamber was filled with piles and piles of different items—most of them being made from gold. Xavier had wondered if the myths about dragons hoarding gold had been true.

  Gold isn’t even a recognised currency in the Greater Universe, is it? Why is there so much of it? It was an offhand thought, a question he intended to direct toward Rhaalir. But not yet.

  Xavier approached the dragon egg. The mouth of the chamber wasn’t the only thing that was on fire. A fire burned in a large pit that had been carved straight into the cave’s stone floor. The egg sat in what looked to be a massive, wire-mesh nest, the flames licking through the gaps and heating the shell.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  He couldn’t help but think of the scene in the first Harry Potter book, when Hagrid had been hatching Norbert, heating the egg in his fireplace.

  Looks like Rowling wasn’t too far from the truth…

  According to Gimble, it took a great many years for a dragon egg to hatch, but there were ways to induce the hatching earlier with rituals if one knew how.

  And that was information that Xavier had been able to gather over his time in this place.

  One thing he hadn’t anticipated was the size of the egg. He’d known it would be large, but when he thought of a baby dragon, he imagined them to be more like… Baby chicken sized.

  This egg was almost as large as him. It was so big that it came up to his shoulder. The dragon would hatch being much larger than he’d first imagined.

  Not quite the size of Norbert, at least not when he first hatched…

  None of this deterred Xavier. In fact, learning that the dragon would be bigger, faster, was only encouraging.

  Xavier stood in front of the wire-mesh cage and looked at the egg. From what he’d learnt, there were risks when it came to moving a dragon egg. He wasn’t actually able to deposit it into spatial storage, for one. If he tried to put it into his Storage Ring, it simply wouldn’t let him. At first that had come as a frustrating surprise, but it had only taken him a moment to realise why that might be the case—the egg was alive, and Xavier couldn’t store things that were still alive in his Storage Ring.

  Part of him had wondered if the egg would be easier to simply steal, rather than defeating the Elemental Dragon first—but that had felt like giving up.

  I would have been able to carry this thing out, but moving it… It would have made the egg vulnerable.

  No, it was a good thing he’d done everything the way he had.

  There were other notifications for him to address from the fight he’d just been in—from the defeat of the Elemental Dragon, even if it didn’t feel as though that was what he had done—but he ignored them, just as he ignored the treasure that surrounded him.

  It was time to perform the ritual that would summon Volkarin into this world—only Xavier didn’t have enough souls in his reserve left over since after the fight to accomplish what he needed.

  He gritted his teeth and clenched a fist. He didn’t want to lose out on this opportunity, but abandoning this place just after the two dragons that protected it were no longer around didn’t seem wise.

  Rhaalir.

  The elf spirit appeared before him. Rhaalir looked far more solid than he had in the past. Yes, Xavier?

  I know that you’re connected to me, but are you able to remain inside of this cave while I venture out of it, and warn me if anyone tries to come inside?

  Rhaalir frowned and looked down. Normally, that wouldn’t be something I’m capable of. The contract links me to you, and so I must remain within a certain distance… The elf spirit turned and surveyed the area. However, I feel that may have changed since what you did to me. I sense that I have more—he curled his fingers into fists and looked down at them—power in this realm than I had before.

  Xavier tilted his head back, looking the spirit over once more. That was an interesting fact. Why don’t we test it out, then?

  Xavier created a portal, one leading toward his favoured hunting grounds for acquiring a massive number of souls—the area where the stampedes of Rhinoceros Monkeys roamed. They were much easier to defeat now that he had become D Grade. He could go for a few minutes and easily return with what he needed.

  He stepped through the portal and left it open. Rhaalir? Are you still back in the cave?

  A moment passed.

  I… I am. I’m surprised that worked. It really shouldn’t have.

  Xavier smiled, glad for this new discovery. It didn’t only help him in this moment. If the elf spirit was willing, it meant he might have a good way of doing invisible reconnaissance. The spirit could only be seen by other spirits, after all.

  Though I’m sure there are some Denizens who can see spirits, or at least sense them, he thought to himself.

  Considering what he’d been through today, maybe that was an ability he needed to acquire. With his massive spirit attribute and his Wayfarer of the Infinite Path class, it was by no means out of the realms of possibility.

  Xavier didn’t wish to waste any time. He jumped high into the air then flapped his wings to gain ever more height.

  It only took him a moment to spot his targets.

  ~

  Xavier returned to the dragons’ den with a full soulkeeping reserve. He didn’t want to take any chances, and so he would be using every single one of those souls in his ritual.

  The ritual had been described to him in great detail by a series of different spirits that he’d summoned using Otherworldly Communion as he’d ranked up that skill while still E Grade. Each level he’d attained, he’d gained more insight into what he needed to do.

  Now, it was finally time for him to use that information.

  Rituals, he had quickly discovered, ran mostly on equal parts will and sacrifice.

  The types of rituals that he had learnt how to do involved connecting to the Otherworld, but there were different energies and parts of the Greater Universe that one could draw power from with the use of a ritual—these rituals weren’t necessarily more or less advanced than the ones he had learnt to perform, they were simply of a different nature.

  So, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that rituals involving the Otherworld ran mostly on equal parts will and sacrifice—he couldn’t speak to other rituals.

  Xavier smiled as he took a step toward the dragon egg. He always had a ready reserve of sacrifices worthy of the Otherworld. His reaper spells combined with his connection to the Otherworld made him perfect for performing rituals of this nature. There were other rituals that he could perform—ones that were offensive or defensive, and many other types besides, that he simply hadn’t bothered to use in combat. In the future, he might move toward using them, as he never wanted to neglect one of his abilities.

  But he wasn’t thinking about any of that right now. All he was thinking about was the ritual he was about to perform.

  Will and sacrifice.

  The first thing Xavier did before he performed the ritual was cast Time Alteration. He didn’t know how long it would take him to perform this ritual, but it would be wise to do it within the protection of a time dilation field, just in case any threats were to enter the dragons’ den now that its natural inhabitants had been defeated.

  Once that was done, Xavier took a deep breath, falling into a meditative state. He flew into the air and hovered just above the egg. He didn’t wish to move it from where it sat. It was in the perfect spot for him to force its hatching.

  Once the vessel was inhabited by Volkarin.

  He laid a hand onto the egg. Unsurprisingly, it felt warm to the touch. He smiled. Some deep part of him could sense the entity within—a part of being dragonkin, he supposed. His race had a connection to dragons that he was still only scratching the surface of.

  Some Denizens who had learnt how to perform rituals that connected with the Otherworld had to use devices—conduits that would channel their will and make it reach outside of their own universe to connect to the place that stood apart.

  They might use powerful crystals imbued with Spirit Energy, or have swords or other weapons that could suck the soul from their enemies and place it into some sort of makeshift soulkeeping reserve.

  Xavier didn’t need to worry about any of that. His was the most natural type of ritual.

  His eyes closed, Xavier willed his connection to the Otherworld. His forehead creased ever so slightly at the effort. He’d learnt how to connect to the Otherworld naturally, whereas whenever he connected to the Otherworld while using a spell, it was the spell that was doing the work for him.

  That had always sparked something in his mind. It made him think of a time before the System, when Denizens had to perform spells and skills without its help. Without the System essentially running a program within a Denizen’s mind—that was something he’d been learning how to do when it came to using his Body Cultivation spell.

  There are more avenues for me to explore on that…

  Xavier focused his mind to a point. It didn’t take him long to connect to the Otherworld. Once he had, he released a breath. The first step had been complete.

  Now, for the tricky part. Or, at least, one of the tricky parts.

  Summoning a spirit from the Otherworld was of course something that Xavier had done what felt like countless times, but summoning a specific spirit with a ritual required a great amount of concentration.

  Much like when he used his Soul Sacrifice spell, Xavier needed to do more than simply connect to the Otherworld. He needed to create a bridge to the Otherworld, one that a spirit could move through. Without the added benefit of using a spell to do this, Xavier had to trust in his will, and trust in the ritual he was about to perform.

  Sacrificing a small number of the souls he had in his reserve would help him accomplish this task, but he needed to be careful. If he opened a bridge to the Otherworld in this way without putting any restrictions upon it, any spirit could move through into the Mortal Realm, and those spirits might not be limited in the way they usually were—a B Grade or even an A Grade spirit might move through that bridge and be unleashed upon this world, even if only for a brief time, as the spirit wouldn’t have anything holding it here.

  That was something he couldn’t afford to risk. He’d heard tell of the “accidents” that had happened when one performed this type of ritual.

  Xavier wasn’t going to let himself perish should one of his own rituals go awry.

  And so he focused his will and concentration, weaving restrictions into the bridge he was about to form.

  Time passed, though Xavier was scarcely aware of it. His mind was completely ordered. No parts of it were split, and his entire mental capacity was turned toward this task.

  When it was complete, Xavier smiled.

  The bridge had been formed—all he need do was call the dragon spirit through it.

  And place it into the vessel before him.

  Accidental Champion!

  my patreon has 29 ADVANCED CHAPTERS to enjoy!

  https://www.patreon.com/posts/free-tier-book-4-116513628

  https://discord.gg/nsgnbpWJ7S