The woman scoffed. “I have no idea where you would get one. This one was given to me by my mother.” She paused, and it looked as though that hadn’t gained the reaction that she’d wanted from him. “My mother is A Grade.”
Xavier blinked. “Your mother is… A Grade. That’s… that’s quite something.” He didn’t ask how old Adranial’s mother was, though for someone taking the slower path to power—though perhaps slow wasn’t the right word—he imagined she would be quite old.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
She could be even older than that, for all I know. She could be millions of years old.
“If an A Grade gave that to you, how am I supposed to get my hands on one?”
Adranial sighed. “I already told you, I don’t know.” She shrugged noncommittally.”
“I know,” Domical said, turning to look at Xavier. “Or, well, I’ve heard stories.”
“Stories?” Xavier eyed him. It didn’t sound all that conclusive, but it was better than nothing—which was what he currently had.
“Aye. Stories. Weapons like that? They don’t tend to appear in the System Shop. And, even if they did, they wouldn’t be something the likes of you could afford.” He paused. “No offense. Just, you’re new around the Greater Universe. It takes a long time to accrue true wealth. The wealth like those from families like ours possess.” He didn’t say the words with pride, more matter-of-factly. He wasn’t boasting, rather informing.
“It’s only an F Grade weapon right now, though,” Siobhan said. The others had stopped talking amongst themselves, clearly having been drawn to the topic of conversation between Xavier and Adranial. “Would an F Grade weapon really be worth that much?”
“It’s not the grade of the weapon that is the reason for their price, but the potential of the weapon. Xavier should know a little something about potential, considering that’s what he is using against the other people in his sector—the potential for him to become strong enough to defeat them all.”
“Potential is quite the commodity in the greater Universe!” Larson said.
Domical glanced at his fellow party member. “Indeed,” he said with a flat look. “Though Soul Bound weapons rarely become available in the System Shop, they can be found at prominent auctions. A sector like this should have plenty on offer, with people who likely don’t know their true value. Though you still wouldn’t be able to afford one with spirit coins alone.”
Xavier frowned. “What else would I use as currency?”
Adranial smiled, cutting in. “A deal. Domical is right about potential, and yours is larger than anyone’s.”
“You’re saying, what, that he could trade in some future favour as though it was money?” Howard asked.
“There are many things that have worth attached to them, Spirit Coins are only one of those things. As for finding an auction like this, I wouldn’t know where to look in this sector. You’d be better off speaking to a resident.”
Xavier tilted his head to the side. “Surely you would bt able to procure a weapon like this for me?”
Adranial laughed. “Not around these parts. Maybe if you would have taken me up on my offer.”
Adranial and her party departed after that. They looked eager to get to try their skills on the eleventh floor. Xavier wondered how that would go—a part of him wished these floors could be recorded and broadcast. He imagined they would make quite a good show, with people sponsoring the Champions, betting on how they would do, following their favourites…
Maybe in another universe.
He walked over to the bar with an empty glass, and sat at one of the stools, nodding at Sam.
The barkeeper nodded back. “Top that up for you?”
“I’d rather have a coffee, actually.” The caffeine wouldn’t do anything for him. Not that he needed it to—not anymore. But he still liked the taste.
In moments, Sam presented Xavier with a steaming cappuccino.
Xavier grabbed the drink, wrapping his fingers around the ceramic, feeling its warmth on his skin. He breathed the coffee in, took a sip, then shut his eyes for a moment.
“Nothing like that taste.” He placed the cup on the bar, but kept his hands wrapped around it.
Sam eyed him. “Something tells me you didn’t just come over here for the coffee. What’s on your mind?”
“I need some advice.”
“Advice?” Sam started wiping down the bar. “What kind of advice?” He sounded a little sceptical. “It’s not about that woman you were talking to, is it? Because I don’t think I’m the best person to come to with dating advice—”
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“Dating advice?” Xavier blurted. “What? No!”
“Oh, all right. What did you want to ask?”
“I want to find a Soul Bound weapon.”
Sam stopped wiping the bar. He stared at Xavier. “A Soul Bound weapon? Have you suddenly become a very rich man?”
Xavier smiled. “Not that rich, no. But I might have something to trade.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure how wise that would be.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you would have to trade over a pretty damned big favour to get something like that.”
Xavier leant forward. “What about your Empress Larona? That woman has had her eye on me, after all. Wouldn’t you consider a favour to her from me to be a good thing?”
Sam sighed. He took a glass from under the bar and poured himself a drink. Not the first time Xavier had seen the man do it. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen. In fact, I know that it won’t. My empress… well. Let’s just say she’s told me she will be taking a very hands-off approach to your development.”
Xavier frowned. “She’s had you looking for me for how long? What was the point of you finding me, if she isn’t about to offer her help?”
Xavier didn’t need the woman’s help, necessarily, but he was a little confused.
“That’s not why the empress needed to find you, Xavier. This isn’t something she’s liable to change her mind on. Trust me.”
Xavier tilted his head to the side, then nodded. “I understand,” he said, even if he didn’t. “But surely you can point me in the right direction.” Xavier took out his Sector Travel Key. “If there’s an auction on somewhere, maybe I could go to it soon.”
“You would spend you Sector Travel Key use on that?”
Xavier hadn’t decided yet. He would be able to use a Portal Stone to come back, but he only had the one set of sector-wide stones, which meant he would have to leave one on the other side. Though he supposed it was a moot point. He couldn’t travel away from the Tower of Champions until he was returned to Earth again.
Still, Xavier found him nodding to the barkeeper. “Yes. I think I would.”
Sam nodded back. “Well, all right. Far be it for me to tell you what to do. I doubt you would actually listen to me, anyway. Besides, you’ve become far more powerful than I am in such a short type… I’ve been around longer, but that doesn’t mean I know any better. I’ll reach out. I know some people who frequent auctions like these.”
Xavier blinked. “You do?” The way the man had spoken when Xavier had returned here earlier, it made it seem like he didn’t have any friends at all.
“You meet a lot of people when you live for a long while,” was all Sam said in reply. He moved off to serve another customer. Xavier stood up, taking the coffee with him, and walked back to the table where the others were waiting.
“Any luck?” Siobhan asked.
“A Soul Bound weapon does sound awesome,” Justin said.
Howard grunted.
“I’m not sure yet. Sam is going to poke around. It’ll be a while before we can leave the tower anyway.”
Howard cracked his knuckles. “Not long. Not at the rate you’ve been going.”
Xavier smiled. They were going rather fast. Something he was proud of. “What do you three say—time to move forward again?”
They already had the information for the next five floors. Xavier didn’t want to sit around, even if they were well ahead. There were things that needed doing. While Earth was safe, he didn’t want to be gone from it for any longer than he needed to be.
Besides, there might be other places in the sector that he wished to visit.
Howard cracked his knuckles, then his neck. He stood up from the table and nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Siobhan stood. “I look forward to seeing how you tackle the next floor.”
Justin practically jumped out of his seat. “More titles? More loot? More watching Xavier Collins, Earth’s mightiest Champion kicking some ass? Of course I’m in!”
Xavier chuckled with a shake of his head. “Well, all right then. Let’s get out of here.”
The next few floors flew by just about as fast as the last two had. Xavier didn’t spend a great deal of thought on them. Like most of the first ten floors had been, these floors amounted to simply killing all the enemies on the floors.
Something at which he excelled at. Something at which he didn’t need to devise any clever strategies to complete. And, unfortunately, that meant he was gaining the record titles for those floors without even having to push his abilities.
Not that he was complaining, exactly, it just meant that the floors weren’t much of a challenge—and it also meant that they weren’t holding his interest. It didn’t take all that much effort for him to step into a floor, send out a mass Soul Strike, and kill every living enemy being in the area.
By the end of their first day back at the Tower of Champions, Xavier had already cleared eight more floors. And there first day hadn’t even been all that long. He would have kept going, but once they’d made their way back down to the tavern, they hadn’t been able to find Adranial and her party. They would have to wait until she returned to gain knowledge of the nineteenth floor.
Technically, he could keep moving up the floors without her knowledge, but he worried he might encounter another floor that didn’t let him go onto it twice—like the tenth floor and the twelfth floor. He figured the odds of that were too high to risk.
But, considering how fast they were going through the floors, Xavier didn’t think it was such a bad thing for his party members to have a well-deserved break.
Well, maybe well-deserved was putting it a little too kindly, considering he’d been the one doing all the work—at least since the eleventh floor when they’d inadvertently cleared the floor in record time simply by evacuating a town.
Regardless, Xavier himself didn’t mind taking a break from the floors, especially now that there were simply too easy for him.
There were things that he wished to do that he would need some privacy for, or at least some quiet. Certainly, he needed time to accomplish them, and time wasn’t something that he’d had all that much of lately.
He’d gotten to the level he was without really slowing down to focus on his cores. Right now, he had access to two cores—his Spirit Core, and his Willpower Core.
But there were several more cores that were hidden inside his body, cores that he wouldn’t be able to access until he was at a higher grade.
But he would be able to access a third core while he was still in this grade. He hadn’t gone to Sam or Adranial for advice on this. Sam was E Grade, like Xavier was, but the man was a lower level than him now. He had also uncovered his first and second cores far later than Xavier had—and he hadn’t uncovered his third core yet.
Adranial was still F Grade. She was strong for her Grade—even stronger than Howard, Siobhan, and Justin had become—and there was a good chance that she would have insights about this, but this was something he wanted to see if he could uncover by himself.
He was looking for a challenge, after all.