Xavier let the others go their separate ways after they had no luck finding Adranial in the tavern. He returned to his room, somewhere he didn’t expect to spend a great deal of time, but was always a good place to come back to when he wanted some quiet.

He sat, cross-legged on the floor. Unlike when he had uncovered his Spirit Core, he wasn’t worried about burning through his core by accident. He was good at burning through cores, that was true.

But it was his enemies’ cores that he had grown adept at burning through.

Xavier closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, falling into a meditative state. That was another thing he hadn’t spent a great deal of time on. His meditation skill. When he had been fighting the Endless Horde, he had gotten quite good at maintaining his meditation as he fought. It was something he was still capable of doing—if anything, he was far better at it now despite his skill having barely increased.

But it was also something that he had been lazy with. He was simply too strong to need all the little boosts. That kind of attitude, he knew, was liable to get him into trouble in the future. One day—and that day could be sooner rather than later, for all he knew—he would come up against someone who was truly a match for him, and Xavier would have to be at the top of his game to defeat them.

Just the thought of that made him smile.

All these thoughts slowly drifted away as his meditation began. He looked inside of his body. In his mind’s eye, he was able to see the different cores he had already uncovered—his Sprit Core, and his Willpower Core.

He could see them as clear as day.

Xavier took a moment to wonder what the next core he would uncover would be.

Would he uncover his Speed Core, like Justin had? Or his Intelligence Core, as Siobhan had? There was definitely a chance that he would uncover the same core as Howard—his Toughness core—but Xavier wasn’t as sure about that one, even if he had used his Toughness to his advantage many a time.

The last core he expected to uncover was the Strength Core. Xavier’s Strength attribute—like all of his attributes—was incredibly high for his level, but it also wasn’t one that he found himself relying upon a great deal. His Strength simply didn’t come up in fights as much as his other attributes did.

He did fairly well as a melee fighter—a slash of his scythe-staff was how he’d taken down that dragon and its rider back on the twelfth floor, after all—but still, strength wasn’t exactly where his strengths lay.

However, he didn’t really mind which core he uncovered. Whichever one it ended up being, it would no doubt come with a new spell.

The last time he’d uncovered a new core—his Willpower Core—it had proved to be an incredibly boon. His Willpower Infusion spell, in some circumstances, was his most powerful asset.

Soul Strike was strong. He had used it to kill a lot of enemies rather swiftly—and he doubted he would have ascended through the tower as well as he had if it weren’t for that spell—but without Willpower Infusion? There was no way he would have been able to defeat the Lord of the Endless Horde.

The energies within his body swirled. He followed the lines of them to each of his visible cores. He breathed, slower, deeper, longer.

He didn’t know how long he sat there for. At one point, a notification popped up in his vision. He ignored it, barely registering that it was there at all, and simply kept meditating.

Another notification popped up. Again, he wasn’t sure how long that had taken to happen.

Time passed.

And it kept passing.

Until finally, he felt something.

At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. It didn’t feel right, and by “right,” he simply meant it didn’t feel like his other two cores, which made him think that what he was feeling wasn’t a core at all.

Could this be my soulkeeping reserve that I’m feeling?

But no—it wasn’t his soulkeeping reserve.

It was a core, he just didn’t know which core.

He pushed his mind as hard as he could, focusing on it. Unfortunately, he had no luck uncovering it—at least in that moment—and he could feel the strain he was putting on himself. He opened his eyes and stood up. Tilting his head from side-to-side he heard a satisfying crack. Then he stretched his back and heard a few more pops.

Xavier didn’t feel aches and pains in the same way that he had before the System had come, but he still felt them—or at least, the ghost of them. Sitting in the same position for hours on end, no matter how strong you are, still grew uncomfortable—even if part of that discomfort was just in his head.

He paced around his room for a bit, moving his limbs about, getting the blood flowing. It didn’t take long—a few seconds, really—for the strain that had been on his mind from all his intense focus to disappear.

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Considering how strong my attributes are, uncovering this third core should be easy.

The only reason he hadn’t tried to do it yet was because of how busy he had been powerlevelling people and protecting Earth. He had thought that the instant he had a little time for it, that it wouldn’t take him very long.

A part of him thought about leaving his room to go find the others, to find something to distract himself with, to check if Adranial and her party were back in the tavern yet, but that felt far too much like admitting defeat.

Besides, if Adranial and her party had returned, one of the others would have come and knocked on his door by now. Hell, they wouldn’t even need to go that far—they could have just contacted him via their Communication Stones.

Nothing can stand in my way. I’m not letting this stop me.

After he looked at the two notifications that had popped up in his vision—they were both rank ups to his Meditation skill, bringing it to Rank 52—he sat back down on the ground and closed his eyes again.

It only took a moment for him to fall back into an intense, meditative state. This one felt even stronger than the last one had. It was trancelike in its intensity. The feeling of focus was a little intoxicating. Addictive. The amount of clarity he was feeling in that moment… he almost wanted to sit there for a full day to experience it.

Maybe longer.

A part of him knew that wasn’t really something he would want to do, but that part of him was too far in the background of his mind.

More notifications popped up in his vision as his focus intensified. Xavier didn’t know what it was that he was feeling—what this new level of focus might be—but he couldn’t get enough of it.

Then, finally, he touched on the thing he was looking for.

When he’d pinpointed the core, only another split second passed until he uncovered it fully.

You have gained +20 Speed!

You have discovered your Speed Core.

Spell Quest Unlocked: Time Alteration

To unlock Time Alteration, you must:

1. Cultivate 10,000 points of Celestial Energy into your Speed Core, turning it into Speed Energy.

2. Successfully cycle 10,000 points of Speed Energy through your Speed Core.

Progress:

1. 0/1,000

2. 0/1,000

Xavier’s eyes snapped open. He smiled, letting out a long exhalation.

God, he felt good. Better than he had in a while, if he were honest.

And he couldn’t be happier with the core that he’d just uncovered.

The Speed Core.

He chuckled a little to himself. He supposed it made a lot of sense for him to uncover that core. Speed was something he had been heavily concerned with since the moment he’d entered the tower and cleared the first floor.

But the spell quest he had unlocked, that was what got him truly excited. He had spoken to Justin after the Airborne Duellist had unlocked his own Speed Core—this was not the spell he’d had access to.

The spell that Justin had gotten was Speed Infusion, which, if Xavier were honest, was exactly what he’d been expecting to get.

Is there still a way for me to get Speed Infusion?

Xavier wasn’t sure, but right now, it wasn’t his concern.

Right now, he simply wanted to unlock this new spell—Time Alteration…

It sounded like it had the potential to be incredibly powerful. A spell that could alter time… obviously, at this point, he had no idea how this particular spell would work, but long before the system had come down to Earth, he’d thought having the ability to control time would be an incredible thing.

Who wouldn’t want to be able to control time, after all? Didn’t everyone dream of being able to do something like that, at some point?

He smiled to himself as he took a moment to pace around his room again. His room really wasn’t very large. He pushed his senses out. Celestial Energy. It was the energy that permeated almost everywhere—but it wasn’t all that abundant within the walls of the tower itself, but rather on the floors.

The Tower of Champions, the rooms, the tavern, they weren’t where one could grow their strength. The floors were. And so the Celestial Energy within the tower was far thinner than it was on the planets they were sent to when they went to each floor.

Still, he could regain his Spirit Energy while he was here, and his Willpower Energy too, which meant that there was some Celestial Energy in the air. There had to be.

All he needed to do was tap into it.

Xavier, feeling a little cramped in his room, headed up to the Staging Room. He was a little surprised when he found that the Staging Room was empty. He had expected to find the other members of his party up here, sparring or practising some of their spells.

Maybe they’re down in the tavern, or have retreated back to their rooms.

Xavier jogged around the Staging Room for a moment, then he turned that jog into a run, until finally he was sprinting about the place at full speed.

He didn’t often test out his full speed. There really wasn’t much need for it. The Staging Room, even though it was larger than it had been when they’d first come to the tower, was very difficult for him to sprint around. His legs ate up the distance between the two walls in what felt like an instant, so he had to change direction incredibly sharply.

After a hundred quick laps of the room, Xavier stopped. He wasn’t even out of breath. His body had changed a lot, since that day he’d walked to university and seen the sky that odd colour. Since that lightning shot down a portal and a goblin stepped out of it.

He walked to the centre of the room and was about to sit down and try and cultivate Celestial Energy when he stopped, turned, and stared at the door to the next floor. He tilted his head to the side.

Celestial Energy would be far thicker on the other side of that door, on the nineteenth floor. True, he didn’t know what the nineteenth floor would hold, but during his first foray into the tower floors, he hadn’t known what they would hold either.

Why should this be any different?

I doubt the floor will trap me, like the tenth floor and the twelfth floor.

He could talk to try to talk to Adranial through his Communication Stone, but she was on the eleventh floor of the tower right now, and Communication Stones didn’t work while one was on a tower floor.

At least, none of the ones he had worked. He struggled to imagine a Communication Stone that could bridge the divide between universes, however.

That would be a very powerful item indeed.

He could call the others to him, but he didn’t need them for this. All he wanted to do was step into that floor and cultivate some energy. It wouldn’t even take him very long.

Xavier stepped over to the door. Before entering the next floor, he left a note in front of the door, just on the ground. The others would easily spot it.

Then he entered the nineteenth floor of the Tower of Champions.