Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 10) - Chapter 12 - An Inter-Universal Army

Xavier couldn’t do everything alone.

As much as he wanted to, he knew it was impossible.

And he didn’t need to do everything alone. That was something he was still getting a handle on, even after all this time. But after he and the other Xaviers had defeated Jhanku, they’d come to a realisation about what unity truly meant.

If they were to unify not only an entire universe, but many universes, then they needed to create more connections like the one they shared with one another. That physic connection they were able to have with one another, the connection that allowed them to share their minds as one and pool their powers perfectly in sync, wasn’t something they had offered to others.

The Xaviers always made sure to keep their most potent powers to themselves, at least for a little while, before introducing them to the rest of their empire.

This was a power that was simply too much to introduce to everyone. At least at this stage in his empire’s development. But he didn’t have to introduce it to everyone. That was why he was creating teams. Different groups of Denizens who could train together, and not just with one another in a single universe, but with their counterparts in the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine currently connected universes.

There were already alternate versions of Denizens training with one another in his empire. After he opened the portals to other universes, it didn’t take long before people started training with their counterparts. He supposed it was something that came naturally. But this would be like adding an extra layer to that training, a very important, potent layer.

That was why he’d sought out Striker and the others he’d saved from Arrack’s base. He wanted them to be a part of one of these teams and break them into squads—at least, the ones that volunteered for this. That was a rule he was never going to break, he wouldn’t force anyone to fight.

Not if he didn’t have to.

But Striker, along with the others he’d saved, had volunteered quickly enough. They’d all doubted his defeat of Jhanku just as strongly as Striker had, but Striker’s presence at each meeting helped convince the others a little faster than Striker himself had been convinced. That, and the System-confirmed memory orb made all the difference.

Xavier placed them in enhanced time dilation fields, ones that ran faster than the synced time dilation fields around every planet in his empire. Creating a field that fast required borrowing energy from several different sectors, but that was an easy enough task considering the Xaviers had access to twenty thousand of them. And that number would only increase as their empire continued to expand. They’d already pushed into the eleventh sector in each of their universes, after all, so soon enough it would be twenty-two thousand sectors to pull from.

These time dilation fields took up the space of a single large uninhabited moon. The moon had every single Denizen Xavier had saved from the base, and all their counterparts from the others connected universes.

The training base was situated in Universe 314, the universe Xavier 314 lived in. Other teams being trained in the same technique were strewn around dozens of other universes, no two team was ever in the same universe or in the same place on a different universe at the same time, just in case something went wrong.

When the Xaviers had come to the realisation that they would have to leave their universe to gain more power, they’d started taking steps toward that end now. Though that wasn’t the main reason they were creating these teams. They were creating these teams because, as powerful as the Xaviers were all combined together, they simply weren’t powerful enough to fight off a large threat against every universe at once.

Fighting and defeating Jhanku had been a massive win for them, but it had also made them more cautious. The Xaviers operation was… fragile. They couldn’t risk one of the old monsters suddenly deciding to decimate their empires.

They needed to make each empire in each universe strong enough on its own, whether the Xaviers were there or not. That was the only way they could ever be sure that it would be protected. They still hadn’t even figured out how venturing into the multiverse would work for them—would all two thousand Xaviers venture out at once? What if they created more Xaviers? Would they take turns?

Where would they even go?

Roln, who’d been so open with his memories recently, had been rather tight-lipped about these things, but it was clear he was simply waiting for the right time to open up. And the more the Rolns were all connected at once the same as the Xaviers, the more they were starting to realise something about themselves—they had memories missing.

Many memories.

When their faction leader had inserted them into Xavier’s head, the faction leader had left some things out.

This was something Roln had mentioned early on, but now it was becoming clear just how significantly his memories had been erased. There were a lot of things about where Wanderers went, how they moved up in the ranks in their various factions, and where they even lived, that seemed simply… gone.

It was hard to know why the mental construct hadn’t noticed how much was missing before, but Xavier supposed when one lives for billions and billions of years, it’s not exactly easy to assess every memory.

Besides, how were you supposed even realise you’d forgotten something if you’d… forgotten it?

All the Xaviers were currently standing outside a large base that had been constructed on the previously uninhabited moon of Universe 314. The moon was in the Silver River sector, which each Xavier still considered the core of their empire. Though it was uninhabited by Denizens, it was filled with plenty of beasts, and its atmosphere was friendly enough to humans and other humanoid Denizens.

The reason no Denizens had taken residence on the moon before was because it had only recently been integrated into the System. The beasts on the moon had been there all along, but until the System came they weren’t considered beasts at all—they were simply the living beings that had evolved on the planet, none of them having gained enough intelligence over the billions of years the moon had been around to be “elevated” to receiving the label of Denizen by the System.

The beasts weren’t an issue, of course. None of them were more powerful than E Grade, and they stayed far, far away from the base that had been constructed here.

The base was massive. It had to be to house the inhabitants within. And, honestly, it was inaccurate to call this a single base, considering the structure had grown to the size of a small city.

Xavier had freed six hundred Denizens from Arrack’s base, five hundred of which had been agents and a hundred had been base staff. Every single one of those Denizens had volunteered for this training, but not every one of them had been taken on.

Striker had helped him choose the ones who made the cut.

He’d taken four hundred of the candidates—he was one of the few who’d known exactly where they’d all come from, as he was privy to such information even though he’d been contracted himself to run the place alongside Arrack. It was those four hundred Denizens who were in this small city-sized base now. Four-hundred Denizens alongside each of their counterparts from the other connected universes—meaning there were eight-hundred-thousand Denizens currently undergoing enhanced training.

An entire army.

Thus far, each of the four hundred individual Denizens hadn’t benefited from the use of a psychic link to their counterparts, but that would be a part of their training soon. Several of the Denizens here were A Grade, while the rest were B Grade. Xavier had many B Grades in his empire and more than a few A Grades nowadays, but the people here were some of the most powerful Denizens to enter his empire, and now that they’d undergone years and years of training in the enhanced time dilation field, they had all of the abilities that the other Denizens in his empire benefited from, along with the Reality Core that allowed them to walk the path of a Cultivator alongside the path of a Denizen.

This training made them some of the strongest Denizens in the Xaviers combined empire, and it was only the beginning.

It was time for the Xaviers themselves to impart the next ability upon them. The ability to psychically link with their counterparts. And not only their counterparts, but the other members of their teams—though that would be a secondary link that would only allow them to share thoughts, not their minds.

Training this many Denizens was something that his empire was used to doing. He’d brought in trainers from several different heavily established planets, but now it was time for those trainers to leave. They’d imparted as much of their knowledge as they could and were to return to their own families. As the training undergone on this moon in Universe 314, along with the team that had been created, was to be a secret even to the citizens of Xavier’s empire, the trainers who’d volunteered to come here would have the memories of their time on the base erased.

This was a part of the plan that Striker and others who’d survived Arrack’s base felt a bit wary of. Memory erasure was a little too close to home for them. But they trusted that in this case it was necessary.

The Xaviers, too, weren’t sure if it was the best way to go, but on the off chance his empire was ever somehow infiltrated, this was one of his secrets he couldn’t afford getting out.

The Xaviers had to train this next ability personally, and as there were so many Denizens to train, they all came at the same time. This was one of the moments when they considered their empires to be most vulnerable—when all the Xaviers were clustered together in the same place. But it was also when they were at their strongest, and while they were inside this enhanced time dilation field nothing was likely to happen.

The ability to link their minds wasn’t all these people would be given, either. There was something else. Something the Xaviers and the Rolns had heavily debated. If teams like this were going to truly be enough to protect their empire and thwart real threats to it, they needed something… more.

They needed a mental construct of their own.

Mental constructs weren’t common in the Xaviers’ universes, but they did exist, so it wouldn’t be too unusual a concept to the Denizens on this base. The mental construct they intended to give to these Denizens would be one that could help them edit their neural pathways in the same way that Roln could edit Xaviers. Not only that, it had many of the Xaviers memories, memories that would help them become better protectors of his empire.

Memories that had, of course, been edited heavily.

The mental construct would have no hint of Roln, because Roln’s existence was still a secret Xavier was keeping, but the Xaviers were only able to create the mental construct because of Roln.

The mental construct would hold a copy of Xavier’s personality, though the construct wouldn’t be as intrusive as Roln. The Denizens would be able to shut the mental construct off any time they wished, for instance, and the Denizens had been assured that the mental construct would in no way be able to control them.

The Xaviers had expected there to be some pushback when they informed the Denizens of the mental construct. Just like the training they were undergoing, receiving one of these mental constructs would be voluntary. They actually expected they might lose some of the Denizens, as they wouldn’t want what was essentially a piece of software inserted into their brains. That had been a risk they were willing to take.

But not a single one of the Denizens refused to take on a mental construct. They’d already received many years of training on this base. They’d seen their powers grow. They could control time dilation fields of their own. They could manifest spell patterns inside their bodies. They could advance on the path of the Cultivator and burn Reality Energy. They could do many of the same things the Xaviers could do.

None of them had imagined such powers existed, and none of them were about to refuse more.

These people had been saved because of Xavier. They’d gained their freedom. For some, that was a type of freedom they had never experienced over their long lives. And now, they were handed power they never imagined they would wield.

They were loyal. To the Xaviers, to their shared empire. To the goal of saving the universe—all universes.

As loyal as anyone could be.

And now, like the Xaviers themselves, they were to become a force to be reckoned with.

An inter-universal army.