Bee found herself in a library. A large, empty, and quiet one. Pale sunlight fell in through foggy ceiling-high windows on her right, and trails of dust particles played in the air.

Before her was an unmanned help desk in the middle of the floor, with four books stacked on top of it. And behind that, against the far wall, were five bookshelves. They had signs on top of them labeled ‘Strength’, ‘Toughness’, ‘Dexterity’, ‘Senses’, and ‘Awareness’. The first two already contained a few books each, while the others stood empty.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the Concord wanted her to do. She just had to settle on which attribute she wanted to focus on.

She didn’t know much about the specifics of each one other than what the names suggested. Will had suggested Strength, Dexterity, or Awareness, so she figured she couldn’t go wrong with any of those.

I think if I could just move a bit faster and improve my footwork, I’d be able to do a lot better against the familiars, Bee thought. Dexterity would surely help with that.

She settled on that and didn’t bother deliberating further. She picked up the stack of books from the help desk and marched over to the empty Dexterity shelf, placing all four of them inside.

The book covers shifted from their original gray to a royal purple, and a rumble went through the floor. Bee stepped back as the light coming through the windows grew brighter, until eventually all she could see was white.

She woke up.

Bee found herself in bed, and all the aches and pains she’d left behind suddenly crashed down on her. But… a little duller than yesterday, maybe.

Dragging herself into a half-reclined position with her head against the wall, Bee saw that she had grown a second AP crystal next to the first. She had been stripped down to a pair of roomy men’s bottoms, and most of her badly bruised body had been covered in various clumps of wet goop and her skin rubbed down with a floral-scented oil.

Well, I guess someone’s been playing dress-up with me while I was asleep.

She had no doubt that whatever that stuff was, it was meant to speed up her recovery. Will had gone to so much effort for her. It made her blush a little.

He could’ve at least waited until I was awake, though. Pervert.

*****

Will let the second day be a rest day so that Bee could recover somewhat. He had her drink another healing potion, and made sure she ate plenty. Her Low Maintenance passive would reduce her food intake needs, but her Healing Factor actively working would drive it right back up again as her body rapidly consumed resources to heal itself.

She was up and about by the afternoon, and had regained enough mobility by the evening that she could do some basic stretches.

Another night saw her pretty much fully restored, so Will put her back to sparring for the third day. He sat on the porch with Mongrel, watching her go at it.

She had always been good-looking, but she had gotten even more beautiful in the years they’d spent apart. Tall, athletic, muscular, her clothes soaked with sweat. Her short copper hair shone in the sun, and a smattering of freckles dotted her face and shoulders. Her skin was still covered in half-healed bruises, but the roughed-up look suited her well, made her look dangerous.

He’d always loved seeing her in action—whether with sports or in a fight—fully focused on the obstacle ahead of her. That was when she could shed everything and hyperfocus on her goal. The controlled chaos that shone through her eyes in those moments was the sexiest thing about her.

She moved easily with her new points in Dexterity, able to maneuver around the familiars and evade most of their attacks. It couldn’t all be put down to her new attributes, though. She was learning, adapting to fighting three on one by predicting roughly when and where each ape was going to attack.

“She’s looking better,” Mongrel noted.

“A lot better,” Will agreed. “So quickly, too. Just what I expected from her. She hasn’t gotten rusty at all.”

Mongrel gave a girly giggle at that. “Ooh, someone’s in looove.”

Will frowned over at the pudgy little man. “Yes, Matt. I’m literally in love, why are you talking like it’s some kind of secret?”

“‘Cause you’re cute when you get embarrassed.”

“I think the demon is rubbing off on you. Just watch the fight, stupid.”

Bee managed her stamina well. She still took a few stray hits, but managed to stay standing through each bout until Will called for a break.

“She’s still not scoring any hits,” Mongrel observed.

“Don’t worry,” Will replied. “She’s figuring it out. Testing the limits.”

For the last bout, she’d taken enough damage that she was starting to slow. The familiars capitalized and got her on the ground, beating her black and blue in familiar fashion. But this time, she managed to wriggle out of it and roll back to her feet. Still, she was limping badly, and she was about to get knocked down again when Will called a stop for the day.

Despite dragging herself up to the house with a heavy limp, her face all swollen and red like a boxer, she was beaming.

“I did good, right!” she said. “I felt a big difference with the Dexterity. I was like a slippery little eel.”

She did a little side-to-side wiggle that was probably meant to be some kind of impression of an eel, and ended up nearly falling over as her injured leg gave out. Will rushed out to prop her up, and he helped her inside the house so she could take a bath and enjoy a late dinner of sausage, potatoes, carrots, and brown sauce.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

That night, when they were getting ready to sleep, Will was struck by her beauty in the candlelight, even as she hobbled over to the bed like an old sailor. Her soft curves and sharp musculature framed in light and shadow. She caught him staring and grinned back at him.

“What? Those virgin hormones getting to you? Gonna take advantage of me while I’m all vulnerable, you monster?”

“No,” Will said, smiling. He held up a healing potion to her. “But I’m gonna need you to drink this.”

She made a face. “Ugh, do I have to? They taste nice and all, but you’ve got me pounding back so many that I’m already getting sick of ‘em. Can’t you make some new flavors or something?”

“Quit whining and drink it.”

“I don’t even feel much different after I’ve had one. Do they even work?”

He sighed. “They work, Bee. It’s just not a miracle cure. Think of it like eating your vegetables.”

“I hate vegetables, too. I’m more of a meat eater.”

Will pointed brusquely at the potion. “There. Drink. Quit stalling, you baby.”

She sighed and did as she was told, knocking back the whole thing at once like a shot of alcohol. The grimace she made afterwards was reminiscent of that, too.

Then he leaned in and kissed her. Her lips were warm and tasted like cranberries. Her eyes widened at the sudden contact, but she didn’t pull away. She wrapped her arms around him—god she was strong—and in the next moment they were on the bed. He was on top at first, but she wrapped her thick legs around him and reversed that.

“Permission to rock your world?” she mumbled between kisses, pinning him down under her body. Despite all that muscle, she was surprisingly soft.

“Granted,” Will said.

And then it was his turn to take some loving punishment.

*****

Bee was in a sparkling good mood.

Her injuries from the third day had been light enough that she was mostly back to full strength by the morning. The lack of sleep was more than made up for by the mythical sex afterglow power boost.

She was raring to go.

The familiars lined up in their usual fashion. This time she’d beat them. She knew their tricks now, and the Dexterity had given her the flexibility to stay one step ahead of them. It had been a little difficult to adjust to it at first, to suddenly be able to move with an added adroitness and range of motion like that. She’d quickly gotten used to it, though.

The chimps stared her down without fear. Number Four hurled some sort of insult in sign language, ending it with a middle finger. Number One offered her a small warrior’s bow. He hadn’t done that the other times, which suggested that she’d impressed the old ape, somehow.

“All right boys, fuck ‘er up!” Mongrel shouted from atop the ceiling. He was supposed to be fixing some roof tiles, but he’d been spending most of his time nursing a pint of beer instead, spilling maybe a third of it in the process and sending it dripping over the eaves.

Will was watching her from the porch, and even Nix had come out of her den to spectate, although Bee could have done without that yellow-eyed stare putting her off.

The chimps charged at her with fearsome howls, mallets high. Number Four came in first, like always. He hit hard, but his strikes were wild and undisciplined. She sidestepped his first overhead blow and retaliated for the first time in any of the bouts, hooking one of his short legs behind the ankle and sweeping it out from under him. He went down with a cry, and she followed up with a heel kick to the face that didn’t take him out, but certainly dazed him.

She saw Number Two coming up out of the corner of her eye, and waited until the last moment to leap away from his attack. She stepped onto Number Four’s wrist and bent down to pry the mallet from his grip.

Number One picked that exact moment to attack, while her attention was split. He was the shrewd one, after all—far cleverer than an ape had any right to be. But he was also the weakest of them, slowed by age.

Bee took his mallet in the shoulder. She jerked back with a grunt, but kept her feet planted. Powering through the pain of a second blow, she was finally able to overpower Number Four’s grip and steal his weapon away from him. She stepped back and checked an attack from Number Two with the flat of the mallet, the two weapons producing a sharp clack of wood when they met.

Now that she had a weapon, the apes fell back to reassess their strategy, crowding together. Bee wasn’t going to give them that time, though. She went after them at a run, headed straight for Number Four, who was now unarmed and vulnerable.

Number Two saw this and moved to protect his brother. Bee had expected as much and pulled her feint short when Number Two raised his mallet to block. Instead she swept low and knocked his knee out sideways with a horrible crunch.

She felt a little bad as he howled in pain, but Will had told her that the familiars wouldn’t suffer any permanent damage no matter what she did to them. And they had been going pretty damn rough on her, too, so it was no more than fair that she dish out some pain of her own.

Bee kicked Number Two to the ground. When Number Four went for his weapon to even the odds she brought her mallet down on the back of his head, driving him firmly into the ground. He tried to get back up, but a second blow knocked him out cold.

Congratulations! You have reached Level 3!

Please sleep in order to allocate your rewards.

Then there was only Number One. She rounded on him, but he quickly dropped his weapon and raised his hands in surrender, seeing no way to beat her on his own.

“Good work, Bee,” Will said as he came down the yard with his satchel to tend to the chimps. “You passed the first section faster than I thought.”

“Thankyouthankyou,” Bee said with an exaggerated bow. “I leveled up just now, actually.”

“Good.” Will knelt in front of the wailing Number Two and stuck a cigarette in his mouth to calm him down. It did the trick somewhat. He then proceeded to set the patella back into place with a sharp tug, and had the chimp drink a potion.

“That’s probably the last level you’ll get from simple sparring like this. You’ll level quickly as long as you’re really pushing the limits of your Profession with a novel activity, but as soon as you overcome that challenge and it becomes manageable, it really drops off. So that’s why we’ll be moving onto something else.”

“Got it. What are we doing?”

Will moved on to Number Four, checking over his head. “Right now? Nothing. We’re waiting for your instructor.”

“Instructor, eh? Sounds fancy.”

“He is pretty fancy, actually. While we wait, I was thinking about taking a trip into town. I need to sell some goods and buy supplies.”

Bee lit up. “Can I come with?”

Will nodded as he stood up. “Yeah. Level 3 is still on the low end for an excursion, but I’m assuming you wouldn’t tolerate being left behind.”

“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d hit you with a rear naked choke if you tried.”

The two injured chimps dematerialized into diffuse streams of energy that shot straight into their master. Number One picked up their weapons and lugged them up towards the house.

Will followed after him. “Come on, let’s get inside. You’ll be getting an upgrade point for Level 3, so we can talk about what your options are.”

“Okay!”

Bee’s good mood had only improved.

This is what I trained for, she thought as they walked to the house. Everything finally makes sense.

“Nice show, babe,” Nix said, sat in one of the lawn chairs with her legs spread obscenely to display her uncovered sex. “You’ve got a bit of devil in you, huh?”

“Cut it out,” Will warned.

But for once, Bee agreed with the demon.