As we left the dungeons building, I could feel my hair blow in the breeze, and I realised something strange. ‘There had been no wind in the dungeon… Perhaps that was something that would come later?’ The wind in my hair felt strange, It was almost as if it was longer now than it had been before I had entered the dungeon, perhaps it was, it was quite difficult to tell with just how much it had changed between my Class and Ascent. ‘oh well’ I thought to myself, ‘I guess I will find out later.’
I checked my screens and found that I had 275 exp to spend from both killing the hoblins and clearing the dungeon. I had just enough to level from level one to level ten which I did leaving me with 5 left over.
I felt a surge of energy rise within me as a new perk activated, bringing with it a rush of exhilaration. I could now manipulate the length of my hair, extending or shortening it by up to ten centimetres each day. This newfound control over my hair wasn’t just about aesthetics; it opened up a realm of possibilities for strategy in battle and creativity in everyday life.
What intrigued me even more was the choice this perk offered. Instead of simply changing the length, I could also channel that energy into making my hair denser and thicker. Imagining the potential, I realized that my already abundant hair could become even more formidable, allowing me to create stronger and more effective bindings during combat.
At this stage, the ability felt somewhat limited—after all, ten centimetres wasn’t a drastic change in the grand scheme of things. However, I knew that over time 10 centimetres would very much add up. But I also knew that as I continued to train and level up, this perk would evolve. The thought filled me with anticipation; I couldn’t wait to see how I could harness this newfound strength in future battles.
I used my [Trichokenisis] to dampen the effect of the wind on my hair. I looked to Aria and saw her face as she levelled. She had the same amount of experience as me and as such levelled to 10 just like me. I saw her eyes refocus as she finished levelling and asked her what she got. She replied “I got an ability that lets me reinforce my shield.” “Sounds good” I replied. “let’s go to the Adventurers guild and get registered now that we have access to the System.”.
We walked through the city until we reached the guild and approached the large red-brick building. We entered through the large double wooden doors and entered, we went up and joined the queue for registration. I could feel the excitement rise in me as I wondered on the kind of quests I would do once we were registered. I had heard of all kinds of things about quests and knew that there were several types of them available, ranging from hunting wild monsters to mining to apprehension of criminals.
Once we reached the desk we were asked to go through to registration rooms where they would read our screens and evaluate us based on them. We go through to the back and I am led into one room by a female attendant while Aria is led into another room.
She sits behind a large wooden desk and gestures for me to sit across from her. I sit in the cushioned chair, sitting down for the first time since I entered the dungeon. It was bliss. She held a hand out to me and I took it. As I did so I saw a notification asking me to make a contract with the Attendent to stop them from revealing anything. I agreed and showed her my full screens.
Name:
Charlotte Brenner
Age:
18
Place of origin:
Corundrary
Combined tiers
2
Highest focus tier
1
Class:
Basic Tressmancer
Lvl
10
Ascent
Ascent of the Enveloping Locks
Realm
beginner - novice
Skills
1
Perks
Hair growth (Class Perk)
You can choose to legthen or shorten your hair by ten centimtres a day. You can choose to focus this instead on making your hair strands thicker or creating more strands of hair on your head. (cooldown 24 hours)
Clean hair (class perk)
Your hair no longer gets dirty, grease, dirt mud etc just falls right off it.
Trichokenisis
You can control your hair to a basic degree.
Strong hair (ascent perk)
Your hair gets stronger with each cultivation tier, it is now much harder to damage and can hold up against attacks much easier
Abilities
Silken snare (class ability)
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You hair wraps around part of an opponent, distracting them and annoying them (cooldown 10s)
Cultivation Techniques
1st Basic Technique
Hair strengthen - the more Qi put into the hair the stronger it gets.
2nd Base technique
Tress Bind - your hair wraps around something, restraining their movement and if willed starts to squeeze them to death.
Skills
Stronger body
Makes your body stronger
Stats
Strength
20
Dexterity
22
Endurance
21
Vitality
20
Intelligence
20
Wisdom
22
Attunements
Firsts Attunement gained!
All hair elated powers are 35% stronger
She whistled in appreciation at my Epic Class and Rare Ascent. “Its impressive for one so young to have such high rarity Focuses.” I smiled at her “Thanks.” “Now we are going to run some tests based on your abilities.”
She leads me to another room. “Since your class and Ascent are based on restraining techniques, I will have you try and restrain me while I attempt to break free using pure strength. We will start with what appears to be your weakest technique and work our way up. Start with your [Silken Snare] ability” with that she puts her arms together in front of her and waited for me to use it one her. I activated the [Silken snare] ability, causing my hair to wrap around her arms binding them tightly together. She strained for a few seconds before pushing them apart, breaking the ability, I felt a pang of pain inside me as she did so.
“About thirty strength, I would say. Not bad all things considered. Now try your [tress bind} technique on me.” I nodded in affirmation, doing as she asked.
I willed my Qi to flow into my [Tress Bind] technique, as well as my [Hair Strengthen] technique infusing it with energy. As I focused, I felt the familiar warmth of my Qi surging through me, amplifying the power of my hair. The strands began to elongate, stretching and moving with purpose.
My hair flowed like liquid silk, wrapping around her arms in intricate loops. The strands formed tight spirals around her forearms, locking into place as they layered upon each other, creating a robust binding. I guided the hair to spread over her hands, completely encasing them, rendering her grasp ineffective.
I concentrated further, channelling even more Qi into the hair. It responded to my will, thickening, and reinforcing itself as it began to spread upward, encasing her upper arms. I willed it to tighten its grip and I could feel the hair tighten almost as if it was another limb.
The attendant strained against the bind, muscles tensing as she tested the limits of the bind. “Impressive,” she admitted through gritted teeth, her eyes narrowing as she struggled against the restraints. I could see the surprise in her expression, and it fuelled my confidence. With each pulse of Qi, I could feel my hair adapting, becoming even stronger and more resilient, responding to my intent.
“Wow” she said “I’m going to have to use an ability” Suddenly the Attendants struggles increased tenfold and she slowly forced her arm apart, extricating herself from the intricate bind I had placed her in. “How much?” I asked? “About 70 strength”, she responded. “Nice, and how about now?” I activated my [hair snare] ability and more hair shot out and bound her arms to her torso, creating a web of hair that bound her upper body. She struggled and cycled her Qi, increasing her strength by a large margin. She slowly forced her arms away from her chest and then, very slowly pulled her arms part. All the while my hair was creating more loops around them trying to bind them back to her chest.
She finally succeeded in extricating herself from my hair and I deactivated the technique. She looked at me an expression of sight awe on her face “That took 100 strength to escape from! For someone who has a fifth of that, that is seriously impressive, granted I just sat there and let you tie me up. Yeah, I would say that you classify as a grade 2 bronze adventurer. Easily.” I grinned in excitement at that. “I can’t wait to see what kind of quests I will be doing.” I said excitement filling my voice. “Well based on your powers I will expect mostly humanoid monster hunting quests and perhaps even apprehending low rank criminals.” The Attendant responded.
“Hey, what’s your name?” I said realising I hadn’t asked yet. “Clara,” she responded, “Clara Bond.” “Clara bond? That name feels familiar to me…” I said a faint bell ringing in the back of my mind at her name. Oh well. I put it out of my mind, for now as we finished up the registration process.
We walked back through the training room and back into her office where she handed me a blank transparent badge. I took it from her hand and felt a warm feeling wash through me from the badge. System messages appeared in front of me.
Organization badge detected!
Integrating…
Adventurers Guild integrated! – new interfaces unlocked!
Quest system unlocked!
Adventurers’ guild interface unlocked!
New guild rank unlocked! – Bronze 2 Adventurer!
Rank bonus stats rewarded! – Rank: Bronze 2 Adventurer!
I blinked at the number of notifications that appeared. I willed them to minimize, and they did, pulsing in the corner of my vision. I dismissed them after I had made sure that that worked. ‘Bonus stats, huh. Handy’ I thought to myself.
The Attendant, Clara, asked if I was ready to go. I said “yes” and walked after her, looking, down at the badge in my hand, which had turned into a bronze colour with a letter 2 on the front. I clipped it onto my belt as I walked. We reached the registration desk, and I stuck my hand out for a handshake, and she took it. Her hand was warm, her grip firm. She let go and turned around, walking back to her room, I watched her go before shaking my head and tore my eyes away from her. Turning around I saw Aria, waiting for me. Her expression was… unreadable. I walked up to her, and we left the adventurers guild to get food. I was starving after the registration. She was still looking at me strangely.
“What’s up?” I asked, confused as to what the matter was. “What took you so long? You were in there for so much longer than I was. Plus, I saw the way you looked at that Attendant. Something funny is going on.” She said sounding mildly annoyed, although the bit about the Attendant was said softer.
I blinked, having not realised that it had taken me long in there, to me, it had felt like about 20 minutes… “How long was I in there? It cannot have been more than half an hour, right?” I asked, confusion infiltrating my tone. “You’re right it was about half an hour. But I was in and out of there in 10. What did you do in there?” She responded, confusion filling her tone.
“We tested out my abilities, from my Focuses. Essentially Clara just had me tie her up with different abilities and broke out of them each time.” Aria blinked in shock before I continued. “Then after that was done we went back to the main room and she took some notes about where I grew up, what kind of education I had, stuff like that. That part didn’t take long though. Then she handed me a badge that turned into…” I lifted my badge up to show her. “This.”
She lifted her own badge, which had a bronze 3 on it. “Nice” She punched my shoulder lightly “I cant believe you have an better badge than me already! Congrats” She smiled at me then continued. “they didn’t have me test out any of my abilities. I wonder why… Anyway. Let’s go make dinner and go to bed.”
We headed back to the house, eating a delicious meal of a burger and chips before heading to bed a while later. She slept beside me in my bed like she did every time she came over.