We exited the portal with a feeling like when the HyperTrain hits the emergency brakes. It felt like travelling at a great speed but the suddenly just not. It didn’t feel like you lost momentum, you just suddenly weren’t moving. It was disorientating to experience to say the least. We exited the Dungeon Room, thanking the Attendants as we left and entered the lobby of the building. I looked around, and glanced over the people in line, waiting for the dungeon. There I saw her. My wonderful ex-girlfriend. I hated her.

“Hey Charlotte! Over here!” Lilah Valen said, waving at me from her seat. Reluctantly, I headed over to her, Aria following me. “What’s up? I said, the tone in my voice betraying my unwillingness to be here. “Oh, don’t be like that.” She said, sounding hurt. “I just wanted to ask how you’d been getting on. I hope you’ve gotten better at fighting since the last time I saw you.” My hair rose of its own volition, my anger loosening my hold on it. It floated behind me, a testimony to how easily she got under my skin. “Though I suppose If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be lugging the big axe around. It doesn’t exactly suit you.” She looked me up and down and raised an eyebrow. “Nice armour though, who’d you steal it off? It fits well for something so clearly stolen.”

I interrupted her, two tendrils of my hair now floating over my shoulders, ready for battle. “Oh screw this, I don’t have to listen to you. You stopped being my problem a long time ago. I challenge you to a duel tomorrow evening at the Arena. Private match, partly because I’d feel bad if the entire stadium saw me kicking your ass six ways to Sunday. Be there at 7, or don’t, I don’t care in the slightest.” I shot her a glare before I spun on my heel and left, Aria following after me.

Aria stopped me outside, her face tight with worry. “Are you sure that was a good idea?” She said, her voice laced with concern. I replied, “Its sweet that you care but I need to do this, plus I just got a ton of experience from that dungeon.” I had about two thousand experience from killing the boss monster plus what I got from the regular goblins and the completion of the dungeon. It was a lot. I knew that I had got more from being underleveled for the boss fight.

Aria said. “Hey, I know you hate her, but do you really need to do this? I have no doubt that you think you can beat her, but she may have tricks up her sleeve. She could be a hell of a lot stronger than we know.” I responded with a grimace “I know, why do you think I requested a private match? I’d rather not be seen getting absolutely battered. I hope I win, but its better to be safe than sorry. I will be bringing you along to watch as we are allowed guests. Lets go home, I want to see what I can level in my own house.” Aria nodded, clearly not convinced as we headed home.

We walked through the streets, the silence hanging around us like a physical thing. We reached the front door and I unlocked it by setting my hand on the handle. The handle read my bio-signature, and the door swung open. I walked in and headed in through the kitchen towards my living room and sat on my armchair, activating the heating function and pulling my faux-fur blanket around my legs. Even though my energy had been returned to me by the rift, I still felt really tired and just wanted to rest. I was so comfy I felt like sleeping right then and there but I knew that I should level and increase my power.

I opened my screens and saw that it would take about 950 experience to get to level 20. I did so. At level 20, I unlocked a new perk:

New ability unlocked! – Strength Sapping Hair.

Activating this ability will sap the strength from anyone your hair is touching and add it to yours. (Up to 80%) The effectiveness of this ability depends on the amount of hair touching them, the difference in power between you and your foe and the length of time this ability has been active. Once cancelled or broken the effects of this perk will fade slowly at a rate of 5% of the maximum strength able to be stolen per minute. For example, if someone had 15% strength stolen it would take 3 minutes for it to be returned. If however, someone had been having their strength stolen is over the cap of 80% the length of time taken for the strength to return is doubled, with it taking 32 minutes for their full strength to be returned.

What was it with the System and giving me text paragraphs to read. Ugh. I sat and read, quickly realising how powerful this perk could be. If she had had this during the boss fight it would have went so much better.

I then advanced my Ascent. I had leveraged its abilities to the fullest that I could during the boss fight and was excited to see what I would get for taking it further. It took 100 experience for the first advancement and I reached the Novice – advanced tier, gaining stronger hair and a new technique

New Advanced technique unlocked – Hair Noose.

Your hair wraps around your targets neck, tightening and is twice as effective at cutting off airflow. If hair is already wrapped around targets neck from another technique or ability, the bonus to airflow cutoff is still applied and the hair tightens even more.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

It seemed that my new abilities focused on making it harder for someone to remove my hair once it was on them. I grinned, happy with my new abilities and advanced again bringing my Ascent up to Novice – expert. I got another Technique notification. I read the title and sagged slightly, seeing that it wasn’t an upgrade for Tress bind. Being able to tie a noose was all well and good but I wanted to be able to restrain things better. I read through the rest of it, my excitement growing at this new ability.

New Advanced technique unlocked – Hair stretch.

The limit for the elasticity of your hair is now up to 800% when this technique is used. Your hairs speed increases by up to 75% when Qi is put into this technique. Without using this ability your hairs elasticity remains at the standard 200% for all hair related abilities/techniques.

It looked like I would have a whole lot more hair to use now. During the boss fight I had wanted to be able to use more hair, to thicken its restraints. Perhaps now with all my new abilities, the Goblin warlord wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

My stats had also grown significantly, with 1 per 2 levels with bonsues to my classes main focuses which were strength and endurance, as well as 5 per Ascent tier. My stats weren’t too bad now.

Stats

Strength

45

Dexterity

37

Endurance

46

Vitality

35

Intelligence

35

Wisdom

37

It was safe to say that I was quite a lot stronger than I was when I entered that dungeon. A good day’s work. I looked at the clock on my wall, its glowing display saying that it was only half 3. I had time to nap. I looked around to find Aria siting on the sofa beside me. I poked her arm with my hair and she looked over. “Looks like your finally done. What did you get in the end up?” I showed her and she whistled softly in appreciation. “Wow.” She seemed to be done speaking so, feeling awkward, I asked her: “Wake me up at half 5 would you? I’m going to sleep for the next few hours. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the armchair. I heard a soft “Okay” before I fell asleep.

A few hours later I was awoken by Aria shaking my arm. “Hey there, sleepy, it’s 20 to 6, I’ve been trying to wake you for the last 10 minutes but your hair kept getting in my way. Eventually I had to just go for it and well…” I looked up and saw that Arias hand and forearm was wrapped in my hair. I willed it to let go of Aria and it did so. “Seems I have got my very own sleep defence system. Handy.” I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and stood up “Sorry about that Aria.”

“Its fine, I found it funny, more than anything else. I think it knew I didn’t want to hurt you. It never squeezed.” She shuddered probably thinking of the way I had dispatched the goblins. “Do you want to go get food somewhere, or do you want us to make something or what?”

“I’ll just make something for us here.” I put on some chicken goujons and potato waffles in the high speed oven. They would be ready in couple of minutes, so I had time to kill. “Hey Aria, want to spar? Nothing but passive abilities though. No techniques or abilities.” She raised an eyebrow before nodding. We headed out to the garden “Come at me… Chicken? I’m not sure what to call you to taunt you. No matter.”

I raised my hair like a cloud around me. She raised her shield and wated for me to attacked, charging at me. I dodged her first sword blow, before wrapping my hair around the edge of her shield and pulling. She wobbled, off balance and I pulled again, pulling her towards me and planting a kiss on her cheek before pushing her back upright. ‘That has been happening recently. Not often though, maybe once every other week or something? The kisses, that is. Sometimes it’s her and sometimes it’s me. It feels natural somehow, as if it is an everyday thing. They seem to be getting closer to the lips each time.’ I snapped out of it as the timer on the oven went off, indicating that it was time for dinner.

I dropped her shield, letting it clatter onto the grass. We headed inside and I took it out of the oven. ‘Delicious’ I thought to myself, before plating it and setting it on the dinner table. We eat the meal, talking about nothing and finish it, feeling content. There was still time before it was time for bed so I put on the 24k Tv and we watched a holomovie. It was like those old fashioned vr movies where you had to wear a headset to look around. With this you just had to look at the screen and it was transmitted directly to you brain and you could look around at al the different parts of the scene. I didn’t really understand how it worked, I was never big on tech.

It was an action film, full of blood and guts. I loved it. I watched as one guy dismantled dozens of Goblins by the second. It was hard to comprehend how fast people really moved unless you slowed down footage of people fighting. I was more interested in the women beside him who was also wrecking dozens of goblins a second. This time with a humungous slab of metal that she swung around like it weighed nothing. Each one of her swings sent goblins flying. ‘This was my hero. The wielder of The True Greatsword. The hero of Magenfield. The Destroyer of the Queen of Despair. The Megan O’Connor She was who I had always wanted to be when I grew up. Now though, I wasn’t sure that was possible. I hadn’t heard of many people with powers like mine who made it big. And none who had really been the strongest of the strong. None of them stacked up against the true experts. Perhaps I would be the first to do it. Maybe…’ I could feel my thoughts start to slow and I willed my hair not to attack Aria again. While the last time it wasn’t too bad, it could have been so much worse.