I woke up the next day in my bed after having moved there late last night when I woke up on the armchair. ‘I had been nervous about waking her up but, while I was drinking my water (because I was thirsty) she came up to the kitchen where I was and drank a glass of water as well, before we went to bed again. We slept next to each other, with an enchanted blanket that she had bought me, but I had never tested, wrapped around us. I had been quite surprised when the soft blanket started to stretch out, the luxurious material wrapping around us, effectively pushing us together. I Imagined it was one of her pranks; she had taught me the command word but never what it would do. I imagined I was supposed to be surprised when it bound my hands to my sides or something and stopped me from moving. The blanket was quite snug and it had tightened impressively when it finished wrapping around us. I couldn’t move much, but it was very comfortable.’

I realised I had gone off on another tangent again. The thoughts of last night had swirled up inside me. It was probably something to do with the warmth of my best friend on my back. I still couldn’t move, so I deactivated the blanket with the command word before reactivating it around Aria by touching it and Sayin the command word before pulling away. The blanket tightened down, shrinking to cocoon Aria tightly, I saw it move one of her hands inside it down to her side, trapping it there. I giggled softly to myself, careful not to wake her up.

I headed downstairs and put on breakfast. I cooked some bacon in the frying pan while I made scrambled eggs in a saucepan beside it. I discovered that I could use my hair as rudimentary hands and stirred the eggs with a wooden spoon held tight in the grip of my hair, while I flipped the bacon. I then resumed stirring the eggs using my hands to hold the spoon as they were more accurate.

Suddenly, there was a loud voice from upstairs. “Charlotte! What did you do?” “Nothing you wouldn’t do to me.” I responded snarkily. “Get your ass down here. I Cooked.” I finished up the breakfast as I heard Aria clomp down the stairs, evidently having escaped the blanket. “It wouldn’t listen to the command word at first. Not until you told me to get down here did it let me go.” Strange. “Perhaps it was because I was the one who activated it? No matter. I made you breakfast” I replied, wondering what had happened. We tucked in, putting the matter out of our heads for now.

Once we finished breakfast I asked Aria a question. “Do you want to go and get our first quest? I was thinking a kind of short, criminal apprehension type thing so that I can test out my new abilities before the duel later.” Aria responded “If you want to test out your abilities why don’t you just run through a dungeon by yourself? Without me you would be able to go faster. Plus I could enter a different dungeon myself and test out my own abilities.”

I tilt my head considering it before saying “That’s a good idea. Let’s go do that. I heard that there was a level 20 dungeon near here that I might check out.” We headed out to go do that.

I entered the new dungeon rift, my excitement growing as I thought about what kind of encounters I would face. It was a common dungeon with no boss, just a few stronger enemies near the end. I exited the rift into the dungeon. I had decided to challenge myself by not using my sword and relying only on my hair as a weapon. It would be hard, but as far as I knew it could help my future perks.

This dungeon was a goblin type. It was a bit higher levelled than last time, but then again, so was I.

I looked around and saw that I had appeared a couple of hundred metres away from a goblin outpost. I could see the goblin lookouts up high on the outpost. I couldn’t do anything about that except hope they didn’t see me. I was severely lacking in long range capability. Oh well.

I walked towards the goblin outpost, alert and ready for attack. I encountered a lvl 15 Goblin Scout before I had walked too far. I grinned at it and beckoned with my hand. It screamed in rage at my taunt and charged. Before it could reach me I activated my two passive techniques, [Hair Strengthen] and [Hair Stretch], my hair getting stronger and more able to be stretched by other abilities. I then activated [Tress Bind] and my hair shot towards the goblin at a high speed before wrapping around its sword and ripping it out of its hand before binding its arms to its sides. It then wrapped around its ankles, binding them together.

I could see the difference in the amount of hair I had at my disposal, the difference between before and after was night and day. I didn’t think I would have been able to wrap the goblin up like this before. It was wrapped in what was essentially a cocoon of my hair. I activated my [Strength Sapping Hair] and I could feel the strength of the goblin flow into me, I could feel its struggles slow inside my hair as most of its strength was drained, its kicks and wriggles slowing down considerably.

It started to scream and I activated my other new ability: [Hair Noose] causing my hair to wrap around its neck and cutting off its airflow. The abilities bonus meant that the airflow cutoff was twice as effective. I could feel its strength still flowing into me, my hair not finished yet. The goblin dropped into unconsciousness and something unexpected happened.

My strength sapping ability had increased in speed as it had lost consciousness. Interesting. Once the strength sapping ability had stopped, I snapped the neck of the goblin. I probably could have crushed the goblin like a tin can with the sheer strength of my hair, but I didn’t do that as it would be both a waste of energy and pushing on what I considered acceptable to do to monsters. The pain it would have felt would have been immeasurable, although it was unconscious so I didn’t know if it even would have felt it. Still.

Now that the goblin was dead, I could feel myself slowly losing the stolen stats, but from what I could see it would take an hour for them to all disappear. For now though I felt really strong. I charged ahead, running straight into a group of Goblin scouts all level 15 and carrying short swords. Not for long though. I activated [hair snare] and ripped the swords out of their hands. My 3 passive abilities were still active my hair still a strength sapping, stronger and longer living weapon. I lashed out with [hair noose] and my hair wrapped around all three goblins necks and puled tight, snapping their necks in seconds. Due to the short contact, I didn’t get many stats from them. Oh well. It wasn’t like I was going to drag unconscious goblins around was I? No, that would be stupid.

Leaving their corpses on the ground, I unwound my hair from their necks and ran on, intending to attack the outpost. Enough with these weaklings. I wanted an actual challenge.

I charged past the rest of the goblins on the way to the outpost, my hair pushing away all of the goblins in my way. I looked back and saw them chasing me. Oh well. Let them come. I’d kill them all.

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I reached the outpost and stopped, deciding to deal with the goblins I had brushed past. More goblins were running down the stairs surrounding me. Now this was what I called a challenge.

The stolen Strength was coursing through my body, filling me with confidence. My passive abilities were still active, increasing the strength of my hair. I looked around me in a circle, my hair swirling like a storm behind me. This would be tough. The goblins charged and I reacted.

I activated [Hair Snare] and [Hair Noose], the two abilities acting in unison to wrap around the necks of several goblins around me. I could feel their Strength flowing into me as they passed out from the lack of air. I kept my hair around their necks, not finishing them off yet as I wanted their Strength. My strength stat skyrocketed from the dozen unconscious bodies around me. It felt like a headrush, adrenaline coursing through me. The next wave of goblins reached me and I activated [Tress Bind] my hair flowing out from me and wrapping around them, creating a cocoon-like structure of hair around them. Their strength flowed into me. My strength was now obscenely high for someone of my level. The higher my strength got the faster I could drain the strength from the Goblins. The first wave of goblins stopped providing me strength so I squeezed the hair around their necks, killing them.

4 large goblins crashed through the mob around me, their yellow eyes growing with anger. I glanced at the text above their heads and saw that they were Lvl 18 Goblin Lieutenants. Well, this was going to be difficult. They charged at me and I activated [Tress bind], My hair snaking out to wrap around their wrists and squeezed, forcing them to drop their weapons. Bone crunched as I squeezed harder, my obscene strength stat ripping through the Goblins bones like paper. They screamed as one, staring at the stump of their wrists. Blood flowed freely from their wounds, soaking through my hair. ‘Disgusting’ I thought to myself as I snapped their necks.

I continue fighting and killing the goblins all around me, feeling like a god amongst mortals as the goblins tried and failed to get through to me. A Goblin appeared as I finished off the last of the small ones, larger and bigger than the rest.

Its intricately armoured form bulged with muscles, its massive arms swing to and fro. I blinked in surprise. The text above its head said lvl 28 Goblin General. The dungeon must have sensed that a true challenger had come for a visit. Uh-oh. I may have had the strength to kill it, but a single blow from something like that would kill me like swatting a fly. No thanks.

I turned and ran.

Straight into a wall. Uh-oh. I looked at the name tag again lvl 28 Goblin General. Rare or better monsters had abilities that they could use and this one clearly had some kind of Arena type skill. I couldn’t get out of the area it had me trapped in. I had no choice but to fight it.

It raised its head, looking directly at me as it roared, spittle flying everywhere. Disgust filled me at the sight. The only hope I had was that my strength stat should be high enough to more than kill the General if I could reach it before it killed me. That… was the hard part.

Perhaps my [Stronger Body] passive skill would be enough to make it through this. I doubted it. Oh well, no point worrying over it now. I readied my hair in front of me like a shield.

Its massive sword came down like a speeding train, and I knew that there was nothing I could do. I activated all of my abilities at once hoping desperately that I would be able to slow it down enough that I could survive. I yanked Qi out of my core and forced it into my techniques not caring about the consequences. All of my abilities activating at once was dangerous, I had never tested how some of them would work together. I only hoped they would be compatible enough.

My hair shot out from behind me like a bullet, wrapping around the sword and slowing it. Not enough. I was still dead if that thing hit me. I screamed in frustration at the futility of my struggles. It was meant to be me forcing other creatures to struggle. Not the other way around. NO.

I ripped more Qi out of my core and shoved it into [Tress bind], willing it to wrap around me. My hair was meant to be hard to damage after all and never more than when I used a technique.

My hair suddenly stopped in midair, turning around. Now instead of heading for the Goblin General t headed for me. It wrapped around me, binding my arms to my sides, cocooning me tightly in its thick strands. There was so much hair being wrapped around me and then it reached my eyes and I saw no more. I could feel the hair getting thicker around me as more was layered onto my cocoon.

A moment later, I felt a sharp rap on my cocoon as the sword struck it, sticking fast as my hair wrapped around it, pulling it into my cocoon. I willed my eyes to be uncovered as well as my ears and it was so.

I heard the Goblin Screaming and I watched as its massive hand was crushed by my hair. My hair was spiralling up its (almost completely consumed by my hair) sword, spreading to its hand and crushing it like a can. Ouch. That looked sore. I could feel its strength flowing into me, my already obscene strength stat skyrocketing. I activated [Hair Noose], my hair wrapping around its neck and pulling tight.

I watched from within my cocoon as it scrabbled at its throat with one hand, trying desperately to catch a hold of my hair and pull it off. Ultimately it failed and its eyes drooped closed as it fell unconscious. I let go of my [Tress Bind] (at least I thought it was [Tress Bind]) technique now, the hair retracting from around me and letting me move.

I stretched, having been afraid to do so before as even with no sword and one working hand it could have killed me easily. I looked down a its unconscious form and grimaced before squeezing harder with my [Hair Noose] technique. A short while later a loud crack echoed out, its neck snapping before my hair’s strength.

It faded from sight, the goblins lifeless eyes being the last to go. ‘Creepy’ I thought to myself, before inspecting the loot that I acquired from the fight. An epic monster was sure to give me good loot.

There was two items there. One a great sword pendant, one that looked much like the one that had gotten mangled by my hair, and a ring.

I inspected them both, seeing they both had windows from the System.

Portable Greatsword of Goblin might. (Epic)

This Greatsword pendant can only be obtained through the greatest of goblin smiths or through killing one of their Generals. Transforms into a full sized greatsword when unclipped. Changes size depending on the user.

+25 Strength when wielded

Ring of Greater Endurance (Epic)

+30 Endurance when worn

I grinned. Yes, this would do nicely. That was a tough fight but it was worth it fo these kind of rewards.

I put on the Ring of Greater Endurance before checking my new stats.

Stats

Strength

275(45+230)

Dexterity

37

Endurance

76(46+30)

Vitality

35

Intelligence

35

Wisdom

37

I had known my strength stat was obscenely high but that was insane. I knew that in less than an hours’ time that it will have faded. I headed through the Dungeon rift that had appeared in front of me after I killed the unexpected boss, checking my watch just before I did so. It was 3:30 in real time. Having entered at 9 this morning I realised that I had been fighting the goblins for 6 HOURS.

Aria was going to be worried sick. I entered the portal, feeling my body get sucked into the fast-moving tunnel.