Soon the next wave came and it was 25 of the same monster, Stacy had to do some kiting but she finished them off by herself in about twenty minutes. She sat down and put her back on the podium in the middle of the stone circle to rest, her shoulder was just barely in contact with Eli’s but she could feel his power being unwieldy as he was still struggling with it. It was like the air near him was vibrating, but it was magic and it vibrated her soul a little bit. She was wondering why Eli hadn’t let Umber out to help, even with the daylight, she would be a big help. But she didn’t question it, there was just so much she didn’t know about magic, she felt asking would interrupt him too much since so much would need to be explained.

  Bethany took the next wave, 30 of those sunflower monsters this time and she finished all of them in fifteen minutes. They were 3 waves in and Bethany could already see a problem, they always spawned far apart, evenly spaced around the clearing. When the numbers get higher, keeping them in front of you is going to take time and energy. She was already feeling it slightly, but this place was going to be relentless for over four days. Her plan was to focus on making it to 25, she felt that if she could make it to 25, no matter how exhausted she gets, she can rest after Eli takes over.

  Stacy got hurt on the fourth wave that had 40 or so of them, neither of them got a good count. A vine whip attack cut into her leg just above the knee and she lost focus leading to a cut on her cheek and side. She then growled and grunted and got herself up and moving, finishing off the last one with roughly 30 minutes until the next wave. Stacy was tired and hurt but still had some fight in her.

  “You're doing well, rest and I'll handle this next one.” Bethany said. Stacy just nodded and sat back down.

  When the 5th wave started it was just as Bethany expected, a boss round of sorts. She suspected that every 5 rounds or every ten rounds would be a boss type monster to separate the sections. This time it was 3 of the same monster but much larger, they were six feet tall, the same as her, and had 12 foot vine whips to attack with. They ran towards her with vine arms flailing trying to attack all at once, Bethany activated her water skill allowing her to move like the plant creatures, as if she had no bones. Every part of her body could bend however she wanted and she used that to charge one of them before the other two could reach her. She bent, ducked and curled around its attacks and used a touch of fire magic she pushed into her spear to make sure her hits counted.

  That first one was in half in the first few seconds, but then the other two were coming at her together so she took off running to the left and used her spear to stick one of them in place. She threw it through its leg and into the ground, the actual damage was minimal but it served as a root attack and it couldn’t chase her. Then she kept moving until they were separated enough and pulled another spear out and began tearing the second one apart. Just as it died the third one showed up and she was able to defeat it, although she had slowed quite a bit from the first one to the third one, the entire fight had taken less than 2 minutes.

  “Wow, so I haven’t seen you get serious until now.” Stacy commented.

  “Who says that was serious? I was just using magic, the smallest amount needed. This is going to get very hard over the next few days, you need to work on your fighting. Take this dungeon as a chance to get stronger, improve your technique and magic use. Listen girl,” Bethany had only ever called her ‘girl’ when she was mad so Stacy remained silent and listened. “If you thought that was power, or strength, or whatever BS you and Eli came up with during your philosophy talks, you are weaker than I thought. Get your shit together kid, we need you focused and we need you dangerous.”

  “I will focus, but I don’t know how to be dangerous.” Stacy said.

  Bethany slapped her in the face hard enough to leave a bright red handprint and almost knock her on her ass.

  Stacy put a hand to her cheek, stunned at Bethany for hitting her. “What was…” Stacy started to say but was cut off.

  “I hit you because you aren’t dangerous and you won’t hit back. When I had you by the throat when we first met, you and that other girl I had by the hair could have attacked me, with magic or weapons, but you didn’t. Why?” Bethany asked.

  “We were scared of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Stacy sighed, “Because you are dangerous, the threat of further violence and/or cruelty was real.”

  “Well you are half right, but I’m not dangerous because my threats are real. I’m dangerous because I’m competent and motivated. The only reason my threats worked was because you knew I was competent and could back them up. That might have made you hesitate, but what made you freeze was the addition of motivation. Something you could feel from me, rather it be body language, posture, facial expression, or any other number of things, you knew on some level that I do not hesitate. You not fighting back is the only reason I went so easy on you both.”

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  “Yeah, after seeing a bit of what you can do, we all got off easy.” Stacy said.

  Bethany slapped her again, just as hard, and in the exact same spot making the red handprint on her cheek even worse.

  “Until you become dangerous, expect the slaps to continue. If you take too long, that red handprint mark might become permanent.” Bethany said with some sassy attitude in her voice.

  Stacy just rubbed her cheek and walked out of the circle of stones, "I'll get the next one.”

  The few minutes leading up to the sixth wave there were some changes to their environment. The leaves and bark of the trees changed color to a brownish mud color with streaks of green in it, the grass was becoming sparse, and there were pits of mud scattered around the clearing. Stacy did her best to prepare herself, her wounds weren’t bleeding anymore, but they weren't exactly healed either, but she wasn’t going to let that slow her down. She just kept saying the word ‘resolve’ in her head over and over again, preparing herself for what was coming. At the first sign of a monster leaving a tree, she took off in a dead sprint at it.

  These monsters were similar to the last five waves, but had earth magic included making them something like swamp monsters. There were at least 30 of them, and Stacy got to work. She pushed her body to its limits and was running on instinct. Without meaning to, or trying, she imbued her thin sword with light magic making deep cuts deadly instead of just slowing the thing down. She could feel the earth magic in the monsters and used her earth magic root spell to trap them to the ground using their own earth in their bodies, not even the earth from the ground. Her wind movement speed boost was active but subtle, so she wouldn’t burn too much magic.

  Bethany was shocked by what she was witnessing, it was like Stacy was a whole new fighter, a whole new person. She heard a ‘humpf’ from Eli and glanced over to him, he had the biggest smile on his face. His eyes were still closed and it was clear that he was still hurting from what she now knew was shaping his magic, along with working on control. But he was smiling like a proud baseball coach watching a player's first homerun.

  “You knew she could do this, didn't you?” Bethany asked him.

  “I had a feeling,” Eli coughed for longer than Bethany liked, “When I put will into my words, her will responded.”

  “Responded how?”

  “Her will rebuffed mine, I was barely using any so it didn’t shock me too much, but then I did it again and it sent me back a feeling. Fear and hesitancy.” He explained.

  “She was subconsciously, literally, hiding in a shell of her will. So when I told her how to impress you and she accepted the danger and the violence, her will responded and opened up to bring out her full strength.”

  “Basically, also, I think the slap helped. Your speech about being dangerous, do you know who you sounded like?” Eli said with a cheeky grin.

  “You, I sounded like you, it was arrogance and pretentiousness. I need some girl time, your rubbing off on me.” Bethany said.

  “I thought you liked it when I rubbed on you.” Eli said licking his lips provocatively to tease her.

  She slapped him, just as hard as Stacy but his head didn’t move and the red mark was on her hand. She smiled anyway and kissed him on the neck. “Get back to fixing yourself, what kind of god are you that your followers have to do all the work.”

  She got up to check on Stacy but she was standing right behind her, it turns out she was able to pin the ones near her down with earth magic and kill them pretty effortlessly.

  “What are you guys talking about, I walked up on the sexy parts.” She blushed fiercely and said. “And I wasn’t kidding about wanting to watch.”

  Eli pretended not to hear, but Bethany smiled and said, “We can figure all that out after the dungeon.”

  The next 4 waves were just like the last set of five, the numbers grew until wave ten where it was three bigger stronger ones. This time Stacy insisted on doing it alone. She completed it by herself, but she took a nasty hit to the head and fractured her forearm. Clutching her hurt arm, and with blood covering half her face she sat down just inside the stone circle leaning on a stone opposite Eli. Stacy had the biggest smile on her face, one of pure joy and purpose, she was finally feeling alive.

  “Where did that come from?” Eli asked her. He had one eye partially open looking at her, in that eye Stacy saw and felt an endless distance to a spinning galaxy. Her soul responded to it by pulsing so hard she felt it in her entire body like she had just been given a shot of adrenaline. She twitched a bit and out of the corner of her eye she saw Bethany twitch as well and sit down. After a few deep breaths she came back to herself and remembered that he had asked her a question.

  “Resolve,” Stacy said proudly through bloody teeth.

  Eli smiled a smile mirroring her joy, with his eye still partially open, she felt that joy brush up against her soul and she felt like her heart was going to explode. This was a bigger rush than any drug, than any amount of nudity in front of camera, than all of her life combined before this moment. She understood why she was feeling this right away, he was still working on something and while working on it, he wasn’t holding in the transcendent parts of himself. This was his god side poking out and again she was in awe of magic itself. The wonders she had been able to experience because of these two were things she wouldn’t even have known existed without them.

  “When will you be strong?” Eli asked, closing his eye and putting most of his attention back on what he was doing.

  “That’s a trick question, I’ll never be strong as long as I dream of being stronger.” Stacy said.

  Eli lowered his head to get back to concentrating, but his smile told them that that was the right answer.