Stacy watched him walk out to get ready to fight, even though he had been sitting still for 40 hours, he wasn’t stretching or anything like that, he was just breathing slowly. Bethany must have seen the puzzled look on her face because she spoke up in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Wondering what he is doing?”

  Stacy nodded her head but wouldn’t look away, there was something there, some kind of magic or force around him that she could just barely see right before he would breath in.

  “He is restraining himself is my guess, he hasn’t had to use his full strength since the last raid dungeon and I bet he is worried about you.”

  “Me?” Stacy asked. First off she was sure this was Bethany teasing her about being weak, and second, why would he need to do that for her and not for Bethany.

  “Yeah, with our connection he could use his full everything and break this dungeon like the last one, but not hurt me since subconsciously he knows where I am and what I can take. He would stop himself regardless of how distracted or focused he gets.”

  “And since we aren’t connected, I might get hit with stray magic.”

  “I’m sure it's fine, he is also trying to pace himself and not use much magic. I bet he wants to do this place until he can’t, so we might be here until wave 200 or something. Being here that long, you might get your wish.” Bethany said with a mischievous smile.

  “What wish?”

  “To watch.”

  Stacy blushed and felt her body get hot remembering seeing him naked, but then she forgot all that because the wave started. This was wave 41, a daytime wave so Umber jumped back into a tattoo on Eli’s body as the light changed. Out of the trees came 50 or so yellow furred monkeys, they looked like a mix between a baboon and an orangutan. The odd part was that they were all wearing fedora hats and a leather strap across their chest that held a banana in a holster. Eli blinked to one that had just emerged and just stared at it a second, then stole its banana, throwing it at Stacy who tried to catch it but was too shocked and she dropped it.

  Picking it up and looking at it, it really just looked like a banana. All the monkeys were charging at Eli now and the fighting had started, he was just using his bare hands and stats to maneuver so that he didn’t get surrounded while punching them to death when they got too close. Stacy kept watching the fighting forgetting that she had a banana in her hands, then a second one was thrown to Bethany. She caught it easily and peeled it and started eating it.

  “It’s a magic banana, you get a boost to recovery when you eat it.” Bethany told Stacy.

  She mindlessly peeled it and started eating it, she was mesmerized by Eli’s fight so much that she couldn’t look away. His movements didn’t look fancy, or like martial arts or anything like that, it just looked simple, small simple movements. But despite it looking like he was just doing a strange dance with minimal effort, he was dodging and attacking the monkeys. He looked so relaxed it was almost like he could fall asleep at any moment. After finishing the banana, Stacy sat down and tried to memorize how he was moving and then copy how she would do it in her imagination. It was an effort but she stayed focused on it until she fell asleep from the movements relaxing her.

  When he finished that wave, he walked up to Bethany looking calm but puzzled. Bethany, not to miss this kind of joke snickered and said, “is that a banana in your underpants or are you just happy to see me?”

  Eli pulled a banana out of his fuzzy underwear and said, “Both!”

  They laughed and hugged, just enjoying holding each other in that small moment of joy. Eli pulled away and looked Bethany dead in the eyes with his full, real transcendent eyes. “Now that Stacy is asleep I need to say some things to you that I couldn’t while she was awake and I had to be all divine acting and such.”

  She smiled and kissed him, “You’re welcome, and you never need to thank me, but you can when we are in private.” She winked at him.

  Eli sighed but with a smile, “Yes, we can do the thing you like whenever you want, but I do need to say this, not for you to hear, but for me to get it out.” He paused and she waited patiently. “I love you. And before you say anything, let me get it all out.” He paused again. “I owe you a lot, I’m always doing crazy magic things that make me stronger, but I can only do them because of you and Tara. I know that you two will take care of me if I do something crazy and maim myself taking time to recover. I can only be this strong because of you, so… Thank you.”

  She waited a beat to make sure he was done then got a smirk on her face and responded. “Well, we already knew that, but it is nice to hear you say it. We are a team and we grow stronger together, you just have the ‘stand out in front and take the hits’ role. You can always ask me for anything, you ask me to kill and they're dead, you ask me to die and I will. It won’t be often and never in public, but once in a while I will ask you for something, I’m going to need you to say yes when I do.”

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  Eli didn’t even hesitate, “Done! You want the world in ashes or wrapped up with a bow for you to rule with an iron fist, you and Tara need only ask.”

  Bethany smiled and they kissed and held each other until the next wave started. Wave 42 was just more monkeys then the last wave so Bethany laid down and closed her eyes. She wanted to participate to get more contribution credit from the dungeon but only if she was at her best.

  Before she could sleep though Stacy sat up and asked, “Who is Tara?”

  “I thought you might have been awake, but didn’t know you could suppress your soul enough to trick him.”

  “I was awake enough to hear, now tell me who Tara is.” Stacy demanded with a bit of panic in her voice.

  “Calm down, why do you need to know so badly?”

  “Because of what he said about her and you.” Stacy replied.

  “Well I didn’t think you were the envious type.”

  “Just tell me”

  “I will tell you, when you're dangerous.” Bethany said and she rolled onto her side facing away from Stacy as a clear mark that the conversation was over.

  Stacy tried to sleep after that, but kept waking up. It was tense restless sleep that would get interrupted at the slightest noise or if Bethany moved. Finally after way too long she woke and felt rested, Bethany was doing some spear movements but stopped when she saw that Stacy was awake.

  “Finally awake girl, took you long enough.” Bethany said standing over her.

  Stacy got to her feet, “I couldn’t sleep well, kept waking up. It’s dark, what wave are we on?”

  “He’s on 53 I think, I’ll know for sure when he hits 55.”

  Stacy looked around them at the clearing and saw Eli and Umber fighting a swarm of 4 foot tall rats with long arms and legs. They were moving insanely fast but having trouble pinning either of them down, it looked like they were spending more time controlling the fight than actually fighting the rats.

  “Since it got dark, he's been taking his time with the waves, working on skill use and fighting tempo control. I think he's practicing for later on when the enemies are harder, he doesn't seem tired yet which is good. Especially when you think that he has been awake for over 3 days now.” Bethany explained.

  Stacy got up and stretched and controlled her breathing, “I want in on the next wave.”

  “So do I, and with Umber helping I think we can give him about an hour to sleep.”

  Eli finished the wave and walked back to the stones, “Ah, you're awake, I’m glad you got some rest.”

  “We want the next wave, you get a little sleep, if we push hard we can handle it. Especially with Umber’s help.” Bethany said and pet the top of her head when she said her name. Umber made a growl purr noise that was both terrifying and adorable somehow.

  “No arguments here,” Eli said, then he laid down and was asleep instantly.

  “Well, he fell asleep fast,” Stacy said.

  “I told you he was tired, now let's do this!” Bethany said. She was trying to get herself pumped up.

  They were off to one side near the spawning trees when the wave started, they could kill the ones near them quickly and the rest all came from one side. Bethany went to work like a mad woman, spending magic liberally and carving up rats at an impressive pace. Stacy started slow but when the rat monsters started to crowd them she started dumping magic into her root spell locking dozens in place at a time. She also kept the wind based movement spell active on all three of them and with her light imbued sword she was hacking away at rats with all her strength, but was no match for Bethany's kill numbers. Out-pacing both of them was Umber who was excitedly biting heads off of rats, clawing them to death or using her wings to create a quick gust of wind to knock them back.

  It took the trio just shy of thirty minutes to clear the wave, after which, they headed back to the stone ring and collapsed. They weren’t completely exhausted, but it had been a rough one on their magic, both were nearly empty. They stayed quiet so Eli could sleep, just when the next wave was going to start and Bethany was going to wake him, he woke up himself. He stood and went out to fight the next wave. Stacy was worried that if the waves got too strong she wouldn’t be able to help anymore, but from how things were going, it was possible for him to have more chances to help. It just might mean Eli has to spend more energy to make sure she is only fighting what she can handle.

  Over the next waves until 75, Bethany and Stacy jumped in every other wave, or less if they got hurt and Umber was in every one when it was night and a tattoo when it was day. The boss on wave 75 was only one monster, and it was on a different power scale. It was some kind of water gecko creature that was mostly humanoid except for a long neck and gecko-like head. The two things that stood out to Eli were that it had a metal shield, some kind of magically reinforced chrome steel, and second was that it was fast and strong enough to block a hit from him. It still got pushed back a couple feet, but it was uninjured. This marked the start of when he was going to have to start using magic in these fights.

  Eli used a gravity smash hit with the minimum amount of magic needed to activate the skill and gecko person went flying backwards tumbling in the air until it hit a tree, then was cut in half by its own shield when it impacted the tree shortly after it. He sat in place, not returning to the stone ring, he needed an assessment of how fast he could regenerate magic while fighting. He could crank it up to his full regeneration, but the vortex of magic that would surround him would make it almost impossible to actually use magic. In terms of ability use, he could use about ten of those smash skills at minimum cost, each wave and have his magic refill in an hour. This was higher than outside the dungeon but he guessed it was a bit lower than inside the stone ring.

  Eventually he was going to get to a point where he would only have minutes between when he finished a wave and when the next one started so being able to tell how his magic was regenerating was going to come in handy. As if the 75th wave had been a marker for difficulty increase, almost every monster coming after that was some kind of humanoid with a weapon or a piece of armor or something. He did his best to keep himself calm, but his heart was racing and mind was whirling with excitement. Eli was looking forward to a hard fight.