The waves continued and they all knew that Bethany and Stacy would only be able to help a bit longer due to the difficulty increasing, so they jumped in and went hard. By wave 85 they could no longer participate without Eli having to spend far too much magic and focus to keep them from getting seriously hurt. The waves continued on and the girls were dealing with a weird mixture of boredom and worry. He didn’t seem pressed or like he was tired or slowing down, but it did seem like he was using magic more often, and without someone to switch out with he would be in a rough state as time went on.

  Finally, it was wave 100 and a single boss emerged from one of the trees. Only, it wasn’t a monster, it was a person, at least it looked like a person. However, Eli’s magic sense could tell it was some kind of shape changing monster. He hesitated for a moment to consider if this monster chose to take this form, or if the dungeon chose this monster because it could take a form like this. The monster looked like a tall bald olive skinned man in plate armor and carrying an elongated spear or glaive. It tried to capitalize on his hesitation and charge in using a skill to make his charge almost instantaneous.

  There is a big difference between almost instantaneous and actually being instantaneous, Eli made a small side step move to let the glaive pass right by him, then he grabbed it tightly and yanked the monster right into his other fist. The blow knocked it off its feet but it quickly righted itself and squared off against him, only then realizing that Eli still had its weapon in his hand. The monster got angry and leaped at him with both hands raised above it head, they were clasped together as if to smash into Eli. He scoffed at this monster's audacity to use a smash skill on him, before the monster even reached him he swung its weapon, non-bladed side first, right into its belly button, or at least where a belly button should be.

  The monster folded around the weapon, but then it tensed and grabbed it with both hands. It looked up at Eli and smirked, as if to say, you didn’t see that coming. Eli smiled back brightly, then the monster again noticed something off, it was still up in the air. It now had a solid grip on its weapon but Eli was holding it up so it didn’t have anything to use to try and pull it away. Instead of letting it down or trying to throw it off, Eli swung it up higher, then over his head, then into the ground behind him with enough force to leave a small crater in the ground. It had landed head first and was no longer holding the weapon.

  Eli ended it with a few punches to the chest, and the 100th wave was over. The monster dissolved into the ground like all the others, but unlike the others, its weapon did not. He carried it over to the stone ring and sat while looking at it. The handle was about as long as he was tall and the blade on the top was another two feet or so with a slight curve as the blade ended. It was all made from what looked like one piece of some kind of magical metal that was flat black with a bit of gross red when the light hit it. He couldn’t inspect it properly, it might be the dungeon blocking him but he was able to see that it was epic rarity.

  Eli tossed it to Bethany, “Keep it or sell it, it's yours.” Bethany’s eyes lit up as she took the weapon from him like she had just received the best gift in her life. Stacy looked jealous and a bit down so he looked through his inventory to see if he had anything for her, and he did. He had totally forgotten about the monsters he had killed in that sink-hole lake right before he had met her. He took it out and gave it to her.

  “I’m not sure if it’s better than what you have or not but you can have this, I got it from some monsters I killed in the lake where we met,” he explained. She also took the weapon gingerly as if it was a prized possession. “Ok, you guys need to relax, they are just things I came across.” Then Umber came out of his tattoo and looked at him expectantly. “You too huh?” She nodded her head. He pulled out the meat from the same lake monsters and gave it to her. She ate it right away and seemed to enjoy the flavor.

  Eli sat and took a few breaths, “Ok, we can leave now if you think we should.”

  They looked at each other, then Bethany spoke, “We have had a lot of time to talk and we think it is up to you.”

  “Are you sure about that? We could be here for days while I see how far I can go. It could get pretty boring.” he explained.

  “You haven’t even conjured your full set of gear yet, you can go much farther. And it will increase our experience multiplier even if we do nothing the whole time.” Bethany said, she raised a finger to his lips to stop his next comment. “We know you want to do this, we support you, so go do it.”

  He sighed and smiled at her, “Ok, just this time, I’ll do what you want… since it’s what I wanted to do anyways.” he smirked at her, smacked her on the butt, then looked over at Stacy. She walked up to him and gave him a hug, then unexpectedly, she smacked him on the butt. All three of them smiled at each other and he walked back out into the clearing, Umber, after she finished eating, went back into his tattoo since wave 101 would be in the sunlight again. Eli took a deep breath and settled himself, he was going to have to really start focusing on being efficient if he wanted to go all the way to 200. He wasn’t sure if he would make it that far or if the dungeon even went that far but that was his goal.

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  The waves after 100 were very different, they were people, not monsters. The first set of five waves were something like Vikings, but with actual horns instead of horned helmets. The boss of that set was a berserker holding two axes, it was relentless and actually let itself get hit so it could get a clean cut on Eli. El was using his new mace so the hit he got on it turned its midsection into pulp but he did end up with a clean cut on his arm that bled for longer than it should. The weapons stayed behind again so he gave them to Bethany. They looked roughly made but were clearly very magical.

  Each wave set of five seemed to have a theme of historical fighters from his old world, after the Vikings were romans, then pirates, then Mongolians. The roman boss left behind a spear which Bethany absolutely loves, the pirate boss left a cutlass that Stacy hated, and the Mongolian boss left behind a strange magical crossbow. The Mongolian waves was where Eli finally had to use his full conjured equipment which transformed him into the pale rider from his skill. He grew a foot taller, his arms lengthened and his whole body turned white and emaciated. The armor he had conjured was in tatters but gave off an eerie feeling that Stacy described as feeling like there was a blade against her throat.

  The reason he had to use it before he wanted to was that the Mongolian human monsters all had crossbows and he kept getting hit by them. This group started wave 111 and by 113 almost 200 were spawning per wave. He used a bit of magic to kill that boss quickly so he could rest, the problem was the conjuring and transformation took too much magic for him to turn it off then restarted between waves. Just keeping it going was almost all of his magic regeneration so he wasn’t even getting magic back after he used it. The only solution he could come up with was to pull in magic between waves and after wave 115, he tried it, but it was rough.

  The magic in a dungeon wasn’t truly ambient magic because it belonged to the dungeon. The ambient magic that he could absorb was limited by the dungeon so everyone's regeneration was capped. Eli wasn’t sure if this was to prevent really strong people from coming in and learning the place for loot to sell, or if this was just how much magic the dungeon had to offer for people's regen. Either way, he was breaking some unwritten rule he was sure of by doing this, but he wanted to go further and at his current pace he would get stuck after wave 130 or so. So he extended his will and claimed the magic around him, pulling it into himself. A system window appeared, just as he suspected it would.

  “Warning: Stop harvesting magic.”

  “If you continue, you will be forced out and all loot and experience will be forfeit.”

  “Damnit!” Eli yelled, he was mad that wave 200 seemed out of reach now, but he was going to get to 150 even if it killed him. Staying in his transformed state that long might have effects on his body that he wasn’t aware of, but he didn’t have a choice. Besides, even if he was stuck like, or disfigured somehow, he knew Bethany and Tara wouldn’t leave him, and with their support he could do anything. He stretched and flexed his oddly proportioned body, his torso and arms were longer in this form compared to his legs and if not for his weapon skill being about balance, he would have had a harder time getting used to it.

  Wave 116 started a set of Greeks, at least he thought they were historical Greeks, but he wasn’t that versed in history and he was 60% sure that the boss was Alexander the Great, which made him doubt that these were real historical depictions. The next set was some kind of tribal Asian culture that wore loin cloths and threw surprisingly magical sharpened sticks for javelins. Wave 126 kicked off the samurai waves and the boss at wave 130 was rough, Eli took several cuts to his arms and one fierce one on his back. Lucky for Eli that his transformed body doesn’t bleed or he would be a mess, but it still hurt like hell. He had to use his weapons ability to change lengths to beat it, throwing off its judgement during a crucial dodge. Its amazingly sharp and authentic looking sword that it dropped made it worth it for Eli though.

  He was back at the stones letting Bethany take a look at his injuries, she was clearly worried for him, not because she thought he would lose but she just didn’t like seeing him hurt.

  “They seem to be healing, but to be honest it’s difficult to say since this form you have taken is far from human.” Eli couldn’t talk in this form, just kind of grunt and he managed a roar when the cut on his back was made, so his response was a grunt and a shrug.

  “I know you can take it, I just don’t like seeing you hurt.”

  Grunt

  “Yes, ok, I’ll stop fussing over you, it's not healing fast enough for it to heal while you're fighting. You will need to stay very still between waves.” Bethany explained.

  He then stood up and walked out of the ring of stones, then just stood perfectly still. After a little testing he found that he could increase his health regeneration with magic, or let his magic regenerate some. His regeneration was so slow in his pale rider form that he couldn’t do both. His wounds didn’t reduce his fighting efficacy so he opted to get what little magic back that he could before the next wave, he was getting close to the end. Despite Eli’s transcendent status, he was getting tired, almost no sleep and days of recovery from soul and magic trauma followed by days of fighting. The fact that he was now fighting essentially people instead of monsters was weighing on him, hour by hour his shoulders were getting heavier. Part of him wanted to stop here, but a louder part, a bigger part, refused to stand in front of anything and admit defeat.