Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster’s Power

Chapter 704

A burning hot white hammer slams into me, sending me flying into another pile of rocks before I can even heal from our first collision.

My body feels as though it's covered with pins and needles, and the third attack is coming my way faster than I can react.

Ava's voice rings out as she slams me across the black stone landscape again.

"Say the word and I'll take it down a notch, but I can keep this up all day!"

Half my mind is concentrated on summoning wisps of Ether to flood into the impact zones, but I yell back, "Don't hold back. Fight as if you're trying to kill me... we only have two and a half days until that District Lord comes back, right? I want to be prepared for the worst."

Before my words finish, I'm hit with her hammer again. "As you wish!"

There is no direct physical pain or damage to my body. The divine barrier around me absorbs all of the pressure, but massive amounts of Ether seep into my being after every hit.

Ava's hammer is glowing just as white-hot as in our first battle, but so are her feet. I watch white Ether strengthen her hamstrings, quads, and even arms when she swings.

Her entire body is glowing hot with Ether, and every single time I try to predict her movements and add layers to certain areas of my body, it's far too late.

While that's what it looks like from the outside, I am gathering very valuable data and actively trying to improve after every single exchange we have.

Over three hundred exchanges pass, and all of them end with me being hit in a new place on my body.

It's a familiar sensation; in our last spars, I was hit hundreds of times as well, but these hits permeate deep into my being.

On the lower setting, these lingering tingles didn't last as long, and I didn't have to summon as much Ether to heal myself.

Now, I'm using just as much Ether to heal as I am to block and throw attacks. While throwing more attacks makes it easier to summon Ether faster, healing tingling areas of my body becomes second nature the more I do it.

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My entire body glows bright white as tens of impact points are being simultaneously healed by the time Ava speaks up after slamming me into another rock structure.

"All right, that's time. Let's load up on more Ether. I've already burned through 20% of what I just absorbed. I think that's the most Ether I've ever used in a single session in my entire life. I'd say you're crazy, but you managed to improve before... so I guess premium avatars just have a learning curve to them..."

Ava is breathing as heavily as I am, and she's smiling ear to ear.

If the 20% number she mentioned is true, and I used the same amount of Ether as she did, that's roughly 0.1 gone, maybe more.

I remember the throne stating I had about 1.2 Ether in my body. Whether that was all from the pill, or some from the herb, I'm not entirely sure.

My guess is I managed to pull around 0.3 from the four Ether stones earlier, but it still feels like I'm pulling from an endless pool. There's no status reading that tells me how much Ether I have.

I reply, still glowing white all over in my perception. "Good idea. If we keep this up, I'll definitely get the hang of it soon..."

She laughs as I fall on my back, smiling and breathing heavily while I finish healing the remaining tingling wounds all over my body.

It takes almost a full minute to rid myself of all the foreign Ether damage, but once my body is completely back to its natural state, I feel as though my senses are sharper.

We make our way back to the mining zone's border and travel along its edge until another hot sensation hits my senses about 200 meters away from the point where I crossed this invisible border before.

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I venture out into the untouched land of black rocks, just like before, powering my footsteps with Ether while running this time.

My movements feel crisp and exhilarating.

I still have to physically think and summon each wisp beneath my feet, but it's beginning to feel more instinctual.

While I collect 12 more fourth-class Ether stones, I play through the long sparring session I just had in my head, visualizing each of Ava's movements over and over.

They were all machine-like, exactly like her Ether-draining technique.

Clearly, these avatars have functions that help newly ascended individuals use this new power source in the Upper Realm. While this means activation time is faster and there's no room for failure, it feels quite limiting.

If there are maximum settings and specific commands that need to be selected, there is no freedom to reach higher heights or create unique techniques. Not to mention, being physically limited to select locations.

The instinctual need I acted on to keep my body when moving up Realms may have far larger implications than I ever imagined.

Whether it will end up making things easier or harder for me in the long run is still a mystery...

–

When I make it back to Ava and drop the Ether stones on the ground between us, the bright childlike joy on her face when she scans one is just the same as with the first rock from my last hunt.

I take seven and drain the majority of their Ether, giving Ava the rest to drain after she pulls all the energy from five.

It roughly evens out, and this time, when I cover my fists with a layer of white energy to signify I'm ready to spar, I feel a bit of a difference in my Ether stores.

I can't visualize the full pool, but with more to pull from, I can summon the same amount of Ether much faster than before, as it's a smaller percent of the total available to me.

–

My theory is tested for the next 24 hours as we spar over and over while we move along the zone's border. I collect an average of 10 fourth-class Ether stones each time for us to increase our Ether stores.

My absorption speed of the stones increases at a similar rate to my summoning speed.

Getting battered by Ava's Soul Hammer for hours on end improves my healing and blocking speed to an immense degree. I've taken thousands of hits, and there's no spot on my body that hasn't been attacked.

The instinctual patterns of healing become easy to perform in the background while I focus on powering my footsteps and covering my fists in a hot white glow.

It isn't until our eighth sparring session that I finally manage to get the hang of things and block one of her hammer strikes with a coated arm, just like I did in our first battle.

Another four intense sparring sessions pass after this instance, with sporadic blocks and even a few dodges becoming more common, until I finally outmaneuver Ava. I block her incoming hammer with a single arm while Ether-stepping to the side and punching her in the stomach.

I watch a layer of white energy ripple all over the contact point in her avatar. There is an instant shielding summoned, but it isn't fast enough, as her full attention is on the hammer. For once, she's the one sent flying backward, leaving me standing with two fists covered in hot Ether and a smile across my face.

"I did it..." I whisper as a thud hits a nearby pile of stones.

I stare down at my hands, as they continue to burn bright white, allowing even more Ether to pour into them, making them brighter and brighter.

From the constant Ether draining we've been doing between sparring matches, I've been keeping rough track and assume my stores have risen to around 5.0 low-quality Ether.

However, my punches, movement speed, and healing speed feel like they've increased in strength far more than just 5x.

I can feel that this is just the start. Every time I use Ether, it's like old knowledge and experience are coming back to me from my subconscious. Memories of Ember explaining how I was processing Ether in the depths of my mind for over 900 thousand years during the second trial come to mind.

I'm unsure if this is the reason for my rapid growth or the fact that I'm not held back by the constraints of an avatar. I come to the conclusion that it's a mixture of both.

All my theories are pushed to the back of my mind, and the Ether around my fists dissipates into the atmosphere once I hear Ava's voice call out from the distance.

"Let's stop there for today..." Her words sound like she's in pain.

When I walk over and see the wound on her side still radiating with dense white energy and the hobgoblin holding the side of her head with her free hand, my eyes widen.

"Are you okay?"

She pushes herself up from the ground with her hammer and replies after a light chuckle.

"I'm fine. Your punch sure packs a force..." She grits her teeth and holds her head again. "I don't know if you meant to activate a mental attack in that blow, but when we spar again, you should turn it off. My basic avatar doesn't have advanced mental defense commands. If I didn't block the majority of that hit, I could have been knocked out cold..."

My eyes widen, but I don't reply just yet.

I certainly didn't try to send a mental attack, but I pushed as much Ether as I could into the force of the blow. This is yet another mystery I'm at a dead end with.

She speaks up once she sees my worried face.

"Don't worry, I can heal the physical hit with a command in a matter of minutes. The ringing in my head will go away on its own in a few hours. I've been hit much harder than that by the Lord before, trust me. I'd know if it was bad."

I raise an eyebrow to reply.

"In that case, no more sparring... There isn't much time left before the Lord in question arrives. If you're up to walking, I'd like to continue moving along the borders to absorb as much Ether as possible."