Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

Uhtred said nothing in response, but he knew Diya was exactly on point.

”Just focus on healing her for now,” he said instead.

”Yeah...”

”How long do you think it’s gonna take?” Uhtred asked. Already, he was considering using the time to go down and clear Floor 20 before the girl would wake.

However, his worry was that it could take a short period of time before she would wake, and he wanted to be there for that.

This was a Level 16 individual after all, and Uhtred was still not certain about her origins. He couldn’t just leave a threat like this in the presence of Diya, Minh Quan, and Dennis, who were much, much lower leveled than she was.

With a sigh, he put the matter of the dungeon entirely out of his mind for the meantime.

”You know what? Don’t worry about it. Take your time. I’m gonna be here.”

He chose to wait instead, knowing fully well that by the time the girl was finally awake, the dungeon might have reset some of the floors, which therefore meant his progress would also be reset.

But that wasn’t particularly a bad choice anyway, since the next time he would try to clear this dungeon, he would do it alone, right from Floor 1 all the way to Floor 20.

Uhtred and the others waited patiently, watching Diya hard at work. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she methodically healed the vital parts of the girl’s body, then moved to the light bruises and cuts.

The whole process was a sight to behold. Diya was only a Level 5 Healer Mage, albeit a Peak Level 5 one.

But still, that didn’t change the fact that she was already able to mend injuries that would have taken normal medicine from just a few days ago, months to heal entirely, even with the best facilities.

On one hand, it was a marvel, and on the other hand, once one thought about it carefully, it actually wasn’t as surprising.

Uhtred could remember how much stronger his body felt compared to his normal human strength after he reached just Level 1, right after the integration.

He reckoned even with that Level 1 strength, he was miles ahead of the greatest athletes to have ever lived. The peak of normal human strength.

Diya was essentially that, but specialized towards medicine, so it made sense that her healing capabilities were so much more developed than what normal human techniques could achieve with medicine.

If she is able to do this much now, just how much more can she achieve when she reaches Level 10? Level 20? Level 50...?

The thought was enough to make Uhtred start to think of wild possibilities. Out of the three he had brought along, Diya was by far the most useful talent. A talent that would be sought after wildly by a whole lot of people in the world very soon. Uhtred was sure of that.

He tore his gaze away from her, just as squelching sounds started to emanate from the deeper parts of Floor 1.

”The dungeon has respawned those slugs,” Dennis spoke first.

Behind him, Minh Quan rose to his feet from his squatting position. He grunted and moved forward to take care of the beasts. Out of all of them, he was the one who would benefit the most from taking on the small horde of Level 1 beasts alone, so Uhtred and Dennis left him to it.

.

.

Thirty minutes passed in this manner, with Minh Quan clearing the small horde each time they respawned.

As the old Vietnamese soldier fought against the slug beasts, Uhtred began to notice some few points about the way the dungeon respawned beasts.

Perhaps it was because there was no one pushing further than Floor 1, but each time Minh Quan cleared the horde on his own, the interval between the respawning got shorter and shorter, as if the dungeon didn’t have to do much to respawn just these Level 1 beasts alone.

Dennis had also noticed the same. The scholar was even jotting down the time interval between each respawn, trying to nail down the time pattern.

However, just as they were waiting in between another of these intervals, with Dennis going over the times he had jotted down, Diya suddenly let out a heavy breath, drawing their attention.

”What’s up? Are you good?” Uhtred asked her as she wiped away some sweat that was about to enter her eyes.

She slumped backward to the ground, tired and panting.

”I just need a minute... That really took a lot more out of me than I expected,” she shook her head and took a glance at the lying figure of the girl again, but then her expression suddenly froze.

Wide blue eyes stared right up at her for several seconds in silence.

Uhtred noticed the sudden silence and looked down at the girl. Her eyes were wide open, and they flitted from Diya’s face straight to his, with no particular expression in them.

He started to speak:

”Hey, are you feeling oka—?”

But out of nowhere, the girl burst into sudden action, startling Diya, Minh Quan, and Dennis into a fright. Even Uhtred was taken slightly off guard, but he reacted immediately, raising his arms as the girl spun her leg into a helicopter kick.

She leapt up deftly into a standing position and charged straight at Uhtred, her fist coming in fast, right for his face.

Damn, she’s quick!

He parried her blow and aimed to grasp her by the forearm, trying to yell for her to stay calm.

But the moment his hand reached for hers, a weird phenomenon occurred.

His hand sped up unnaturally the moment he was about to touch her, throwing him totally off guard. His hand overextended and his balance shifted, causing the girl to immediately take advantage of his confusion before he could realize what had happened.

Uhtred was utterly stunned, however, he wasn’t just anybody. The battles he had been through had honed his reflexes to a terrifying extent.

So even though he was taken entirely off guard and still hadn’t realized what just happened, his body instinctively moved into a defensive position to block the punch that was heading for his midsection.

His body curved inward to minimize surface area impact, and his hands raised to shave some force off the attack.

Before the punch could even impact, his arm fully got into the path of the attack, blocking the blow entirely.

But instead of the relief that should have colored Uhtred’s face in that moment, a deep vigilance was in his eyes.

By all means, the girl was meant to have landed that strike.

His initial overreach that threw him off balance had made it such that her punch was going to land no matter what. The only thing he could have done in that moment was shave off some of the force by trying to put his arm in the path, but the blow was still going to land.

Yet he had blocked it totally?

No...

Uhtred thought, realization dawning in his eyes as the girl’s fist landed against his arm.

She let me block.

At first, Uhtred felt nothing beyond what was normal for a powerful blow. His arm was strong enough that he could tank any such blows easily.

However, a second impact followed right after like a mortar strike, rocking his entire arm to the joints.

What the bloody fuck was that?!