The surrounding area around Ben started to rigorously shake. The people that were watching, in the beginning, started to run away in fear for their lives as the ground beneath them started to rise and accumulate behind Ben. Everything started that was accumulating behind Ben was turning red hot as it was getting compressed down.
"Hey hey hey hey! Wait a minute! I thought you wanted me to become your lackey? What's all this about?" At first, Claude thought this was a simple fight that was to gauge each other's strengths but his opponent was starting to do attack with something extremely fatal.
"Did you forget? We made it so that killing is not allowed! That means even if I rip out your heart you won't die! Well, it makes sense that you don't know this since I might be the first player you fought. To make you feel better, the player's state will revert back to their normal state."
"Oh... then how are you so damn strong?!" Claude started to back off from the surging energy around him. Claude occasionally used from corrosive acid that came towards him to completely dissolve it.
"Didn't you ask your system?" Ben furrowed his eyebrows towards Claude's questions. It was something that everyone that was a player apparently knew due to their systems. The fact of how well Claude uses his ability and how strong his ability was.
"Don't wanna!" Claude lightheartedly remarked which made Ben quite curious about the former's personality.
"Prideful, huh? Well, remember how you can get an ability from using the points from the system?"
"Yeah? What about it?" Claude still kept dodging the incoming rocks and dissolving those that he cannot dodge.
"Well, you can also upgrade your ability with those points! Of course, that's not all! You can also specify which part of your ability you would want to upgrade and also combine abilities into one. Right now I have a Low Tier 5- Telekinesis. Come let me see how strong you can get with an upgrade! Just thinking about how strong my subordinate will be, excites me! HAHAHAHA!" Ben gave Claude extremely valuable information but for Ben, it was simple knowledge. He was also stalling for time as his move was nearing the point to detonation.
"Upgrade, huh? Well, it hurts my pride but... System, upgrade my Creation Magic! Upgrade it with..." His voice slowly weakened just enough for the System to hear his demands. Of course, Ben wouldn't have even heard Claude speak due to the sound of surging energy around him.
[Understood, deducting 1 point. You currently only have 1 point remaining. Note that you cannot use this point due to the wager made.]
A neon white glow covered Claude's body as he felt very refreshing energy slowly enter his body. The space around him did not move and the ground beneath him refused to listen to Ben's command.
"What's this?" Ben was shocked at what was happening to Claude's surroundings. Even if he was upgrading his skill doesn't mean that he is invulnerable to his surroundings. His body slightly quivered as he felt that he made a mistake telling Claude that he could upgrade his skill.
The short distance around Claude that wasn't affected by Ben started to slowly grow. From 1 foot grew to 5 feet then it reached the point where the distance of the ground that was unaffected and the ground that was affected was directly in between Ben and Claude.
"Man, you really screwed up telling me that. Although it hurt my pride, this is one major upgrade if I do say so myself." From his continuous retreat, Claude stopped and started to advance. The ground that was ruptured and the houses that were floating towards the ball behind Ben started to slowly stop as Claude got closer.
"What's going? You have the ability "Creation Magic," right? Then how are you doing this?!" Ben started to panic as Claude was smiling and completely ignoring his ability.
"I didn't like that name so I changed it! It's just now called, "Creation and Manipulation." Not much of a change actually!" Claude was tired from running away but now he had time to rest and kept on leisurely walking towards Ben as he kept to compressing the ball of pure energy behind him, the temperature that it reached was starting to approach the degree where everything will burn.
Although Claude simply changed the name of his ability, Ben knew much more on how deep the simple act that Claude did. The act of changing the name of an ability meant that he was one of them.
Ben tried to increase the power he was exerting as he was nearly done with the ball behind him. As his increase in power slowly started to affect the ground which was previously unaffected, Claude sighed and stretched out his body and stepped his foot forward, a powerful shockwave nullified the power that was affecting the ground.
The force which started to affected the ground from Ben's Telekinesis no longer affected the ground and buildings in the village. Ben could no longer understand what was happening, although he wouldn't die he desperately wanted to rule over Claude since the powerful display he had shown surpassed the majority of players he saw in his entire time in Etherea.
The only thing that Ben could do was control the red hot ball behind him. "Tch, although it isn't complete, it should be more than enough to kill you!" Ben started to exhaust his stamina in exchange to improve his ability even more. The ball that was once static started to move towards Claude.
The red hot ball that was aiming towards Claude started to rotate and gather up the debris around it which made it even larger. It looked as if it was a rotating sun as it approached Claude. However, it didn't even faze him.
"Compress." A simple word was uttered by Claude, although nothing happened for a while the big ball that was coming closer to him started to compress. Ben's eyes widened as the ball he used all his effort to create was slowly shrinking.
Although the ball was shrinking, the power contained within it was actually increasing. Ben didn't understand this at all but he kept on using up more power to increase its speed. Claude sighed on Ben's desperate effort but still smirked on knowing how futile it is.
The ball now has shrunk to the size of a marble but the power contained within it increased by 10, it has now increased its power to the point to it was now starting to suck up the ground and building around it by itself.
Claude reached out his hand to grab the marble, Ben was extremely shocked that Claude would do something so stupid as the ball was condensed and moving at unprecedented speeds.
A simple gesture of his hand and the ball started to slow down as ice started to appear around it. The ice was cold but it quickly melted into water then into steam at an extremely quick process. The ball was cooling down from the energy contained within it as it slowly started to stop.
Ben saw all of this and he didn't want to believe! Nonetheless, he still used up all his remaining strength to push the ball forward but to no avail. The ball that was once burning red hot and approaching speeds close to a speeding train was stopped in front of Claude as he took it and started to toss it up and catch it, he repeated this process until he got bored.
"Do you know what makes things heavy?" Claude asked a simple question to
Ben.
"Obviously it would be how much weight an object has! I am not some idiot! We are the apex of our civilizations here!" Ben retorted out of spite because all his efforts were reduced to a simple marble.
"I'll let you think about it a little bit more..." Claude kept on tossing the marble up and down and he gave Ben a knowing look.
"What do you-- Wait... that ball would have had weighed so much that I won't even dare lift it with all my might so how could you... I get it, its gravity! I get it now, haha!" Ben sighed as he finally understood what was happening, it wasn't that the ground was unaffected it was that the force that was pulling the ground down was stronger than his power to bring it up.
"Well, it looks like I am gonna have to bring it out! Damn, you are so good that you are making me feel jealous but you are soooooo worth it!" Ben took out a pill a swallowed it. Something changed within him as his entire physique was better than before.
"Huup!"
Ben rushed Claude without a second thought. Claude noticed something was off so he threw the marble he was holding towards Ben and returned back the gravity around it. Ben smiled and with his Telekinesis enchanting his body he grabbed the marble with both his hands as his feet were embedded to the ground. The force behind the marble was not simple as his entire body was dragged across the entire village and only then did he notice something was off.
"You made my body the center for the marble, didn't you?" Ben roared while struggling against the increasing force that was causing the marble to move faster and faster.
"Heh, well it would make sense wouldn't it?" Claude screamed out as well as he devilishly smiled at the scene in front of him.
"Hmph!" Ben started to think about how he could remove this problem and the only way he could do so was to uncompress it. He used his Telekinesis to slowly enlarge the marble, doing so he also weakened the force behind it and lessened its weight by a lot.
"Oh well, that was fun!" Claude smiled at Ben's irritated face.
At an instant, Ben came back to face Claude once again. His improved body alongside his Telekinesis to improve his body, even more, was obvious that a simple slap of his hands could knock Claude out.
"Time to get serious, right?" Claude jumped and soared through the sky. He just stayed there in mid-air which just made Ben's headache from annoyance.
"Goddammit! Just how much leeway do you have on using your skills?!" Ben couldn't take it anymore and shouted with all his might which actually echoed and made the ground beside him tremble.
"Well... it's actually simple! I made my body's gravity 0 and made the surrounding air the focus of my body's gravity so it forces me to go there and actually let me stay in mid-air. Well, I mean "Creation" is pretty strong by itself!"
"You are making me want to own you even more!"
"I guess its time for round 2!"
A sinister smile once again appeared on Claude's face.