Chapter 15: Preparing for the dungeon
('This guy really is serious') These were Selina's thoughts after hearing Ron repeating himself. Did he not know who she was? She was an (albeit retired) thief, not an instructor.
"Why come to me? I'm not an instructor" Catwoman told Ron she was not directly saying no because she heard something about payment.
"From what I know you've fought with some of the best with a whip and the fact you're still alive is testament to your skill" Ron explained why he summoned her. She had fought with Batman, Joker, Bane and so many more legendary fighters and survived it all.
"Seems like someone did their homework, alright why do you want to learn the whip and not some other weapon?" Catwoman was a little interested.
"I've recently learned I'm a little talented when it comes to the whip and want to capitalise on it" Ron told her it wasn't a lie but it also wasn't the whole truth he wasn't going to tell her that.
"Hm, I feel like there's more to it but it doesn't matter. Now what did you say about payment?" Depending on the payment she may or may not accept it.
"Five hours of teaching me how to properly use a whip and these will be yours" Ron said as he showed her two gemstones he had prepared; they were tanzanite and black opal.
"You're serious? How do I know you won't run away or zap me away before you pay me?" Catwoman looked at the gemstones and knew they were real and worth a lot of money, this deal was too good to be true there had to be a catch.
"I can give you the tanzanite up front and pay you the black opal after five hours of training, deal?" Ron offered to pay half upfront he knew this deal favoured her heavily and was probably why she was very hesitant on accepting it.
"That's even more suspicious, what if I run the second I hold the gemstone or rob you right now?" Catwoman tried to figure out what he really wanted but in his eyes she could only see sincerity as stupid as it was.
"My friend here would probably stop you" Ron pointed towards Scarlett who let loose a tiny bit of pressure to which Catwoman shivered a little and almost jumped back. She only felt something like that from those old monsters but this woman clearly didn't mind killing as she also felt some bloodlust.
"Whoa there your girlfriend doesn't have to get so worked up" Catwoman said a little afraid of Scarlett.
"I'm not his girlfriend" Scarlett said as she released a bit more hostility towards Catwoman. She really didn't like this woman and didn't understand why Ron put up with her so much.
"Alright, no need to get violent you know" She said to Scarlett before turning her attention back to Ron "So you really only want me to teach you how to use the whip and nothing else?" She confirmed once more with Ron what he wanted from her.
"Correct that is all, if possible I would like to start immediately" Ron said as he tossed over the tanzanite gemstone to Catwoman who caught it and inspected it, after she inspected it she nodded and placed the gemstone in her chest.
"Alright then rich man show me what you can do with the whip" She said after confirming the gem was real.
"I have zero experience with the whip but I will show you regardless" Ron said as he took the whip and tried to swing it.
"Tsk, I have to teach a complete beginner" Catwoman said after seeing the poor performance. "Alright here's what you want to do swing backwards first then forwards" She said as she took out her own whip and demonstrated a swing *crack* it was loud and not even visible to Ron even Scarlett's eyes jumped a little.
"What you want is to hit the target with the popper, that creates a sonic boom and it causes a lot of pain" She explained and showed Ron where the popper was.
"Swinging it like this is the basics once you can do that, aiming becomes more relevant, the whip is all about technique not power" Catwoman explained the learning curve. "After that you can learn about grabbing things like so" She said as she swung the whip around Ron's arm and it wrapped around it. Grabbing was often overlooked as too hard but it was possible.
"If you want more lethal damage with your swings you can always change the popper to something like a razor wire" Catwoman explained how to make the whip more lethal, getting a razor wire slapped against you at sonic boom levels of speed would cut into flesh.
Ron nodded along as Catwoman explained the basics of the whip, she showed Ron a lot of things and Ron practised as she watched. His talent began shining through as he managed to get the basics of swinging it down in under 30 minutes.
"Seems like you actually indeed have talent for this" Catwoman nodded seeing his rapid progression.
Ron quickly made progress with the whip as he started on target practice, it took about an hour before he could hit the intended target consistently. Ron was aiming for rocks and even took out a few apples he had on stock.
Then he moved onto grabbing things with the whip, this proved to be a much harder challenge as Ron took well over 4 hours on this trick, Scarlett had long begun her own training seeing everything went well with Ron.
"Well you've learned about everything in the beginning. I'd say the rest is just experience" Catwoman commented watching Ron learn the basics.
"Thanks for the guidance, here's the other gemstone" Ron said as he threw the other gemstone at Catwoman who deftly caught it and confirmed it was real.
"A man of his words, so what now?" Catwoman said getting ready for a fight she was expecting. This was obviously not something this simple right?
"Now it's time to send you back home, I wish for Catwoman to return back to her home" Ron said and issued for the wish to commence.
"Wait, wha-" Catwoman said before disappearing in a flash of light.
Selina suddenly woke up from her bed back in Gotham. She looked around for a bit with confusion in her eyes. "Was it all a dream?" She muttered before seeing a faint glint on her vanity table. She moved over and saw the gemstones that she was given in her dreams.
"Was it all real?" Selina was even more confused. Did she really just help someone for 5 hours and gain 2 incredibly valuable gemstones?
"I wonder if Bruce knows about this place" She muttered she was going to Bruce Wayne aka Batman for confirmation yet the moment the thought entered her head a message suddenly blared in her mind.
"WARNING! INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE TOWER OF WISHES DETECTED DO NOT DISTRIBUTE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TOWER OF WISHES TO OTHERS FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN COMPLETE DESTRUCTION".
Selina trembled violently for a while it was like some omnipotent being suddenly invaded her very being just to issue that warning. It was a harrowing experience that she would rather not go through again. "Alright then, I just hope Bruce won't question where these came from" She said as she looked at the gemstones once more.
Back in the tower Ron and Scarlett remained unaware of the warning that was just issued to Catwoman. "She truly didn't believe you were just going to give her the gems and not take them back with force" Scarlett mentioned when Catwoman was about ready to run or attack at the last moment.
"She's had experience with bad people and knows what they usually do" Ron explained a little about Catwoman's past, it also didn't really help when the deal was too good to be true.
"I see, so you want to do a quick sparring session? I'm a little interested in what you can do with that whip" Scarlett quickly moved onto sparring with Ron.
"You're sure? This thing is no joke" Ron warned Scarlett this whip did some serious damage and didn't know if she was overestimating herself on this one.
"What, you think that little toy can do damage to me? You must be kidding" Scarlett sounded confident and didn't really take the whip seriously, no one in her own world used the whip so how good could it really be?
"Alright if you say so" Ron relented and pulled out the whip and got ready he currently stood around 2 meters from Scarlett who just stood there.
"Alright let's see how much damage that thing does" Scarlett said as she extended her arm clearly intending for Ron to hit it.
Ron didn't say anything but prepared a swing once he got the right timing down he swung it at Scarlett her arm *crack* it cracked and slapped down at Scarlett her arm. Scarlett frowned a little and a red mark was soon visible on her arm.
"That actually stung more than I expected it to" She remarked it didn't cut her arm which is what Ron kind of expected it wasn't razor wire after all, that would come once he was more experienced with it and had more wish points to spare.
"It should work in crowd control situations and even disarm my opponents like so" Ron said as he took the whip back and swung it around Scarlett's other arm.
"You're correct however that's only if you're stronger than the opponent" She said as she suddenly pulled on the rope dragging Ron towards her.
Ron let go of the whip and used the momentum to rush in for a punch, Scarlett quickly managed to block it with the arm that was slapped before. Whether it was luck or skill Ron hit the red mark that was on Scarlett's arm.
Scarlett winced a little and clearly didn't expect it to hurt that much, Ron quickly capitalised on the opening and went for the follow up punch to the stomach. Just when he thought he had finally got a hit in a leg came from nowhere and slammed into his jaw then Ron lost consciousness.
"Phew" Scarlett breathed out a little. She was caught off guard and almost got hit by Ron. He would've bragged about that for days. She looked at the arm the whip had hit earlier and now a small bruise was forming.
She looked down at Ron who was unconscious and had some mixed feelings about that little spar, first she was of course happy for him to become stronger but she was also a little excited to see what happens if he truly masters this form of combat.
And deep down maybe she was even a little afraid Ron had been growing stronger quite quickly now. Maybe one day he would even be a challenge for her. There was a close to zero percent chance he would betray her the moment he was stronger than her and she knew that of course but her past experience in this tower really left a big mark on her.
She had begun to have trust issues in people in the tower. For now the ring saved her; however the deeper they went in this tower even the ring or even her own strength couldn't save her. ('I can't fall behind Ron or else he might even send me home') Scarlett didn't want to go home just yet she could feel this tower maybe could even help her with her bottleneck that even her master couldn't help her with.
Thinking about her master a question formed in her mind, she had never heard of this place before, did not even her master know about this place? Her master was a lot stronger than even her so who knows if someone could summon her master.
('I should probably wake him up now') she thought as she looked down at Ron. He still had a dungeon to explore and would probably want to do it in a couple of days.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone