Chapter 168 - Fourteen

"Righ, before I forget," Tom turned his face away from the slime and towards his friend. "Did you manage to break through?" 

Back when Tom was helping Cleo with that matter, they weren't really in the position of checking her skills one by one. Thankfully, Marvin was capable of assimilating the energy of the stones without any excessive show. 

The reason why Tom asked this simple question was pretty straightforward. While there was some degree of randomness to one's skills, he still believed that one's need would influence what kind of skill they would receive next. 

"I think so," Marvin replied, looking down at his hands. "But I wasn't very far from it earlier, so it's not like that slime changed much," he added, trying to be as precise with the situation as possible. 

The slime on Tom's shoulder turned slightly red, clearly not happy with the remark. 

"Do you have any idea what that skill might be?" Tom asked, unable to stop his curiosity from taking over. 

Marvin's support skills were already quite a novelty, even when considering how varied one's abilities could be in the dungeon. As such, with four abilities already revealed, Tom couldn't help but wonder what would Marvin's next ability be. 

"I... I don't think so," Marvin bit his lip and lowered his head. "I know I have it; I can feel it... But it's like..." he hesitated, struggling to put his situation in words. 

"It's as if some kind of requirement isn't fulfilled?" Tom suggested, already accustomed to this situation. After all, this was exactly what Cleo struggled with before.

"Yeah," Marvin nodded his head, raising his head again. In his eyes, Tom could see the desperate struggle to uncover the secret of his new ability. 

'It's no wonder he is feeling under the water,' Tom thought, staring at his friend's face. 'This dungeon already proved it can still surprise us, and here he is, not only lagging behind on the firepower but even unable to discover the secrets of his new ability,' Tom noticed, gnashing his teeth. 

He was close to Marvin enough to feel the mental pain of his friend as if it was his own. Just like he would feel the shame in cringe situations happening in a movie he would watch, Tom could resonate with what was going on in Marvin's head. 

"Well, there is no point thinking it over too much," Tom said, hoping to take his friend's mind out of what Marvin likely considered to be his own failure. "How about we keep going? We still have quite a few of the stones," he said, looking towards the fewteen stones still left on the floor. 

"Yeah, let's not waste time," Markus replied, thankful for Tom's proposition. 

Tom shook his spear out in his hand to get a better hold on it before looking over to the slime. 

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Just like before, rather than uttering a voice, it didn't have, the slime turned green and even rubbed itself off Tom's cheek. 

"Let's begin!" 

Once again, Tom had to go through the process of feeding the stone to the slime and then having the slime release all the gained energy that Tom could hold in his spear back. 

Notably, the multiplication of the energy from the stone was so great that even Tom struggled to hold it all in his spear. While it appeared to be possible to feed the energy in quick, successive bursts instead of a single dosage, doing so quickly proved to be quite draining for the slime. 

'I don't think it will be that bad to let it feed off the scraps,' Tom thought, patting the slime's back after the third stone came and went. 

"Brother, I think I'm close," Marvin informed after taking a while to assimilate all the energy that he could. 

His complexity didn't improve but rather increased in brightness. While this effect gave Marvin's skin an unhealthy look, Tom could guess what was really happening. 

'In order to assimilate all the energy, his body is using the excess amount to purify his flesh so that it can accommodate all the power,' he thought when his nose caught a whiff of an insanely repulsive stench coming off from his brother. 'Just like in all those cultivation novels I used to binge back in the days. I guess its authors got at least some things right,' he noted. 

"I did it!" Marvin soon shouted, just two stones later. At the same time, just the residual energy that Tom was too slow to absorb from the slime made it noticeably grow in strength, easily raising it from the level of a forty-second-floor boss monster to one capable of challenging level fifty monsters. 

"Any ideas this time?" Tom asked, still hoping to learn just what kind of abilities his friend could receive. 

"I don't think you will like it," Marvin said before gulping down his strength as he stared his friend in the face with his eyes wide open. 

"Come on, man," Tom shook his head. "Just spill the beans," he requested. 

For a moment, Marvin looked at Tom's face before finally averting his eyes and bringing them down. 

"Level ninety-eight. Titles include Conqueror of the Easy Dungeon, Monster Slayer, Spearmaster, Ally of the Sentient, Ruthless Warrior," he said before finally raising his eyes at Tom's face. "Brother, I can see statuses now," he explained. 

'That doesn't sound so promising... Or wait, aren't this kind of thinking insanely naive?' Surprised by the revelation, Tom had to take a moment to digest the news. 

"Wait, isn't that pretty great?" he announced, looking at Marvin with his eyes wide open.

"Being able to see one's status?" Marvin repeated his earlier reveal with a questioning tone. "How is that...' he was clearly about to complain about his abilities even further when a realization struck his mind. 

"I have no idea what are you guys talking about," Cleo joined in on the discussion. "Isn't information the greatest weapon in any kind of warfare, save for the barbaric smashing of everyone's head?" she asked. 

"That's what I thought right now!" Tom and Marvin spoke exactly the same words at exactly the same time. They then looked each other in the eye, only for a huge smile to appear on both of their faces. 

"So, what is your level right now?" Tom asked. 'If we manage to know how quickly the levels are rising, we would be able to more or less compare how much using that slime is improving our growth rate,' he thought. 

"Cleo's is fifty-three," Marvin said after taking a quick look at his sister. He then took a little longer to look at his own hands. "My level is fifty-one," he added. 

"Great," Tom replied, a smile growing on his face. "For a moment, I thought about comparing the growth when employing the slime's help and when relying just on my abilities... But I don't want to be wasteful. So, are we going to keep going?" he asked, pointing his spear towards the four remaining stones. 

Given how they started with the grade four ones, the remaining stones wouldn't make much difference anymore. 

"I don't think there is any point," Marvin shook his head. "Let's just keep going," he added. 

"That's what I think as well," Cleo nodded her head. "If we are not going to break through with those few stones, there is no point in using them yet. While this might be only my guess..." she muttered before taking a short pause to clear her throat, "it feels like momentum can influence how much we grow," she said. 

"What do you mean?" Tom asked, quite surprised to hear that news. Given how he would always consume his stones as soon as he would receive them, he never had the chance to find this particular point about them before. 

"It's nothing I can confirm," Cleo hesitated, taking a moment to figure out what she should say, "but it feels like it's easier to absorb more energy, the more energy we absorb..." she said. She then lowered her eyes only to shoot the chin of her head up and steal a glance at Tom. "Does this make any sense?"

'Well, I vaguely remember a similar rule regarding space travel,' Tom thought, squinting his eyes. 'The faster you go, the more efficient further acceleration will be,' he recalled one sentence he dug out from an ancient forum when he enjoyed the rocket-building game of the ancient age. 

"It won't hurt to try," Tom finally said, shaking his head. "Let's not waste any time, then. Little one, are you ready to cross to the next level?" he asked. 

The slime was already green, so it first turned to its natural, opaque color only to turn itself green again. 

"Oh," Tom shrugged, "on that note, what is our slime's level?" he asked. 

"Give me a moment," Marvin muttered, approaching Tom's shoulder. Yet, when he pulled his face away, Tom could tell that something was amiss. 

"It's level is...." Marvin swallowed a gulp of saliva, "fourteen!"