Chapter 19 - Setting Up The Skills

Tom found his first enemy rather quickly. But, once again, it was a slime.

'Worst match-up right off the bat, huh?' Tom thought. With a spear, the only way to kill the slime was to strike its core.

In theory, Tom was free to kill it with his fist alone. His avatar was purged of its entire status, but the level-given strenght remained.

'But that won't do,' Tom denied this simple way out. 'If I use my fist from the very beginning, I will wreck my growth,' Tom reminded himself, reaching out for his spear.

Tom's avatar alone made this fight an overkill. This fight was only a formality when adding the prowess of Tom's spear into the picture.

There was no grace to Tom's attack. He stepped forward and threw his weapon forward, loosely aiming for the slime's core. Tom wasn't going for the kill but was trying to familiarise himself with the spear instead.

Hit after hit, Tom continued his attempts to score the jackpot. It was the ninth attempt that finally brought some results.

The tip of the spear struck squarely in the middle of the slime's core. Once the first crack appeared, a thunderbolt traveled through the entire spear, exploding right where it hit a moment earlier.

A sizzle, and then there was nothing. Then, just like that, Tom defeated a slime.

He didn't rejoice. Killing monsters in the dungeon already became Tom's second nature. He moved forward, trained his spear skills before dealing the fatal hit, and moving on.

When Tom reached the first boss, he could already strike a slime's core one out of every three times. Thankfully, the boss finally introduced some variety to Tom's hunt.

"What an ugly one you are," Tom muttered, lowering the tip of his spear. Then, bending his knees, he calculated the approach before jolting forward.

Three steeps, just like in a handball offensive. A jump aimed at closing the distance. Still mid-air, Tom threw his spear forward, striking right at the face of the goblin that opposed him.

"Shriek!" the boss screamed out as the thin blade of the spear penetrated its skull.

Tssszt.

The spear acted on its own again, sending a powerful current through the poor goblin's body.

"That's a day of living necessities for you," Tom said as he pulled his spear back from the charred corpse. His eyes wandered to the crystals shining on the wall.

'If I recall, I wanted to go for scavenging build, didn't I?' Tom asked himself before shaking his head. 'I guess not,' he added in his thoughts before moving towards the doors.

The logic behind his choice was pretty simple. His journey to the highest dungeon level he could solo conquer would set the abilities of his new avatar. So if he wasted his efforts at digging those cash stones, some of his avatar's potential could end up wasted on abilities related to digging the stones out.

'And I know better than anyone that I can't compromise on my strenght,' Tom thought before clicking his tongue. 'Who would've thought that those memories would be such a burden.'

Tom shook his head before delving deeper into the dungeon.

The early floors didn't pose any challenge to him. At first, slimes turned into goblins. Then goblins turned into its more advanced version, hobgoblin. Only around the twentieth floor Tom actually had to start paying attention to what he was doing.

But on the twentieth floor, three of his new skills already manifested, giving Tom the edge any player of Dungeons Online required to grow.

First came the simplest ability. A passive skill named "Bloody Spear" allowed Tom to heal his avatar for the percentage of the damage he would deal.

As plain as it appeared to be, it was sneakily insane. Outside of the saint class, rarely any players would develop healing ability of any sort. Having the ability to regenerate as he fights would make Tom's adventures way easier.

There was a huge drawback to this ability, though. Against opponents way below Tom's paygrade, it would be useless. Against opponents like that lady from the bottom of the dungeon, Tom wouldn't have a chance to injure her, making this ability just as worthless.

The only situation where the bloody spear could come helpful would be in closely tied match-ups. The small amount of sustainability offered would give Tom an edge over the opponents he would otherwise have trouble taking down.

Tom's second ability, gained as soon as he defeated the boss of the tenth floor, was far more complicated. "Spear Mage" was its name. In theory, it was the most useless spell one could get, given how no spear user dabbled in magical arts. Tom, though, had enough experience of using active magic to facilitate the opportunities that this spell created.

Lastly came his third spell obtained as soon as he defeated the boss of the twentieth floor. And this time, the system behind avatars skills went all out.

"Energymancer, huh?" Tom said softly, reading the short description of the spell that appeared in his vision. According to the status window, this spell allowed Tom to infuse additional energy into an otherwise simple attack, turning it from just a filler in the combo to a helpful technique.

But out of the three spells that he got, neither was as valuable as the three combined.

"If I use energymancer on my life-stealing ability, I could enhance its effects. By adding some magic to the spear, I can increase the damage and stack it on top of its discharge," Tom counted out loud, making use of the privacy of the dungeon.

"Well, let's test one thing out then," Tom said to encourage himself before pushing even deeper into the dungeon.

'If that life force is no different from the energy or mana we use for spells, would it be possible to...' Tom thought when his mind abruptly turned into a state of focus.

He was on the twenty-first level of the dungeon. The monsters that propagated the area were no longer too weak to pose any danger to him. But on the other note, they were also far more suitable subjects for Tom's experiment!

"Well, let's see if I can combo those abilities like that," Tom shouted, jumping forward at a young centaur that just noticed him. His spear flew forward, instantly lodging itself into the flesh of the monster.

"RAWR!" The centaur let out a growl unbecoming of a human-like upper body of his.

'Energymancer,' Tom invoked the spell in his mind, redirecting all the life stolen from the monster with his first ability to his spear. Then, by using his spear mage ability, he added a simple alternation to its discharge ability.

Tom's spear shook when an electric current ran up its blade only to fry the wound in the centaur's body... But then, the true magic of Tom's idea came to play.

As soon as Tom's spear discharged all its power, it started to suck the energy in rather than letting it go. Centaur's lowered defenses made it unable to resist the suction, only to be struck by the thunderbolt as soon as the spear charged to the minimal threshold of release.

The entire process repeated only once. After that, even the monster of the twenty-first floor was unable to survive it any longer.

'To kill it with just a tiny wound like that,' Tom thought while watching how the dead monster turned into an electrified puddle at the floor of the dungeon. 'Well, the test ain't over yet!' Tom added in his thoughts before dipping the tip of his spear into the puddle.

The life-stealing spell of his did the rest, absorbing all the energy that made up the matter in the puddle.