Chapter 20 - Path To The New Skills

"Here we go again," Tom muttered, slowly treading forward. Unfortunately, due to the nature of raising the strenght of one's skills, he had no other choice but to toil ahead slowly.

"What floor even is this? Twenty-seventh? Twenty-eight?" Tom asked the air around him. Another monster appeared from behind the corner.

Tom no longer cared for flashiness. His body moved on its own. Half-step forward to concentrate the momentum fluidly transitioning to a long stab.

By forcing another action in the middle of another move, Tom could condense the strenght from both of them into a single attack.

The oversized goblin had no chances.

Tom struck with his spear right in the monster's heart. But, unfortunately, the fight was too short and too repeatable to entertain the young man.

'Still, I can't slack off,' Tom thought, dragging the tip of his spear behind to absorb all the energy from the puddle. The puddle left by the liquified corpse of the monster.

There were only two ways to grow the strenght of one's skills.

The first one relied entirely on experience. There was an urban legend about a player who refused to level up at all, practicing his initial skill over and over again for more than two years.

If the street rumors were true, this level one player could stand toe to toe even with the top rankers. Despite being weaker in every regard, his sheer skill and proficiency at this single ability gave him an edge to claim victory.

'As extreme as that story is, it has a point,' Tom thought grimly when his new memories started to return. Tom wasn't in the game. Instead, he was connecting to an artificial body designed to explore dungeons.

There was one more method to improve one's skills. It was purely game or system-based. The more one used a skill, the stronger it became. It was the ultimate truth behind all the skills and the reason why often one's weak, early skills could be just as powerful as one's latest abilities.

Those were the two aspects of an avatar's skill. And there was one reason why Tom so diligently worked to improve them.

After purging an avatar, its first run would speedrun the process of growing it naturally. Tom worked as hard as he did for this simple reason. The stronger he would be when receiving new abilities, the stronger said new abilities would be.

Tom made his way towards the boss. This time, his opponent was a cockatrice.

A two-legged monster the size of a camel had its long body finished with the head of a rooster. Just its looks alone screamed how fast and devious this monster was.

"Slowly," Tom said, releasing his breath. He didn't dare close his eyes, worried about the monster's attack. His fingers tightened on the wood of his spear.

"RAAAA!" the monster screamed out, leaning its entire body forward as it lunged at Tom.

Tom pushed his left heel heavily into the ground. There was roughly forty meters between him and the cockatrice.

Tom kicked the air with his right leg. Then, sliding on his heel, he swept around before using the momentum to lean heavily upwards. His right hand shot forward, holding Tom's spear by its very end.

From an outsider's perspective, Tom appeared to pose as some ancient arch. But this strange pose allowed him to reach for the monster's skull before he would enter its range.

'That's the main reason why I wanted to test this spear out,' Tom thought with a satisfied smile on his face.

The tip of the spear struck the cockatrice right between its bloodied eyes. Then, the lightning shot up Tom's arm, exploding from the end of his spear outwards.

The twenty-seventh floor was quite challenging, but Tom was consistently getting stronger. Tom cleaned the entirety of every single room he passed through rather than taking the shortest path to the boss. He no longer was an amateur when it came to using his skills.

"And it's done," Tom said, watching how the cockatrice's corpse continued to shake as the cycle of electric shock and mana absorption repeated. Before long, its body melted into a puddle of mana, allowing Tom to regenerate his strenght.

"Well, there is no reward without the risk," he added as he moved towards the wall and sat down.

The entire room was now fully cleared. It was the one positive of doing the things in Tom's way. Before the dungeon would start respawning its protectors, Tom was perfectly safe to log out for a moment.

A moment later, he pushed the lid of the capsule off before sneaking outside. He covered himself with the towel on the go, rushing to the nearby snack shop.

After just a short while, Tom returned to his station, already munching on the sweet energy bar he bought. Downing the dry food with a chug of nutritious milkshake, he wiped his mouth and moved back into the capsule.

"They know how to cater to players here as well," Tom muttered under his nose. Finally, his consciousness sank into the connection, replacing the visuals of the coffin with the interior of the dungeon.

'Safe,' Tom thought, checking his body for injuries. There was no monster in sight indicating that Tom's short break went without fail, but he still preferred to be sure.

A mere moment later, Tom was back at his job, stabbing everything that dared to move within his eyesight. Each hit would add proficiency to his skill, turning it even more potent. In addition, each attack would ingrain the correct pattern of movements into his muscles, adding even more effectiveness to the attack.

By the time Tom reached the twenty-ninth-floor boss, he no longer felt any anxiety. The sharp increase in the power of the monsters would only happen on the next floor. And once he would cross the nearest gate, Tom would obtain his fourth skill, born out of all the efforts he made so far.

And the only thing stopping Tom from getting his new skill was a massive lizard standing guard at the gate leading to the lower level.