Chapter 35 - Questions In The Dungeon

"That single stone brought me two levels up?" Tom stared with his eyes wide-open at the consecutive notifications. Given how he instantly recognized their form, it was the first thing that drew his attention.

'It shouldn't be... Or wait, why do I still think like that?' Tom scolded himself in his thoughts before closing his eyes and tightening his first. Then, he slowly relaxed his body, allowing the feeling of the strenght to diffuse through his muscles.

'Not only my levels are higher, the amount of energy in the avatar... Fuck!' Tom suddenly opened his eyes before pushing all the other notifications aside. Right now, they were only blocking his view, and he had no time to waste on reading them.

"Faster," Tom whispered as soon as he grabbed his spear and rushed forward. While it was only a feeling, he was long past the point where he would doubt those innate worries.

After all, what humans considered a sixth sense, was nothing else but the information gathered by their senses yet not recorded by their mind. In other words, right now, he was pushed by the animalistic instinct forward.

Pushed into finding a situation that he could use to explain his rapid rise of levels.

Tom only took a minute to return to the forty-seventh floor and another one to reach the boss room. Even though the outline of this dungeon's corridors was different from what he was used to, in a state of near-panic, he just knew which turn to take to reach his destination.

"Oh? You are back already?" the sage-monster noticed Tom even before his avatar crossed the threshold of the boss-room. 'A point to remember,' Tom noted before nodding his head and grinning at the monster.

"You duped me, you know this," he threw his words, passing by the monster without a single care. A moment later, he was already standing before the doors to the lower level.

"Consider this a kick in your lazy butt," the monster smiled in response, not showing any signs of hostility. It appeared as it really was going to abide by the deal it made with Tom earlier.

Tom stopped in his tracks, right as he was about to get to the lower level. He turned his head around and looked at the monster.

"I don't know who you are, but I can tell this isn't your true body here," Tom suddenly announced, allowing his guess alone to guide his words. "One day, I will find you. And I will... maybe not kill you, but definitely pay you back for this!" he almost gave way to the desire to say the famous quote from one of the classic movies from the distant past. Tom only managed to change it to something more diplomatic at the last possible moment.

"Hehehe," the monster chuckled as it opened its lips in a wide smile. "Good luck," it added as Tom plunged into the lower level.

"What the heck?" Tom muttered under his nose when he realized what the monster just said. "Was it a coincidence... or?" he thought for a moment before the monsters ahead forced him to focus on his current situation rather than analyzing every last word uttered by the monster.

'Who knows, maybe it can read my thoughts to a degree? Or maybe it was a random reaction?' Tom thought before ditching all those thoughts into the back of his mind and tightening his grip over his spear.

The monsters ahead were no longer humanoid. This time, they appeared to be something like a mix between overgrown boar and panter. Its body looked so heavy that it was a wonder why each of its steps didn't crush the stone floor underneath it.

Tom didn't need any preparations before fighting the monster off. As if his previous attack at the stone burned out some kind of circuit in his flesh, his body knew exactly what to do.

But this time, Tom added motion to his attack. After three steps to accelerate, Tom tensed his muscles once again, putting his body in the same eagle position as before. He shot his leading hand to the back before freezing in the stance for a moment, allowing his momentum to carry him forward.

'Dang, it's not that easy,' he thought just before his body snapped and curled up, sending his right hand and the spear he held in it forward. With motion added to the combo, even the tiniest unevenness of the floor made it super easy to trip, given how only his toes kept contact with the floor.

"ROA..." the monster couldn't even finish its cry when Tom's spear plunged right into its skull. The bones of the monster's head didn't pose any threat to the weapon. As long as Tom's senses were included, his right hand didn't slow down even a little when his spear plunged deeply into the monster's body before discharging the energy inside its flesh.

Splatter.

The beast bloated up as if someone inflated it from within before it suddenly stood in flames and exploded.

But then, something strange happened.

Just like when Tom used his combo against the stone, only a small portion of the monster's insides managed to splatter on his avatar. Then, midway through the explosion, the bloody mess that used to be a monster suddenly stopped its outward momentum, as if some kind of circular barrier contained it.

And then, it all condensed into a bright point at the tip of Tom's spear before disappearing altogether. But it would be too easy for the young man if that was it. Before he could react, his entire spear shone in bright light, only for a wave of refreshing energy to surge through the wood of the spear right into Tom's hand and then the rest of his body.

"Fuck," Tom muttered as he recovered his position. He broke his momentum by bracing his legs against the ground. He then raised his hand to its avatar's head and wiped the blood that splattered all over it.

"Another level up?" Tom muttered with his anxiety growing even greater when a new notification popped up in his view. Just like that, he reached the level he was supposed to reach during this trip.

The problem was, he did so while in the damned middle of the dungeon, rather than once cashing out all the stones he gathered in it!

"This combo is too dangerous," he muttered, not daring to take another step deeper into the dungeon. 'But that begs the question if leveling up is actually that easy...' Tom thought before looking up as if the corridor's ceiling held some answers for him. 'Then where did all that energy required to level up go when others continued to kill the monsters?'