Chapter 36 - Desperate Measures

"So annoying," Tom muttered when yet another boar-like monster charged at him. Watching how the monster rushed forward, Tom knelt on one knee and locked the bottom of his spear against the floor. 'Just like in the old days,' he thought, recalling the few memories he had of his father while lowering his spear down.

Tom angled his spear a split of a second before to monster charged into its range. As a result, it had no chance at all of avoiding the blade.

'How stupid,' Tom thought, watching how the monster impaled itself on his weapon. Yet, even when more than half of the spear's length got stuck in its flesh, it continued to wrestle. Little to say, its attempts at freeing itself were futile.

"Let me put you to rest," Tom said while raising back up to his feet and pulling the spear along. But rather than moving it around in the monster to make it bleed out faster, he simply infused a bit of energy into the weapon before pulling it out in a single move.

'So it works like that as well,' Tom thought about his energymancer ability when he recovered his weapon. Looking up to the monster, he saw it struggling on its feet for a short moment before falling on its side and ceasing to move. 'Well, it's good to learn something new, but I don't really have time for that,' he added in his thoughts before violently shaking the spear to get rid of the blood that stuck to it.

Tom's current situation was quite peculiar. With his unexpected level-ups, he could easily push for the deeper parts of the dungeons.

'That fucker,' Tom thought, recalling the talk he had with that strange monster before. Unfortunately, the advice that this monster gave turned out to be spot-on. But as great as it was to learn something more about the 'game,' Tom was now stuck without any idea how he was supposed to justify his sudden rise of levels.

'Even if they can't observe what I do while I'm using the standard capsule, they are surely capable of checking my results.' Tom tightened his fists in annoyance. 'And now I'm stuck trying to figure out how I can hide my level!'

This was the real problem for Tom. If not for his grand scheme, he could just use this discovery to earn more money than he could imagine. After all, spreading the knowledge about more efficient leveling was worth an immeasurable amount of money!

But doing so would draw way too much attention to him. The attention that could prove lethal to the true reason behind his action.

"Another one?" Tom muttered when his ears picked up the similar noise in the distance. Yet, as great as it was to know about the monster's presence in advance, the long corridors of the dungeon could easily falsify both the direction and the distance to it.

Soon, Tom didn't need to rely on his ears alone. The monster he heard before appeared beyond the corner he just took. But sadly, this wasn't a single monster.

'What the hell,' Tom thought, watching at what wasn't a single monster but an entire herd of them. 'Do they come in packs now?' he asked himself before retreating back behind the corner.

'Now, that's a problem.' Tom rested his back against the wall before staring at the tip of his spear. 'I could easily take them all down, but that would mean risking another level-up,' he thought, recalling what happened when he defeated the monster with his true strenght the last time.

'Who could've known that getting stronger would have such disastrous effects,' he thought, recalling one of the few notifications he ditched to the side earlier.

"Spear Combinator - increases the effectiveness of all the skills used in combination." Tom obtained this skill when he reached the new level threshold. While by itself it was already a great ability, there was actually more to it.

"Spear Combinator EX:

- Improves spearmanship

- Add luck factor to firing off combination effect in basic attacks."

It wasn't the first time Tom encountered the so-called 'EX' skill. The knowledge about this special type of ability was quite common in the player wiki of the game.

But the main reason why Tom was so concerned about it was the passive chance of firing off his combination with normal attacks. And given how his combination attack could quickly raise his avatar's level even further, it was a risk Tom didn't want to take.

'I don't see any other way to go about it,' Tom thought, gritting his teeth. But rather than chasing into the group of monsters and making short work of them with his currently overpowered set of skills, he took a step back instead.

"There is no point risking raising my level even further," Tom said out loud for the sake of convincing himself. He took a few breaths to let this truth sink in before taking a full turn around and heading back for the entry gate of the dungeon's level.

Thanks to a small habit of his, he had no troubles returning. Yet, it didn't make him feel special at all. After all, mapping out one's path in the dungeon was the first manual ability anyone would learn once getting lost in the dungeon for the first time.

And for Tom, it was an experience he went through several years ago.

"You are back so quickly?" The sage-like monster asked as soon as Tom emerged back into its room.

'It feels strange to see a monster when going back,' Tom thought before shrugging his shoulders. Then, he picked up the only magical item that every avatar had attached since its creation before throwing it towards the monster.

"I don't know why you are guarding those stones, but I believe it makes them a valuable commodity to you," he spoke up, prying his small sack open.

As if an avalanche, all the 'data' stones that Tom collected so far, poured out of the sack. The entire haul of stones from nearly fifty floors created a huge pile directly on the floor, right under the nose of the intelligent monster.

"What do you think you are doing?" The monster asked, rather puzzled than startled.

"I want to buy another question." Tom looked the monster straight into its massive eyes. "How do I lower my level?"