Chapter 102 - Last Decade

**Two hours later**

"Are you for real?" Claudia stood frozen in place as soon as the two of them reached the new floor. 

"That's worrying," Tom muttered, gripping the handle of his spear a bit harder. 

They just finished the next set of ten floors. Even with Cleo out of the game, Tom and Claudia alike grew at a rate allowing them to just burst through the monsters on their way. 

As if there was some upgrade of a deeper level to the stones, their levels continued to soar ever since they reached the seventy-first floor. And now, crossing the barrier between the eighty and eighty-first floor, a massive change occurred. 

There was no dungeon at all around them. Instead of a maze of spiraling corridors, the two of them appeared in the boss room right after crossing through to the new floor. 

"At least it doesn't look too strong," Claudia whispered while lowering herself a little. With her knees bent and hips lowered, she focused on the boss ahead. 

'It kinda feels like a downgrade,' Tom thought, relaxing the muscles of his arm. He fought with a spear in his hand for long enough to realize that tensing his arm wasn't the right way at all. 'I need to keep as relaxed as possible,' the young man thought, taking his first step towards the boss. 

It was a hobgoblin. One of a monarch grade, putting it pretty far on the ladder. 

But ultimately, it was just a simple goblin. Compared to the landwhale of the previous floor, it didn't appear to be a threat at all. 

"Well, let's do..." Tom said, his eyes moving past the boss to the wall with the stones. Just like he expected, the back wall of the room glistered with the shine of the mana stones. But when he saw something he didn't expect, Tom froze in the middle of his move. 

"Got your back," Claudia stepped forward, noticing the trouble. She didn't ask what was going on. They were in the middle of the boss room, with the monarch hobgoblin already making its move. There was simply no time for questions. 

'Well, whatever,' Tom thought, brushing his shock aside. 'I will think about it later,' he decided, pulling his eyes away from the shine on the wall. He could think how the heck they could see grade six stones so quickly, for later. "Let's go!" he shouted, encouraging both himself and the girl. 

Tom bent his body forward as the effect of the haste kicked in. At this point in the dungeon, he didn't hesitate to go all-in right away.

'Everblaze,' Tom thought, bringing forth one of his most used spells. 'Thicken,' he thought, adding attribute to the spell. 

Instead of spilling over from overhead, as usual, everblaze's flames shrank, forming a thick, burning barrier. At the same time, he reached with his leading hand to the back, conjuring a magical spear in it. 

Despite holding his real weapon already, Tom created another magical one in the same hand before throwing both of them ahead. This lousy attack would almost certainly fail... If it was aimed at actually hurting the monster. 

The goblin reacted. Despite wearing nothing but a rag over its crotch, the tattoos that it had all over its skin brimmed with energy, forming an area with magic so thick around it that hardly any distance attack could affect the monster. 

'So it's not that weak at all,' Tom thought, conjuring one more spear in his hand. Then, not discouraged by the previous failure at all, he threw his third spear forward. 

'Energymancer,' Tom thought. As much as he wanted to do it by himself rather than relying on the skill, he didn't dare to lose any focus during a fight with a boss. 'As powerful as I am, if I die here, it's all over,' Tom thought, infusing his spear with a massive amount of energy. 

The goblin instantly turned its attention to the flying spear. Its tattoos exploded with light, nearly freezing the small area around it. Despite being just a goblin, this little, green creature was pretty powerful on its own. 

Tom's attack failed. The dense mana that surrounded the goblin was too much for his spear to breakthrough. Thankfully, the head-on throw was never the way Tom intended to deal the monster with. 

'Swap,' Tom thought. In an instant, he changed spots with the magical spear he threw earlier. From his previous position, Claudia appeared, lunging with her fists at the monster. 

The goblin put its focus on the new threat,  failed to notice Tom's new position. 'Recall,' he thought, weakening the link between the skill and the pool of his mana as much as he could. 

And just Tom intended, his real spear didn't disappear. It didn't just appear in his hand. Jerked up by his mana, it instantly accelerated to an insane pace in an attempt to return to Tom's hand. 

The goblin monarch turned its head around just in time to see the mighty spear fly towards him. 

Its eyes turned red. If the mana around it was dense before, then it thickened to the point Tom didn't expect to be possible. 

'Perfect,' he thought, releasing the seal on his mana at the same time as he invoked the swap again. 

Tom dove right in the pool of the goblin's mana. He conjured a magical spear in his head, instantly pushing it towards the goblin ahead. 'Recall,' Tom thought, once again reining all the mana that he could. 

The goblin managed to stop Tom's lousy attack with ease. Locked in the pool of the area fully controlled by the monster, Tom's hand moved forward at a snail's rate. 

But the real spear that Tom swapped places with a moment earlier continued as usual, uninterrupted by the goblin's defenses. 

"Bye, bye," Tom muttered, watching how his weapon plunged deeply into the goblin's body. Penetrating through the monster, the spear almost struck Tom himself. 'Opportunity,' he thought, reaching forward and grabbing the bloody blade of the spear. 

For the most part, the monsters in the dungeon rarely had a large amount of mana on their own. Most of them would seemingly use it to evolve their physical forms, making for formidable opponents on their own. But among those, there were some that made proper use of mana. 

Just like the spider from before or the goblin now, they had a massive pool of energy in themselves, making for great prey for someone with a skill capable of absorbing said energy!

'With so many grade six stones, energy won't be a problem to come by with,' Tom thought, raising his eyes as his body filled with a refreshing wave of energy. 

Before the boss of the room would die, Tom was set on drying its pool of mana. 

Not because he lacked it or was desperate to grow stronger. But because this floor had a bad vibe to it. 

'No corridors at all? Stones grade higher than they should be?' Tom asked himself, looking at the loot still embedded in the wall. 'Normally, there should be exclusively grade five stones here,' he thought, calculating everything in his head. 

For the floors from the first to the tenth, only grade one stones would appear. For the floors eleven to twenty, grade two stones would gradually make their appearance. From the twenty-first, all the way to the thirtieth floor, only grade two stones would appear. 

By extending this pattern to the floor eighty-first they were on right now, they should see grade five stones exclusively...

But there was no denying it. 

'That wall has like, how many? Twenty stones?' Tom thought, squinting his eyes. 

This haul was roughly twice as big as they could get, even on the hardest floors!

'With that, we might reach level ninety if lucky,' Tom thought, pretty happy with the idea. 

Ever since their leveling rush started, he couldn't help but enjoy the moments when he would get new skills. 

'Judging by all my skills, I should be above level eighty by now,' Tom thought, looking down at his hand. The mana in the goblin was quickly running out, making him glance towards the haul on the wall. "Still, this is pretty weird," Tom said, looking at the girl behind him. 

"And I feel pretty weird about not contributing at all," Claudia replied, sulking as she averted her eyes. 

"Can you focus for a little?" Tom asked, pulling his spear out of the goblin's dry body. 'Recall,' he thought at the same moment as he let the weapon go. 

Losing its footing, all the blood covering the spear fell to the ground while the weapon itself reappeared all clean in Tom's hand. 'Outside of the battle usage, this has to be the most convenient ability of all that I have,' Tom thought, putting a small smile on his face. 

"Why are you so anxious?" Claudia asked, shrugging her shoulders. "We killed the boss, didn't we?" she asked, stretching her hands up. 

"Don't you think our situation is weird?" Tom asked, shaking his head. "If I'm not wrong, we are likely reaching the end of the dungeon," he said, moving his eyes at the gate leading to the lower floor. "While it's only a loose rumor, I heard that we are on the last decade now," he added, tensing up a little. 

"Last decade?" Claudia asked. "Last ten years? Do we have some kind of curse now or what?" she asked, puzzled by Tom's cryptic language. 

"Nah," Tom shook his head in response.. "Last decade refers to the last ten floors of the dungeons," he said, moving his eyes at the girl's face. "In other words, we have only nine more floors to go!"