Dungeons Online

Chapter 153: Heal and Roadkill

"So?" Tom asked, happily lowering his spear and changing the foot on which he was resting his weight. This was the only way in which he could low-key conceal the natural reaction of his body to Cleo's moans. "What skill did you get?" 

"I... I don't really know," Cleo replied, shaking her head in confusion. "It's not like its name just appeared in my head. More like..." she lowered her eyes, trying hard to figure out what her next words should be. "No, I need you to give me a monster to present it," she finally said, raising her face back on Tom. 

"Well, it's not like we need to know it right away," Tom said, shaking his arms. He then looked at his male friend with a small smile. "Marvin, it's your turn."

Since Cleo already got her skill, now it was time to bring Marvin's level up as well. Whatever stones would be left afterward would have to wait for the group to know what both Cleo's and Marvin's skills were before Tom could distribute them. 

"On it, boss," Marvin replied, approaching Tom's spear and reaching out with his hand. 

"Just like before. Calm down and just accept it," Tom said, placing the blade of his spear on his friend's hand. Even though there wasn't a lot of energy left after Cleo sucked most of it, there was no way he would waste even the tiniest amount of this precious resource. 

"I guess this won't be enough," Marvin muttered as he averted his eyes once not a single silver of energy was left on Tom's spear. 

"Don't sweat it," Tom replied, reaching out with his hand to Cleo only to receive another stone. Out of the total of eight that they got from the floor, they used up only three of them. As such, if Tom's assumptions that everyone's level requirements were the same, they had more than enough to bring Marvin to the tenth level. 

Yet, with two more stones disintegrated by Tom's skills and later absorbed by his friend, Marvin still didn't get to obtain a single skill. 

"I guess this stone should get you to the tenth level," Tom said, taking second to the last of the stones that they had. 

"I certainly do hope so," Marvin replied, slightly dishearted by the situation. Even though, according to Tom's calculation, his friend was still only a silver of energy away from reaching the threshold for obtaining his first skill, he could see where Marvin's uncertainty was coming from. 

In the end, this dungeon could very well work according to a set of rules that wouldn't make any mathematical sense. No one said that reaching the tenth level required a certain set of energy. No one knew if killing the monsters influenced one's speed of reaching higher levels. 

The only thing they knew for sure was that consuming the energy of the stones would sooner or later bring one's level up. 

"Don't think too much about it, brother," Tom encouraged his friend. "We are already making way better use of those stones than we would without my skills," he added with a small smile. 

This was also the only reason why Tom managed to bring Cleo to level tenth and likely do the same with Marvin, even though they only reached the end of the eight floors of the dungeon so far. 

"I will keep that in mind," Marvin said before nodding his head to inform his friend that he was ready.

And surely enough, Tom expended less than half of the energy that he obtained from the stone before something in his friend clicked. 

"I got it!" Marvin shouted in joy. "This feeling..." a weird expression appeared on his face as he raised it towards Tom. "Brother, would you mind cutting yourself a little?" he asked. 

"Excuse me?" Tom leaned his head to the side, trying hard to understand what his friend meant. 

"I might be wrong, but I think..." Marvin's words got stuck in his throat for a moment. "But I think I got a healing ability," he finally said, lowering his face as if he couldn't look Tom in the eye. 

"Why are you looking away?" Tom asked, genuinely surprised by Marvin's reaction. "Don't tell me you think that a healing ability is bad!" he said, quickly dropping his spear and calling forth a magical one. 

'If I use the real thing, I would likely heal from my skills as soon as I would cut myself,' Tom thought, grabbing the spear near its blade before sliding his left hand through the edge of the blade. 

In an instant, a small cut appeared on Tom's hand, right where his magical blade cut through his skin. Yet, as soon as the cut appeared, Tom had to forcefully withdraw all his magic not only from the hand alone but from his entire left arm just to make sure his own self-healing skill wouldn't kill the wound. 

"Here you go," Tom said, stretching his hand towards his friend. 

"Here goes nothing..." Marvin muttered, placing his hands on top of Tom's palm. 

For a moment, Tom felt a sting, and then there was nothing. Not even a tiniest bit of pain or the residual itch from the wound. 

Marvin slowly raised his hands. He even had his eyes closed, as if he was too scared to see to confirm whether he was actually right about his ability.

"Congratulations," Tom said, noticing that there wasn't even a scar left on his hand. "You appear to have an inner drive towards support abilities!" 

"Fuck..." Marvin muttered, clearly distressed with the reality. 

"Why so mad?" Tom asked, genuinely puzzled. "Don't tell me you have this childish mindset that only the damage dealers are important!" 

"And why would you need a heal if you can already heal yourself?!" Marvin shouted, revealing the reason behind his anxiety. 

It wasn't that he didn't like his ability. What he was upset about was how useless it appeared to be in their current situation in terms of helping Tom deal with the last boss.

"I might surprise you here, but right now, I'm heavily inclined towards focusing all the stones on you," Tom announced before bowing his head in Cleo's direction. "I will still take a look at your skill, but honestly speaking, support is exactly what I needed. I didn't actually hope for one because I considered it a scenario too good to come true!" 

"I understand," Cleo replied, shaking her head. "You don't need to worry about it. What's important for now is not for either of us to get stronger, but for all of us to get to the other side," she said. "Relatively unscrapped, if possible," she added with a small smirk. 

"Well then, now that we know what Marvin's skill is like, let's try testing yours," Tom said to the girl before turning his head towards the end of the boss room. "Kira, young man, come," he said before turning towards the massive gate. 

At the current point, Tom couldn't even count how many times in total did he pass through the gates like that. Thankfully, the weird phenomena that started to happen to him whenever entering or exiting the dungeon as a whole didn't occur while traveling between floors. 

A moment later, the group of five appeared on the next floor. 

"Just one more floor before the first real boss," Tom muttered, just to remind everyone about the rule. 

In the end, their current run of the dungeon wasn't the only one they would participate in, but the first one instead. 

Given how running the dungeon was the simplest way to grow one's personal power, many of Tom's family members were likely to end up in the dungeon again if not many times over. 

As such, the sooner they would all learn the basic rules that governed it, the better for everyone. 

"Well, I guess it's time to test my skill out!" Cleo shouted with joy, more than eager to check it out. 

"I got your back," Tom said, calling forth his main weapon. 

Given how they were only testing the skill, there was a huge risk that something would go wrong. As such, he dared not to hold back, even if they were only on the ninth floor of the dungeon. 

The experience back at the adventurer's office on the other side of the dungeon taught Tom as much. 

"Here I go, then!" Cleo shouted with joy as soon as she noticed some goblins emerging from beyond the corner. 

'She looks like Claudia right now,' Tom thought as a small smile appeared on his lips. But he had no time to just stand and contemplate, given how Cleo rushed with all her speed ahead!

There was no finesse in her movements. She simply ran into the goblins... and ran over them!

'What the fuck?' TOm thought, stunned by sight. 

The goblins were actually dead!

"I called this skill..." Cleo said, waiting for a moment to build up the tension, "ROADKILL!"