Dungeons Online

"At this point, I'm not sure if you are doing it intentionally or not," Tom said, opening his eyes. With the energy now gone from the tip of his spear, he no longer needed to hold his concentration at its maximum.

"What's wrong with a bit of playfulness?" Claudia asked, sending Tom a wink. But just as she opened her mouth to say something else, her face suddenly turned red.

Her breathing hastened as if she was feeling hot and needed to ventilate her body out. 

"Huh?" Tom was quick to notice those changes. "Are you okay?" he asked as worry exploded in his thoughts. 

'This isn't something that we tested or checked beforehand,' he thought, suddenly realizing all the drawbacks of his plan. All the problems that he was too excited and focused to notice before. 'What if she won't be able to absorb this energy? What if...' 

"I'm okay," Claudia's words stopped Tom from worrying any further. "I felt super hot for a moment. Thankfully, I can feel this strange energy dying off,' she added after a moment. 

"Take some rest," Tom said, grabbing Claudia's hand and pulling her towards the edge of the corridor. He then forced her to sit down and pushed her upper body back so that she would rest her back against the cold wall. 

"I told you, I'm..." Claudia attempted to excuse herself from this unwarranted rest, only for her words to cease in the middle of a sentence. "Huh?" she shrugged in surprise. 

"What's going on?" Tom kneeled beside the girl, staring intensely in her eyes. 'Even if she won't tell me what's wrong with her, there is a chance she will somehow show it,' he thought with hope, not daring to move his eyes even an inch away. 

"I..." Claudia spoke, only to turn silent once again. She then gobbled up her saliva before raising her eyes at Tom's face. "I just broke through the third threshold," she announced with a look of surprise on her face. 

For a moment, Tom just continued to stare at the girl, completely motionless. The news were simply too great for him to process them in the worried state he was in. 

"Ahhhh..." Tom released a long moan of relief, falling back on the floor. "What kind of skill did you get?" he asked before shaking his head as he reflected. "That is if you are willing to tell me, no pressure," he added, worried that his inquiry would be taken for a bad coin. 

"I don't really know how it works," Claudia said. Her face was just as confused as Tom's. "The skill is called Extended Fist, but I don't really know what to make out of it," she explained, looking at Tom as if he could provide her with some kind of explanation. 

"Huh?" Tom muttered, stunned by yet another revelation. Sitting down on the corridor's floor, he looked down on his feet while trying to figure out what could that name imply. 

'Her arms didn't grow, so it shouldn't have anything to do with physical changes to her body,' he thought before raising his eyes back at the girl. "How about you try smashing something? I mean... It will be hard to figure it out with the first guess, wouldn't it?" he leaned his head to the side as he asked this rhetorical question. 

"Sure thing," Claudia replied, standing up in one swift move. She then turned towards the further part of the dungeon before taking a fighting stance. 

'Haste,' Tom spoke in his thoughts, invoking his most vital spell. Slowing down the passage of time could make it easier for him to notice things that would be otherwise too quick for a human to notice. 

"Here it goes," Claudia said. Her voice stretched out amusingly due to Tom's haste, making it seems as if she was talking in some weird, incomprehensible language. 'I might be used to operating under the haste, but understanding human speech while in it isn't as easy as I thought it would be,' Tom thought when he guessed what the girl said from her actions. 

At first, nothing happened. Watching the girl in slow motion, Tom could see how her entire body tensed up. Then, as if by a pull of a trigger, Claudia pushed her fists forward, propelling it not only with the muscles of her arm but her entire back as well. 

'Dang,' Tom thought, unable not to notice how lovely her practically naked body moved in slow motion. 'I need to focus on the attack,' he thought, moving his eyes from her wobbling breasts to the tip of her fist. 

But nothing happened. 

To put an end to his haste before standing up. 

"I didn't notice anything. How about this, then," he said, grabbing the girl by her shoulders and turning her around as to make her face the wall. "Try striking it," Tom said, patting the girl's shoulders before moving a few steps away. 

"Yyy... Okay?" Claudia replied with hesitation before taking a step forward so that her hands could actually reach the wall. 

"No, don't move from the place where you were," Tom said, shaking his head. "Did you forget the name of the skill already?" he asked. "If it's about extending your fists, then it should have something to do with range, doesn't it?" he suggested before pulling Claudia back to where she stood just a moment ago. 

"Well, it won't hurt to try it out," she said after a moment of hesitation. She then shook her shoulders before taking the battle stance once again. 

'Fuck my dirty brain,' Tom thought, averting his eyes from the shapely parts of the girl that he could see from yet another perspective. 'Didn't we hump enough? Or do I really need to keep flushing my system every few hours to remain sane?' he accused himself before averting his eyes to the floor. 

Thump. 

The dull sound of something hard hitting against something equally as hard could be heard. Surprised, Tom raised his eyes, only to see Claudia stand in the similar position as before. 

Just this time, rather than being ready to strike, she had her hand already extended, pressed against what seemed like an invisible wall. 

"Tom...?" Claudia looked at her partner with a mix of confusion and happiness in her eyes. "I can't push my fist any further..." she said with a voice trembling under the onslaught of her emotions. 

"Try to pull it back a little and just push it forward. Don't try to hit it again. Just move it ahead," Tom ordered, already forming an idea of what that skill might be.

"Sure?" Claudia replied with hesitation. She then pulled her hand a bit, loosened her hand, and moved it forward... And the invisible wall was nowhere to be seen anymore. 

"Just as I thought," Tom walked towards the girl before grabbing her into his arms. "Congratulations on obtaining a new skill," he said, hugging the girl closely. 

"What are you doing?" Claudia replied with a slight protest, clearly unable to understand Tom's actions. 

"If I'm right, you are now capable of hitting things outside of your range," he said before casting a quick glance at the wall. "I would say... You can hit things up to one meter away from the reach of your fists?" Tom suggested, unsure about the details himself. "I wonder whether you can attack things that are closer, or is the range of that skill fixed," he said, lowering his eyes as he thought about it himself. 

"Well," Tom said as he pushed himself away from the girl, forcing his eyes to remain on the girl's face rather than descending towards the delicious-looking parts below her collarbone. "How about you go and try to figure out the details on your own? I will take this time to bring myself up to speed as well," Tom said, decisively turning around. 

"Yeah, sure," Claudia replied, instantly immersing herself in a flurry of hits and pushes while Tom approached the sack where all the stones they mined were held.

Ever since the two of them realized the problem of their potentially uneven growth, neither of them dared to absorb a single stone. 

After all, as soon as Claudia would get the skill or Tom would get the derivative of his own skill, the value of those stones would skyrocket. 

This was also the reason behind their slight struggle in clearing the floor they were currently at. With their levels stuck roughly around twenty, the monsters on the fortieth floor and above turned out to be quite a challenge. 

"Well, let's see if I can get a good skill myself," Tom muttered, grabbing the side of the pouch before angling it a bit. Under the force of the gravity that still worked within the dungeon as it should, the shiny pieces of crystalized mana fell out of the sack, directly on the dungeon's floor. 

'Well, here goes nothing,' Tom thought, brandishing his spear. He then invoked all the skills necessary before thrusting the tip of his spear directly at the center of one of the stones that fell out.