Dungeons Online

"Yes," Tom replied with difficulty, fighting against his desire to puke all over the place. While he was getting better with every second, he was still far from returning to his crisp state. 

"On it." Claudia didn't waste any time. She sprung up and ran towards the wall. She didn't have Tom's convenient ability to mine. This forced her to extract the vitally important stones from the wall by hand. 

She didn't hesitate even for a moment before smashing her fists into the wall. Yet, even with all her might, Claudia actually took some time getting just a single stone out. 

"Here," she grabbed the stone before it even fell to the floor, jumping back to where Tom continued his attempts at standing straight. 

"Thanks," the young man replied, reaching forth with his... 'Right,' Tom thought when his hand abruptly stopped. 'I don't really have any weapon right now,' he thought, unable to call forth his spear. 'Well, I guess I need to do it the less efficient way,' Tom said in his thoughts, moving his hand forward and grabbing the stone.

Without his weapon, he was unable to use spear-related skills. Even though he knew the feeling of using the bloody spear, without the weapon itself, it just didn't click. 

'That's a pity,' Tom thought after a failed attempt, watching how the stone disappeared, absorbed into his flesh. 

"Here, next one," Cleo passed him the stone while Claudia continued to beat the hell out of the wall to force the stones to fall out. At this moment, the two girls were united by how worried they were about Tom. 

"Thanks again," Tom gently nodded his head as he reached for the stone. Once again, it was grade four stone. Ever since they reached the floor with five as its tenth's number, they would no longer even see grade three stones and below. And past just ten more floors, they would reach the area where grade five stones would start appearing.

A wave of energy suddenly flushed through Tom's body when he absorbed the second stone. A strange feeling followed, as if some kind of seed, deeply hidden in the strands of his DNA, suddenly came alive. 

Following nothing but his instincts, Tom brought his hand up and created a spear out of his very of mana alone. 

'Huh?' he looked at the weapon with a stupified expression. 'Don't tell me I wasted a skill's slot just to be able to do this?' Tom thought with disbelief. 

Sure, being able to create weapons on his own was handy, but that's about it. 

Tom weighed the weapon in his hand. 'It's not bad, but it isn't good either,' he thought. The young man wasn't some kind of smith to know the difference between weapons just by a single look, yet, he still could tell that this magic spear was a far cry from the one he just lost. 

"This is not bad," he muttered silently, still judging the weapon in his hand.  It felt light as if there was barely any weight behind it. While it could appear to be a great thing, tiring Tom less during prolonged fights, but that wasn't necessarily the case. If this magical spear felt any lighter, Tom would have trouble properly swinging it around!

"How are you feeling?" Cleo rushed towards him, placing the blocks that she perceived as hands on his shoulders. 'I know it's supposed to feel good to have a girl worry about you like that,' Tom thought, casting a glance at the completely blank face of Cleo's avatar, 'but this is too weird!' he thought, before finally focusing on what Cleo asked. 

"I seem to be a bit better," Tom said, looking over his body. Then, he swung his head back and forth a few times only to look at Cleo again. "Yeah, I'm still quite dizzy, but nothing beyond that," he said with a smile, patting the head of Cleo's avatar. "Thanks for worrying about me," Tom added, putting a gentle smile on his face. 

"Hey, where is my reward?!" Claudia asked while raising one of her eyebrows. Her stance was fully competitive. But rather than hoping for Tom to do what he should, she waltzed forward, grabbed his hand, and then placed it on top of her head. 

"Here, here," Tom muttered as he moved his hand around, caressing Claudia's head. This time, the feeling of having a girl fawn over him was fully in place, even though he was the one to rub her head. 

"Well, can I get one more stone?" Tom raised his eyes at Cleo. 

"What are you even asking about?" Claudia's eyes widened as she noticed Cleo hesitating slightly. "Just take it," she said, forcing the stone into Tom's hand. 

"It's not so simple," Tom shook his head, pulling his hand away before it would be too late. "I think Cleo already understands my point," he added, nodding his head towards the other girl. 

"Great," Claudia fumed, "What could be the reason important enough to prevent Tom from fully healing?" she looked at Cleo, clearly looking for a fight. 

"Calm down," Cleo said in a commanding tone. From the deadly stare she sent to Claudia, it was clear that she wasn't happy with Tom's arrangement. "If you don't understand the point of this mission, you are better off not talking at all," she said in a threatening voice before ignoring her female compatriot completely and turning to Tom instead. "Are you sure?" 

"Well, I will be ultimately using them all," Tom said as he shrugged his shoulders. "But the point that I wanted Cleo to make is that you two are weak," Tom spoke out bluntly, staring down at both the girls.

"For Cleo, it's all right to be weak. With her avatar, she is but an expendable asset that can be thrown away once no longer necessary," Tom said after giving Cleo a moment to think through what he said already. "But that cannot be said about you," he said, looking deeply into Claudia's eyes. 

"How am I weak?" The girl squinted her eyes. "Do you wanna go?" she asked, already standing up. 

"You are too slow," Tom said, staring at Claudia in the way that made the girl sit back down. "In the fight with that spider, you were nothing but a dead weight. What's even worse, you can't just change your avatar for a new one. You are stuck with how you are right now," Tom added the insult to the injury, keeping his eyes right in Claudia's pupils. 

"What am I supposed to do, then?!" Claudia finally flared up. She shouted, jumping up only to turn around a moment later. 

"That's exactly the point," Tom said, not bothering to react with the girl's angry act. "With how I am right now, I should be able to overcome my dizziness in an hour or so," Tom said after taking a count of his internal situation. 

'I know it's just a guess, but it's better to give a concrete figure than serving ambiguous statements,' he thought in the break between his sentences. "On the other hand, you guys won't improve by much without those stones," Tom said, putting up cloth on his hand before grabbing the stone from Cleo's hand. 

"What if the next boss will be just as powerful?" Claudia asked, turning around on her heel. "If you will still be dizzy, will you be able to protect us like you did it now?" she asked, cleverly finding a way to turn the discussion around. 

"That's right, I wouldn't be able to," Tom nodded his head, agreeing with the girl. "But now you know why Cleo hesitated, so please, drop this tough act for now," Tom requested. "I'm grateful that you are worried like that for me, but this isn't a school trip. This is a military mission," Tom said the obvious that the girl could still be oblivious about. 

With that said, Claudia didn't protest any further. Instead, she only hummed something under her nose as she turned her back to Tom once again. 

The young man paid the girl no mind, touching the stone with the tip of his spear instead. 

The energy instantly rushed into his flesh. While it was similar to what he consumed during his constant regeneration, it was different at the same time. 

'It's hard to put where the difference lays,' Tom thought as the nauseous feeling he had to fight off for the past few moments finally started to recede. 

But, before the last of the energy would be properly absorbed, Tom looked at Cleo. 

This time, the girl passed the stone to him without any further hesitation. 

"Claudia, prepare," Tom said, once again using his bloody spear to crack the energy free from its physical constraints. But this time, instead of absorbing it himself, he gathered it all at the very tip of his spear. 

While his weapon wasn't as durable nor as sharp as the one he lost, this skill-made spear had one distinctive advantage. 

It could conduct magic even better than the Mythril spear from before!

"Hey," Claudia suddenly spoke out as she reached with her hand for the blob of dense mana at the tip of Tom's spear. She raised her hand but used it to point behind the young man's back instead. "What is that shiny thing out there?" she asked, leaning her head on the side in curiosity mixing with surprise. 

"Huh?" Tom shrugged, turning his head around. This moment of lack of focus caused the energy on his spear to break free from its restraints, only to flood Tom's flesh again. 

But the reflection that he saw within the monster's corpse made Tom ignore this mishap altogether. Or rather, the moment when he noticed just what was reflecting the sparse light of the room, the value of the aforementioned energy suddenly decreased below the scope of what Tom would pay any attention to!