Dissolving the stone

"That man? What man?" Tom instantly pressed the issue as soon as he heard something that piqued his interest.

"I'm sorry, but you lost your chance to ask this question," the monster shook its massive head. "I don't have any other questions for you, so unless you want to fight, either go forward or just go away." The sage-like monster swatted the air with its massive hands, clearly signaling it had no intention of answering Tom's inquiry.

"Well, don't mind if I do," Tom said while pulling out his spear from the floor and taking two steps back. With that, he was back in the corridor where the boss monster shouldn't be able to hurt his avatar anymore.

But rather than trusting in his experiences that constantly proved to not be as accurate as he expected them to be, Tom continued to retreat all the way to the previous floor. Only there did he dare to look at the stone he was offered before sitting down on the ground and placing it before his avatar.

"It's good that I know what I should do now and all..." Tom muttered under his nose while looking at the stone in front of him. "But just how the heck am I supposed to use my origin magic on it?"

That was the one tricky part about his Origin Mage skill. While he knew its name and, to a degree, its usability, he had no idea how he should invoke it.

When compared to the skills of his former avatar, Tom's current abilities required far more manual awareness. However, with skills like Casino and Everblaze, Tom could simply keep them active in his fights and receive their bonuses as he went.

"Just what am I missing there," he asked while standing up and starting to walk in circles around the stone. Sadly, the cold walls of the corridor didn't offer him any answers.

"Fuck!" Tom shouted when his vision wavered by a tiny bit. This was the first signal of his real body reaching its limits outside of the game. Which in turn meant that his time inside the dungeon was quickly running out.

'Wait, let's start from the beginning,' Tom suddenly thought about something. Then, probed by the idea, he grabbed his spear and stood in battle-stance.

"First comes the Bloody spear," he spoke out the name of his most basic skill first as he poked the stone with the tip of his spear.

But nothing happened.

"It's okay, just keep going," Tom said to himself to fight off the wave of disappointment. "Let's try chaining the two of them together," he whispered before shouting, "Bloody spear! Spear mage!" and throwing his weapon forward.

But nothing happened.

"How about three of them?" Tom said in a determined voice before adding the energymancer skill to his combo. With the energy coating his entire spear, his attack finally had some effects on the stone.

That is if leaving a small cut on one of its sides could be called an effect.

"I might as well go all in now, don't I?" Tom said to himself before taking a step back. Unfortunately, with the three previous attacks, he came too close to the stone to actually hit it again.

"Focus," Tom whispered, toning down all the unnecessary thoughts in his mind. In theory, the fact that he was using his avatar should make it absolutely unnecessary to focus at all. After all, it was supposed to be nothing more but a simple game of agility and wit.

But Tom already saw what appeared to be breaking common sense for more than one occasion already. This kind of thinking was no longer something he was willing to endorse.

Tom closed his eyes and tightened the grasp over the wood of his spear. Then, his focus reached the level at which sparks of electricity started to jump over his entire weapon. Not only did those sparks prickle his hands, but, surprisingly enough, they made his fingers tighten even further.

'It's as if the weapon itself was making sure I won't let it go,' he thought when noticing this peculiar situation. But rather than trying to analyze the case any further, he pushed those thoughts aside for the sake of an absolute focus.

And then it clicked.

All the elements fell into their respective places.

Tom didn't attack consciously. It was as if the body of his avatar followed some kind of weird path. His right leg kicked against the ground, elevating him to the point where the fingers of his left foot just barely kept contact with the environment.

His left hand reached forward as if trying to grab something, while his right arm moved to the back.

For a moment, he appeared to freeze in this position, where every last muscle and fiber of his body kept the eagle position, tense to its limit.

Then, as if the muscles of his avatar snapped, he swung his right arm forward and downward, pushing the blade of his spear right against the 'data' stone.

Once the blade made contact with the stone, a strange wave went through Tom's avatar. It felt as if every last puzzle landed in its predetermined piece.

His spear discharged the lightning it had in itself and the power that Tom unconsciously fed it with his energymancer skill. But just when this enchanted attack was about to pry into the stone, it changed.

Everything happened too fast for Tom to take notice of it. But the feeling of it still rung within his soul, as if etching itself into who he was.

At this particular moment, all the puzzle pieces in this attack appeared as an elaborate water fountain, complicated yet beautiful. But once the power finally discharged, it was as relentless and straightforward as the ocean's wave.

It seemed as if all the energy wasted on making the attack elaborate somehow dissolved and added to the raw strenght of its power.

The stone cracked. And then, as if sucking back all the energy that it infused into the stone a moment ago, Tom's spear channeled the energy that exploded outwards from the stone back into Tom's avatar.

It was the bloody spear skill at its pinnacle. Without any need to transform the damage into lifeforce, it simply consumed the raw power that the stone fed it with.

The entire event appeared to stretch for several minutes in Tom's mind while only taking as little as a single second in reality. But when the young man came to be from his focused state, his spear was vibrating, brimming with more energy than it could handle. But as if it wasn't enough, his vision was blocked by interface messages.

Messages that Tom saw for the very first time in his long experience as a veteran Dungeons Online player.