System Change

“I said attack!” Clay shouted again. The giant board smashed into his kite shield over and over. Each blow caused his feet to slide back, inch by inch.

Finally, Thomas, from behind Clay, broke off to the right side and thrust his spear forward as the boar charged again. Thomas went for a probing attack, aiming for the wound that Clay had created at the beginning of the fight.

Derek nodded. It wasn’t a bad tactic.

His spear made contact with the wound on the monster’s shoulder. As the spear penetrated the muscle of the beast, the speed of his thrust slowed until finally coming to a stop a few inches into the boar’s muscle.

Thomas pulled his spear back, causing blood to fly out of the wound with it. The boar squealed and shifted its sights to Thomas. The boy had caused much more damage to the beast than Clay in such a short amount of time. It would be weird if its rage didn’t shift to the spear wielder.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Clay yelled and bashed his shield into the side of the boar’s head.

Thomas ducked back in behind the tank. Not long after, the boar was charging back at the shield. Thomas slipped out to the left of the Warrior this time. Staying small so as to not draw attention to himself.

Derek quickly shifted his attention to Alicia.

The support girl stayed in the back of the formation, watching the fight. There was nothing that needed her attention, and if she attacked, she would just get in the way. Neither Thomas nor Clay had been injured enough to warrant a heal.

Clay’s organs may have been shaken a bit because of all of the charges he’d been tanking, but it shouldn’t be enough to cause him much damage. She could only sit back and watch, preparing herself in case something bad did happen.

Derek once again wondered how she gained experience before focusing back on the fight.

At this time, Thomas had taken an extra step closer to the monster. Seeing this, Clay took a half step to his right, further pulling the boar’s attention away from Thomas.

Good move. Derek couldn’t help but compliment the tank on his awareness. It’s a shame. He shook his head.

Thomas quickly took advantage of the distracted monster. His hands glowed blue for a fraction of a second before the glow shifted over to his spear. Again, he thrust his spear forward. This time, a projection of his spear overlapped with his physical spear.

That’s his Soul Spear. Derek remembered the skills the boy received up taking the Soul Spear class.

The projection of the spear moved forward at a faster pace than his physical spear. The Soul Spear made contact with the side of the boar. As soon as the projection hit, the extra piercing damage from the skill caused the projection to pierce the boar’s side with little resistance. The physical spear followed closely behind.

This time, instead of piercing a few inches of muscle, Thomas’s spear kept penetrating the beast. The projection cleared the way, and Thomas’s spear took advantage. In a split second, half of his spear was buried into the side of the boar.

Derek could only image all of the organs that had been damaged by the spear. If nothing else, with the angle of the spear, there was no way the boy missed the monster’s liver. Even if it wasn’t an instant kill, it wouldn’t be long before the Horned Boar bled out.

Derek wasn’t the only person to see the boy’s skill. Alicia was staring wide eyed at the battle. When the projection shot out of the spear, her whole demeanor changed for a second. Looks like Thomas never had to use any of his skills in front of her. I guess he didn’t talk much about his class either. Derek nodded. Good. I wonder if she’s having second thoughts.

Clay had also seen part of the attack, but missed the beginning. He did well, holding in his shock, but Derek had seen his expression change for a fraction of a second.

Well, rare classes are… well… rare, and I doubt many common or uncommon classes would have skills like that at such an early level. Derek thought.

Thomas took a step backwards and, using his strength, ripped his spear back out of the boar. The monster let out a weak squeal and tried to turn, but stumbled. Its front legs buckled, and it fell down, its chin landing on the ground. It let out a couple more weak cries before going silent. It was dead.

Thomas took another step back and shifted his spear to his left hand. He swung the spear hard towards his side, causing most of the blood to fly off in the process.

Derek laughed. Nice! Killing the monster, then looking cool afterwards. After surviving the insect dungeon, getting fed experience in the other dungeons, and even killing bandits on the road to Torith, Thomas had developed well when it came to battling.

He wasn’t a scared or shy little boy when an enemy was attacking. It was a sight to see.

Everyone took a break after the fight. The teen with the golden hair reached to the boar and stored it inside his storage ring. “I’ll keep the corpses for now, we’ll split the coin evenly when we return to the city and sell everything. Is that fine with you two?”

Alicia and Thomas both nodded.

Clay looked over at Thomas. “You’re better with a spear than I thought you would be. What was that skill you used? I’ve never seen nor heard of a skill like it before, and a lot of the guards around the city wield spears.”

Thomas furrowed his brows before answering. “It’s just a skill that came with my class.”

“And your class? What rarity is it?” Clay asked, irritated.

Thomas was silent and didn’t answer.

“That’s enough, Clay. Nobody likes giving out information about their classes to anyone, much less strangers. You know that as well as anybody. I still don’t even know what the name of your class is, and we’ve known each other forever.” Alicia chimed in.

Clay clicked his tongue. “Whatever. It doesn’t even matter. I was just curious. It was a nice skill is all.”

Thomas nodded. “It is.” He sat down and closed his eyes. “Let me know when it’s time for the next hunt.”

“What are you doing?” Clay asked.

Thomas opened his eyes. “Resting, waiting… I’m ready whenever.”

Looks like he hasn’t been neglecting his Meditation skill either. I know that his spear skill takes a good amount of mana, and he doesn’t have very much. I should ask him about his Meditation level later. By the looks of it, it’s at least level 5 or 6. He can hear and sense some of his surroundings, otherwise, it would be suicide to meditate here. Derek thought.

Alicia cast a quick heal on Clay to top off his health. Then she looked over to Thomas. “Thomas, did you get hurt any, do you need health?”

Thomas opened his eyes again and smiled at the pretty girl. “No, thank you. My health is full. Clay didn’t let the monster get anywhere near me.”

It was funny seeing the difference in how Thomas spoke to the girl.

Alicia nodded. “That’s good. I still have a decent amount of cooldown left on my buffs. I didn’t think we’d be able to take out the Horned Boar that fast.” She said.

“I think we would be able to fight them without your buffs.” Clay said. “Don’t look at me like that.” He said to Alicia when she scowled at him. “I was just saying, if we can take out the boars without the buffs, then we can save them for when we really need them. And you will have close to a full mana pool, so we will save on mana potions.”

Clay turned to the meditating Thomas. “What do you say, do you want to try it without the buffs?” He asked.

Thomas nodded. “That’s fine with me. That was my first Horned Boar, so I was being extra careful. Let’s wait until Alicia’s skills are almost ready, though… Just in case.”

Clay nodded. “We’ll do that.” He looked over at Alicia. “Let us know when there’s only a few minutes left.”

Alicia nodded. “Will do.”

After 15 or so minutes, Alicia finally spoke. “My skill will be ready in a few minutes.”

Clay nodded and stood. “Alright, I’ll go find the next monster. Get ready.”

Thomas opened his eyes and stood, spear in hand. “Let’s go.”

Clay ran into the forest and brought back another boar. This time, he wasn’t as fast as before, but he was still able to get back to the clearing before the boar caught up. “Get ready!” He shouted. Then he turned around with his shield. Like before, the boar crashed into his kite shield.

Without the defensive buff, it caused Clay to take an extra two steps back before he stabilized himself.

Thomas ducked into formation behind the tank before making his move. Again, he appeared at the side of the beast, forgoing the probing attack.

Derek wasn’t sure, but he suspected that Thomas’s Soul Spear was still on cooldown.

Again, Clay turned the beast slightly to the side to give Thomas a better angle. A small yellow glow fell over Thomas’s hands and he thrust. The spear pierced the side of the beast, but without the extra attack buff from Alicia, and the extra piercing damage from Soul Spear, it wasn’t able to penetrate nearly as deep.

Derek frowned, but what happened next made him smile.

The yellow glow from before was Thomas activating his Flurry skill. It was yellow because it chewed through Stamina instead of mana.

Thomas’s spear was pulled out of the beast’s side as quickly as it entered, but before the beast could even think about making a move, the spear was back in the freshly created wound. Thomas wasn’t entirely accurate, though. The second thrust entered at a slightly different angle, but it didn’t matter.

In just over two seconds, Thomas had made three thrusts, all in almost the exact same spot. By the end of his third thrust, his spear stopped, buried almost as deep as it had been on the previous monster.

Thomas retrieved his spear and jumped back, just in case he didn’t do enough damage, but it didn’t matter. The boar was dead. And they had done it without any buffs.

Derek smiled and sat back to watch the rest of the show.