Dungeons Online

Judging all the conflicts and resolving all the disputes took Tom only an hour. It was an activity extremely taxing on his mental state but not so much on his schedule or physical endurance.

In the end, even the strongest of the leaders of the auxiliary teams were only about seventy level, and even that only thanks to a support power awakened by one of the members of his team at the tenth level. 

Still, the rise of one's strength grew in pace with the rise of one's level. And while Tom could still have some trouble fighting those people back when he was at level eighty, now that his level was over one hundred with the boost from the golden stones, everyone in the family was as good as ants for him. 

Ding, ding, ding. 

Roughly three hours after Tom's group finally reached the sixtieth floor, the alarm clock set on his phone finally rang. 

"Okay, everyone," Tom shouted, raising to a fully standing position. Once everyone's attention was on his face, he clasped his hands and pointed at the gate towards the lower floor. "We are going in!" 

The arrangement that Tom came up with was fairly simple. There was a strict timeline during which everyone had to reach the sixtieth floor. While strict, the time allocated to this part of the journey was still fairly lax, allowing everyone to calmly decide the leader and allowing the leaders to get used to their abilities. 

But the situation changed once the three hours of rest at the sixtieth floor would run out. And the second Tom's alarm rang, it meant it was the time for the next stage. 

Tom and Marvin heralded the push to the next floor. While the initial plan included Cleo within their strike group, given the possibility of some unrest lingering in the groups that Tom judged, she ultimately was set to guard the stability of the second wave.

There was a simple reason why the second wave would have to wait a period of ten minutes before following in Tom's steps. And this reason manifested just a few seconds after Tom and Marvin emerged on the starting corridor of the sixty-first floor. 

"Peter reports for duty!" a man in the middle of his twenties appeared at the gate just a few moments after Tom walked off the entrance, instantly taking two steps forward and saluting. 

'Judging from his speed of reaction, he is from the second line,' Tom guessed. The fact that the man actually executed a proper salute was another giveaway of the fact. As such, even though Tom couldn't recall his face at all, he could still rest easy regarding the man's professionalism. 

"How is your group?" Tom asked, nodding at the man to make him vacate the spot. After all, there was a chance that some more group leaders would appear.

"No casualties, one wounded. I managed to unlock seven skills and extra'ed one of them," the man reported in a concise manner. A decisive proof that he was one of the men who actually took their military upbringing quite seriously. 

"Your position?" Tom asked, leaning his head over to the side while a small smile appeared on his lips. 

"Forward-forward, boss," the men replied, only to turn around a moment later when the gate behind him started giving out a slight, humming noise. 

A few seconds later, another person stepped through.

"Huh?" it was one of the uncles that Tom actually recognized. 

'If I recall correctly... He was dealing with the cables all the way back when we connected to the hub,' he thought, nodding his head to show respect for the man's age. 

Even though Tom was a the-jure leader of the family, that didn't mean he had any reason to act arrogant towards his allies, especially when their experience alone made them more eligible for his position. 

"I'm sorry to bother, but your report, uncle?" Tom requested, not bothered by the lack of report at all. 

"Ah, sorry, boss," the old man smiled before lowering his head in apology. "Forward-middle position. I was in a group of four, two wounded," the man quickly gave his status. 

'We are quite front-heavy,' Tom thought, only to shake his head. 'What's even the point of strategizing it?' he asked himself. 'It's not like we know how we will split once on the other side.'

The entire split of double-ranking of the front, middle, back, and roaming position was pretty simple. 

Those who would go deep into the enemy formations, disturb their backline, or generally fight at the deepest distance possible would assume the double front position. 

Those who would be more suited for the standard frontline like tanks, cluster warriors, and the likes would classify as the front-middle position. 

On the other hand, Marvin, as someone whose skills were strictly oriented at support, would be classified as back-front. If another supporting leader appeared in the family, one whose skills would have absolutely nothing to do with direct fighting, he would be classified as a back-back position. 

By splitting every fighter into this kind of role, Tom, or any other leader in his position, could quickly organize and manage all the forces under his command. While originally it was a classification strictly related to the Dungeons Online gaming community, it was something that perfectly suited Tom's family needs right now. 

"Guys, do any of you want to train themselves?" Tom asked, quickly assuming the commanding role of the new, smaller group. 

"I'm good," Peter replied with a small smile. 

"I think I need some more practice," Tom's uncle said, his cheeks covering in a slight hue of red. 

"Okay then," Tom nodded his head. "Marvin, you will stick with the uncle for the time being," he said before nodding his head to the oldest in the group. "Only use your skills when necessary. Otherwise, it wouldn't be much of a training. As for you," Tom turned his head to Peter, "how about you go and clear all the side routes?" 

"On it, boss!" Peter nodded his head, clasping his hands together. 

'Judging from the look in his eyes, he is happy to finally put his skills into an actual use,' Tom thought, trying his hardest to hold back a small smirk. 

The way in which he organized the group had a simple purpose in mind. As they were the frontal assault group that concentrated most of the firepower of all the groups that stood in waiting on the lower floor, they had to fully clear the level from every last monster that roamed it. 

Only by achieving this primary objective could the second wave of Tom's family proceed without much worry for the potential danger. Yet, even in this case, those who actually were confident in their abilities would join the second wave whenever reorganizing at the boss-room so that those who still wanted to practice could get into a bit more fights.

'Now that I think about it,' Tom thought, roughly five minutes later, 'how are the four groups are going to merge?' 

Given how his current group consisted of eight small groups from before and two more that joined him on the sixty-first floor, there should be now four big groups in total, conquering the sixty-first floor in parallel. 

'I doubt that the groups will be split into smaller parts now, so I guess it's safe to assume there will be two instances of merging, huh?' Tom deduced, slashing at the monsters that roamed the main corridor of the floor. 

His own position was that of an extreme forward-forward. With his agility, maneuverability, and reach, he could only fully unleash his strength if there were no allies to hold him down within his range. 

Because of that, while Tom would thin out the number of monsters on the main path, Peter would kill the possible stragglers in the secondary routes while Marvin and their uncle would take on the remaining monsters. 

This was the most efficient and safe formation that they could assume, constantly keeping the safety of the second wave in half. 

In the end, they managed to reach and even clear the boss-room without any major hiccups. The one small injury that Peter sustained when he slipped on a small stone was quickly healed with Marvin's help, allowing them to go right back the way they came, just in case some monsters managed to avoid their attention before. 

Thankfully, nothing of that sort happened, allowing all then smaller groups to safely unite at the end of the sixty-first floor. 

'I guess I was a bit too cautious when setting the timing,' Tom thought when he had no other choice but to wait nearly forty-five minutes for his alarm to ring a second time. Even though their entire group was doing nothing but wasting time in the boss-room, he couldn't move ahead of schedule. 

As annoying and counterintuitive this kind of drill could be at times, it was still the only way to cooperate with other groups that were stuck in other paths of the dungeon. 

"This is going to be a long migration," Tom moaned, releasing his annoyance as he cut down another group of monsters with a single swing of his spear. 

What used to be a great way for him to release some stress now turned into nothing more but a hassle. 

'Even if we will all unite on the eightieth floor, this still means,' Tom gulped down as he kicked away a massive, golden bull charging at him, 'eighteen hours of conquering the dungeon,' he thought, clenching his teeth. 

Eighteen hours, out of which only four hours at most would be spent on fighting. 

The other fourteen long hours, Tom would be forced to just wait around in the boss-rooms, waiting for the timer to end, allowing him to finally proceed ahead. 

"This is going to be a long day," he repeated before throwing himself back into the frenzy of killing monsters.