Chapter 568

For the next two hours Ajax maintained a fast pace looking to put as much distance as he could between himself and the dungeon while also not draining his Stamina or Mana, this was not easy since he had to spend Mana on the Life and Light magic he was using to finish healing himself.

Much as he wanted to take a closer look at the gains he made from the fight Ajax forced himself to put that off for a little while longer. While the spider had called in reinforcements and a group of birds had tried to opportunistically feed on the spiders a second peak predator had yet to make an appearance so Ajax was keeping a keen eye on his surroundings. 

Ajax’s caution proved warranted as a shiver ran up his spine as he dropped [Mana Syphon] about twenty minutes after he made his getaway. He made to step towards the shadows once more but the feeling only spiked harder making Ajax change his decision at the last moment, opting instead to pull out his shield and push [Mana Syphon] to drain everything around himself. 

He felt his Legendary Skill grab something behind him, Ajax didn’t even stop to process what type of Mana it was as he put the shield between himself and that direction only a moment before a cyclone of Wind blades rushed towards him.

With the extra Mana to drain Ajax’s physical abilities ticked up a little as he jumped out of the way. Unfortunately his body was still a little stiff from the poison so his left leg took a two inch deep cut from one of the Wind blades.

Ajax paid it no mind. A simple wound like that would be healed by the fifty Mana Light spell he reflexively threw out, his focus on the creature that attacked him. A vulture the size of a small pony was standing on a branch and looking at him, the creature was clearly surprised that its attack not only failed but so had its stealth.

With its cover blown the vulture started pushing around a lot more Mana. Ajax quickly realized that despite this creature only being level one hundred and twenty five it was clearly one of the most destructive he had yet faced. 

According to [Inspector’s Eye] the vulture was almost a pure mage with its stats heavily invested towards Mind and Intelligence, with Vitality Wisdom and Perception being secondary and a significantly lower investment in Strength, Endurance and Dexterity.

Feeling the Mana gather, Ajax was already dashing towards the vulture as fast as he could. The carrion bird was clearly more used to cleaning up after a fight than hunting its own prey, something Ajax figured out from how close it had gotten before launching its attack. 

Launching an attack from this close wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, in most cases having less time to react would matter more than the limitation on the power of the attack before the presence of Mana was felt. The issue for the vulture was that it had left itself wide open for a counter attack once its ambush failed, its mistake only compounded by the large spell Ajax could feel it gathering. 

Ajax could feel Mana gathering faster than anything he could manage, it must have been at the rate of almost six hundred Mana in a second yet the spell hadn’t yet taken form, the final spell must have been a two thousand Mana at least. Ajax specifically pushed [Mana Syphon] attempting to not only drain some of the Mana from the spell being formed but to specifically break down the construct of the spell, making it take longer to cast. 

As a carrier the vulture wasn’t used to combat against an active opponent, it mostly feasted on dead corpses or lower level enemies. It’s Skill specifically worked by drawing his attention to weakened enemies that were more than thirty levels below itself. But the Skill had led it into a trap this time, the Uncommon Skill had targeted Ajax following the battle with the spider matriarch.

Two seconds after the vulture started casting and Ajax was already in range. The bird's body wasn’t fragile compared to most things but in combat at their level it was downright flimsy, something Ajax made a point to prove as he stopped healing himself once he was in range just so he could power [Telekinesis] to its utmost limit. 

Ajax could only pump out four hundred Mana in a second and even that was pushing his Mana channels, only two thirds of what the vulture could sustain, but the effect was immediate. While Ajax hadn’t managed to get a better handle on fine control for his [Telekinesis] one thing he did get better at was dual casting it. Two two hundred Mana grasps pulled on each of the bird's wings in opposite directions attempting to tear it in half down the middle.

The force exerted was so much higher than the integrity of the vulture's body that not only did the sudden pull dislocate the bones but it outright stripped the flesh and muscle from the bones as the grasp points Ajax focused on exploded in a shower of gore. 

The surprise and pain were too much for the vulture to even attempt to mount a defense against the approaching human, let alone finish the spell it had been casting. Ajax only needed a single clean blow with the Magma axe to take the vulture’s head clean off.

The fight was over in seconds, a failed ambush followed by a bad decision combined with overconfidence had sealed the fate of an opponent that could have actually pressured Ajax had it focused on short powerful spells meant to take advantage of its high Intelligence for powerful spells and high Mind for a deep Mana pool. 

Seeing the vulture’s body break apart into Mana, Ajax knew it had also been a monster from the dungeon. One that had escaped a while ago if it rose from the low nineties all the way to the mid one hundred and twenties. Most likely it was older than Ajax was. 

With the fight being so short Ajax wasn’t actually worried that it would draw any attention. Sure there was a lot of Mana being thrown around but that would be more of a deterrent to predators since it all happened so quickly. 

That being said Ajax didn’t hang around and continued his journey towards the ruins. Now however he had enough time to look over the big gains from the two recent fights. The big gains were three new Skills Ajax had picked up. 

The first Skill was [Second Breath] an Uncommon Skill Ajax was sure he had picked up when he was running out of breath as he ran from the spider. He could instinctively tell that he could spend Stamina in order to get his body to work on less oxygen. He wasn’t sure if this was using Stamina to replace the oxygen or just somehow getting the body to break down the carbon dioxide into reusable oxygen but Ajax could tell it would also work to increase the amount of time he could spend underwater. 

The second Skill Ajax gained was Epic, [Shadow Dweller], using it Ajax knew for a fact that he would have a much easier time entering the shadows. It wasn’t a Skill Fluffy had but then again Fluffy was a Shadow Cat, it was more than likely it didn’t need such a Skill since its species most likely had something similar if not better baked in. The Skill did however give Ajax high hopes for his own progress with shadow walking and eventually even shadow jumping.

The final Skill was one Ajax was sure he earned from his encounter with the vulture but spurred on by the somewhat successful ambush of the spider matriarch. [Sense of Dread] was an Epic Skill and one Ajax very much felt he needed to supplement [Danger Sense]. The latter had been completely overwhelmed by whatever ambush Skill the spider had, for the first time Ajax hadn’t gotten advance knowledge of an attack and he could only shudder as he remembered just how devastating taking that single blow had been. [Sense of Dread] was more narrow in scope than [Danger Sense] Ajax had read about it during his time in the academy, the Skill focused specifically on the impending death or extreme harm exclusively. It was however the perfect Skill to buffer [Danger Sense] against assassin Skills that could bypass the Uncommon Skill. 

As he walked on Ajax took out a piece of jerky he had packed and started chewing on it knowing his body would need the protein considering how much he had been pushing it with Life Mana. 

Using his free arm to feel his ribs where the spider matriarch had impaled him Ajax couldn’t help but wonder if it was such a good idea to head towards the ruins. While both the spider and the vulture were clearly strong neither of them were Ascended creatures, how would he handle it if he did stumble upon a hydra that decided to make him its next meal?