Chapter 553

A/N: Sorry about the delay, I was sure I pressed publish but it apparently didn't go through

“Are you looking to push further?” the prince asked Ajax. 

“No.” Ajax answered. “That took a lot more out of me than I expected. Rather spend my time looking at these.” 

With that Ajax brandished the two daggers before pushing Mana into them and the edge lit up with Spirit Fire. Ajax kept them lit just long enough to savor the look of surprise on the prince’s face before he stopped feeding them Mana. 

“They work just like your magic!” The prince was ecstatic. “How? Oh, you can’t take them out.” 

“I don’t know.” Ajax admitted. “But I am guessing the style of enchantment works as something of a middle ground between regular enchanting and your runic magic. But it works perfectly with my own way of casting. This is what I need enchanted in my own weapons going forward, each one with the perfect affinity.”

Ajax was determined to push his [Drawing] Skill as hard as he could to make sure he copied every single detail in the etchings on the daggers. He knew there was a good chance he had added a few cuts here or there during the fight but he would leave that for the enchanters to decide.

Ajax passed one of the daggers to the prince. It came as no surprise that the prince could also get the dagger to activate, he had [Inject Mana] to a much higher level than Ajax did, but he had issues controlling the flames from there. His experience with runic magic actively hindered him with using the dagger since his instincts were all wrong. 

“You guys might want to come and see this.” Frank said as he came up to the two.

“What’s going on?” Ajax asked as he already started following Frank. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be clearing the floor?” the prince picked on the scout with a grin. 

“Is it the boon?” Ajax ignored the prince’s antics. “Are they upset with it?” 

“Crafters aren’t all that pleased with it.” Frank said. “But they aren’t upset, everyone else… I’ll let you see.” 

When they approached the group Ajax frowned slightly. The fog was still in the air so Ajax couldn’t quite make out the people gathered but there were too many of them. The group of twenty people had at least thirty bodies there.

“Are those…?” Ajax couldn’t even bring himself to finish the question.

“Clones, yes.” Frank nodded. 

Ajax wasted no time as he dashed straight for House Manashaper. “What's the wording on the boon?” Ajax asked, his movement so fast that to the mage it looked like Ajax materialized in front of him. 

“Woah, you scared me.” Ajax was getting impatient as the man calmed down. “We can spend Mana to create an illusion of ourselves. The more Mana we spend the longer it lasts, the longer it lasts the longer the cooldown. But when the illusion expires we get knowledge of their experiences.” 

“What they heard, what they saw, even what they smelled.” The other mage from House Manashaper eagerly joined in. “Kind of sad that pretty much any physical contact dispels them, they can’t open doors or anything.” 

There were a lot of applications Ajax could think of with what these clones were capable of. They weren’t the most useful in the middle of a fight but they were invaluable as scouts. And that wasn’t to mention their non-combat value. 

“I can safely say that House Silvertongue will be giving you a nice bonus.” the prince said with a whistle as he heard the description. “They got five people with that boon as well.” 

“Can you go grab the best crafter from your squad?” Ajax asked Frank. “Anyone good with enchantments specifically.” 

Ajax quickly found himself surrounded by the people he boosted. Doubtless the boons were about to become a big hit with the nobility so he was even more dead set on his decision to leave for the Wild Lands, nothing like some scarcity to drive up the price of a boost after a success like this. 

“I can tell the difference pretty easily.” Ajax said out loud as he looked at the people surrounding him. The clones were easy for him to tell apart with [Sense Mana], clearly the boon wasn’t intended for infiltration. 

“This boon is amazing.” one of the people around him said.

“Are those the daggers from the kitsune?” someone else latched on to the weapons Ajax was still holding on to. “Can you take them out?”

“You can feel that he can’t take them out” Someone else pointed out. 

“Not with a clone I can’t.” The previous person sulked. Clones couldn’t tap into Skills. But that brings up the question of if they could tap into the Perception stat.

“Do the clones benefit from the Perception Stat?”  Ajax asked.

“No.” 

“No” 

“Yes” 

Ajax was surprised as the clones around him answered while also contradicting each other. “Yours benefits from Perception? How?” the other quickly latched on to the clone that answered in the affirmative. 

“Yours do as well.” The clone answered. “You just think they don’t because all of you with high Perception also have Skills that you lost so you think the lowered Stat but its just the lack of Skills.” 

The clone in question was from one of the three crafters from House Smithmade. It made sense that crafters would have a higher Perception Stat but no permanent Perception Skills outside of crafting. 

“Ghhnn” a groan of pain startled everyone as one of the people clutched their head.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Are you alright?” 

“Did you put too much Mana in your clone after already draining yourself for the fight?” 

The questions were flying quickly. “Getting the memories of the clone is not pleasant.” The man rubbed his head as he tried to lessen the headache he was feeling. 

This admission drew the curiosity of the prince tossed a small rock towards all the remaining clones, destroying them all as the rocks made contact. This caused a collective groan as everyone got a headache at the same time. 

“That is so weird.” 

“It’s not just a new set of memories appearing.”

“It’s also not that clear.”

While it was easy for the clone to know they were the clone despite sharing a mind with the creator that didn’t make it any easier for the memories to be absorbed. The mind had a chronological order for memories and when a clone’s memories were absorbed they overlapped chronologically with the memories of the real body. The result was much vaguer memory of both sets of memories. 

“How long until you can make another clone?” the prince asked. 

“Five hours.” The response was the same from everyone, meaning that the cooldown was based on the amount of time the clone actually was active for and not how much Mana was used to summon it and its potential total time.

Having satisfied his curiosity for the boon Ajax switched his focus to the dagger in his possession. While waiting for the crafter of the squad to show up Ajax would instead play around with the daggers in hopes of getting a better grasp on Spirit Fire. 

The ethereal flames were fascinating. Ajax clearly remembered the feeling of being burned by them during the fight. Unlike normal flames Spirit Fire didn’t release heat but it left burn marks all the same. More impressive however was its ability to burn Mana. 

Ajax could feel the intense look from one of House Smithmade’s people. He wasn’t surprised one of the three dungeon crafters was an enchanter, it was quite common for enchantments to be damaged during delve and the gear would need maintenance, this meant an enchanter was invaluable to a dedicated delve team.

Ajax also had no intentions of sharing anything with House Smithmade. They had made clear in their earlier interaction what their House's stance on him and his House was. Instead he tried to get a better feel for how the Spirit Fire worked in hopes learning the affinity. 

“Anyone that can still summon a clone?” Ajax asked. 

“Yeah.” One of the three members of House Steelblade answered. 

“Make the clone please.” Ajax said as he brandished one of the daggers. 

As soon as the clone was summoned Ajax used the dagger to light it up with Spirit Fire. Surprisingly it took a moment for the clone to disappear after its arm was set ablaze. More surprising was the cry of pain that followed showing that the memory of the burn came through clearly. The wound didn’t transfer over but the memory of the pain clearly did.

“You might want to be careful of any mana disrupting effects when you use the boon.” Ajax warned them.

Once the squad crafter showed up Ajax stopped his practicing and got to work transcribing the enchantments. He asked for help with that and after getting everything from the surface Ajax watched with sadness as the enchanter carefully took the daggers apart to get a clear picture of the enchantments. It was clear the whole design was more than just the surface and the runes were inscribed through the handle to link the gem with the blade.

“Think you can work with something like this?” Ajax asked. 

“The royal enchanters and I have worked with three dimensional enchantments like this but there are clearly new formations here I haven’t seen before.” The man admitted. “You’re going to make the royal enchanters very happy with this. Though I would be careful what you eat next time you visit the royal palace.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“The treasurer will surely have it out for you.” The prince laughed. “This will cost a lot to experiment with to get it right. Now are we ready to leave?”

“Yeah.” Ajax nodded as the group started heading towards the entrance arch of the floor.