Chapter 432

Ajax was holding nothing back as he charged the mini boss, the ground shaped beneath their feet with Ajax barely able to keep up with the speed of the hellhound. More than that he could feel the beast charge up a flaming breath in its lungs and for one [Mana Syphon] wasn’t going to help him weaken it since he would be syphoning all that curse mana. 

Worse yet was that Ajax didn’t know which head was about to spew the cursed flames. One thing that did work however was a blast of Holy mana, the cleansing energy leaving a nasty burn like wound on the monster’s side and causing it to howl in pain even breaking its spell. 

Ajax didn’t have time to ask himself why this monster felt pain when most others didn’t, if he had time to think about it he would have realized it was because the curse mana was a part of the hellhound and removing it would be like vaporising a part of it. The beast was clearly intelligent enough that Ajax doubted another Holy blast would disrupt its spell casting but it was great to know he had such an effective weapon against it. 

“He’s being quite reckless.” Aranor pointed out as he watched the fight from the side lines. “Drinking the potion so early and not using his syphoning skill on the beast’s magic. You sure he’s not taking it too lightly?” 

The prince didn’t answer the question but he partially agreed with Aranor. He knew why Ajax wasn’t using [Mana Syphon] to its full extent but he didn’t know why he was so determined on ending the fight quickly, in fact he wasn’t sure why he decided to take on a hellhound at all since the creatures speed and flexibility was a bad match-up to Ajax’s usual slow and methodical kill by a thousand cuts he usually displayed when facing enemies so far above his level. 

Ajax could feel that he would only have one chance at this, because of the curse mana present on this floor there was simply nothing he could do to win against any mini boss in a drawn out fight, with that he doubled down and used [Empowering Restriction].

Ajax didn’t want to limit his options even further and he was already hesitant to restrict another skill as he didn’t want to cut off their potential, with that Ajax placed the restriction instead on his own mana regeneration. For the next week Ajax wouldn’t be able to regenerate a single point of mana and in exchange he wanted to increase the potency of all the mana he currently had. 

The change was immediately noticeable, to him as he could feel his own mana channels pushed to accommodate his mana as he stabbed his sword with an Lightning attack in an attempt to widen the moment of opportunity the Holy blast had bought him. 

The hellhound and everyone watching was also instantly aware that something had changed as Ajax’s power spiked considerably. The ground stopped slowly covering the hound’s legs and instead started behaving like a slime quickly crawling up the beast's paws. The sword’s Lightning augmentation was so powerful that not only did it cause the mini boss to twitch uncontrollably but small burn marks could be seen on the edges of the cut from the intensity of the current. 

“What was that?” the remaining rager commander asked, one squad having already been split up and sent to different floors in search of high quality goods. 

“[Empowering Restriction]” one of the rangers was quick to answer his captain but his eyes remained locked on Ajax. “I’m not sure what he just gave up, but whatever it was it was big.” 

The captain trusted his friend and subordinate, more than that he knew the man would recognise the skill since he had it as well. Their experience with it was also the reason they knew the timer on the fight just got a lot more enforced, there was no way such an increase in power would last for more than a few minutes, not unless the restriction was a permanent restriction and he didn’t judge Ajax as someone stupid enough to use something like that just to clear the floor. 

With his mana regeneration cut off Ajax also dropped his [Mana Skin], not only would this make his mana last longer but it would allow [Berserker] to replenish his stamina pool and with his new trait mitigate some of the restriction.

One thing Ajax quickly caught on to was that [Empowering Restriction] didn’t improve the power of the spells he cast with Stamina so he quickly adapted to use his Stamina for any of his more auxiliary magic spells like his manipulation of the rock beneath their feet and save his Mana for any direct attack against the boss.

Unlike the ettin he had fought the hellhound was too fast for Ajax to stay clear of it at all times, he could barely ensure that the heads never had a good enough opportunity to bite him but even with his earth manipulation trying to slow down the hound’s claws they were still leaving deep scratches on his arms and legs imbuing curse magic into directly into him.

“Is that a consuming restriction? I thought you had to select that once you passed one of the bottlenecks” the ranger captain asked as he observed only some of Ajax’s spells were enhanced, he focused on the prince as he asked his next question. “Is his [Empower Restriction] already past level 50?”

“It’s not a consuming restriction.” the ranger said before the prince could. Consuming restrictions were a way to pay more for an increase in power, the most common being paying the same amount in Stamina or Health to increase the power of a spell, the advantage of such a restriction and the reason the type as a whole needed a bottleneck to unlock was that it was a restriction that could be toggled on and off for specific spells. “I’m not sure how he’s doing it but it is not a consuming restriction.”  

“It’s most likely the Trait he got.” for the first time the prince’s eyes left Ajax as they moved to Aranor whose words mirrored his own thoughts. “He got a trait from a hybrid ettin, I think it has something to do with his resources and that’s why the restriction isn’t affecting everything.” 

“That’s… that’s… genius.” The ranger could hardly gather his thoughts as he looked upon Ajax with a mix of awe and envy. The kid had managed to essentially recreate something he had needed to invest a bottleneck skill evolution within days of getting the Trait, he had no idea that Ajax had made the discovery by accident.

The fight had barely been going on for three minutes and Ajax was already down to a quarter of his Mana and his Stamina, the armor on his arms and legs was hanging off him in shreds and shallow cuts criss crossed his limbs. The curse mana inside his body was starting to gain a foothold but Ajax was keeping a slow but constant application of Life mana to heal himself and the Legendary mana type worked wonders on keeping the negative aspects of the curse in check even if it didn’t cleanse it. 

While Ajax was in a sorry state the somewhat manic grin on his face exemplified the phrase ‘you should see the other guy’. The hellhound had taken markedly less hits than Ajax had but all of those had been infused with enough power to leave deep and lasting damage. Holy mana had played a central role during the fight with Ajax using it for every other swing as it worked so well at breaking through the leathery skin of the monster. 

The fight took a turn for the worse when Ajax infused his axe with holy mana as he went for an overconfident strike to one of the heads. The blow was well placed but Ajax had failed to take into account that Holy mana didn’t fortify his weapon, as the hounds teeth bit down on the axe the blade shattered. 

The axe had been a high end weapon Ajax could just barely wield back when he left Gryndor, but it was made for fighting Level one hundred enemies which had been Ajax’s limit back then, without something to strengthen it the hellhound’s teeth were just too much especially after all the wear and tear the axe had gone through in the battle against the ettin.

The silver lining came in the form of the mini boss swallowing the Holy mana infused shards of the broken blade, the infusion had barely lasted for more than a few seconds but that had been enough to leave a few nasty wounds on the organs of the monster.

Ajax’s [Mana Sense] was strong enough that he could follow the shards as they passed through the hellhound’s throat and he could also feel the concentration of curse Mana inside the mini boss enough that he finally had a good idea of where its heart was.

With the time limit fast approaching Ajax knew it was now or never. He spent almost all of his remaining stamina in launching a lightning bolt at the boss while also redirecting his body with a wind spell to save his crumbling form, he had no need for the broken axe handle in his hand so he dropped it and pulled out his spear before pushing as much Holy mana as his channels could handle into augmenting the stab to the monsters heart.

The attack was successful as the beast died with a whiny roar as the spear penetrated its chest before its giant body collapsed on top of the spent Ajax. Ajax’s saving grace here was that he still had some mana remained as he pushed as much life mana into healing his body while also molding the earth to prevent himself from taking the whole weight of the corpse. 

His mana wouldn’t last for longer than a few seconds but that is all that the onlookers needed to move the corpse off Ajax. “That was closer than I'd have liked.” Ajax barely mumbled as he heaved in deep breaths of air as he looked up towards the people who had removed the corpse from on top of him.