Chapter 423

Ajax was happy with the compromise, he also didn’t want to risk it by going against anything that had the chance to kill him with even a glancing blow and was focused on speed. It wasn’t long until everyone but the night watch went to sleep.

“So Aranor, what do you think of them?” the captain of the ranger squad asked.

“What do you mean by that?” Aranor asked.

“How much of a problem are they, politically? The captain asked. 

“There might have been a small issue or two when we first started, we did target Goldmancer merchants during the last war for supplies, but after traveling with us for months I’d say all of them are making fast friends.” Aranor gave his opinion. “At this rate they might even become personal connections that Arianwyn can call on as favors.” 

“And what about their power, I know they are all promising after all the stats they just gained but you know that those kinds of leads don’t always last, people stagnate and rest on their laurels.” another ranger asked. 

“Unless something extremely traumatic happens all of them will become champions.” Aranor said with a focused expression. “With the dedication they are showing they might just all do so in a century and a half.” 

“That quick?” all of the rangers looked towards the tents with a troublesome expression. 

For someone to be considered a champion they would usually be around level one hundred and seventy five, it wasn’t the level that determined it but the power so some gained it a few levels quicker and some later depending on the synergy of their skills and fighting style, anyone who made it that far had the skills to back it up. Most champions achieved that around the age of five hundred with the prince of Gryndor being a relatively young champion having gained the title at only four hundred and twenty three years of age. 

The thought that troubled the rangers however wasn’t just the number of champions Gryndor might stack up with the addition of six champions it was also that by achieving such a high level this quickly and with the amount of dungeon stats they were gaining already these champions could very well live to be one and half millenia or older, and they would have all that time to push themselves further.

“If you think that’s quick you shouldn’t dig any deeper into Ajax.” Aranor said with a snort. “He’s the catalyst for all this, I feel that all of them apart from the Ironwhisper lad are only pushing so hard to keep up with him.” 

“I might regret asking this but how soon until he reaches the level of a champion?” the captain asked as focused some mana in his eyes with his Epic skill to look through the fabric of the tent and focus on Ajax’s sleeping form.

“I don’t know.” Aranor was forced to admit.

“We’re not asking for an exact time frame here, teach.” one of the rangers who had actually once been Aranor’s student exclaimed. “You gave us a time frame for the other, why can’t you do that for him?” 

“Because his strength is so far outside of what I know.” Aranor said with a sigh. “At the longest it’ll take him four decades, more likely in a bit over three.”

“You’re saying he’ll be around Arianwyn’s age when he becomes a champion, I heard he barely fought a level one hundred and thirty five to a draw?” the captain said.

“He did.” Aranor nodded. “But he is also barely past level fifty, in three decades I fully expect him to have gained fifty levels.” 

“If you’re this sure why even bother saying you don’t know, teach?” the ranger asked. 

“Because he could very well reach that point much quicker.” Aranor’s words left a total silence among the rangers as he went to sleep. 

The following day the rangers got a front row seat at seeing what Ajax’s former classmates could do, since these were different squads than the ones who had joined them for the last dungeon; all of them had only seen what little the four of them had shown when punching down on the previous floors.

“Damn, you were right again.” the ranger said as he took in the ogres that were roaming the dark foggy marsh. “You have a way to teach someone else how to do anything similar? I’ll pay fifty thousand gold to teach my nephew, he’s good with mana.” 

Ajax had shown his ability to predict floors yesterday as well but showing he could find floors that had humanoid enemies was much more valuable and showed just how much detail he could gather about floors, at least when they were so low in the dungeon. 

“Haven’t figured that one out.” Ajax shook his head much to the ranger’s disappointment.

Benedict was the first to take on the ten foot tall blue skinned humanoids and he quickly found out that while they were slow and not all that durable they made up for it with a lot of strength, earth magic and a seemingly passive regeneration spell.

“I can’t tell if he’s talented or dumb.” one of the rangers muttered as he watched on five minutes after the fight had started. 

“It’s talent.” Elara said with a cutting tone. “Before his journey to delve all these dungeons he was purely physical fighter, all of the mana that you no doubt saw is from naturally pushing his mental stats and dungeon stat increases, he already knows he’ll have to take some time and angle himself towards a more hybrid build to get everything out of the stats he has now.” 

“Their healing is based on being in contact with the mud.” Ajax said with a bit of disappointment as he watched Benedict wisely predict a wave of mud being launched at his position and stepping around it to land a deep cut across the ogres belly. “I think he’s also figured that out but he can’t do anything to cut off the connection so he just has to rely on the enchantment to do the heavy lifting.” 

Benedict was almost out of stamina and barely standing on his feet twenty minutes later, he wasn’t as comfortable with the bastard sword he had wielded as he was with his usual short sword but this was the weapon that had the strongest anti healing enchantment from the ones he brought.

While Benedict had impressed the rangers with his tenacity and focus by not making a single misstep in a twenty five minute fight his strength didn’t strike the rangers as something all that impressive.

“How is he doing that?” This was the third time the question had been asked in sixty seconds but nobody answered it. 

Xavier’s fighting style was now backed by a Legendary skill, having analyzed the ogre’s fighting style during Benedict's battle he had no issue fully predicting their next move, his fight barely lasted two minutes and while he was heaving from the mana expenditure the whole fight had looked choreographed as Xavier dodged everything by less than an inch and the ogre seemed to jump into the path of his blade.

As dominant as Xavier’s showing was, he still had nothing on Anna. Unlike both Xavier and Benedict, Anna’s approach hadn’t taken advantage of the more fragile nature of humanoid fighters and their reliance on using armor for protection. With help from her own Legendary skill she had pushed so much heat into the surrounding that the ogre’s earth based regeneration had been cut off because the ground beneath his feet had all the water evaporated and then melted into lava, the ogre itself was burnt to ash with only a few red hot pieces of armor floating on the magma to mark his presence.

“Easy there.” Ajax said as he propped Anna up as she was about to fall over. “You pushed way too much of your mana out in thirty seconds.” 

While Anna still had a third of her mana left over and her mana channels were used to handle the strain of her more costly spells, using two thirds of your mana in thirty seconds would leave anyone lightheaded.

Lexi had followed the lead of her best friend and dealt with her own ogre quickly, unlike Anna however Lexi had not only leaned into the ogre’s humanoid fragility she had also made use of her Domain to spread out the use of her mana and amplify her attack, her wind spells inside of the Domain were strong enough they had actually lifted the ogre fully off the ground until she managed to get a killing blow.

“That has to be one of the most aggressive domains I’ve ever seen.” the ranger captain let out a low whistle. “And I’ve seen a storm domain in action.” 

Even with all these fine showings there was still no question about who had the most dominating performance on the floor. Ajax’s fight ended in seconds as he blitzed the ogre with an ambush using his axe and Air mana to decapitate the creature. He then sealed the stumpy neck with lava while frying the loose head with a lightning bolt killing the beast.

“Hmph, show off.” Xavier grumbled with a smile as he reached on his toes to put his arm around Ajax’s shoulder.

“He’s in his mid twenties and his level is in the low fifties?” The ranger captain approached Aranor. “ I can see how you think he’d be champion level before he’s fifty if he’s already become this strong.”