Chapter 422

Since none of the party could gain anything from the first three floors of the dungeon the group went through them all in under one hour by simply finding the first arch and going through it to the next floor. 

“I look forward to clearing floors once more after we finish with the boosting.” Lexi said as she stepped foot on the fourth floor.

“You do know that you’ll also be doing this when we get back to Gryndor as well?” Ajax whispered in her ear with a teasing smile. “You’ll most likely be delving the seventh or eighth floor in the Goldmine so you’ll be passing through floors like this every time.” 

Ajax had experience in this since he had already been doing that for a few years. “On the upside can see a lot more floor themes and can choose to clear a lower floor if you think it has a chance of getting you something you want.” 

The biggest prize for those floors were chances at a bond egg that could be taken outside the dungeon but adventurer groups often cleared any odd floor just for the chance at something unique that they could then sell. What Ajax didn’t know was that the amount of ‘odd’ floor had increased dramatically since he arrived in the capital of Gryndor and entered the dungeons; the same was being observed in theEmpire, the Republic and Deepwood.

The fourth and fifth floor each took close to one hour to get through simply because four people needed to kill a miniboss and that meant they had to find four of them, this meant finding three arches and they would stumble upon one of the roaming minibosses in their search.

It was with the seventh floor that things started to slow down, not because there was any doubt that the creatures would be killed but not only did Ajax also need to kill his own miniboss but Anna, Lexi, Xavier and Benedict couldn’t just one hit kill their enemies at this point with a well placed ambush attack, or at least they shouldn’t have been able to. 

“Is that really infernal pillar?” Xavier asked in shock as he watched Anna turn the miniboss into ash with a single spell.

“What was that?” Benedict was also surprised but instead of being awed he quickly switched to curiosity.

“That was amazing.” Lexi was just as curious as the rest of them if not even more but for her that curiosity could wait for later as her best friend just showed she had taken a big step forward. “There’s not even bones left, you turned everything to ash.” 

Ajax’s eyes were locked onto Anna but for a different reason, after he was sure that the boss had been killed Ajax had used his [Mana Syphon] wanting to get a better understanding as to why her flames were that much stronger. To his shock he actually felt a level of resistance from the flames to his skill, that hadn’t happened even when he used the skill on Legendary mana types. 

Breaking out of his shock Ajax also joined Lexi in congratulating Anna, once they started moving on in search of the next miniboss he put up a privacy bubble around him, Anna and Lexi.

“You have a Legendary skill as well.” Ajax hugged Anna, unable to contain his excitement any longer.

“It’s Legendary?!” Lexi quickly joined the hug with renewed excitement.

“W-what, h-how could you tell?” It was Anna’s turn to be shocked. 

“I tried using [Mana Syphon] on the remnants of your infernal pillar, it worked maybe three quarters as well as it usually does, if your new skill was the same level as my [Mana Syphon] I bet it would only be half as effective as it usually is.” Ajax explained. 

“Well I couldn’t have you leave me behind.” Anna muttered, her surprise and embarrassment mixed were enough to shine through her social skill and leave her a little flushed in the cheeks. 

“With your flames so much stronger I think you have a chance at killing a level seventy five.” Ajax continued, he knew that since this skill was purely a boosting one gaining it would add a lot more direct damage than obtaining a Legendary mana type would since it didn’t really offer the user any flexibility. “What’s it called?” 

“It’s rude to ask that!” Lexi chastised him but from how weak her objection sounded she also wanted to know.

“You both know the name of all five of my Legendary skills.” Ajax defended himself. 

“It’s [Pyromancer].” Anna was quick to share with her friends as she was swept up by the excitement the two of them exuded. “I got it at the end of the fight with the penguin, when I pushed my flames to be… more.” 

Anna’s words reminded Ajax of how he gained his first Legendary skills all those years ago. Back then he had been helpless against a vampire that he could now kill in moments but not only had he been trying to copy what the vampire was doing to syphon the shield protecting the crystal he had smashed but he had also been pushed to the very limit. All of the other Legendary skills he had gained since then had come from either an achievement or were mana affinities, maybe will and dire straits were a prerequisite for gaining other Legendary skills.

“Your father is going to be so proud when you tell him.” Lexi said with a smile.

“He’ll also be worried.” Anna said with a wry smile. “He always wanted me to focus more on being a merchant than a mage or a noble. I’ll just have to gain a Legendary merchant skill as well.” 

“You think that’ll be easy?” Ajax asked. 

“Can’t be that hard.” Anna said with a teasing grin. “You’ve got five of them.” 

Ajax just laughed at that as he lowered the privacy bubble and joined the rest of the delve group as they watched Benedict make short work of his own mini boss. While the physical fighter didn’t manage to kill it in a single attack he had no trouble running circles around the creature as he landed one devastating slash after another. The fight was over quickly and the best the creature had been able to do was put a few scratches on Benedict’s shield.

“Anything you want to share?” the prince asked as he noticed the privacy bubble dropped.

Both Ajax and Lexi kept quiet, while they had both put a bit of pressure on Anna to share the skill with them neither would share anything without Anna’s express permission to do so. Anna remained silent for a moment as she glanced at Aranor, the ranger teams with them and finally her gaze landed on Arianwyn and Elara. 

“I’ll say that it’s a Legendary skill, but nothing more.” Anna said.

“Thank you for the confirmation.” Aranor gave a thankful nod of the head. “I had my suspicions that it was when the spell didn’t pack all that much more mana than your previous infernal pillars but it's nice to have it confirmed.”

The team took two hours to get past the sixth floor, three hours to push past the seventh and almost five hours for all of them to get their kills on the eighth floor before they all decided to make camp and recuperate before the ninth floor. The fights had steadily been getting harder but with a carefully selected forest themed floor for their eighth floor none of them had any real issues killing the level sixty five mini boss.

“I want to try the tenth floor.” Anna said as they gathered around the fire. “I feel like I can do it.” 

“So do I.” Lexi joined in.

“Are you sure?” Aranor asked them. “You know there is no rush, you’ll have more chances to delve this dungeon, there is no need to push yourselves.

Anna and Lexi shared a glance before they both spoke as one “We’re sure.” 

“We’ll be there to intervene if anything goes wrong but with an almost thirty level difference there will be some actual risk.” the prince warned them. “Are you sure you want to take it?” 

When Anna and Lexi just nodded the prince turned towards Ajax. “You’re inspiring more and more people to push their limits.” 

“I actually want to try to clear the sixteenth floor.” Arianwyn said.

“Me too.” Elara joined in.

“I -” Ajax didn’t get to finish his sentence before the prince cut him off. 

“If I hear you want to try the twentieth floor I will come over there and knock some sense into you.” the prince waved his fist menacingly “You might stand a chance against a well chosen one hundred and forty but even that is a stretch.” 

“That’s not what I was going to suggest.” Ajax said defensively before he murmured “Though I doubt you’ll think much better of my actual idea.” 

“Well go on then, spit it out.” the prince said as he prepared himself for whatever hairbrained idea Ajax had come up with. 

“For the sixteenth floor, I want to kill the floor boss on my own.” Ajax’s words had everyone focus on him. “I could bet there is a very good achievement for killing a floor boss twice your level.”

A silence descended on the group broken only by the roar of the fire they were all gathered around. “Depends on what the floor boss is.” the prince said after a couple of minutes thinking it over. “As long as it isn’t something like a werewolf where even a scratch could be lethal I’m willing to let you try.”