Chapter 415

The level nineties didn’t turn out to be that much more of a challenge either, the most eye opening thing about the floor was a deeper understanding into how the mana affected different floors of the dungeon. The floor they had chosen Ajax had recognised as a primarily humanoid floor, which was technically true. What was unexpected was that Wendigo’s were classified as humanoids despite their bestial natures and lack of tools or armor.

“I was expecting elves or beastkins when you said Plant and humanoids.” the prince said as Ajax and Darkclaw were watching Harold finish his own fight for the floor.

“So was I.” Ajax answered. “But at least now we know this is also a possibility.” 

Ajax had already experienced that goblins, orcs and even kobolds were listed as humanoids by the dungeons, while he had never seen orcs or goblins outside of dungeons he had some experiences with kobolds and they were pretty much feral. This did lead him to question if orcs or goblins would be similar to their aggressive dungeon counterparts or if they could be reasoned with, if any of them existed outside of dungeons at all.   

Harold didn’t take long to finish his fight. Back when they started fighting a level ninety wendigo would have been a hard fight for him, not something wouldn’t be confident in handling but certainly not easy, now it was only a good warm up for him despite only increasing his level by one during this time. 

“Let's see which floor we want to try next.” Harold said as he sheathed his sword after wiping the blood off of it. 

“Actually Ajax, could I trouble you to take a look at a few other floor options.” Aranor said seeing that they were finished. “We cleared a few more.” 

Ajax certainly didn’t mind, so far their options were a Metal Fire floor, an Air Lightning floor and whatever this final arch ended up being, he even said as much, these floors were all horrible options for Harold. “Which one is the Metal Fire?” One of the ranger leaders asked.

“The first one we found.” Ajax responded, with a single nod two rangers dashed away, no doubt to clear the floor and scour it for anything useful.

Ajax had barely touched the lates arch as he felt an icy shiver travel down his spine as he recognised the mana types and pulled his hand away like he had been burnt. “Definitely not this one, where is the next one?”

“What’s wrong with this one?” the prince asked. “Never seen you have that reaction to a floor.” 

“Undeath and Curse.” Ajax’s words were said very lightly but every member heard him clearly, all of them giving the arch a wary glance. Nobody wanted to enter that floor even if it hardly posed a threat for most of them. 

“Maybe we should clear that one.” one of the rangers said, he then defended his opinion when everyone collectively threw him a ‘why would you say that’ look. “I’ve never seen what happens when undead and curse mix, there could be some very powerful things in there.” 

“Nobody is going in there.” Aranor said with finality. “There very well might be something very powerful there, but even in the best case scenario it would be something that empowers a curse user. I don’t want to imagine what tragedies might come from a weapon that draws the user to both curses and necromancy.” 

The conversation fell quiet with that and Ajax was slowly led around to three other arches. An Ice Wind floor, a Plant Decay floor and finally a Plant Earth floor. 

“Seems like we are all going to the Plant Earth floor.” One of the ranger leaders said. 

“I suggest you clear out the Decay floor.” Ajax said. “Good chances to find fertilizer.” 

It was funny for Ajax to watch the rangers process that information, they went from confusion, to happiness, to realization and finally to acceptance. Unlike last time it wasn’t as simple as a nod before two rangers walked in, nobody wanted the ‘shit’ floor even if said shit was valuable. It took five minutes for the remaining rangers to settle who was going with a game similar to rock paper scissors, the losers having a resigned look on their faces as they entered. 

The Plant Earth floor turned out to be a mountainous forest area, it also turned out to have a very deep Shadow influence that as almost every creature there seemed to be a forest animal that could tap into Shadow magic.

Ajax had no issues as he dealt with a shadow wolf, his [Mana Syphon]’s weakening of the wolf’s magic caught the beast by surprise giving Ajax a basically free hit when the wolf failed to jump through the shadows. With his strike taking out one of the wolves’ legs the fight quickly ended without Ajax even breaking a sweat.

Darkclaw had a much tougher time handling one of the eagles that called the mountain peak home. The fight took almost ten minutes to complete and Darkclaw almost ran out of mana by the end of it, on the upside the eagle hadn't managed to even get Darkclaw to move from the spot where he started or even land a blow past his shields.

“You managed to pull that off without even using a potion.” Ajax praised him. “I think you might be ready to try to push past the level one hundred floors.” 

“Maybe.” Darkclaw said with a smile and a nod, he was excited, he very much wanted to try pushing to the level one hundred and ten in their next dungeon. 

Harold had a much tougher time fighting a shadow wolf compared to Ajax. As a fully physical fighter he had no way to prevent the creature’s mobility. This led to more than one instance where the wolf managed to grab a hold of his ankle and tried to use his leg as a chew toy.

“Wolves are rather intelligent hunters.” Ajax had to respect the creature's cunning. “They might not have a bear’s raw strength but they accurately target their opponents mobility and a single opening is all they need to go for the throat.” 

The biggest problem for the wolf was that Harold was also very well acquainted with their fighting tactics. Every time he would feel the wolf bite down on his legs following a shadow just he would quickly jerk the leg while also swiping with his sword behind him. Unlike Ajax and Darkclaw, Harold was much more resilient as a result of having invested all his points into his physical stats meant that he could take a beating from a creature that relied so much on its magic even if it was almost twenty levels higher.

“I need a minute.” Harold said after he finally killed the wolf. As soon as he had made sure the wolf was dead he collapsed on the ground and took off his helmet as he sucked in as much air as he could. 

The fight had taken almost thirty minutes. Harold boots and arm guards were riddled with teeth marks and covered by a good amount of blood.

“We’ll have to see about getting your armor repaired.” Ajax mentioned as he examined the damage.

Ajax, Benedict and Xavier’s gear would also need to be repaired after how hard they pushed it over the last ten dungeons. Unlike their caster companions it was much more likely that their armor would take a glancing blow, when those glancing blows came from enemies twenty levels higher than them it would slowly wear it down. With the amount of stats he had gained Ajax’s gear was actually in need of a full on upgrade.

When it came time to take a look for their next floor Ajax wasn’t surprised that he could only see one of the mana types present on the floor. The only exception to this was one arch that had both Life and Plant mana and the two of them took up 85% of the mana in the arch. Since the other six arches he looked at all had Plant, Air or Water as their main mana the entire group decided to go with the Life and Plant floor.

“Don’t walk out right away.” Ajax asked Harold before they went up to the next floor.

“Why not?” Harold asked, confused. 

“I need to take a look to see if the next floor is any good for alchemy and I want you to let them know we might be a while if it is.” 

Harold was happy to agree to that and the group quickly made its way to the next floor.