Chapter 403

Ajax’s idea about unleashing a dungeon break was quickly shut down. It wasn’t so much about the damage that doing this would do to Deepwood or the loss of any compensation Gryndor was due for their ill fated encounters. The sole reason the idea was vetoed without so much as a discussion was that it would be breaking one of the core principles signed in their most recent peace treaty, having a prince of Gryndor be party to that would all but invalidate that treaty.

“It still feels like they are getting away with too much.” Ajax complained after how quickly his idea had been shot down even if he hadn’t been all that keen to go through with it. 

“They will pay for a lot of this.” the prince said as he tried to calm Ajax down. “You also have to remember that while the Queen did set up a few ‘attacks’ her own guards took care of those, these assassins weren’t sent by her.” 

“That her father is responsible doesn’t make this any better.” Ajax huffed. 

The group quickly made their way through the first jungle themed floor with no issue. Ajax checked the first arch they reached. What stood out the most was that while there was a plethora of different mana types present there they were all sparse out rather evenly, only Life mana took a big chunk being almost half the dominant mana type.

Entering the next floor they quickly found themselves on an endless expanse of dirt that was studded with pits. Each of the pits seemed to contain a different Element with some of the larger ones also containing an arch.

“Why would there be such a large concentration of Life mana if there is no life?” Ajax was very upset as he had hoped this would provide him with a perfect floor to practice his [Alchemy].

“I wouldn’t say there is no life.” the prince said as he crushed the earth at his feet with a powerful stomp, picked up a rock that had formed and tossed it into the closest pit. “I do have to say I am surprised these floors are very rare, the only reason they are known is that they can appear at any level range.”

The rock crashed into what initially seemed to be a small crystal clear pond with a large splash sending out ripple. The ripples however became stronger and stronger as they traveled away from the rock's impact point until they reached the edges of the pit and the slimes climbed out of the pit.

“Too bad we got this floor theme so early.” the prince said. “It would have been perfect for the next one.” 

One of the things that was known about the golem floor was that it never had anything that could be taken outside the dungeon. Every time one had appeared people had scoured it for a chance to gain access to some of the more unique elements but all had come up empty. The amount of wealth a single of the diamond golems would have been able to bring left many a delver salivating with greed.

The other agreed upon fact was that the floor represented the best chance a person had at finding both a challenging encounter, an easy encounter and a perfect counter. With so many different elements present it was simple for everyone to find what they were looking for, even more so at the higher levels of this theme where elementals started to make an appearance, storm elementals alone were prized for the amount of insight one could gain in mixing different elements.

“I wish we could have gotten this for the next floor.” Anna said as she looked towards the seemingly endless pits knowing there was an ice one among them where her flames could really shine.

The floor was by no means difficult with the highest level being only fifty two, to make things more interesting for themselves Xavier, Anna, Lexi and Benedict all chose to go up against their own elements.

Anna was the first to suggest this as she faced off against a fire golem while pushing her spells to burn as hot as possible. This approach let the elemental get a good attack in forcing her to rely on her enchanted gear before the heat of Anna’s spell overcame what the golem could withstand.

Lexi faced an ice golem with her ice mana to similar results. Due to the lack of elementals she knew she wouldn’t be able to find a wind or lightning one variant on such a low floor. Benedict's fight against the steel golem left his warhammer fairly deformed by the time he claimed victory. 

Xavier’s hybrid style didn’t leave him with any equivalent element to take on, despite that everyone stayed well away from the sewage slime pit despite a few good natured jokes that the prince take on one of the slimes.

Once everyone killed their own miniboss the discussion began focused upon which would be the perfect theme for their next floor from the ones they had available. The big issue came that none of the six arches they had found offered them a clear advantage. The closest one was one that had a strange combination of fire light and earth with the presence of humanoids. 

The presence of humanoids was what ended up being the deciding factor as the group entered the third floor of the dungeon. Ajax was slightly surprised to find that while the floor did appear to be a desert theme it wasn’t one that was flooded with sand. This floor was a vast expanse of earth with a bright sun above them but other than some large cracks the dry ground beneath their boots was solid.

“I thought you said there would be humanoids, all I’m seeing are those birds up above.” Xavier said as they started to explore the floor. 

The large vultures overhead and the cacti dotted across the gave Ajax an odd feeling he couldn’t place until they reached the first fence. The wooden fence was much taller and sturdier than the ones he remembered and they were capped with barbed wire but the resemblance was too uncanny not to recognise as he spotted the large bovines that were walking around the field munching on whatever small patch of grass they could find.

“Now that is more like it.” Xavier said with enthusiasm. “I could go for a stake.” 

As Xavier started to make his way past the fence Ajax caught some movement off to the side. It took him a moment to recognise what he was looking at but the brief flash of mana was all the warning he got before the crack of the rifle pulled the attention of the rest of the group.

Ajax hadn’t been the only one to feel the brief flash of mana so he wasn’t the only one to take defensive measures as he pulled Lexi close to his chest and raised his shield to cover them both. Surprisingly there was no sound of impact.

“Interesting.” the prince said as he held the small steel bullet between his index finger and thumb. 

As Ajax lowered his shield he noticed the prince was no longer by their side and instead he was now standing between Xavier and the man with the rifle inspecting the bullet he had caught out of the air.

Ajax turned and saw the look of utter surprise the rifleman sported for a brief moment before a look of fury took over. Ajax could once more feel as the rifleman channeled his mana into the gun before taking aim towards the prince as he pumped the rifle for the next shot.

The man didn’t get to fire his second shot as with a flick of his wrist the prince sent a knife flying towards the man with almost the same speed as the bullet he had just caught. The knife embedded itself in the man’s neck.

Being close to level seventy the man didn’t die straight away, the sheer fact he was still standing despite the momentum of the knife showed he had some serious physical stats. He did however drop his rifle as both his hands went to his neck trying to stem the bleeding to no avail. Two unsteady steps forward were all he managed before he dropped down face first onto the ground.

Ajax quickly focused on the iconic wide-brimmed and high-crowned felt cowboy hat the man was wearing. Everything was too big of a coincidence so he had to fight every instinct in his body to not dash towards the weapon to see if he could find some new technology.

First things first Ajax took a good look around making sure there was no other shooter that could threaten them. The prince himself was doing the same thing before he went over to cuff Xavier around the back of the head for leaving his guard down on such a high floor. 

Only once he was sure there were no other shooters did Ajax go over and pick up the gun. He made sure to be careful, reminding himself that while it looked like what he remembered, the fact that it used mana in some form meant that it wasn’t a gun as he knew it. More importantly he also didn’t want to seem too familiar with the weapon as that would lead to some very pointed questions being asked.