Chapter 363

It took Ajax two whole weeks, basically the entire way to their second dungeon before he was finally able to go three days while following the touch restriction he had imposed on his [Inspector’s Eye Lvl 21]. 

“It’s not as easy as you think, is it?” the prince asked as Ajax notified him of his success. 

“I didn’t expect it to be that hard.” Ajax admitted, he had almost always found himself failing towards the end of the third day just as he was about to finish.

“That’s the whole point of starting with an Inspect skill.” the prince nodded. “You need to get used to breaking ingrained habits when using this skill. The second skill we are going to be working with is your [Mana Syphon].” 

“Right as we are about to go into a delve?” Ajax was surprised and a little worried at that.

“Yes.” the prince confirmed. “The added pressure should help you unlock the skill faster.” 

“So you don’t want me to use the skill on anything I’m not touching?” Ajax was more than a little skeptical of that.

“The exact opposite actually.” The prince shook his head. “You can use the skill on anything except something or someone that is making contact with you.” 

Ajax was surprised at that. He had expected the limitation to go towards his tactile since it mirrored his first restriction and it was something he just learned he could use on people.

“The point of this restriction is to teach you that more niche restrictions can also be a source of power for you when you are sure you will not need them.” the prince explained. “A similar example for me is by limiting my own [Runic Casting] skill to now work with certain elements when fighting certain opponents. At my level you can know who you’ll be facing and give yourself an edge this way.” 

Ajax found that to be a really good tip. There were many times when using certain elements wouldn’t make sense almost at all, limiting himself would actually make a lot of sense.

“Remember, your first restriction hasn’t gone away.” the prince reminded him. “I hope you’ll be able to get some sleep in the next few days.” 

Ajax couldn’t help but laugh a little at the obvious nudge, the prince having figured out his self imposed punishment. With a simple shake of the head he headed towards the next dungeon. The starting range for this one was thirty three to thirty seven with a fourteen level floor jump and he was looking forward to the four extra stat points in each of his stats. 

“Are you ready?” Ajax asked Lexi.

Lexi was feeling much better about this dungeon. While she would only be able to gain stats from two floors as long as she had a good matchup, that second floor wouldn’t be that much of a challenge compared to the previous dungeon. Two levels may not seem like that much but it was quite a bit.

“I am.” Lexi confirmed. “You’re not going to try for it yet are you?”

Lexi had been getting progressively more worried about Ajax. She knew that he wanted to push past the level one hundred barrier that he had been stuck at for a while now, especially after all of the stats he gained back in the Republic. She knew however just how big a jump in difficulty this was.

“Not just yet.” Ajax reassured her. “I’ll wait until Deepwood’s capital dungeon.” 

The capital dungeon in Deepwood would be the second dungeon they would reach after this one, this gave Ajax about another month and half or two until they would get there in which to get stronger.

As the team made it close to the dungeon entrance they found this dungeon to be a lot more in line with the others that weren’t close to their kingdom’s capital. The dungeon was out of the way, well removed from nearby settlements and with a wall of trees forming a physical barrier to discourage any monsters that leaked out from going towards the village.

“What do you think is happening?” Xavier asked as they saw elves coming running out through the trees from the direction of the dungeon.

Aranor wasted no time as he quickly approached one of the people in uniform that were running away. “Soldier, report what happened.” 

“We h-have to… to run.” the soldier babbled as he tried to work his way free from Aranor’s grasp.

This wasn’t the first time Aranor had dealt with a panicked person evacuating so he moved slightly away from the group before he fully released his aura and directed all of it at the guard.

Ajax had been in the presence of auras for a while now but everyone who had passed level one hundred and a bit had started to learn how to control them. The full pressure of someone who had passed level two hundred was enough to make all of them except the prince hold their breath as their bodies momentarily froze.

Surprisingly enough this massive burst of existential dread that quickly passed over the guard before Aranor restrained his aura once again managed to stop the mans panicking and he took in the situation he was in.

“S-s-sorrrry a-ab-about th-that, s-sir.” The man did his best to give Aranor a proper salute as while his mind was playing catch up the fear hadn’t yet cleared his system. 

“Report.” Aranor simply asked again.

“A vis-visiting team just got w-wiped, sir.” the guard answered, starting to calm down the more he talked. “They were going up to the third floor and their scout just came out the self p-proclaimed lone survivor. He had to go up a floor to escape.” 

Ajax just put together why everyone was so worried as he heard the hissing coming from the direction of the dungeon. That was the issue with out of the way dungeons like this, just the same as the one near Lessis where he first started as an Adventurer.

“Mid to high seventies.” Arianwyn mumbled as she took out her combat robe from her spacial ring. 

Once the level jump between floors rose over ten most people who were consistently delving the dungeon didn’t delve higher than the actual second floor of the dungeon. The collectors back in Lessis were the same, once they managed to surpass the second floor the jump to the third would be too large and they were good enough to move to the capital. The second floor here was level fifty one, the guards on duty weren’t going to be able to handle a full floor worth of level seventies, running was actually a good response.

“I’ll make sure none of them get too far away if you take care of them.” The prince offered.

“Thank you.” as soon as the first word left Aranor’s lips the prince was already gone looking to make sure nothing got too far from the dungeon arch. 

“I want to help.” Arianwyn said as she got ready to fight.

“Your Highness, are you cert-” Aranor didn’t even get to finish his question as he was interrupted.

“So do I.” Elara also followed up ready to join her friend. 

Seeing that he would only be wasting time trying to take them out of it, Aranor could only give up and accept it. “Stay close to me, they might just be in the mid to low seventies but there will be a lot of them.” 

“I’ll help as well.” Darkclaw offered as he cracked his neck pulling his battle robe out of his own spacial ring. 

“I’ll guard the rest of them, just in case anything slips through.” As much as Ajax would have also wanted to help his melee combat style would have hindered as much as helped with such a powerful mage already doing the main clean-up. He knew his biggest contribution would be making sure Lexi, Anna, Xavier and Benedict were safe as the escaped monsters posed a serious threat to them. 

Aranor was pleasantly surprised by Ajax's cool and collected response, he had honestly expected the young human to have jumped head first into the fight but instead he calmly analyzed the situation and assigned himself in the best position even if it was the least glamorous one.

The whole interaction took a grand total of twenty seconds, the guard was still gathering himself following Aranor’s aura blast when the entire group got moving. Aranro had already dashed ahead and Ajax could feel the largest amount of mana he had felt from one person gathering.

“Stand back a little.” Arianwyn said as they were approaching the trees and following in Aranor’s footsteps.

“What spell is that?” Xavier asked, what they were all thinking as all of them could feel the massive amount of mana gathering.

“Chill breath.” Arianwyn said quietly.

“What now?!” Everyone except Elara looked at her with shock. The question had been a rhetorical one that had just slipped out, nobody had expected an answer.

“The spell to make your drink cold?” Ajax asked, since he didn’t rely on chanted magic as much he wanted to make sure he wasn’t mixing them up. 

“That’s the one.” Elara said. 

As the group slowly moved through the last few threes before the wide open clearing surrounding the arch they got to see Aranor open his mouth and blow a huge wall of air that froze the lizard type monsters that were swarming the clearing from the dungeon.

“How many times did he chant it?” Ajax asked as he remembered Aranor’s skill to repeatedly stack the same spell on top of itself by repeating the chant before finally releasing it; it had barely been two minutes.

“It’s only a two word chant so, with his [Chanting] lowering that to one.” Elara took a moment to think. “About two hundred, maybe a bit more.” 

The opening cast had easily taken care of at least half the monsters that were loose but there were still plenty more left as the three fighters joined the mage on the offensive while Ajax started creating a defensive position around his friends just in case something sneaked up on them.