Chapter 358

It didn’t take long for everyone to find a boss and finish this floor. Unlike the previous floor they weren’t so picky about the specific nature of the next floor and they just went with whatever arch was closest. 

“This is where we part ways.” Aranor said as he turned towards the low leveled members of the group.

Lexi, Anna, Benedict and Xavier already knew that they were exiting this floor as soon as they set foot on it. They had no chance against a level sixty-seven and they all knew it.

“I’m going as well.” Elara said cheerfully as she quickly approached Lexi, already eager to try and get any information about Vibration mana.

“Do you think they’ll make a deal?” The prince asked Ajax after all of them exited the dungeon. 

“I can’t be sure.” Ajax said. “I know what Lexi will ask for, the only question is if they’ll accept.” 

“What will she ask for?” Aranor was curious as well since this was a Legendary mana type they were talking about. 

“Information on forming a Domain.” Ajax answered. 

Ajax knew that humans as a whole didn’t have all that much information about Domains. The main reason for this was because of how rare mages were for humans, forming a Domain wasn’t so much about having affinity with a specific skill as it was about forming a synergy between at least three different mana types you already had the skills for.

“They’ll take it.” The princess said confidently. “Information on a Legendary mana type is too important for them, even if Elara doesn’t unlock it all they need is for anyone from their house to be able to use it and they will be guaranteed to rise as the next Archduke house.” 

“Let's get this done.” Ajax said as he headed away from the entrance arch of the dungeon.

The delve team had an odd split amongst its people. Lexi, Benedict, Xavier and Anna were all around level forty-five, everyone else besides Ajax was at or slightly below level eighty. This meant that only Ajax needed a miniboss on this floor. They quickly found out and moved on to the next floor.

“It’s all rock elementals.”  Harold Ironwhisper whispered with a dejected sigh, as a fully physical fighter rock elementals were a pain for him to deal with. 

Ajax didn’t much like this floor either though he did take a moment between minibosses to try his hand at using some of the plants he had found on the earlier floor. With the help of Life mana Ajax found that alchemy changed completely. Having his ingredients be so infused made them not only much more valuable but also a lot harder to work with. Out of the four attempts at an underwater breathing potion only one was successful. 

“Finally made one that works.” Ajax said proudly as he wiped the sweat off his forehead after a good half an hour of hovering over a cauldron. 

“Was it worth it?” Harold asked, he had paid enough attention to tell that Ajax was doing something to the ingredients he was using even if he didn’t know what.

“I’m not sure.” Ajax said as he inspected the potion, his [Inspector’s Eye] worked together with [Alchemist’s Examination] to get the information on his most recent creation. “The time it works for is the same but it also improves eyesight and hearing underwater as well.” 

Despite the result of this test not being clearly worth the extra investment it did answer Ajax’s question on whether or not it was worth trying to work with Life mana for [Alchemy]. Just these four attempts got him an additional level in the skill, not to mention that having such additional effects that were related to the initial effect was something he would have to look into for each of his recipes to see if there was anything truly outstanding that could be made. 

“What options do we have for the next floor?” Darkclaw asked excitedly as soon as he noticed Ajax had finished with his Alchemy. 

Darkclaw had been fascinated with Ajax’s ability to gain insight into different floors. Darkclaw’s style as a melee range caster while usually advantageous against other humanoids put him at a disadvantage against most different type of monsters, the reason for his specialization was that the Republic was surrounded on all four sides by humanoid nations and didn’t do much monster fighting outside of the dungeon. 

“This arch here is leaning towards wind and lightning, the previous one is more of a fire and earth attuned one.” Ajax answered. “I am guessing this one is elemental of some sort and the other is a desert, take your pick.” 

“What about the first arch?” Darkclaw asked not liking either of the options all that much. 

“Undeath.” That was all Ajax had to say for everyone else to quickly disregard it as an option. 

“You figure out how to create something based on your skill that can detect when an arch will lead to an undeath floor and your house will forget about any financial issues.” Aranor said as he threw Ajax an envious look.

“Desert is better than elementals.” Darkclaw said as he looked towards everyone else, when nobody objected he started making his way back to the previous arch. 

Ajax’s guess was spot on this time around as the floor ended up actually being a desert floor. “How accurate is he?” Aranor asked the prince when they entered the floor. 

The elf’s question was understandable, he had only seen Ajax predict floors two times and while he had been right both times when it came to the dominant mana type he had only guessed the correct theme to the floor once.

“He’s pretty good.” the prince replied. 

“It depends a lot on which mana types are present.” Ajax chose to explain. “There are only so many choices when you have Fire and Earth but no Magma. Plant water and earth can be any type of forest or swamp.” 

What Ajax didn’t mention was that the higher the level of the monsters on the next floor the more resistant the arch became and the more limited the information he had to work with became. 

Ajax wasted no time on the desert floor. He had nothing to gain here so as soon as he found the first miniboss on the floor he went straight for it. The monster in question was a rather large rattlesnake. 

Ajax pulled out his hammer and using a combination of a quickly lightning bolt to paralyze and Void to enhance his hammer turned the snake’s brain into mush. Noticing that the miniboss was one whose body he could actually take outside Ajax went to work using his [Skinning] and [Dismantle] skills to break the monster down into useful components for the first time in the last few months. 

“HHHHSSSS” Regalia hissed at Ajax as he started skinning the snake. 

“Now, now, Regalia.” the princess cooed towards her bond. “I’m sure he won’t do that to you.” 

“I dunno.” Ajax said as he threw Regalia a pondering look. “I think boots in that color would look pretty good.” 

“No!” the princess jumped defensively between Ajax and her bond. The snake's emotions coming through the bond made it so she didn’t realize it was only a joke until she noticed everyone else laughing.

“That’s not funny.” the princess said with a pout. 

“It’s a little funny.” Darkclaw followed up. 

As they moved on the heat started to be a more serious issue. While all of them were used with high temperature a desert floor always had an environmental component as part of its difficulty and since they were all below the level of the mana present in the environment despite their high combat power it was taking its toll on them. 

Arianwyn quickly became the center of the group as her ice magic, while less effective in terms of combat power, was ideal for combating the environment. The next miniboss they came upon was based on an animal only Ajax recognized, a camel.

“That one doesn’t look all that dangerous.” Harold said as he drew his sword. “The legs aren’t all that muscular and the skin doesn’t look all that armored.”

Ajax wanted to warn the man about his suspicion on the animal’s abilities but he had no way to explain his guesses. Camels were known for their strong bites and despite their slim looking legs they still packed a serious punch. Both of those were things that Ajax expected Harold to be on the lookout for nonetheless it was something else that he was wary about.

As soon as Harold moved to engage, Ajax's fears came true as the camel wasted no time spitting straight at Harold. 

“Fuck, they spit acid.” Harold swore as he heard the slight sizzle as the spit started to eat through his shield.

Despite the surprise the camel stood no chance, Harold had the skills, gear and additional stats following delving in the Republic to quickly bring the animal down even if his shield could use some maintenance. 

The end of the floor came when Darkclaw made short work of a second camel miniboss they happened upon. The beastkin’s managed to simply nuke the monster by quickly draining his mana pool.

From there the group as a whole started preparing for the final floor of the dungeon, this was the most dangerous one where they will face a level one hundred mini-boss.

“That’s predominantly a crystal floor.” Ajax said with a shake of his head, he remembered the mana type from his time in the Empire dungeon. “Best go for a different one.” 

Crystal based monsters were very annoying to fight since while their health was low they made up for that with a very high defense and comparable attack power. Aranor shot the arch a longing look, he would have very much wanted to clear that floor for the amount of wealth that could be found there. 

“This one is our best bet.” Ajax said as he pointed them towards a different arch. “It is a humanoid floor.” 

Humanoid floors had monsters take the form of the actual humanoid races, also including orcs or goblins. The floors were a nightmare to progress through with a team of appropriate level but they were a godsend for boosts since the boosters could isolate the miniboss and the boostee, as a stand alone the humanoids were a lot easier to kill than other boss monsters especially in a favorable match-up.

The floor turned out to be a second mine tunnel only this time it was one inhabited by dwarves instead of carnivorous plant life. Ajax, Harold and Darkclaw had no issue ambushing their own minibosses with the help of boosting potions as both Aranor and the prince made sure nothing interfered to help the minibosses. From there Ajax was kind enough to identify both of the arches they found and let their boosters pick which one they would clear after they exited the dungeon.  Ajax was happy with the five extra stat points to each of his attributes, this was a good start.

As they exited the dungeon Ajax and the delve team were getting ready to separate from the rest of the royal escort. They had been fine traveling together up until this point but the king would be going towards the capital while they would make their way towards the next dungeon and Deepwood.