Chapter 356

The first thing Ajax noticed as they passed by the town on their way to the dungeon the next morning was that this Town was a lot bigger than Lessis. This was strange as outside of the capitals almost all towns near dungeons were specifically smaller so that there wouldn’t be that big a loss should a higher floor be released, by mistake or deliberately.

Ajax didn’t give this much thought as it was but a passing curiosity, what captured most of his focus was Elara’s father who was doing his best to act in a much more engaging manner with Ajax. The only issue was that despite the nobles now having a different opinion of Ajax than he had initially he hadn’t quite overcome the initial feelings of dislike he had making any interaction between the two of them more awkward.

Benedict’s interactions with the Duke had improved by leaps and bounds following Elara’s breakthrough, this was mainly helped by the fact that both of them were part of military families giving them lots of talking points where they could agree or intelligently argue their opinion. It got to the point that both the elven king and the prince had to step in a few times during their discussion as both of them and Elara approached some sensitive internal matters during their discussions.

‘That’s also strange.’ Ajax thought as they arrived at the dungeon arch, unlike the small circle of trees that surrounded the dungeon in Lessis and all other non capital arches Ajax had seen, this dungeon had a well maintained road leading straight back to the city. More than that some basic defenses were set up around the dungeon and some more permanent stalls instead of the usual tents.

Nobody gave them any issues as the group quickly made its way to the dungeon. Their delve had been scheduled in advance and while some of the adventurers waiting for their turn did throw them a few jealous and displeased looks nobody did anything as they all got ready to enter the arch. 

“You’re coming as well?” Ajax was surprised to see Elara and Arianwyn getting ready to enter.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Elara asked. 

“Because you already gained the bonus from this dungeon.” Lexi supported Ajax’s question.

“We want to see what the delves would be like with you before we get to Deepwood.” Arianwyn said and she brought out her staff.

Nobody could argue that point and it wasn’t like they would lose anything by allowing them to tag along, Aranor was already joining them as a representative of Sylvanthal to ensure they weren’t creating a massive dungeon break.

“Let’s go already.” The prince said as he simply walked straight into the dungeon not waiting to see if anyone had anything to say. 

It barely took a few seconds after he arrived on the dungeon’s first floor for Ajax to quickly put together why the area outside the dungeon as well as the city were so different from what he had previously seen. The big reason was that the first floor of the dungeon was a veritable treasure trove of alchemical ingredients.

“Seriously?” Ajax murmured as his senses took in the large amounts of different ingredients that were scattered around their entrance point throughout the slightly dry marshland.

Ajax hadn’t taken the time to research the first floor of dungeons for a long time, there was simply no point as with his power it was simply a formality. The same way that Lessis was gaining high quality wood from the dungeon that was near it, this dungeon was providing high quality ingredients for alchemists. 

“What is it?” Lexi asked.

“There are so many alchemy ingredients here.” Ajax answered. 

Ajax wasn’t tempted to go around and collect everything this time around, for the first time ever his alchemy skill had already surpassed the point where the abundant ingredients could be used to further his training, he would need to find ingredients on a floor with at least level forty-fives for them to draw his attention but he was still slightly jealous. 

“Ah yes,” Anna spoke up. “Smokeleaf is commonly also called the boiling cauldron of  Sylvanthal because all of their alchemists get their start here. Each variation of the first floor had different ingredients on it so all the alchemists had a much longer road before they hit the drought of resources that inevitably slows the progress of all alchemists.”

Xavier spent the short two minutes it took the group to find the first arch by ribbing Ajax about his time obsessively practicing alchemy during their first year at the Academy. Since none of them were low level enough to actually benefit from the first floor they dispatched the boss guardian and simply walked through to the second floor. 

The second floor let all of them out on a sandy beach. Ajax hadn’t bothered with trying to locate a good floor combination since Benedict, Xavier, Lexi and Anna could all easily take care of a level forty-five even if they were to have a bad match-up.

It was here however that Ajax started his alchemical ingredient collection. Being as landlocked as they were, Ajax was quick to dive into the salty water and start collecting the saltwater plants in hopes of using them, as far as he was concerned this was the only thing that such water floors were good for.

“What’s he doing?” Elara was shocked to see Ajax just split off and dive into the water after he pulled off most of his gear. 

“It’s saltwater.” Lexi explained. “Very specific plants grow in saltwater so he is going to grab a few for his alchemy. Dungeon crafting alchemists like him are the only ones who can reliably use saltwater plants as they are otherwise too rare for the usual alchemist to have any experience with them.” 

Xavier, Benedict, Lexi and Anna all had no issue killing the crab, shark, seagull and even pather bosses they found scattered around as they all circled the island. With their skills and stats they were a true menace for monsters that were around their own levels, even dungeon mini-bosses. 

“Not this one.” Ajax shook his head after he touched the arch that was closest to them. 

“What?” Darkclaw asked, surprised at the turn of events. 

“Why not?” Elara followed up. 

“High concentration of light mana.” Ajax answered as if it was no big deal. “The floor that this arch leads to isn’t a good one for them since it's hard to defend against a light mana based enemy when you are down levels.” 

Darkclaw, Elara and Arianwyn were all left slack jawed for a few seconds before Arianwyn broke out of it and asked “And how do you know that?”. 

“My Legendary skill.” Ajax answered knowing that putting the reason out there would mean less headaches in the future as they no doubt would have spies try to corroborate the information and that will just be a pain in the ass for him. “Same way I drain the mana from your spells I can also drain mana from the arch, depending on the mana type I drain I know what mana types the floor it leads to is based on.” 

Throughout his explanation Ajax had approached Arianwyn, right as he finished he grabbed her by the wrist making sure to make skin contact and used [Mana Syphon]. Pulling mana directly from a living being was something he hadn’t been able to do in the past regardless of contact but with the recent training against both of their domains he felt more confident, not only that but other people he had tried it with before had all been able to feel something when he tried and failed to drain them directly.

“You…” Arianwyn  stuttered at the odd sensation that passed through her as she felt two points of mana being drained from her at the point of contact. “You drained mana directly from me.” 

“It worked?” Xavier exclaimed. “ Do it to me next, I want to know what it feels like.” Xavier quickly rushed over to Ajax and extended his arm.

“Which arch should we head to?” the prince asked as he was gleefully patting Aranor on the arm as the mage had managed to close his own gaping jaw after finding out about Ajax’s ability to somewhat predict the next dungeon floor. 

“Third one we found” Ajax said as he started to drain Xavier a little. “Has a good mix of everything but is primarily earth and plant.” 

“Woah, that feels weird.” Xavier said with a shiver as he watched his own mana slowly drop. Unlike with Arianwyn, Ajax kept up the drain on Xavier for longer than just two mana points, as he got closer to fifty being drained Xavier spoke again. “I can feel my hand going numb.” 

Both the prince and Aranor raised their eyebrows at that statement. Both had been in the situation of facing a monster in the higher floors of the dungeon that could more reliably drain their resources, be they mana or stamina. Both were wondering if Ajax’s skill could be used to help gain a resistance skill since very few people who ran into those types of monsters lived to tell the tale.