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Chapter 603
🕑 Added 2025-12-04 04:07:06 +0000 UTCOn the second floor of the dungeon Ajax couldn’t be happier to see a sun moving in the sky. He had timed it and it seemed to go through an eight hour day and four hour night cycle which worked perfectly for Ajax to train his new casting style without overstressing his Mana channels.
The problems for Ajax however became pretty clear on day one now that he was fighting monsters that were around the same level as him. Even if he did dwarf them in stats Ajax now needed multiple spells to kill his enemies.
“So there is some give and take…” Ajax couldn’t help but sigh. For the past two days he had been working on creating a fighting style that would allow him to mix his [Mana Augmentation] infused weapons with the movements required for [Spell Direction] but he was having a very hard time of it.
On the previous floor the monsters were all too slow and Ajax had plenty of time to make his movements, especially once he realized that he could speed them up to keep up with his physical stats. On this floor however Ajax found that he was currently forced to choose between his [Mana Augmentation] or his newly empowered free form spells.
A small compromise that worked was switching over to a single one hander while using his free hand for spell casts but this heavily limited his movement. This odd limitation forced Ajax to swap which hand was holding his weapon. An entire day was spent on getting the hang of switching his stance.
Ajax had trained to wield swords, axes, hammers, daggers and many other weapons with both hands since he was young, one thing he missed however was that he clearly had a favored side. He was able to use weapons in both hands skillfully yet he found his right hand was always the dominant one. Now that he had to be able to use both of his hands as the casting off weapon he found his own movements odd as he swapped his fighting style to a dominant left hand.
The reward for this new challenge came about eight hours in when he finally got the Uncommon Skill [Ambidextry], the Skill helped a lot as he got the hang of wielding weapons with his left hand while using his right hand to increase the power of his [Mana Augmentation] swing. The training even gave him two levels in [Battlemage Style], though he was very much hoping that once he gained [Spell Direction] he would be able to fuse it into his fighting style to gain an Epic or maybe even Legendary style Skill.
By the end of the third day Ajax had cleared about a quarter of the floor. The increased power of the monsters he was dealing with as well as the increased size of the floor meant that it would take him a lot longer before all of it was cleared. Since he didn’t have to hurry up he decided three days back to back was enough and he would spend the next day working on his alchemy.
Ajax had plenty of reagents from the past three days. Not only from killing the monsters he found but he also took every chance to work on all of his gathering skills. [Skinning],[Dismantle],[Lumberjack] even his [Mana Farming] went up a level from the careful gathering of reagents. Sadly for his [Mining] Skill there were simply no ores to be found on the floor.
The limited variety of ingredients for the floor however meant that [Alchemy] didn’t see an increase even after a full day and two nights of dedicated crafting. There simply wasn’t all that much that could be done with the reagents he found on this floor as plentiful as they were. He did see one level increase in [Mana Milling] from preparing so many sets of reagents as well as one in [Mass Production] as the only challenge he could find was in seeing just how quickly he could go through all his reagents by increasing the batch size.
Once he was done with his alchemy Ajax took a two hour nap before he started clearing the floor once more. Having only cleared a quarter of the floor Ajax repeated the same pattern three more times. He would train for about three days taking the nights to use [Meditation] to consolidate his gains and sooth his Mana channels. Following that he would then craft for one day to get rid of the reagents he collected and take a short nap before starting again.
His clearing time slowly decreased as his proficiency with his new fighting style grew yet for some reason he wasn’t able to gain [Spell Direction]. By now Ajax was sure he was doing something wrong and that he would have to wait until after he left the dungeon and found the elemental hawk in order to find out what it was and finally gain the Skill. Deep down he hoped that what he was missing would also allow him to more easily integrate the Skill with his combat style making it so that he wouldn’t be forced into keeping a free hand if he wanted to increase the power of his [Mana Augmentation] attacks.
WIth the first floor taking one day and another two weeks on the second floor even with the small time dilation Ajax was sure at least ten days had passed outside. Hopefully anyone that was waiting for him out there was getting bored and decided to leave before he left the dungeon.
Looking to put his [Mining] Skill to work a little on the last floor Ajax selected an arch that led to a floor with a little more Earth and Metal Mana for the third and final floor. As he entered the floor Ajax was being a lot more careful than he had been previously. The levels on this floor ranged between eighty three and eighty eight. Not something that would cause him issues in a straight up fight but now the monsters could really do some damage if they got the drop on him.
“Another one of these floors.” Ajax had quickly figured out what was going on with the floor when he found himself in a maze of tunnels and had found a giant ant around the corner. It was pretty clear that he was in a similar floor to the oversized beehive he had found previously during his dungeon delves.
Knowing what he knew about ants however and the Metal Mana he had felt when examining the floor Ajax was sure he would be able to find a deposit in one of the tunnels if he kept exploring for long enough.
As he took out the first few groups of giant ants however Ajax quickly found himself falling back on his old style of fighting. His free form spells had definitely gotten stronger, he had even started to feel a small difference in power when he used the movement for a power boost even if he hadn’t gotten the Skill yet but his spells were simply not enough to get through the tough carapace of the ants, at least not without putting a lot more Mana into them.
Two hours into the floor and Ajax had no idea how much of the floor he had cleared. Unlike his previous floor it was hard to go through the tunnels here systematically he was pretty sure he would have to find the obelisk and trigger it to ensure he had fully cleared the floor before he left.
“That must be the queen.” Ajax said as he entered a much larger open chamber where he saw an ant about one and a half times the size of the others he had found. “But it can’t be a floor boss. I haven't cleared enough of the floor yet for one to spawn, if one even will spawn. I wonder how that works?”
Ajax knew it would take a long time to clear this floor even if the individual fights were ending faster then they had been on the previous floor now that he was back to his regular fighting style.
Attacking the queen was different from all of the other fights he had faced on this floor so far. For one thing the queen was a ranged fighter and the guards surrounding her seemed to prioritize her safety over their own. With the difference in power between them however Ajax had no issue dispatching of the five guards before pinning the queen to the wall with a spear throw.
That spear throw however was Ajax’s mistake as while it did pin the queen it didn’t kill it. A high pitched squeal was all the warning he was given before something that felt to Ajax’s high Perception like a stink bomb.
“What kind of ant are you?” Ajax wondered as he moved and finished off the queen. “It’s not poison, or maybe it's just too weak and it didn’t even get through my [Poison Resistance].”
The answer to Ajax’s question came in less than a minute however as ants started flooding the chamber from every entrance. It was only as he saw dozens of ants doing their best to squeeze themselves into the room that Ajax remembered something he learnt on Earth. Ants communicate through pheromones. The stink bomb wasn’t a direct attack on him but rather the queen calling for the rest of the colony. Ajax had just unwittingly triggered something similar to the obelisk for the entire floor before he was ready.
Ajax stopped holding anything back as he pushed [Mana Syphon] to its fullest and started cleaving through the ants like a hot knife through butter. He was still much stronger than each ant individually but they were still mid to high level eighties so Ajax couldn’t simply shrug off the one or two hits he would take from them as they flooded the room.
His first instinct was to seal some of the entrances to stop the flood but after burning almost five hundred Mana on Earth Mana sealing the third tunnel entrance the first one he sealed had already been broken through making it all just a waste.
Ajax fought for hours on end, he had even been forced to fight his way through one of the tunnels away from the queen’s chamber as the corpses of the ants he had killed had started to fill up the large cavern. Ajax was down a quarter of his health and even with [Mana Syphon]’s most recent upgrade and [Berseker] his Mana and Stamina were both down to one quarter.
Just as Ajax was trying to find a way to deal with the sudden deadly situation he had found himself in he heard the one thing that could make this worse.
“AAAAAWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” The floor had a boss, and it was a werewolf.
Comments
John Scott
He should use shadow and try to ambush the werewolf I think.....
Arrogant Savant
I do like how battle-mage style acknowledges the progress of spell direction.
Caiban
There is the fight that gives him the kick to finally learn his stuff for good xD
Arrogant Savant
Floor bosses are completely independent of the floor they are on. This would obviously create terrifying synergies, it also doesn't help that the dungeons are notably terrible by humanoid standards.
Arrogant Savant
It seems venom refining will get a good workout. Also sorry Ajax this is my fault for mentioning it last chapter 😅
Raymond Mouton
Thanks for the chapter. Odd floor/boss combo, Giant ants + Werewolf… just feels odd…
Silver Beard
No risk of death. Come on- you know this. Every big advancement he's had wasn't safe. He's in the wilds- time to be wild... and nasty
Silver Beard
It's the extremity of the combat that sparks the discovery. A boss fight is just what he needs to unlock skills as well as level others. | To get real growth- risk of death must be high.
Silver Beard
Fantastic chapter; perfect for progress- a real challenge.
userunfriendly
TFTC! 🐶 yet for some reason he wasn’t able to gain [Spell Direction]. Obviously Verya left something out in her explanations. 🙄 “AAAAAWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” The floor had a boss, and it was a werewolf. And now, Ajax will figure out what he has been missing which prevented him from getting Spell Direction. What? Don't forget, Ajax learns stuff the best when he uses it in Life and Death situations. 🙄🙄 Yep, the Universe HATES Ajax. Personally, what I'm guessing is that the more powerful the spell, the SLOWER the gestures. The "weight" of the spell, or the load of mana used to execute it, is reflected in the corresponding somatic gesture. This normally wouldn't be an issue, if as we hope, the throughput is dramatically increased for ranged spells. This way, the Sidhe can use magic as a ranged attack, so the slower execution resulting from the slower gestures is inconsequential. However, Ajax is using magic so much faster than the Sidhe. He's specialized to overwhelm chanting mages by the sheer versatility and speed of his magic, COMBINED with the power and speed of his physical attacks. He's Blitzkrieg. 😈 Ajax might be able to learn a high speed version of Spell Direction...by sheer necessity, because Werewolves are the Speed Kings of the dungeon. Thankfully he's got that stupidly OP skill to be able to boost his stats due to venom, as werewolf venom is notoriously nasty and dangerous. And he's down to a quarter tank in health and mana/stamina. Time to be creative, Ajax...and FIGHT! 🫡
Some Guy
TFTC
Corwin
Ajax should try casting with both hands...Dual casting and spell direction might be a powerful combo. Plus it would force him to focus on just magic instead of magic and how to fight with his other hand.
Jaklelope
Tyftc
Frardowin
Ooo,werewolf floor boss. At least it wasn't a kitsune.
