Chapter 682 (Patreon)

Days of training had left Aurexion feeling restless, more so since he couldn’t even watch Ajax doing anything he found interesting since his bond had focused on his crafting the entire time after he was done with his arch experiment. Finally however they were about to go into combat once again. 

“So do I just toss it to them?” Ajax asked as they found their first mud elemental, though this one looked a little more dried out compared to the one they saw a week before, lending credence to the idea that they would continue adding more Fire Mana until they became Magma elementals. 

“Try to hit it with a piece of core.” Aurexion suggested. “Elementals outside of dungeons would prioritise getting the core over chasing for a fight but dungeons make behavior weird.”

Ajax followed the dragon’s advice and took one of the smaller pieces he had and hit the mud elemental with it drawing its attention. The piece of core slowly sunk into the elemental’s body as it turned and started to charge towards them only for Aurexion to take flight.

“I don’t see any changes.” Ajax commented. 

“Well give it time to take in the piece you just gave him.” Aurexion huffed. “It takes time to absorb them, since they are already filled with Fire Mana it should really speed it up but it would be at least a week before he integrates that.”

“A week?” Ajax was surprised. 

“It’s only that quick because the elementals are close in level to the boss even if the quality is clearly different.” Aurexion commented.

Ajax made a note to keep track of that elemental since he wanted to make sure they killed it and he collected the core at the end of the week as the two of them continued the slow process of clearing the floor. 

The difference from their previous week of training was clear. While last week Ajax had been focusing more on getting a feel for how his [Empowering Restriction] would work for increasing his durability now he was being a lot less restrained with his power since he knew his body could take it better. 

Three days in and his efforts were rewarded with his first new Skill. [Reinforced Joints] was only an Uncommon Skill but it didn’t take long for Ajax to realize why it was the first of the body endurance Skills he had gained. His joints were the ones pushed the hardest any time he was using his Pseudo-Mythic Skill.

“That’s a good Skill.” Aurexion seemed a little relieved to Ajax when he saw the Skill he had gained. 

“Are there bad Skills?” Ajax asked, he was pretty sure the Skills he would gain from training shouldn’t be bad. 

“There was a small part of me that worried you might gain [Elastic Joints].” Aurexion explained. “It's a Rare Skill and while the effects are stronger than [Reinforced Joints] there are some downsides in the comparison. The main one being that just because the while the joint can bounce back after a bad twist it doesn’t stop it from twisting in the first place.” 

Ajax could see where Aurexion was coming from. [Elastic Joints] would certainly put an end to all the self harm issues his Pseudo-Mythic Skill was causing when looking only at his joints but this would come at a cost. Whenever the joint would bend too far he would lose power and could still damage the rest of his body like bones,muscles and blood vessels around the area.

“If that was the case why not specifically train in a way that makes gaining that Skill less likely?” Ajax asked. 

“Because that would also make it less likely to get [Elastic Blood Vessals].” Aurexion answered. “I didn’t mention them yet since it seemed obvious you would get the joints Skill or a whole body Skill first but now we can focus on that.” 

“Wouldn’t it be a problem if I got [Elastic Bones]?” Ajax asked. “Also why are [Elastic Blood Vessels] so much better?” 

“I doubt you would get elastic bones.” Aurexion shook his head. “Sure you snapped your bones before but last week when working with Vibration Mana they were shattering, no way that leads to [Elastic Bones]. As for [Elastic Blood Vessels] that is an Epic Skill and together with [Limit Suppression] it can work to allow you to get a further physical boost at the cost of increased Stamina drain by just speeding up your heartbeat.” 

Ajax had to admit he hadn’t considered that approach, more than that he was pretty sure that at least somebody in the humanoid lands had to be aware of the technique but with how quickly Houses rise and fall compared to the Ascended races knowledge like that was usually kept secret and more often than not lost to time to be rediscovered with the fall. 

Ajax’s fighting style wasn’t the only one to change. Aurexion also focused on using Mana a little more during his fights as well. While he still almost fully relied on his physical prowess during combat he was now pushing [Body Empowerment] to only strengthen specific part of his body, this should help him with both unlocking an Augmentation Skill as well as gaining [Mana Manipulation]. Unfortunately he hadn’t gained a Skill to show for his efforts over the week but he did find it easier to increase the boost to certain parts of his body more compared to the increase the Skill gave him overall.

Finding the elemental before they finished their dungeon clearing week hadn’t been hard. The elemental hadn’t yet become a magma elemental but most of the water was gone. The fiery core could now be felt in the heat the elemental put out from a body made of thick mud with portions of solid rock already forming. 

Killing the elemental had proven to be a little underwhelming for Ajax, though he supposed he could understand that going from something as mobile and flexible as a swamp elemental to the sluggish sludge he had been took more than a few weeks to get used to especially when this was likely the first time it had to fight an opponent actively targeting its core and being aware of what it could do. The biggest challenge of the entire fight Ajax faced was not damaging the core too much while still killing the elemental.

“What? Was the fight too boring for you?” Aurexion asked as he watched Ajax remain frozen for a moment with the core of the elemental in his hands.

“I can take this core out with me.” Ajax said his eyes transfixed on the core. The elemental had finished absorbing the part of the floor boss’s core completely so now Ajax could take it out of the dungeon.

“No.” Aurexion dropped a bucket of ice water on Ajax’s hopes. “You are not giving a single elemental any more than a quarter of that core and even that is pushing it a little. It could very well be a danger to us.” 

“We could take half a core.” Ajax tried to push it. 

“No more than half.” Aurexion refused to budge. “Not only that but if we do infuse an elemental and take such a core nobody finds out.” 

“Kind of hard to do when they will search us once we exit.” Ajax pointed out. 

“I don’t care if I have to swallow it when we leave the information remains with us.” Aurexion was adamant. “If even the rumour that we can extract such cores from the dungeon reaches The phoenixes they would burn a line straight through humanoid lands before snatching you and bridging you back to their volcanic nests.” 

“Why would that be?” Ajax asked. 

“Absorbing the core of a dungeon elemental is the one thing elementals entering from outside can’t do.” Aurexion explained. “But if the core is brought outside they can absorb it. If they find out you can bring out cores from high level elementals, supercharged ones at that by feeding a single elemental on the floor with the cores of all the others and then bring it out and do this consistently, they won’t care about the risks of entering humanoid lands.” 

That train of thought killed Ajax’s good mood. It had been a while since he had been the helpless secretive young boy that arrived in the capital of Gryndor to meet with his mentor’s friend in hopes of healing his mentor’s missing arm and getting some backing on the road to getting stronger but this just reminded him that while he might be a big shot now in humanoid lands, out in the world he was still a small fish. 

“Fine.” Ajax agreed. “But first I want to see how useful this core is.”