“Are you fine?” That was the first question the prince asked after he made sure the satyr was dead.
They knew nothing about Ajax’s boosting ability since they had never seen it in action but that glimpse just now showed them that if they weren’t ready for it he could very well blitz any of the champions here, all it would take would be one blow with the correct Mana type empowering it to counter them.
“I’ll be fine.” Ajax reassured the prince as he heaved in some deep breaths. “The curses actually helped.”
Most of the curses that affected Ajax focused on lowering his physical prowess instead of his durability, the satyr was trying to prolong the fight so he didn’t target their durability, in an odd turn of events this meant that the difference between Ajax’s enhanced power and his body’s ability to handle it became close enough that his Pseudo-Mythic Skill only pushed his body to the limit instead of past it even with him trying to dial it down.
“We still need to clear the rest of the floor and then exit the dungeon.” Evelyn commented as she and the rest of the champions converged along with Aurexion. “The Curse Mana is still flooding the floor from the summoning spot.”
“I need to take a rest.” Ajax said as he walked over to Aurexion and got on his neck where he could lie down. “This extended fight took a lot out of my Stamina and Mana, not to mention I need to start clearing up these Curses.”
Instead of starting to purge the curses the first thing Ajax did was focus on his [Meditation] to recover his Mana and Stamina, he knew it shouldn’t take more than an hour before his resources were refilled and then his work on purging everything could start.
While Ajax was meditating the rest of the champions continued to clear the floor. Despite them suffering from the curses and fighting more conservatively after the fight with the satyr since their Mana and Stamina were much lower than they would have liked their clearing speed actually increased. Most of the animals they were coming across were all alone, not only that but they had already been injured from fighting each other as the corruption of the Curse Mana spread across the floor.
Once Ajax was done with regenerating his Mana and Stamina he didn’t stop his [Meditation], instead he used it to focus on helping himself handle the pain of purging the Curse Mana from his body.
Even with [Meditation] and [Pain Resistance] Ajax was only able to cleanse a third of the Curse Mana in his body before he could endure it no more, though he did manage to at least break apart all of the Curses so that the debuffs on his stats were drastically lower.
“That sucked.” Ajax breathed a sigh of relief as he exited his [Meditation] and leaned over Aurexion. Since there was less danger of a group of flying animals swarming him Aurexion was finally able to fly above the trees keeping Ajax well away from the fighting. “You might want to land since I’ll start cleansing you next.”
Aurexion didn’t waste any time as he landed but instead his words shocked Ajax. “Keep going until you’re finished cleansing me, I can take it.”
Ajax was a little skeptical of that and he was sure Aurexion could sense it through their bond but feeling Aurexion’s resolve in turn Ajax simply nodded and got to work. The first thing Ajax noticed as soon as he properly assessed Aurexion was that his bond had been the target of most of the curses yet at the same time suffered the least from them. The amount of Curse Mana that sunk into his body had to be higher than any of the other champions by at least double, it was just that his body was so much bigger it could take a lot more.
Ajax made sure not to enter [Meditation] this time as he began his work, he wanted to be responsive should his bond need him to stop or if they were attacked by one of the roaming animals. Not using his [Meditation] would also mean that he will be slowing down the process of purging the Curse Mana and that should lessen the pain at least slightly.
As soon as Ajax started infusing Holy Mana to purge the Curse Mana, Aurxion let out a low growl as he fought against the agonising pain. Unlike his own cleansing, most of the Curse Mana in Aurexion’s body was still in the form of structured spells that first needed to be broken before they could be cleansed, so Ajax got to work. He tried to cleanse different parts of the Aurexion’s massive body hoping to spread the pain out instead of focusing it all on one spot.
Unlike his own cleansing which lasted about half an hour before he couldn’t hold out against the pain, Aurexion's took a whole ten hours before the last of the Curse Mana was gone. Two thirds of the way through the process, around the time Ajax could feel his bond’s resolve weakening Aurexion gained the Epic Skill [Ignore Pain] and soldiered through to the end.
“That… That was awful.” Aurexion barely got out as the rest of the group also decided to take a break from clearing the dungeon, they needed to take time to get the curses still affecting them under control while also regenerating their Mana and Stamina which had gotten dangerously low.
Ajax’s own Mana was down to about half after spending a lot of it on Life and Holy Mana to finish cleansing his bond. “Let me go ahead and at least break the curses.” Ajax suggested as he got down from Aurexion’s neck. “That should make it easier for you to recover.”
Just breaking the curses didn’t take that long but it did mean that without a structure to hold the Curse Mana all the champions had a lot of Curse Mana flood their bodies after he was done.
“We should be able to finish getting most of the stragglers tomorrow, we can activate the obelisk after that and exit the floor.” the prince planned out their next few steps. “Let’s hope your luck holds out better on the next dungeon and you aren’t left with a floor slowly poisoning you for months on end.”
Now that Ajax was done working on purging the curse Mana and he wasn’t meditating all of the champions started asking him questions about his Pseudo-Mythic Skill. It was easy to understand why, not all of them even had a Legendary Skill and they knew how powerful those could be they wanted to know more.
“Your body was able to handle the boost this time.” Aurexion pointed out. “And you said the curses helped?”
“They lowered my strength a lot more than my durability.” Ajax explained. “As you saw I didn’t rip my body apart with every movement.”
“ You were a fair bit slower than last time.” Aurexion acknowledged.
“Slower?!” Elvelyn exclaimed. “I could barely follow the blur you became once you started moving and that was the slow version.”
“I’m glad it was.” Ajax nodded. “Last time I pushed off to charge like that I snapped my femur when I tried to stop my momentum and take a swing, not to mention I overshot how far I wanted to go. The experience with the curses actually helped as even if it was for only a brief moment I got a pretty good idea of how far I can and should boost myself. It will just take me a while until I learn how to do so consistently.”
Aurexion was watching the champions closely as Ajax explained his Skill. Unlike his bond he had barely met these people and while he did show them some trust because Ajax seemed to trust them he did also pick up on the spark of fear that passed over most of their faces as they imagined Ajax’s power. “It’s a good thing you’re on our side.” The words broke the tense moment as the champions started laughing.
“How do you think the Republic will react to what we bring out of the dungeon?” Ajax decided to change the subject.
“They won’t care about your fancy rock, there isn’t enough to reinforce a wall with so it won’t matter.” Evelyn pointed out. “The armor on the other hand they will argue for.”
“They can try.” The prince jumped in. “No way I am letting them get their hands on that, they’ll just have to be thankful you’ll let them buy the corpse of that cougar, unless you have plans for it?”
Ajax appreciated that despite them knowing Ajax could most likely get his hands on more such corpses in future delves they were still willing to stand behind him and tell the Republic where to shove it if he actually wanted to keep the corpse.
“I’ll be keeping the core, my brother’s bond might be able to use it, eventually.” Ajax said. “The rest I’ll sell.”
“They’ll probably be glad for it.” One champion chimed in. “I hear Shadow needs some new gear since his old set took a beating in that ambush they caught him in.”
Over the next thirty hours Ajax finished cleansing everyone of the Curse Mana, half way through he even unlocked the Rare Skill [Curse Removal] that helped him finish quicker. During that time the group finished clearing the floor and even activated the obelisk, drawing in the few remaining animals that were lucky enough to avoid the group until then.
As soon as they exited the dungeon they were greeted by a group of surprised guards, it was understandable since nobody expected them to come out so quickly, only two days had passed on the outside since they entered, but after mentioning the satyr they became a lot more understanding.
The inspection of the storage item proceeded exactly as they expected until they got to Ajax. The marble drew a few raised eyebrows and Ajax even got a request to sell a small piece of the rock so they could examine it since they hadn’t come across it all that often let alone with such a high Mana density. Everything ground to a half however as soon as the armor set came out.
“Get Archduke Goldenmouth here, now!” The words were whispered as quietly as possible as the guard turned from his aid with a wry smile towards the group of champions that surely heard his words. “Any chance you’ll be willing to sell this?”
The prince didn’t even both to hold back the laugh at this question. “No need to worry, we can wait until someone who won’t be executed for letting us walk away with this gets here and takes over the conversation. But no, we will be keeping it.”