With the rest of the champions gone Ajax and Aurexion changed their daily routine. Sure more than half the floor was already cleared and the two of them had a very good idea about what they would find on the rest of the floor already since they explored the jungle but that didn’t change the simple fact they were up against creatures in the high one hundred and seventies.
The first big change Ajax made was that he would now be alternating weeks, one spent on training and clearing the floor followed by one spent crafting research and Skill training. The abundant Mana of the dungeon was too valuable not to use but with how much of the floor was still left to clear they couldn’t procrastinate too long either.
“You want me to try and infuse my [Dragon’s Breath] with Smoke Mana?” Aurexion was perplexed by Ajax’s request. “Why?”
“You managed to add Magma Mana to it in a few tries.” Ajax pointed out.
“Magma makes sense.” Aurexion argued. “Where the raw flames are gone after the breath ends with Magma Mana it can leave a lasting effect that burns. It has a physical attack component and it would also intercept anything coming towards me. It’s a natural evolution and adaptation. What would Smoke Mana give me?”
“Why don’t you try it and find out?” Ajax asked, he could feel it through their bond that Aurexion was holding something back.
“Because… it just feels wrong.” Aurexion admitted.
“How come?” Ajax was curious. “I’ve seen you blow smoke before as a way to hide something.”
“That was coming from my nostrils.” Aurexion huffed some smoke to make a point. “[Dragon’s Breath] comes from deep inside my chest. Not a place you want to channel smoke.”
For the moment Ajax let the matter drop and turned back to his alchemy. He wouldn’t be giving up on the topic as he was sure his bond’s Skill could be adapted to any Mana type and they each had to have their advantages but he would wait until he got to training his own Skills the next day to better back up his point.
Looking at the reagents he already spent thirty hours experimenting with Ajax found he still had a lot of testing to do before he could claim to have a minimum understanding of their properties. But the effort he put in was already paying off. Three hours ago something happened to him for the first time.
[Alchemist Examination] had been at the threshold for its upgrade for a while now since his return from the Wild Lands but with the war taking place Ajax hadn’t been in a hurry to select the upgrade. What he did notice was that all of the upgrade paths he had for the Skill were warped by his accomplishments. His time trying to recreate cement had made ample use of the Skill and now he had been given three paths for it to evolve.
The first had been to increase the Skill’s accuracy in reporting how stable something was. The second had been to better help him track the Mana in situations of whatever he was observing and the third had been to better read the Mana density of anything observed.
All three paths had been directly linked to his work. The first two had been tied to the issues he had in creating and stabilising cement while the third was based on his trip to the Wild Lands where he was coming across different Mana Density in the plants he already knew.
There was however now a fourth option. One that helped Ajax pick out the characteristics of anything he examined in terms of alchemical uses. Ajax knew that new options could appear for Skills if one wasn’t chosen when the threshold was reached and it was left alone but he had never seen that happen before to one of his own Skills.
Ajax had to also admit he was very much drawn to this new option, and not just because of the situation he found himself in now or how sure he was it wouldn’t be the last time he would be in it.
Looking at the Skill in isolation Ajax knew any of the first three options would end up being better for his alchemy, all the fourth option would do was save him some time and some reagent testing as well as maybe help him find some unique uses he wouldn’t have even thought to try. The reason Ajax was so drawn to it however was that he already had other Skills specifically dedicated to the other options.
After picking the upgrade, his time working with the ingredients was cut down even more considerably that he would have guessed. A big reason behind this was that with the new upgrade Ajax could now tell what the individual parts of each plant were good for without extensive testing. He knew what the result would be if he only used the leaves, the stem, the petals, the roots. All he had to test was how they interacted when kept together.
“Are you done?” Aurexion asked the next day when Ajax stopped using [Meditation] and stood up. He needed to refill his Mana after his work with the reagents.
“For now.” Ajax answered as he got ready to start practicing with his Skills. They wouldn’t be going to hunt but rather Ajax was interested more in just pushing his Skills now that he had plenty of Mana to work with as well as a large empty space he wouldn’t care about demolishing.
For his warm up Ajax didn’t even touch his Pseudo-Mythic Skill. Instead he focused on his Style Skill, he had been left with plenty of daggers to practice with so Ajax first wanted to get a better feel of how each of his Mana types would interact when channeled through a knife.
Most of the results were predictable. Wind Mana had obviously been good for slashing attacks and less for stabbing but it was one of the ideal Mana types. Lighting on the other hand didn’t work all that well for shalshing as the weapon was short and contact would be brief but it did wonderfully with stabbing attacks as it could also launch a small bolt of lightning should the strike land short.
Magma Mana on the other hand had almost no redeeming qualities. Sure it added a bit of weight to the strike but the viscosity of the magma it generated slowed the recovery on a slash or could even get the dagger stuck on a stab.
The surprise however came when trying to use Vibration Mana. Obviously Ajax wasn’t going to use a knife to create a shockwave nor was he using it to create sound. In fact any use of Vibration Mana with [Mana Augmentation] in the way he had been using it so far had ended up as not worth it.
This changed however when Ajax stopped trying to just use [Mana Augmentation] as a way to add an effect to his attack but rather let the Mana work on the weapon itself. A vibrating blade that cut better wasn’t something revolutionary in the games and novels he had read back on Earth but doing so here had some real downsides.
The first thing he noticed was that it did in fact work. Vibrating his blade was a little more Mana expensive than a regular [Mana Augmentation] strike but the added cutting power was more than worth it. The downside was that his Skill did nothing to protect his weapon, the blade snapping after only three strikes, the vibrations having destroyed any semblance of integrity the blade had.
“Is this what you meant?” Aurexion, who had been watching Ajax’s training, asked. “New applications. You think Smoke Mana would do something unique when used with [Dragon’s Breath], something that might not be useful often but that could be valuable in just the right moment.”
While Aurexion wasn’t fully convinced that something that felt physically wrong to try would work he was willing to give it a shot. His first attempt at adding Smoke Mana to his Legendary Skill quickly ended with him not only choking but doing some damage to his own lungs as Ajax was quick to come to help his bond. His draconic pride however wouldn’t let him quit after just one attempt.
For the next two days the two of them took turns training and regenerating their Mana. One of them was always on lookout while the other was training and they never let their Mana or Stamina drop too low just in case one of the jungle’s animals happened upon them.
It took a number of attempts before Aurexion finally managed to get his Legendary Skill to work with Smoke Mana. The trick had ended up being lowering the amount of Mana he was pushing into the Skill. Trying to generate over a thousand Mana worth of Smoke always ended up choking him but two hundred and fifty Mana was more manageable.
“That’s something.” Ajax let out a low whistle as he looked on with wide eyes at the thick smoke his bond had just produced. “It also explains why it was choking you when you used too much Mana.”
Not only was Aurexion's new application of his Legendary Skill produce a thick dark Mana dense smoke that Ajax couldn’t see clearly through with his eyes or his [Sense Mana] and even [Mana Syphon] couldn’t get a clear idea of what was going on. But it also produced a decent amount of ash that was dancing in the smoke.
A quick attempt to clear out the smoke with a Wind spell showed one of the useful properties his Skill provided that the regular smoke screen Aurexion would use didn’t. Because of the dense ash floating through the smoke the Wind spell acted like it hit a gelatinous wall. It still cleared out a good bit of the smoke but nowhere near all of it, More than that it also spread the ash everywhere.
With their training done the two of them returned to rest for the night, the following day would be the start of their floor clearing week and Ajax would once again start using his Pseudo-Mythic Skill, this time with [Empowering Restriction] adding to his durability.