Ajax’s duel was a wake up call for the team. Even one of their strongest had admitted he could have been killed despite not going easy on him. Not only that but his fighting style as a whole intrigued Jones.
A strong melee and ranged fighter was nothing he hadn’t seen before, but from what he picked up watching him fight during the afternoon Ajax had no problem providing support with his magic while fighting in melee. This support was both flexible and quick, its only downside being the high mana cost or lacking power. Then again powerful support could already be handled by Nelly.
As they made their way over to the obelisk Ajax noted that they were heading towards the only mountain area he could see on the floor. Getting a glimpse of the obelisk itself Ajax noticed an orb conspicuously placed outside the center of the pattern.
“Don’t touch the orb.” Jones said to him. “If it rolls in position it will activate the obelisk and we don’t want to do that with night coming.”
Ajax didn’t know what he meant by that since he couldn’t tell how far away from night they were with the forest and clouds overhead. Still he did as he was told and didn’t approach the obelisk. He instead followed Donny when he got waved over.
“This is where we will face them,” he said, pointing to a big shotgun model cave.” The cavern is not too deep and leads into a dead end not long after the paths converge.”
The cave marked a perfect chokepoint, it was large enough that they could properly field their melee fighters, tall enough that the ranged fighters could help without having to worry about friendly fire and it covered them from any attack from above. The issue was the second entrance, it was much smaller barely enough for Donny to fit through without clanging his armor off the walls but plenty of space for wolves.
“The plan usually is for me and a ranged fighter to hold this entrance while the others cull the incoming horde at the other.” he said. “For tomorrow it will be up to you and me. This will give us the best opportunity to unlock [Cooperation] and it won’t really be a problem since if you can’t keep up it’ll be easy to ask someone to help and step in.”
Ajax could tell that the second part of that statement was meant to rile up his competitive spirit, especially after that duel he had. Despite this he could feel it working and wondered if a skill was at play or if he was just that competitive
Returning to the others Ajax found the camp already set up with food being brought out of the pack he had been slugging around all day. Dinner was a quiet affair with Jones taking the time to relay the new plan to everyone else, a few raised voices to object Ajax taking over as one person of the two man team but they were quickly silenced when it was explained how close a backup would be.
Tonight Ajax had some of the most trouble sleeping he had ever had. It wasn’t the possibility of an attack during the night that troubled him, since he knew they had a lookout shift in place. It was the high mana density.
Ever since he had overloaded on mana Ajax had been a bit more wary of neutral mana that had seemed so harmless. During the day he managed to get used to moving around with such a high mana density surrounding him but falling asleep was another matter.
The fact that night came in an instant didn’t help either. The same amount of light seen on cloudy days turned to almost pitch black in an instant. The light of the fire being the only source they had left. The change freaked him out, especially since he grew slightly with an infusion of shadow mana.
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It couldn’t have been more than two hours after he finally fell asleep that he was woken up. The change from night to day happened in much the same way and the change in the everpresent mana was enough to wake him up.
Getting ready for the incoming beast wave was done in a quick manner. The camp was packed as quickly as it was set up and they all headed into the cave.
“Why don’t we just seal the other entrance?” Ajax asked Donny. He knew that a decent earth spell would be enough to block the entrance.
“Once the obelisk is triggered, changes made to the floor start actively reverting.” Donny answered. “It isn’t instantaneous but, form a hole in the cave once you get in position, you’ll see what I mean when the obelisk is triggered. You’ll have about a minute before we start seeing anything trying to come our way.”
Ajax took the advice seriously and formed a two feet deep whole next to himself as he waited for the monsters to come. Jones was the one who went and triggered the obelisk before retreating back into the cave.
Sure enough once the obelisk was triggered the mana that was previously stationery started to form a whirlpool around the obelisk. It wasn’t being consumed but put into motion all at once, which must be what attracted all the creatures to it. Ajax also noticed the hole start to slowly but surely fill itself. By the time the first wolf entered from their entrance there was no more hole to speak of.
To say the wolf had a bad time after entering would be an understatement. It didn;t take more than three steps in before a massive metallic boot crushed its skull. Where Bobby had gone down the Strength Dexterity route his brother had gone for Strength Endurance. His moves were brutish, slow and definitive. Not only that but he could probably keep going for quite a while.
His problems came in the form of handling the numbers. As more wolves headed their way Donny couldn’t kill them as quickly as they entered so Ajax started shooting an arrow here and there. With such easy targets he didn’t need to do anything other than trigger piercing shot and imbue ten metal mana into the tip in order to score a kill on the wolves.
The first change came an hour into the ordeal. They must have killed close to six hundred wolves and that was just on their side but less than thirty had left behind their bodies besides the two bosses they saw. With the triggering of the obelisk the monsters exploded into mana once again the moment they were killed.
The first sign of intelligence from their attackers came when three wolf bosses made to enter together. They knew none of them had a chance to take Donny down, but maybe as a team it would be more manageable.
Finally Ajax had something else to do besides picking off the odd stray wolf. He coated everything but a small circle around Donny with a layer of ice to limit the wolves mobility. At the same time he also used earth mana to reinforce the ground beneath Donny in order to let him make use of his high strength with impunity.
Donny noticed the difference as the ground no longer felt fragile under his feet, a smirk Ajax couldn’t see formed on his lips as he started putting his whole body weight into shield bashing the wolves. Not only that but Donny grew more and more sure with every passing second that Ajax had gotten the [Cooperation] skill. An hour was all it took and now Donny barely had time to think about the wolf that was going to be a pain before an arrow shot by Ajax would sprout from the beast's head.
The tide ended shortly after. Donny and Ajax had killed over eight hundred wolves, six of them bosses. This was nothing compared to the eight thousand the rest of the team handled. Ajax was pleased with the new addition of [Cooperation]. He didn’t even feel it was a chore to gather the nearly five hundred mana cores from the leftover bodies.
“How’d he do?” Jones pulled Donny aside once everyone else got to gathering.
“Kid’s a natural.” the tank said. “If this was a trial run I would say we should accept his application based on nothing but his talent and skills. I am pretty sure he already got [Cooperation] just from that fight.”
“He isn’t too overconfident?”
“No, just the opposite. I’m not sure if it is because of a bad experience in the past or because the innate reaction all mages have to the dungeon environment but he’s almost paranoid of anything and everything.” Donny gave his assessment.
“What do you think about bringing him to the second floor? Would it be safe?” This was the real question. Would he do fine in an unpredictable environment?
“At worst he’ll slow us down.” Donny shook his head. “He definitely is strong enough to join a team on the second floor. The only thing that worries me is that he might be lying to us. Him being a level twenty-five is a harder and harder sell by the day.”
With everything gathered the entire team headed towards the closest boss area and their entry into the second floor. As Ajax approached and studied the arch he carefully placed a hand on it.