As one everyone dropped their conversations as they formed up in what seemed to be a practiced formation. Ajax noticed it was different from the one they moved in through the forest but that made sense seeing as they were not in a different biome and facing flying enemies.
He also caught sight of the vultures and used [Judge Threat] on them. To his surprise they were actually a lot weaker than the bear and fish had been. He didn’t know the reason why but he suspected that them being as many as eight levels lower wasn’t enough for the difference in strength he felt. He will check with his sister when he gets back to the city if either of their bodies were rated as higher quality than something of their level should be from the exposure to the pond.
“No bosses among them, [Judge Threat] puts them at around levels forty-four nothing over forty-five.” The scouts called out. “I also don’t recognise the speciase so be ready for surprises.”
As Ajax heard that he used [Spot Weakness], it was a good way to contribute and draw some attention away from the weird magic he was using. Not only that but [Spot weakness would be a marketable skill he wanted to get word out about as such a skill would make him a welcome addition as a tag along for any team.
[Spot Weakness] showered a lot of what he expected, their necks, eyes and base of their wings were vulnerable while their beaks and skulls were reinforced. Surprisingly however, despite the sharp talons their feet were actually a weak spot for them.
“They have a reinforced skull, go for the neck, eyes and base of the wings. Their feet are also fragile outside of the nails.” he shared with the party.
“Are you sure you’ve never been to a dungeon?” the scout asked him incredulously.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then how do you know all this?” he pushed on. “We’ve been through all sorts of dungeons and there are so many differences between species it's hard to tell them apart.”
“I don’t know the species, I have [Spot Weakness].”
“You heard him, just make sure you don’t overextend and leave yourselves exposed when going for their weaknesses.” Jones cut in.
Ajax P.O.V.
I watched as the vultures descended and felt a great amount of wind mana being channeled. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that such high leveled creatures could use mana but it wasn’t something I had too much experience with. Flying casters would be a pain to deal with.
They dived for us only to pull up a few feet above our heads ready to unleash the wind blasts. I pulled out my shield and readied for the impact but I was the only one. I then felt a massive flow of mana being released from Nelly to my right, her spell was weird in that it wasn’t meant to do any damage to the birds.
What it did was break apart the air blasts and use their power to bring the vultures lower. The vultures clearly didn’t expect the downburst of wind as they came close enough for the rest of the party to throw chains around the necks of four of the five birds.
“I missed mine.” came the shout from one of the members but I couldn’t tell them apart by voice.
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“Ajax! Try to bring it down with your arrows, if you can’t make sure it doesn’t interfere while we cull the rest of them.” Jones said as he swung his whip to wrap around the beak of a vulture before pulling on it hard in order to extend the neck and expose it to the others.
I instantly pulled an arrow and took the time I used for aiming to also decide on what type of mana I should use. Molted or ice would be the most damaging but it would take a good chunk of mana to deal enough damage to such a high level vulture. That Nelly had stopped casting entirely after the start of the fight told me she thought everything was under control and saving mana for an unexpected situation would be preferable here.
I decided to put a bit of lightning mana into the arrow as a jolt right now, even if I missed the ideal placement would be enough to ground it. I specifically didn’t use metal or [Piercing Shot] as I wanted the arrow to bounce off the feathers rather than stick into it. Chances were if it crashed with the arrow stuck in her it would certainly break it while it bouncing off would make the arrow recoverable and I had a limited supply.
WIth the decision made and my aim locked on the underside of a wing I timed the moment of its flaps before releasing the arrow. The vulture was trying to regain altitude and get out of range for the rest of the group when the arrow made contact. I could tell that it hadn’t taken much damage from the one hundred mana I poured into the arrow but the lightning was enough to cause the wing to spasm.Sadly the arrow still penetrated into its flesh all but dooming it in the upcoming crash landing it will suffer.
“It’s falling,” I warned as the arrow made contact.
By now three of the other four vultures were already dead with the last one barely hanging on by slashing wildly with its talons. A mistake it quickly regretted as Bobby buried his axe in the middle of its foot with a well placed strike.
The beast shrieked like much louder than any of their other cries and I realized that unlike the other weak spots they had their feet weren’t a weak spot in that hitting it would be an easy way to kill them like their necks, eyes or the organs accessible by going through the base of their wings. It was instead a heavily sensitive area that could be used to inflict massive amounts of pain if not lethal damage.
From there the fight ended quickly with both of the remaining birds being beheaded. The entire fight was over in less than thirty seconds from the start. With the immediate danger being handled I started to ponder how [Spot Weakness] might grow as it leveled so that I could differentiate between different types of weak spots.
End of P.O.V
Jones was pleased with their first engagement. It had been clean and while not everything worked out perfectly, like the missed chain on one of the vultures, it was quickly covered and none of his team took any hits.
Jones was feeling better and better about his decision to take Ajax with them. The kid was calm, collected and followed instructions well, he was prone to spacing out as he was doing right now but it was something that could be forgiven given it was his first time in a dungeon.
The kid was a walking treasure trove, magic, physical abilities and now [Spot Weakness]. In terms of usefulness for an adventurer team, especially a delver focused one like the Collectors, [Spot Weakness] was a skill every leader dreamed of having and was considered a pseudo-epic skill. The problem was it was a rare skill and one not usually gained by fighters.
It wasn’t known why but the skill was gained by butchers and skinners and helped them in taking apart the treasure troves that were monster bodies while doing as little damage to the material as possible. This was the reason why quite a few adventurers would apprentice at such places during their time off in hopes of getting the skill. They would also be welcomed as cheap labor with high stats but few were lucky enough to get the skill.
They gutted the five vultures looking for cores but they weren’t lucky enough to find any. That didn’t mean the bodies were useless though.
“Ajax!” the scout called out to him while grabbing one of the packs he had been carrying. “Come here.”
Ajax approached the man as he was rummaging through the bag near one of the downed vultures.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Time for you to learn a little trick. You see almost everything inside the dungeon breaks down when taken outside unless it has very low mana density.” the scout explained as he pulled out branches Ajax recognised as coming from the trees on the first floor. “Finding any high quality with a mana density that would survive on the outside is a big payday for anyone.”
“Okay.”
“But while we can’t take the wood outside the dungeon we can take it to another floor.” He gestured to the bag that had been empty when the trip started but now housed two trees they had cut down while on the first floor. “ We can make use of anything while inside here to make this easiest on ourselves.” While saying this he started sharpening the branches on one end and trimming them down.
“I see, so we took the trees to help with fuel if we needed a fire?” Ajax asked.
“Yes, but that's not all.” he took out the broken arrow Ajax had fired at the last vulture and then pointed to the other two bow users on the team as they were gathering the feathers off the dead vultures. “This wood is solid enough to compare to steel. Without proper tools and skills cutting it would be a real pain, it also lets us make stronger than average arrows.”
That's when it clicked for Ajax. He was telling him to build and use arrows that would turn into mana once they exited the dungeon and save his limited supply, it was good advice especially since he could still feel the wind mana in the feathers that will most likely help the arrows they were attached to. After all having a high mana concentration might mean they couldn’t be taken outside but it also meant they were much more useful.