As he woke up Ajax was already looking forward to a day of delving. Having already gained twenty thousand experience in such a short amount of time was really pushing him forward. He knew it wasn’t something sustainable, as his skills grew the amount of experience would lessen, not only that but with every delve he would have more experience and be just that much stronger so the experience would turn to a slow trickle. This was why most commoners never really got into the forties throughout their lives.
“You’re up early.” Nelly said to him as he came out of the small sleeping area.
“Advantage of not having a night shift is that I get a bit of extra rest.” He responded.
Out of the entire team Nelly was the one Ajax spent the most time talking to. Not only were they usually in the same part of the formation but they both also had access to mana. This essentially meant that Jones put her in charge of teaching the newby mage. This was not something he minded, in fact he appreciated it. She was patient and had no issue with answering any questions he might have.
Ajax started cooking breakfast while passing the time with the final night shift. He figured out on the first day that nobody else on the team had the [Cooking] skill and would happily invest his time if it meant their supplies tasted better. He also would have a chance to learn more of what they would be doing today.
“So what is the plan for today?” He asked.
“Limiting.” the other person on shift answered, though it didn’t help Ajax much with such a concise response.
“Usually we would be scouring.” Nelly started, knowing he needed a lot more context. “Scouring basically just means taking as safe a route as possible in looking for the obelisk, which we found already so that means we move on to the next phase.”
“Why is finding the obelisk the first priority?” Ajax asked.
“Because the obelisk is always centered.” she said.
“So we are in the center of the floor right now?” he asked, surprised knowing how far they covered to get here already, this floor was almost surely twice the size of the previous one.
“This time, yes.” she nodded.
“What do you mean this time?” he frowned. “How can it not be always if it is centralized?”
“Simple, they are centralized by height, length and width. However not all planes are as flat as this one and height is the key to finding it.” she explained. “Just from the fact that the obelisk is in this high cave tells us there is no higher spot on the whole floor since this is much lower than halfway up the floor.”
“I am not sure how they figured this one out, but a known discovery that is way too problematic to figure out on your own has been made part of the guild public knowledge a long time ago.” She took a seat next to his makeshift table rock as he started to plate breakfast. “So long as the obelisk is covered, it means that it is at the highest spot in the floor, had it been on top of the cave it would have meant there was a taller point on which it could spawn.”
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“Next, the obelisk will always be at or below the halfway height, this might seem dumb but some floors have mountains that rise all the way to the ceiling. This can also mean that the obelisk sometimes has to move off the central position. It is theorized that the floor is first created, only then does the obelisk spawn in the most convenient position that is free, so it will never be hidden inside of anything solid.”
“This makes it a real pain to find when you get a maze type floor.” the other night shift added as he also took a seat.
“On an open floor like this, finding the obelisk is the easiest way to explore.” Nelly continued. “On more complex floors we go straight to Limiting. Essentially we move in as much of a straight line as we can until we find an edge”
This was all very interesting to Ajax, not only that it also made a lot of sense. All those lessons on how to tackle different environments, labyrinths especially, he got from Hatchet fit right in with their explanations on the dungeon.
“This is very good,” the melee fighter on the night shift broke the silence as he tasted the food and got up with his bowl. “I’ll go wake everyone up.”
“Thanks,” Ajax nodded.
“He even has the [Cooking] skill.” Ajax heard Nelly mutter, his close to one hundred and sixty points in perception paying off.
“I do” he confirmed for her and almost chuckled at the way she jumped at his answer.
“I didn’t … I mean …” she blew out a breath and regained her composure. “None of this is adding up.” she now eyed him inquisitively. “Your age and your stats are really miss-matched, but that could be overlooked as nobles have their ways to somehow level a lot faster without problems. Your age and your level could be explained in the same way.”
“So…?” he asked as she seemed to contemplate something.
“Your stats and your level is where it starts to all go sideways. You have way too many for your level. With everything we’ve seen you do I think you have more than the nine hundred total you told us about, more like a thousand.”
“I said I have over nine hundred, just didn’t say how much over.” It was now his turn to mutter in self-defense.
“That’s not even the biggest problem. There are ways to increase stats, though doing more than 10% of what you naturally have will leave you deformed if not dead, most absurd are your skills. You seem to have everything in the toolkit of a hunter, warrior and mage, if an odd mage. On top of that you seem to also be able to take apart monsters, now cooking. You have about three people’s worth of skills, four considering how many different weapons you use.”
The fact about increasing his stats by 10% instantly drew his attention but he knew now wasn’t the moment to ask about that, considering it wasn’t widespread he could worry about it once he got back to the city and talked with Hatchet and his sister. Something like that would definitely cost an arm and a leg to get.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, we knew something was up with you when the nobles sponsored but this is getting way out of hand for us. I’m starting to worry about being targeted once you leave just so there is no loose end to spread your different skills.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “I didn’t even know the nobles were helping me out before I took the test to register at the guild, not only that but I’m pretty sure they don’t know just how many skills I have.”
She seemed to relax learning this and didn’t have time to push further because everyone else started closing in for breakfast.
“So, we know which way we are going?” Bobby asked in between mouthfuls.
“Anyway but the one we came from” the scout said. “ I really hope we find more of those crocs.”
From that point breakfast descended into a spat about how ‘greedy’ some of the members were and those members either denied it or shamelessly agreed with the accusation. It didn’t last long though as the food was eaten and everyone was packed and ready to go.
As they heaved off from the cave it took them five minutes to run into an arch. Ajax was surprised to see it but nobody else seemed to be. In retrospect he shouldn’t have been surprised either. He knew the cave was the home of one of the eagle groups they encountered yesterday. Not only that but they had a boss among them so that meant an arch should be guarded by said boss.
This arch looked different from the others he had seen so far. It was much less ornate compared to the one outside that marked the entrance to the dungeon but still more so than the one that led them to the second floor.
The differences didn’t end there. He felt a stronger concentration of mana from this arch so he went up and placed his hand against it. Using [Mana Syphon] was slightly harder compared to the one they used to enter the floor but that wasn’t surprising. Something else was, he could barely get a feel for the mana syphoned but unlike the fire and earth he felt from the previous arch this one felt like lightning wind and water.
He didn’t get too much time to analyze this as a hand grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him back.
“That’s not the way, I know it’s tempting to go for the extra one point in all stats but we aren’t ready to take on a single group from that floor.” Jones said as he dragged him a bit further away from the arch.
Ajax simply nodded, not correcting the misconception about what he was doing as he took his place in the formation and they continued to clear the floor.