“You too?” Trevor asked as he noticed Ajax filling multiple barrels.

“I’d like to try and get the hang of alchemy.” Ajax said truthfully. “Making potions in the dungeon is certainly a lot cheaper and not having potions is a loss of potential.”

The porters grumbled slightly at the amount of weight they had to carry from the second floor but the team quickly got a move on and stepped through the arch.

“I’m not an alchemist by trade but we do have more than a few spare plants in our provisions.” Nina said to him before they stepped through the arch. “Do be aware that we will charge you the price of anything you use after we exit. Alchemy is highly profitable but you never find all the ingredients you need on one floor.”

Ajax took that to heart as he followed through the arch. Getting proficient in Alchemy was going to be a costly endeavor but one that would surely pay off later down the line if he stuck with it. The academy was his best chance to focus on it as they supplied plenty of ingredients for their classes and the instructor was one of the top in the field.

Stepping through the arch felt the same as always but once he was out on the other side everything changed. The air felt uncomfortably hot and thick with soot starting a slow burn in his lungs. The ceiling was marked by black clouds that loomed over the entire floor. The entire expanse was a rocky hot hellscape with a river flowing in the distance that seemed to actually be on fire.

“It’s an abyssal floor.” Trevor called out to the sound of curses from a lot of the team.

Ajax quickly took his own scarf out of the bag just like everyone else and wrapped it around his mouth and nose to filter the air he was breathing. Demons, as they were called back on Earth, also existed in this world. Much like elementals however, demons only appeared after a certain level, for lesser demons like imps and hellhounds that level was fifty. This level meant that while Ajax did learn about abyssal floors from the guild this would be his first time entering one.

With the fine scarf filtering the air Ajax finally got around to checking the notification marking his gain of +1 to all stats from advancing another floor. He grinned to himself as just today he got a whole sixteen stat points just from delving and there were more to be gained from the Goldmine in the near future.

“Everyone get in formation three! Crafters put that high perception stat to work and keep your eyes peeled.” Trevor called out.

Ajax moved to the center, he didn’t have any prior experience working with this team so he was placed with the crafters so as to not get in the way of the defensive position. While everyone got in the defensive position quickly nobody was tense showing that this was simply a precaution. Both imps and hellhounds traveled in packs and habitually targeted people in lighter armor.

“What’s with him?” Ajax asked as one of the crafters was shaking slightly.

“He’s just excited.” Nina answered with a bit of excitement showing in her voice as well. “Abyssal floors usually have the best variety when it comes to all different metals, not to mention the difficulty of crafting in this atmosphere leads to great advances in skill levels. Though as a beginner I don’t think you’ll be able to have any successful alchemy crafts in this environment, best to stick with leatherworking for this delve as the water just became more important for other things.”

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“I hate to say it but it looks like all that water will have a purpose after all.” Trevor cut it having listened in on the conversation. “We’ll still leave you half the barrels but we will need the other half.”

A bit more grumbling came from the crafters at that but nobody outright complained as they understood the situation. With that settled the group started off in the direction of the closest hill, Nina had a skill that would let her sense the presence of the metals if they were close enough to the surface so the group was now looking for the closest mining site they could set up.

The first encounter with an enemy was very underwhelming for all the precautions they took. A single gargoyle flying in the sky approached for a dive but was quickly killed before it could get too close to the party. Even the stone body of the creature shattering on the ground as it was shot out of the sky.

“Collect that!.” The excited smith quickly piped in. “I’ve always wanted to work a forge powered by gargoyle coal.”

“Stay in formation!” Trevor quickly followed. “ Hellhounds have a camouflage skill that isn’t powered by mana and are almost always present on abyssal floors.”

Nina delivered a quick smack to the back of the guy's head almost sending him to the floor despite her small stature and light blow. Ajax adamantly promised himself not to annoy the high level smith as she had clearly put some serious points into strength, she might not have had an aura but Ajax would put money on her being the strongest person on the team.

After the team carefully moved to collect the corpse of the gargoyle they continued heading in the direction of the hill. The way there was relatively safe with only two other gargoyles attempting to impede them but getting nowhere with the attempt only adding to the supply of coal for the forge.

Once Nina finally got a hit on her metal detection skill the team headed for a cave that opened up near the halfway point of the hill. They could hear something that Ajax could only describe as an evil cackle from a long way off.

“Sounds like we got imps. Team one stick with the crafters, everyone else with me, Ajax that means you as well.” Trevor gave out instructions.

Knowing a fight was about to break out Ajax started using his [Mana Syphon] the amount of mana present in the air was higher then he had ever felt before, add that on to the increased efficiency perk he got when he pushed the ability past the threshold and Ajax was now having almost half the cost of his full power infusion sustained by the mana in the air.

As Ajax felt himself absorb the mana he found that it was made from a mana type that he hadn’t encountered before, not only that but it was the same mana type that was predominant in the arch second only to the fire mana that was masking it. Ajax didn’t give it much attention as the battle soon began.

Thirty imps came charging out of the cave as they approached. They looked very much like he remembered them looking back in the video games he played on Earth. They were short, no taller than three and a half feet with red skin and freakishly large pointy ears coming out of their small skulls with a long nose and small pointy teeth.

While the imps weren’t moving all that fast Ajax was quick to notice the sparks of black flame that materialized in their hands. His mana sense told him that while they looked very much like flames the mana was different in some way from normal fire mana, more like it was a mixture between it and another form of mana.

Ajax hadn’t even known it was possible for two forms of mana to mix like that. He had certainly added a double effect to his arrows before but that was done by layering the mana infusion while making sure the mana types didn’t mix, this was definitely something he should do some research on before trying it out for himself.

Most of the fighters either dodged the fireballs outright or blocked them with their large shields, the opening volley not managing to find any solid connections. Ajax quickly fired off six arrows, each infused with about one hundred lightning mana before he swapped over to his sword and hammer.

The reason Ajax swapped weapons was easy to see for all that took a closer look at the arrows that landed, despite the lightning mana having no issue immobilizing the imps struck the arrows didn’t make it any deeper than half an inch into the skin, since Ajax couldn’t put any more power behind them without breaking his bow he decided to go into melee.

With his full powered [Mana Syphon] Ajax had no problem overpowering the imps, he was careful to use a wind augmentation on his blade and ice on his hammer as he wanted the imp hide to suffer as little damage as possible. By the time he took out three of the imps the rest of the team had also handled the horde.