Teams continued to exit the dungeon every couple of hours for the next two days. Depending on the skill of the team they would have more or less scratches covering the armor, some even sporting some partially healed wounds. The one constant Ajax had noticed however was that all teams had at least half their members with snakes bites on their ankles.
“Don’t worry, by the second half of next year we’ll start delving the second floor of the Goldmine, that should help with their lack of experience.” instructor Gatercrasher said as he noticed where Ajax was looking.
“Ajax, good to see you here.” Professor Silvertongue said as he also came by. “Your delve tomorrow will be the last one you will be doing as my teaching assistant until the next year starts, you’ll of course be welcomed on delves just as usual in between but you’ll be doing that as part of the group not as a guest.”
While the difference between delving as a guest and delving as part of the team wasn’t all that big it did mean that Ajax would no longer have a few of the benefits he currently did, most notably his right of refusal on claiming anything that he killed or found as part of his share at the end of the dungeon.
“Well there we have it, the perfect delve.” Instructor gatecrasher exclaimed as he inspected Anna’s and Lexi’s team. “Not a single scratch on you.”
Ajax couldn’t say that he didn’t expect this as both of the mages had exceptional gear and a good head on their shoulders to go with their strong magic it was still very impressive.
“Hmm, it does look like the battle for first place will not be as close as usual this time around.” professor Silvertongue said as he looked over the scores.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Benedict, Rick and the prince aren’t back yet.” instructor Gatecrasher said.
As the words left his mouth Ajax spotted the trio approaching them. While their gear was in very good condition and none of them looked to have taken any serious hits, a few marks here and there could be seen from an errant claw strike.
“It does seem like I was wrong.” the professor said as he took a look at the team's results. “Maybe this year will be even closer than most.”
With all the calculations done however it did seem like the test had ended with Benedict, Rick and the prince winning by a not insignificant amount.
“I will have to talk with the headmaster a little about these point values.” the professor muttered as he looked over the results with Ajax. “There should be different scoring sections for physical fighters, mages and hybrids.”
Ajax very much agreed with the statement. Benedict’s team won mostly because they were a three man group with one and a half physical fighters, this allowed them to keep pushing further and getting a lot more kills than the other teams who had at most on physical fighter. The biggest problem however came from how little the perfect delve counted for Anna and Lexi. For a mage not taking a single hit was a lot more important and should be scored higher.
The whole class had managed to finish with the delve by the second day and all of them had decided to go to a tavern and celebrate. Ajax had joined them but he had learnt a lesson from his own recent celebration and had called it quits early in the evening as he still had a delve scheduled for tomorrow.
“We should really look into getting you a uniform.” Trevor II said as he saw Ajax join them. “I’ve led more delves with you as part of the team than without.”
Ajax really did feel like part of the team, he had already synergised with the team, added on to his [Teamwork] skill and Ajax reacted as part of the team to set up everyone else and cover for them. The lack of skill did mean that the rest of the team wasn’t on quite the same level when covering for Ajax but they were getting closer with every delve.
“What do you say boss, should we go up a floor?” one of the frontliners asked. “I want to see what a level seventy can do.”
The man was quickly booed for making such a suggestion. With the exception of Ajax the rest of the team’s average level was in the early sixties. With their gear and enhancements they would definitely be able to clear out another floor up if it housed regular monsters.
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The issue was that as they were pushing higher more and more creatures were now available to the dungeon to populate its floors with. While humanoids were the most balanced of the races, with monsters sacrificing intelligence in exchange for stats, things like elementals were a whole different matter. Elementals sacrificed a big weakness for blanket protection.
A water elemental was extremely weak to cold magic as well as lightning magic , but in exchange it did decent against other types of magic and was nearly immune to physical attacks. Getting another mirror world floor at level seventy would be all but a death sentence for the team to attempt.
Once everyone was there and ready the team began its quick accent through the early levels. As much as Ajax found the process borning and wasteful when he was delving with the pushing team he knew just how important it was for the crafting teams as they collected different ingredients from different floors. The mana concentration difference in the ingredients did start to cause issues if there was a more than two floor difference between them but that extra level of challenge did wonders for increasing skill level.
Nothing much happened as they climbed up towards the eighth floor, the only thing of note was the arch boss on the fourth floor being extractable, allowing them to store the twenty foot long snake corpse into a storage ring to be taken out of the dungeon. The snake was an ambush predator and Ajax wanted to get a hold of that level forty-five shadow infused core for Fluffy as part of his split.
The other big discovery was a massive diamond the size of a fist that one of their scouts found on the seventh floor. That was surely going to cause an argument between house Silvertongue’s smiths who could use it to purify the mana in their forge and enchanters who could use it as the core of a powerful staff.
“Looks like it's going to be easy to clear.” the same cock frontliner exclaimed after their first few encounters into the jungle themed eighth floor.
Ajax had to bite his tongue as every ounce of his being wanted to chide the man for jinxing them. He knew it was very superstitious and that jinxing didn’t really exist as many times when things had been jinxed they had gone perfectly fine. That wasn’t how the human mind worked however as every instance of jinxing that had gone wrong instantly jumped to the forefront of his mind as soon as he heard the words.
The jungle floor had a rather complex ecosystem where they encountered lizards, fishes in rivers, small birds that could maneuver throughout the treeline and, most annoying of all, monkeys.
Despite monkeys not being the strongest of the creatures, their habit of throwing their shit as their primary engagement method quickly brought them to the top of the eradication list.
“Anyone else think something fishy is going on here?” Ajax asked on the third day as they worked their way killing throughout the floor.
From the start of the floor Ajax hadn’t seen a single boss monster. The arch guardians were usually slightly empowered versions of the monsters themselves yet Ajax hadn’t seen a single one since the floor started.
“I think this is what they call a swarm floor.” one of their healers shared their opinion.
Different floor models started to appear as one ventured deeper into the dungeon. Besides the regular floor and the environment there were multiple others, though hitting a swarm type floor was a one in fifty chance at level sixty-five. Not only that but Ajax felt that the numbers of enemies were too low for it to be a swarm floor.
“My first time seeing one.” Trevor chimed in. “I have to say that it doesn’t feel like there are that many more monsters than usual. But it could be because of the dense vegetation that makes each encounter so separated from the next.”
“Lone humanoid approaching.” one of their scouts returned to warn them.
“Humanoids on this floor as well, I have to say it has a lot of variety.” Trevor said as he waited for more information.
“Fox beastkin from the looks of it.” The second scout came in. “Female, wielding a staff, white hair and fur that ends in red coloring at the end.”
“Careful with her speed and watch out for freights, foxes are tricky.” Trevor reiterated, the one good part about dungeon beastkin was that they actually resembled their beast side. “Open with a volley.”
Both Ajax and the other two archers loaded their arrows and fired the moment they had visual of the humanoid. Oddly enough however instead of dodging the fox beastking simply raised their hand as a mana shield shimmered into existence and the arrows bounced off. The front line was ready to charge the caster when the beastkin took a fighting stance and flared her twin tails, one to each side.
“RUN!” Trevor instantly shouted as his face paled looking at the kitsune. “Everyone clear line to the arch, we’re getting out of here now!”
Even Ajax felt the pressure as mana started to surge towards the kitsune. “What were the fucking chances” Ajax swore as the whole team ran for the arch. “ Getting a floor boss at level sixty-five is a one in ten thousand.”
Despite the extremely low chance to spawn everyone on the team knew about floor bosses. Most often taking the form humanoid beastkin with extremely developed beast sides or additionally evolved monsters. They became a staple of every floor after the top monster level reached one hundred and only spawned after half the floor had been cleared out.
“Why couldn’t it have been a minotaur?” one of the team complained as they all ran. “That one we at least had a chance with.”
Floor bosses were known for their abilities to take on whole teams but kitsunes were known as team killers. Very few people had the required defensive measures to pierce the illusions they used and their mystical flames had always had fire mages looking on enviously.
The whole team had managed to make it to the entrance. Thankfully despite their insane mastery over mana, kitsunes were slow. One after another the team piled through the arch coming out the other side heaving.
“Incoming… eighth floor… a quarter or so left uncleared, jungle theme.” Trevor heaved out towards the guard. “There’s a… two tailed kitsune… with them.”
The guard had been listening from the moment Trevor started reporting but at the word kitsune he quickly straightened up and started calling out orders. Ajax felt the change as everyone waiting in line was pushed back further than usual and a team strong enough that [Judge Threat] had four out of five of them as : they will kill you quickly, with the last one being immune to the skill as a whole.