For the next few floors the entire team pretty much took it easy. The prince and Ajax decided that there was no use in going for the more exotic floors when they didn’t have the equipment to take advantage of it so they focused on getting as normal of a floor as possible.
One thing Ajax noticed over time was that on average a floor became more valuable as the number of many types on it decreased. There were of course exceptions to the rule like the garden floor he had found back in the empire but on average that was a good sign.
“So we should focus on floors that have a mana or two dominating the spread?” The prince asked.
“No,” Ajax corrected him. “You can find a floor that is 90% water, and 8% air, if you can feel another dozen mana types mixed in that won’t be a good floor. If you find a floor that has a four way split of 25% that's the floor you want, with as little variety as possible. As a side note I advise avoiding floors with over 50% water mana because you may end up on a lake floor.”
“The simple fact that you can guarantee no floor will be one of those flooded ones is something that will make you a staple of any crafter's delve.” the prince chuckled as he thought the idea through.
Just like before there were hardly any people left when they got to the arch leading to the final floor of the boost. “What’s wrong?” the prince asked as Ajax frowned after he touched the arch.
“There is a mana type that I don’t recognise.” Ajax explained.
“Is that unusual?” Shadow asked, curious just how wide a breadth Ajax had.
“No, I mostly have a feel for what things relate to but there are a lot of mana types out there. The odd thing is that this time it takes up 40% of the floor, and I can’t seem to connect it to anything I know.” These situations should show less and less as Ajax’s spectrum got wider but he had noticed that certain affinities don’t show up until certain levels and he barely had any delves that went into the high nineties.
“I say we go for it.” The prince said. “There are plenty of other mana types so there should be enough things you can kill there and getting more information for you is valuable. Not to mention that I doubt there is anything that would pose a challenge for me on such a low floor.”
It was easy to forget with his laid back attitude but the prince had over one hundred levels on everyone in the dungeon besides Shadow. Ordinary people died by the time they got to level sixty, soldiers on average died at level eighty, nobles averaged level eighty-five. High nobles like dukes and royals averaged level one hundred and ten. The highest bracket was actually retired adventurers, they died around level one hundred and twenty five, but they were all veterans who survived centuries as adventurers so it wasn’t a fair comparison.
As everyone stepped onto the next floor Ajax could feel the wrongness of the mana in the air. Much like how curse mana felt unpleasant this mana type felt much worse than that. Ajax knew there was no chance he would be using a syphon on this floor.
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“So that’s the mana you felt.” Shadow said as he took a deep breath.
“Gods damn it.” the prince cursed. “An undead floor.”
“Undeath?” Ajax asked. “That must be the mana I didn’t recognise.”
The prince’s eyes flashed wide as he turned to look at Ajax before he rushed over to him. To Ajax it almost looked like the prince teleported to his side as he leaned in close. “Whatever you do, don't syphon the mana on this floor.” The prince whispered.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Ajax was firm. “The undead mana feels wrong to me.”
“This isn’t like the curse mana you could play with before.” the prince shook his head. “Undeath is a Legendary mana type, not only that but unlike curse mana if any of it enters your body it will slowly start to increase by itself. Even with holy mana you can barely purify it down to a decay mana that is resistant to holy. You’d need li-” The prince stopped before he finished the words.
Ajax realized what they were, however, he’d need life mana to undo any damage undeath did to him. But he did have life mana, that said undeath was the first mana type Ajax encountered he categorically wanted nothing to do with. He knew even if he had a perfect affinity with it and by some miracle got the skill he still wouldn’t use it, his body’s rejection to the mana type was that strong. It did lead him to wonder if that had anything to do with the Life man skill he had recently gained.
“Let’s get through this quickly.” Richard spoke up. “I heard too much exposure to such a high concentration of undeath mana is very bad for you.”
“We will be out of here in four hours at the most.” the prince commanded. “If you haven’t gotten your kills in that time, too bad.”
“You should also make sure that any undead creatures don’t scratch, bite or spit on you.” Shadow added. “They are known for spreading their mana type.”
The forest they ended up in had plenty of decayed trees, worse than that however was the fact that their enemies seemed to be undead animals. Unlike the usual ghouls, undead wolves still maintained their pack mentality, this added on to their toxic claws and jaws made them a nightmare for normal delvers.
Much as they disliked the undeath mana aspect it was universally agreed as one of the best aspects to get for a boosted floor. Unlike most zombie movies Ajax had seen back on earth the undead monstrosities here actually suffered from the amount of muscle and flesh that they were missing. Sure the level ninety-seven wolf alpha he was squaring off against had toxic claws and fangs but he was also missing half the musculature on one of his front legs making him wildly unbalanced.
Ajax didn’t even hesitate as he took out one of the three seeds he had remaining and after destabilizing it threw it at the wolf. He had gone through with the idea so fast that he hadn’t even had time to hear the prince yell at him not to do it.
The explosion from the seed turned the wolf into a massive version of itself three times its previous size with none of the flesh missing. He didn’t have a chance to notice anything else about it as a massive pillar of fire obliterated the area as the prince dropped on top of the creature impaling its head with his spear.
“What were you thinking?” The prince asked Ajax.
“I thought the life mana would hurt it.” Ajax said, still in shock at the wolf’s transformation, he was under no illusion that he could actually take on the enhanced wolf in single combat.
“Life and undeath mana mirror the relationship that curse and holy mana have but you got them mixed up.” The prince calmed down once he saw Ajax's surprise at the result and explained. “But here undeath mana is the one that counters life. Life mana gets corrupted by undeath mana. If you are infected with undeath mana you have to first purify it, then cut away the area before you can regrow it with life mana. Simply adding life mana will actually make the undeath mana spread faster.”
Ajax very much took that lesson to heart. For his next opponent he chose to stick with the undead despite having the option of fighting a normal flying bird mini-boss. This fight turned out very differently as Ajax focused and infused holy mana into his weapons for the first time. His strikes were devastating to the undead stag. Each blow would purify sections of the beast turning the flesh from undead to simply rotten dead meat.
Everyone was keeping a good distance from Ajax after he finished off his fight however. “If you wouldn’t mind staying downwind from me please.” Shadow said from a distance, his sensitive nose reacting to the stench that the purified undead had also spread to Ajax.
When the team exited the final floor they had no trouble getting out from the busy area of the dungeon, in fact they were all but escorted out of there will haste seeing as the entire team smelled of the final undeath floor.
“Get yourself cleaned up and then after that bring your grandfather and Lexi, we have a few things to discuss regarding your recent gains and revelations.” the prince said to him.