Ajax, Harold, Darkclaw and Arianwyn quickly made their way away from the dungeon. Unlike the rest of his companions Ajax took his time walking up to all the different potion stalls that were dotted around the small outpost.
As he walked around Ajax was being avoided by everyone, even the vendors seemed worried as he approached their stalls. This had nothing to do with Ajax himself and more with the quality of the gear he was wearing. Just by his gear everyone saw him as a well off noble and that is not the kind of attention adventurers and commoners wanted to draw out of the blue.
A lot of the merchants breathed a sigh of relief two hours later after Ajax left though a few of them were still worried about the small piece of parchment he had been walking around with and taking notes.
As he returned to the convoy Ajax could see that everyone was getting ready to camp out for the night. The sun was already getting low and Ajax knew the prince and Aranor would take at least ten more hours clearing the final floor of the dungeon. Aranor hadn’t been lucky enough to find a second crystal themed floor but one of the ones they did find led to a high metal mana floor, which should also be rather valuable in a kingdom that was essentially dominated by only forests.
“How’s it going?” Ajax asked Benedict as he saw his friend watching over a meeting held by Lexi, Anna, Elara and Elara’s father.
“So far pretty good, the king gave the duke permission to trade the secrets of forming a Domain for a favourable exchange, that was hours ago and since then they’ve been going back and forth.” Benedict reported.
Ajax didn’t know the two elves well enough to read their body language but he could tell that Lexi had run out of steam for the negotiation a while ago already, Anna on the other hand could probably go for another few hours without issue.
Ajax said a quick hello to Lexi and Anna before he went to grab a quick nap. He was still waiting out the backlash from the boosting potion he used on the last floor and he wanted to sleep off the last of the effects.
Two hours later Ajax woke up and drained most of his mana pool into his alchemy ingredients. Much to his excitement Ajax managed to push his [Inject Mana] past the level fifty threshold with that. Now he had a decision to make about which way he would take his skill. Unlike his Legendary skills he was only presented with two options, increased efficiency for short term or increased efficiency for long term.
The branching choices each represented one of the ways he used his skills. The short term infusion he used for combat and the more recent addition of long term infusion that he was doing for crafting.
“Aaargh.” Ajax grunted as he couldn’t make up his mind. “I guess it’ll have to wait for the prince.”
The reason for Ajax’s indecision wasn’t his passion for alchemy. If the choice was down to fighting or alchemy he would have already selected the short term efficiency increase, after all it would just take him a bit longer to prepare his ingredients. The hesitation came with the combat applications of long term efficiency increases combined with Life mana.
A small golem already took about a third of his mana pool and it barely lasted twenty or so seconds, even with the increase in efficiency he was bound to get from practice he wasn’t sure if that would be enough to make his Life mana combat viable outside of helping with healing.
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Walking out of the carriage where he took his nap Ajax went around to find Lexi. He was a little worried when he found Lexi, Anna, Elara and her father still sitting together but he relaxed once he saw that Benedict, Xavier and Arianwyn were with them and none of them looked all that serious, at least the negotiations were over.
“So how did it go?” Ajax asked her as he took a seat next to Lexi and gave her a hug.
“We had to share the information regarding Vibration mana upfront but we will have a lot of information regarding Domain formation and Elara and I will even help each other during this trip.” Lexi answered with a bright smile. “How about you, do you want to try and form a Domain?”
“Nah.” Ajax didn’t even take a moment to think about it since he had already come to that conclusion a while ago. “A Domain wouldn’t fit my fighting style at all. I also doubt it will be compatible with my syphon skill.”
Ajax had left the answer specifically a little vague. While the elves may have thought that Ajax said that because it wouldn’t work because of him syphoning his own domain, which would be a problem it wasn’t one that couldn’t be solved with the correct threshold upgrade. The issue Ajax had with Domains was that it used up too much mana, if he ever had to fight against anything that was physical based and tried to use a Domain and [Mana Syphon] without syphoning the Domain he would run out of mana in minutes.
“What Domain are you going for?” Ajax asked. “You have a few mana types to choose from.”
“I’m starting with Fire, Wind, Water and Vibration mana to form a [Disaster Domain].” Lexi was smiling brightly despite the fearsome declaration. “That Domain should be wide enough in definition that I can add any other mana types I may want later.”
Ajax couldn’t help but be a little worried about the Domain she had chosen. Once they were alone he would talk to her at length about the decision. The reason for his worry was that a Disaster Domain wouldn’t be able to empower long term defensive spells.
Much like how a Winter domain wouldn’t be able to empower a fire spell, a Disaster happened quickly, the aftereffects could last for a long time but an earthquake, a tsunami or a tornado didn’t last all that long in one place, an inferno might be useful for a prolonged period but fire was never all that great of a defensive element.
“I think your grandfather will be very jealous of you if you manage that.” Ajax said with a grin as he could already imagine the old headmaster questioning Lexi for hours as he would no doubt want to form a similar domain, after all with the help of a Domain to empower them a lot of weak spells he had managed to discover over the years would become viable. “If you need help getting it to work just ask.”
Elara and her father showed no reaction to that, clearly they had thought this through already, however Ajax could see the surprise on Arianwyn's face as she put together what Lexi might have access to if she formed a Domain.
The small group broke apart shortly as Lexi and Ajax went off on their own as did Elara and Benedict, they left Anna, Xavier, Arianwyn and the duke talking about something political that Ajax had no interest in.
It was late into the following morning and almost noon by the time Aranor and the prince returned from the dungeon. From the look of Aranor’s robes and the jokes that the prince was making Ajax could guess that the elf had spent a good amount of time since he last saw him digging out metal.
The tables had quickly turned on the prince however, as soon as they entered the camp site a messenger quickly informed both of them that the king wanted to hold a quick meeting before the delve group separated.
Ajax had no doubt that he was the topic of that discussion. Arianwyn would have surely given her father a full report on his ability to predict floor themes, if anything he was rather appreciative of the elven king for having left him out of the meeting.
“He’s waiting until you visit the capital for your delves.” Anna said from beside him.
“What?” Ajax asked, confused at what she meant.
“The king probably wants to ask you for something but considering the time table we are under he will want to ask you about your ability and his request when you are a guest in his home.” Anna explained. “This will let him gather more information about how it works from the delves Aranor, Arianwyn and Elara will join you on and give him time to make a plan.”
“What do you think he will ask for?” Ajax asked, trusting Anna to have a good sense for these things.
“Something small at first, have the royal family owe you a little that way you’ll be more inclined to reach out to them about something you want or need.” Anna answered. “I think he’ll ask for collection teams to join you during your delves in the capital. “You’ll probably send two or three people to separate floors each targeting something else. It’ll cost you nothing but maybe an extra day on the last floor but they will stand to gain a lot, especially if you start pushing past the level one hundred jump in power in dungeons.”
Ajax had to admit it was a win-win situation. And one he would take the king up on if he asked, no reason not to build some good will with the royal family.