His theory that both the imps and the hellhounds sacrificed their stamina to turn it into curse mana had a solid basis, both when it came to this world as he saw the hell hounds getting tired a lot faster than any monster that level should after the amount of effort they put in, but also in terms of Earth knowledge as a lot of warlock tropes surrounded sacrifice for power, the only difference here was that the caster was also the one bearing the sacrifice.
With this hypothesis in mind Ajax was determined to sit out the next encounter as long as it was against imps or hellhounds and just observe in hopes of getting a better grip on his theory. This most likely wasn’t anything that hadn’t already been spotting but he wanted to work out his own theory before reading whatever else anybody else had already figured out to keep a fresh perspective and keep his Earth idea untainted.
As he was thinking about the curse mana theory however his work with leatherworking was finally showing his lack of skill levels. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t know how to make the gear, but as soon as he stopped making basic armor padding, the imp leather was getting too hard to shape into proper pieces, his bracers are the only piece of gear that came out right and they were simple circular pieces of leather. Even his pauldrons didn’t come out right and he was going for a light variant.
As he didn’t want to waste any more of the leather he had earned for himself just yet he took one final look out into the horizon and once he saw nothing he decided to go for another stint down in the mines and work on his mining skill a bit more.
Ideally he would be able to delve on his own for floors that were still at the same level as he was. He also knew that after floors passed the level one hundred points for their monsters their scaling changed but all that meant was that he had to work that much harder to make sure he could handle floors of his own level on his own.
Right now he probably would have had no issue taking the first floor of the Highlands by himself nor did he have any problem taking the Goldmine’s second floor on solo with the exception of maybe a few very bad matchups where he couldn’t properly hunt the monsters.
The issue with this was that the floors at this level weren’t worth a profit to solo. If he was to pay his way to getting a delve slot he had to make sure that he would be making a solid profit and for that to happen he needed to level and make use of the potions he could with his new stat increases.
As he went back down inside the mine he could actually start to feel the curse mana that had infused the metal ore down in vein. Unlike other forms of mana curse mana had a much easier time attacking itself to physical objects, his gaming knowledge and fiction knowledge however quickly raised a red flag as this being a quick way to forge a cursed item.
Curse items however took many forms, from bloodthirsty blades that had gotten their owner killed to blades that demanded blood in exchange for power boosting their wielder in exchange for his sanity all the way to items that granted power in the moment for a price paid after the battle was over. Some of these had their place as strategic items in a persons repertoire and some were best avoided at all cost. His biggest issue yet again was his lack of knowledge on the subject, something he was going to correct as soon as he got back to the library.
The next few hours were quiet with the exceptions of quite a few gargoyle attacks. It seems that the forging yesterday had led the gargoyles to close in more and more on the location of their base and now the attacks were getting more and more frequent. One of the combatants had even had the good luck to kill a gargoyle whose corpse could be taken outside, something that had taken the spotlight off him as the only one to have gained any tangible loot up until that point .
Ajax spent the next two days in the mine as he waited for the corpses of the tow hellhounds to be properly tanned. He had found himself actually working up a sweat mining the ore in the intense heat generated by environment now that he wasn’t wasn’t using his [Syphon mana], we wasn;t going to risk exposing himself to another cursed with [Syphon mana] since he didn’t know if that would lead to permanent damage and there was one more test he was hoping to perform when it came to curse mana.
Without his increased stats the physical work actually wore him out and he knew that he was relying on his one legendary skill to make up the difference. The one issue that he knocked into again and again every time he had thought about taking the focus off [Mana Syphon] for his build was the amount of flexibility and power it provided him.
In the end Ajax decided that making [Mana Syphon] the core of his build was the best choice, and instead of shoring up his defenses for the one time it would be vulnerable, creating a shield for it was a much better strategy.
In his past life on Earth the most obvious example came in the form of card games. Very often the game changed extremely based on whichever choice was the most powerful for the given time, that in turn made the counter to that specific deck a good choice simply because of how often you would encounter a favorable matchup.
He was in a completely different situation, his hybrid build was an outlier, instead of focusing on shoring up his defenses he should focus on making an escape route for himself if he ever found himself countered. This would now only be much easier to do but also had a much less restrictive condition for success, simply surviving without long term damage.
As he thought about it his biggest advantage and greatest weakness were both his mana. With [Syphon Mana] it meant that he had access to much higher stat levels that he should have even if it was only for a short period of time. His weakness therefore was if he should ever be left without any mana or unable to access it.
The clear solution to his issue was his curse theory. If he could figure out how the abyssal being managed to make use of curse man, even in its base form, it would provide him with an alternative from his reliance on his Legendary skill.
His day in the mine focusing on the curse mana inside the ore however proved useless. He did get a good workout from his mining skill but he was no closer to working out how to use curse mana for his own benefit than when he started.
From the looks of it curse mana instantly became attached to the first thing it came in contact with. When he tried to conjure it from his own mana pool it stuck to him and tried to convert the rest of his mana pool to curse mana. When the imps used it it melded with the fire mana to create the black flames. Finally when the hellhounds used it dispersed into the atmosphere when they missed but cursed the bite site when their fangs dug in. It was unlike any other mana type he had ever come in contact with and if he was to guess [Curse Mana Aspect] was definitely a Legendary if not even a Mythic level skill.
As he received his two hellhound skins Ajax decided to trade them both for a chance to get his weapons enchanted by one of the crafters once they got a change back on the outside. It wasn’t exactly a fair deal on either side: Ajax couldn’t make use of the two hellhounds skins he had earned due to a lack of skill but at the same time two hellhound skins were worth a lot more than a set of enchantments for a sword axe and hammer crafted from common steel.
It wasn’t until the fourth day of the expedition, as the mining vein was running dry that a massive attack formed of both imps and hellhounds stuck. Thankfully the imps were not only slow on the open fields but they also lacked camouflage giving the team ample time to get ready.
The surprise of the hellhounds was not something they were expecting but something that they could manage with the combatants at higher levels. Ajax was in the thick of it with the rest of the combatants but he kept a close eye on what both the imps and the hellhounds were doing.
Surprisingly it was the imps that finally gave it away as the fight drew to a close Ajax finally felt his slashed imbue curse mana into both sides of the flesh as he decapitated an imp. He had just gained the Epic skill [Cursed Slash].