For the next few days the team had finished mining out the iron deposit, not only that but the number of attacks on their camp had increased in number. This was to be expected as both imps and hellhounds weren’t stationary monsters so they had cleared up most of the floor already.
Ajax spent his time as one of the more popular leather crafters during this time. Most of the reason for this was that he was one of only two that were using the leather as insoles for the plate and mail armor the rest were making. As for why he was the preferred option, the reason for that was simple : he was worse at making it and his quality suffered.
The question as to why he would be the preferred option if his work was worse was one that stumped him. The answer he got didn’t improve his ego, apparently putting together a finished work with subpar materials pushed skills harder and rewarded more experience to the crafter making his subpar work a better use of their time.
Despite searching the rest of the caves they could find there was no other sizable deposit of steel. They had found one or two more small deposits but they were buried so deep that it would have taken a few days of digging just to get to them so they decided to leave them and finish clearing out the floor.
As they cleared out the floor Ajax’s luck shone through again, despite not taking part in the fight with the hellhound pack or the two imp hordes that ended up being formed out of monsters that they could then take back outside he did kill off both of the other gargoyles that shared the same traits, leading him to having a sizeable amount of their coal.
By the end of their delve everyone was standing in front of the archway drenched in sweat. The harsh abyssal climate hadn’t let up in the least and they were all ready for a much needed shower. Ajax was very happy with the outcome of the delve however.
Experience : 53510/55100
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Curse Resistance 0 -> 12
Heat Resistance 19 -> 21
Leatherworking 10 -> 21
Beekeeping Trailblazer 1-> 3
A single delve had just granted him almost fifty thousand experience. He knew that he had never delved such a strong floor before but the result was beyond his expectations. He even suspected that the achievement that earned him ten skill levels in Curse resistance had also granted him the experience related to raising the skill.
After such an outcome Ajax was planning to practice all of his profession skills a lot more in the dungeon, even if he would never really reach extreme proficiency in most of them the sheer amount of experience he could gain from them was worth considering. In fact getting practice with his crafting professions was something he would be able to do well when he was delving with the class.
After their first delve the class would be given a lot more leeway as such Ajax would be fine setting up in their base camp or on his own in a remote part and then mining, smelting or brewing potions as much as he wanted. In fact the first floors of both dungeons had ample supply of plants that could be used in making very subpar quality potions, trying to make anything worthwhile out of them would do wonders for his [Alchemy], he could even get a good handle on [Mana Milling] as he was sure Nina had the smelting version of the skill but he hadn’t asked for pointers on that just yet.
“Do you have any idea what you are going to do with those?” Nina asked him as they were making their way out from the dungeon grounds.
“Most likely sell them” Ajax admitted as he looked back at his backpack where his share of the mana cores and the remains of the three gargoyle were placed. “Why?”
“If they were normal monsters, I would have offered to buy them on behalf of house Silvertongue.” she said. “But since they are gargoyles they don’t have an accepted market rate, I do however suggest that you sell them somewhat discreetly.”
“Why don’t gargoyles have a market rate?” he asked.
“Because unlike most other monsters their corpses are purely made of coal. Most monsters have different parts that fluctuate in price but as a whole they are mostly consistent.” she explained. “I could offer to buy the coal from you as well, but if I were to lowball you it wouldn’t look good for house Sylvertongue and I was asked not to highball you in any way either, the price for the gargoyle has also been volatile these last months. The best I can do is this warning to be discreet about selling it.
Ajax nodded his thanks then bid farewell to the team as he headed back home and took a much needed bath. He also didn’t hesitate to toss his armor in soapy water and leave it there for it to soak, as for the clothes he wore beneath his armor those were taken to a corner of the yard outside and burnt before the smell could spread any further.
On the whole the delve had taken eight days, this gave him a few days off before his next cycle of classes would start again. His plan for tomorrow was to go to the library first thing in the morning, after that his schedule would depend a lot on how much information he found there on curse mana. Fresh chapters posted on 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝•𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾•𝘯𝘦𝘵
He would also be spending most of his nights out in his fields, not only would most of his practice with the curse mana need to happen in the forest and away from prying eyes but he also needed to get back to his mana infusion for the plants his bees will be collecting from.
He slept in a lot longer than he normally would the next morning. Ajax hadn’t realized just how exhausting it had been to stay in the abyssal atmosphere for those eight days, he could feel his body groan and complain, he wasn’t sure if any of that had something to do with the amount of curse mana he had put through it in the last week but he was about to find out.
As he arrived at the library he gave a polite greeting to the old librarian before he made a beeline for the Curse section. He could have tried to be more discreet about what he was pursuing but he didn’t think he had a chance to sneak anything past a noble that had survived thousands of years of plotting and scheming.
“And we’re back to curses are we?” he heard the man's voice despite not knowing when he got so close. “Something you might want some help with?”
This conversation however had a bit of an edge to it. Ajax didn’t know it but the reason for his uncomfortable feeling was the old man’s aura. The old man had lived through wars and this was the second time a prodigy the likes of which he has never seen was looking through the curse section, the sheer calamity that could mean was not something he would let happen without a bit of investigating and prodding.