Ajax didn’t have to wait too long before somebody got poisoned, that isn’t to say that they weren’t trying but without Ajax giving them a heads up about where the enemies were it would always be just a matter of time before one of the snakes managed to land an opening ambush bite.
Much to Ajax’s surprise however it was the prince that got bit. Ajax had put prince Xavier as one of the least likely to be poisoned simply because of how much more useful physical stats were when reacting to an ambush. To be fair however he did get bit as he intercepted the snake that was diving towards Rick.
The fight ended within seconds of their enemies making themselves known, despite the lower levels this was still a group that had multiple mages all of whom were not only skilled but also supplied with some of the best gear and preparation possible. The source of this content ɪs 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝕟𝕖𝕥
“How are you still moving around?” Rick exclaimed, pointing at the prince.
“Because the snake’s poison is a hemotoxin you knucklehead.” Benedict grumbled through clenched teeth as he gave Rick a light tap to the back of the head. “I’ll tell your father you need a refresher on the different types of poison.”
Rick’s good mood quickly plummeted as his face turned a little pale and he dragged Benedict off to one side quickly in an attempt to persuade him that it wasn’t something worth bringing up with his father.
“Do you have [Poison Resistance]?” Ajax asked the prince as he approached.
“No.” the prince shook his head.
“You have two options then.” Ajax offered the choice to the prince between his lesser antidote and the one provided by the teachers. Both would counteract the poison and get the blood clotting again the only difference was the time it would take to happen. “Well three technically but I’m not risking the minor one.”
“I’ll take the weak one.” the prince quickly grabbed the antidote Ajax made before he looked at it oddly. “Is this an antidote you drink or one you apply?”
“It should work either way but with how shallow the wound is I think direct application would work best.” Ajax responded.
The prince simply nodded as he doused the wound with the antidote, the action followed quickly by a sharp draw of breath as he felt like his thigh caught on fire as the antidote started to neutralize the poison.
“Damit” Ajax cursed slightly as he started inspecting the surroundings after seeing the prince’s reaction to applying the antidote. “There needs to be something like a yarrow root around here.” He mumbled as he started inspecting the nearby trees for anything that would work to make the poisons reaction when meeting the antivenom have a small numbing sensation as opposed to the clearly painful one.
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“Can you walk?” Anna asked.
“I’ll be okay.” the prince nodded “I’ll stick to just defending the mages until the bleeding stops however.”
The rest of the day moved slowly with two more snake bites and one wasp sting happening before the group called it a day and headed back to the camp spot. Ajax was slightly disappointed nobody had been poisoned by the frogs since he wanted to see the result of his antidote, his best bet right now was to hope another group had had a mild poisoning and they refused the antidote initially since this poison was only a local paralytic.
The delve continued in much the same fashion for the next four days as the class slowly but surely started to clear out the entire floor. Ajax’s antidote production had improved with each passing night, by the last day he was consistently creating lesser versions of all three antidotes, his crowning achievement however had been a snake antivenom that had surpassed lesser and was simply marked as [Antidote] by his skill.
Ajax wasn’t the only one to see progress throughout this delve, both the prince and the son of a Baron had both managed to gain the [Poison Resistance] skill after using Ajax’s antidotes and just putting up with mild poisoning for extended periods of time.
The princes success had been called a fluke but once the second [Poison Resistance] was gained the observers had all been driven to their witt’s end, actively having to step in just to stop people from intentionally letting themselves get poisoned just so they would have a better shot at gaining the skill.
“Why did you let them know you gained [Poison Resistance]?” Ajax asked the prince as they were all heading out of the dungeon.
The concept of openly revealing skills was a totally foreign one to Ajax who had spent years hiding as many skills as he could, even now there wasn’t a single person who knew all of Ajax’s skills.
“Because it’s much safer for me to have it be known that I have [Poison Resistance].” the prince said.
“How, wouldn’t people just try to kill you in different ways if they knew that?” Ajax asked.
“Subtle applied poisons are the last resort when it comes to killing high nobles.” Anna said. “If you have any other alternatives you would go with those regardless of the fact that the target had [Poison Resistance] or not.”
“I still don’t see how that makes having the skill known helpful.” Ajax said.
“Because it's a Common skill.” Lexi joined in. “Common skill are hardly more than padding, they don’t offer the best protection, not only that but they are also limited. It’s that limitation that makes it an asset you want others to know about.”
“The skill works a lot better on slow acting poisons.” the prince cut straight to the point. “It wouldn’t matter to an assassin who coated his weapons if I had the skill or not he would add poison anyway. But having the skill be known would make it so people were more likely to use fast acting poisons when trying to slip me something since they work better against the skill.”
“And how are fast acting poisons better?” Ajax asked.
“Taste testers would exhibit symptoms sooner, reducing the chance to have it slip by testing.” the prince said.
Ajax remained silent at the cold remark. Ajax imagined that the prince’s food taster was going to be cursing his name once he found out that he had helped the prince gain the skill. The idea however also made him consider if there were any skills that he would benefit from putting out there about himself.
“I want to congratulate all of you.” Professor Silvertongue said as they all got back to the academy. “Despite the high number of mistakes and accidents all of you performed very well. The floor theme was one of the harder ones to tackle while underleveled and all of you showed great progress as you adapted to it better and better day by day.”
“That’s debateable considering everyone’s suicidal tendacies on the last day.” one of the observers whispered loudly, clearly intending for everyone to hear him.
“Yes I do have to admit your surprising dedication to trying to unlock [Poison Resistance] has surprised and inspired me.” Ajax had a shiver run down his spine as he watched the malicious smirk creep on the professor’s face. “As such I will do my best to help you unlock it by offering you a mild poison you can take every day during our first lesson.”
Ajax had to bite his cheek to keep himself from laughing as he watched most of the students turn a shade whiter at the announcement, he was glad to have already unlocked the skill and was looking forward to what the first poison would be. He was also silently deciding if he should provide a mild laxative for the professor to use.
As soon as they were all dismissed however Ajax bade his goodbyes quickly before he hurried towards his manor as quickly as he could without alarming anyone. He finally had a little over twelve days all to himself and with the help of his sister and grandparents he had gathered all the samples needed so that he could begin testing his theory about magnetic mana.