Gamer Reborn

Chapter 608

An entire week of fighting is how long it took before Ajax cleared the entire jungle surrounding the ziggurat. That wasn’t to say he was safe in the jungle, just that there were no more animals left wandering around as far as he could tell. There were still the occasional groups of cultists that went and left but Ajax had gotten much better at ambushing them.

The one downside of so much practice was that the difficulty of the fights had dropped significantly from when he was still adapting and learning. Ajax earned less Experience in the last week than he did in the first three days and he was getting less and less with every fight. The few exceptions to that came when he was fighting against new types of undead and when the groups presented at least ten opponents.

“Time to infiltrate the ziggurat.” Ajax had made sure that he was in perfect condition before trying this. There was a good chance he would need to make a run for it if something sounded the alarm once he attacked.

Ajax’s preparations extended beyond just having full Mana, Stamina and Health. He had dozens of vials of poison, acidic and explosive alchemy vials. His Experience gain dropped significantly when he used them but they were highly effective especially against the humanoid casters whose frail bodies left them vulnerable.

The first thing Ajax sensed now that he was so close to the ziggurat was that it was a source of Undead Mana. With the Undead Mana in the ambient Mana it meant he couldn’t use it as a resource for his [Mana Syphon]. In a way however he was glad that his newest upgrade to the Legendary Skill let him add some of the Mana directly to his Mana pool, he wouldn’t want to imagine what would have happened with the Undead Mana if he had just kept absorbing it passively like he did the first time he encountered Curse Mana. The aftereffects on him could have been much worse than what he suffered back then.

Now that he was entering the ziggurat Ajax had a much bigger drain on his Mana and focus than just [Mana Syphon]. In order to not have half the place descending on him right as he entered Ajax was actively focusing on using his Vibration Mana to stop any sound around him from traveling.

“I don’t know if the inspiration for this floor came from games or movies but I have to say I am thankful for all of the cramped tight corridors that form a maze through this temple.” Ajax was pleased after he took out his tenth guard pair.

One other thing Ajax was keeping loose track of was his kill count. For a floor this size he knew the number of floor occupants should be between one and two thousand depending on their strength, if he didn;t count the skeletons he had killed Ajax was already up to around three hundred. Depending on what populated the underground tunnels there was a good chance the floor boss would spawn in two hundred kills

“Six sets of foot steps.” Ajax whispered to himself as he listened from around the corner. “Four sound hollow, probably two necromancers, this will be tough.”

Ajax wasn’t worried about the fight ahead. In fact there would probably be no fight, necromancers as far as he had seen were the easiest to surprise and kill with a proper ambush. No, what Ajax was worried about as he tossed two of the explosive vials down around the corner was how he would contain the explosion so that neither the sound nor the vibrations through the walls would give him away.

As the explosion happened Ajax was pleasantly surprised not to hear the boom, less pleasant was the three hundred Mana he had to use to dampen the explosion. The level increase in [Vibration Aspect Mana] was a fair compromise as far as he was concerned.

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“I wonder if I’ll have a use for all these?” Another thing Ajax had an abundance of was weapons.

During the last week and a half Ajax had made sure to keep all the weapons that remain intact from those he killed, he wasn’t sure if he would find a use for them but they were all strong enough to at least compare with his own weapons even if his were more specialized for his own use.

Ajax spent ten hours exploring the ziggurat before he made his exit. His Mana and Stamina were both down to about half by that point though his health was still all but full, he had hardly taken any damage during the fights but he didn’t want to risk it. He had killed over fifty people by ambushing them just that day and he wanted to see if there was a reaction to that once it was discovered as it was bound to be.

The discovery took longer than Ajax expected, five hours after he left the ziggurat, enough time for him to regenerate his Mana and Stamina large groups of at least twenty cultists started streaming out of the large stone structure and heading into the jungle.

The next two days were a lot more fruitful in terms of Experience for Ajax as the increased numbers added some more difficulty for Ajax. Taking out two people out of twenty with an ambush was a lot less impactful than killing two out of five.

The more impactful change however came on the second day when right as Ajax ambushed another group of twenty cultists by taking out two of the necromancers and in doing so destroying seven of the ten undead they had with them both [Sense of Dread] and [Danger Sense] screamed at him to move.

Ajax trusted his Skills and used both Vibration and Wind Mana to launch himself away from his current spot sending a shockwave and a blast of air from his position, this wasn’t enough to get him out of harm's way but the dagger only sliced his left arm.

Looking at the assassin wrapped in Shadow Mana Ajax could tell, it was an undead but unlike the skeletons that were with the group this one wasn’t summoned. Looking at the cut on his arm Ajax was already starting to heal it with Life Mana when he noticed something odd.

There was poison on the undead assassin’s blade, he could feel it but it wasn’t affecting him at all. It wasn’t his [Poison Resistance] or [Venom Refining] at work either. It seemed like the werewolf arm was fully immune to poison. That was a neat trick to have.

Choosing to ignore that part Ajax focused once more on the battle. His first target was the last remaining necromancer, once he was dead he would be able to use [Mana Syphon] without having to worry about Undead Mana tainting his Mana pool.

It wasn’t easy to get to him but Ajax had experience in dealing with skeletons and the physical based cultists, the only new addition was the undead assassin that was constantly moving trying to use its Shadow Mana to hide itself once more.

Using a few acid flasks Ajax was able to kill some of the cultists. One thing about humanoid dungeon denizens that Ajax was torn on was their response to pain. Unlike most monsters found past floor one hundred humanoids could still be, at least temporarily, debilitated by pain. This also however made it harder to look at them as just dungeon spawned creatures than people.

Using the acid splash as a distraction Ajax got in close and killed the final necromancer with a well placed Void enhanced strike. Focusing on the necromancer however left Ajax open to the undead assassin, he felt the slash of the dagger bite into his right shoulder even as he used his left arm and [Spell Direction] to blast it with a fireball, the resulting explosion controlled enough to launch him to safety.

Surprisingly it seemed that the undead assassins were quite susceptible to fire, not being skeletons, though being thin meant that the dead had a flimsy layer of flammable skin and muscle over their bones that left them burn.

Now that the explosion from the fireball resounded throughout the tropical forest they were in Ajax stopped trying to conserve Mana. He didn’t know if there were any other groups close by and he was especially weary of any other undead assassins closing in on them.

It took Ajax only a few minutes to care of the remaining cultists and the undead assassin before he shrouded himself in Shadow Mana and made himself scarce before any other groups could find him. Now that he knew about the undead assassins he wouldn’t be taken by surprise again. Thankfully the poison they used wasn’t all that strong as Ajax had felt his Life Mana quickly dismantle it from the wound on his right shoulder.

Now that he had a moment to process it Ajax looked toward his left arm, keep to examine its odd poison immunity when an icy shiver ran down his back. The werewolf portion of his arm had extended, not a lot but it was a noticeable amount. He was sure it had happened during the fight since he had been consistently keeping tabs on his arm and there had been no change until this point.

“I need to hurry up and clear this floor.” Ajax muttered as he looked towards the ziggurat. “Surely the hawk will know a way to deal with this.”