Gamer Reborn

Chapter 596

After the hours spent on the first floor Ajax didn’t want to spend as much time on the second floor and quickly ran through the place cloaked in Shadow Mana while gathering any plants he could use for alchemy as well as killing any creatures whose body parts [Alchemist’s Examination] deemed as usable in combination with the molten plant.

It took Ajax no more than another three hours to get everything ready before he moved on to the third floor where he simply did more of the same, instead of focusing on a plant floor this time however Ajax went for a focus on wind, specifically looking for any creatures that were imbued with Wind Mana as he hoped that would complement the Fire Mana that was bountiful in the plants well.

It took Ajax a total of twelve hours before he made it to the fourth floor. A large open desert greeted him and Ajax couldn’t help but smirk. He could feel the Earth, Fire and Wind Mana in the air as he watched a sandstorm in the distance. This floor would be perfect for crafting.

First things first however Ajax would have to look for an oasis where he could source some high density Water. Unfortunately for his experiments both the plants he collected from the second floor and especially the creature parts collected from the third floor were just that much more Mana dense compared to the molted plants so he would need to reduce their potency in order to learn anything about their interactions.

Moving through the desert Ajax had no issue killing the odd scorpion, spider or carrion bird that tried to attack him. He would have to clear out this floor as it was and he also wanted to get used to his new Stats. Two points was not much considering how high all of his stats already were but when doing something as delicate as alchemy it could be the difference between the concoction destabilizing or not.

Once he found his first oasis Ajax used his Earth Mana to make a makeshift shelter out of rock in order to set up his portable alchemy station and using the high Mana density water he got to work preparing his ingredients.

After properly examining the molten plants it didn’t take Ajax long to come to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be all that useful when creating positive potions. Their nature made high heat an essential part or their composition so outside of a few antidotes that would combat freezing based poisons or boosting tonics for cold environmental floors Ajax would have to look towards more explosive alchemical results.

It took Ajax five hours of work just to finish the work of preparing the ingredients he had to work with, a few batches still had to dry but by now he was finally ready to start experimenting with the molten plants. His first experiment however was one where he wouldn’t be using other ingredients found inside the dungeon but rather ones he brought with him.

He had tried for months to find a way to scale up cement and he was hoping that by finely grinding up these molten plants he would have a substitute for the volcanic ash to ensure his cement would hold.

Grinding the roots that were steeped into magma and adding them to the cement mix Aajx found his [Alchemy] Skill being pushed as the mixture came together. The heat coming from it was already high and this was before the hydration part of the process took place.

Ajax had a limited amount of reagents to try this with so after his third successful batch he stopped. He had failed twice and three samples were enough for him to experiment with to see if the plants would make for a good substitute.

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His experiments with making a warming tonic as well as a freezing poison antidote went much better a 75% and 80% success rate respectively, not only that but Ajax made twenty batches of each since the ingredients for those recipes were not only more plentiful but he was unable to take the out of the dungeon when he left.

Having spent the last eight hours straight on alchemy Ajax decided to take a small break and left the makeshift shelter to start clearing out the floor a bit as he let his mind relax before starting another alchemy session.

The creatures on the floor were weak, at level ninety seven they were strong enough that Ajax couldn’t simply find the obelisk and trigger it as he might risk getting overwhelmed, especially if a Floor Boss appeared but other than that they posed no threat to him. Ajax even let one of the desert vipers bite him to see if their poison had any effect on him.

Resistance Skills were some of the hardest to level, that was what Ajax had learnt back in the academy but his personal experience was that his Resistance Skills were keeping pace with his other Skills just fine. Then again the monsters he faced were growing stronger just as quickly as he was so the increase in pressure on the Skills would naturally result in them leveling much faster than others could.

The viper’s poison was still strong enough to affect Ajax, it was still from a level ninety seven monster that relied on it as its main offence but Ajax was surprised to see [Venom Refining] not only helped break down the poison and turn it into a buff but his body instinctively seemed to stop the spread of the poison from the infection site.

“I need to keep this in mind during a fight.” Ajax said as he looked at his forearm watching the poison slowly spread. [Venom Refining] was limiting blood flow to the arm to slow down the spread of the poison, seeing as the fight was now over that was fine but if this was to happen mid combat Ajax might find the weakness that came from loss of blood flow to the limb to come as a surprise at a critical moment.

Focusing on [Venom Refining] Ajax purposefully tried to restore blood flow to the arm and found that it came naturally even if the spread of the poison quickened. Pleased with his results Ajax pumped Life Mana to counteract the poison. While [Poison Resistance] was slowing it down and [Venom Refining] was slowly breaking it down, Life Mana crushed the poison, wiping it out in seconds and restoring his arm to a healthy state.

Returning to his makeshift shelter Ajax started to examine the three successful cement mixtures to see how the curing process was going. It wasn’t much of a surprise to him but with the addition of the magma based plants not only had the heat released during the hydrating portion increase but so too did the amount of water needed. One of the upsides of increasing the amount of water he noticed however was that the finished mixture was slowly increasing its Mana density by absorbing it from the oasis water that had a much higher Mana density than the concrete mixture originally did.

Finishing his observations on the cement mixture Ajax took a few hours to sleep, wanting to make use of his new Achievement and start his alchemy once more after he was rested. When he woke up Ajax got to work on the explosive compounds he wanted to try out using the magma plants.

In an odd turn of events Ajax was having a hard time getting the plants to work. It wasn’t that the mixtures were becoming unstable and failing but rather that the plants were a poor ingredient for them.

“The heat is stronger than usual but the power of the explosion drops considerably.” Ajax noted as he watched the result.

Ajax couldn’t help but admit his mistake by trying to substitute the magma plants as an ingredient for explosive compounds after his fourth attempt. The reason behind the destructive force of his Magma augmented attacks didn’t come from the Magma Mana used to augment it but rather his own physical strength delivering the blow, magma was a very dense liquid so it only stood to reason that it would add to the momentum of an axe.

The experiments with the magma plants while not overly successful outside of finding a good substitute ingredient for higher Mana density for cement were a great way for Ajax to push all of his alchemy Skills. He would still like to wait another day or so to see how the cement curing process progresses but during that time he would still need to clear out the rest of the floor.

With a floor boss not spawning, Ajax slowly and methodically cleared out about three quarters of the floor before finding and triggering the obelisk and clearing out the rest. In total he had spent about three days on the fourth floor, accounting for the time dilation however it was still less than three days on the outside since he entered the dungeon. Opting to get another few hours of sleep before exiting, Ajax collected all of his alchemy equipment and fell asleep in front of the exit arch.