Gamer Reborn

Chapter 587

The journey from this dungeon to the next was going to be at least a month long and that was if Ajax was heading straight there, with the added time for anything interesting Ajax was sure he would find along the way Ajax was excited about the progress he was making.

His second encounter with a hydra, one whose name he didn’t even learn had left him feeling weak. He hadn’t felt such a difference in power since the time he had met a dragon as a child, only back then he wasn’t strong enough to realize how big the difference was. From what he could pick up in their short meeting Ajax was sure HelSotHein’s parent was at least above level two hundred and fifty, more than likely higher than level three hundred. Seeing as HelSotHein was at the level of a champion while only under level one hundred and thirty it put the power of the Ascended races into a better perspective for Ajax.

During his travels Ajax was looking forward to interacting with some of the other non-ascended races that were sentient to get a better picture of how he would compare to Ascended races. The difference in power between him and HelSotHein was not as large as the level difference would have you believe so Ajax was sure he was strong even by Ascended standards, that would add up with the idea that HelSotHein’s parent had taken such an interest as to track him down so quickly.

As he moved away from the dungeon and further away from the humanoid kingdoms, by now Ajax knew he was at least two months of travel away from Gryndor if he was rushing back in a relatively straight line, Ajax was starting to feel the ambient growth in Mana density. It wasn’t that far off a level thirty dungeon floor.

This steady increase as he moved away from the dungeon could easily be seen in how the wild life exploded in variety. There were essentially no normal animals left, the majority of them didn’t have a Mana affinity but they were all steadily growing large thanks to the sturdier bodies the higher Mana density helped them to gain.

As he moved through forests, swamps and plains Ajax found plenty of different plants and other reagents to fuel his [Alchemy], thanks to the abundance of powerful creatures Ajax finally had a chance to try some of the theorised versions of potions he had talked about with Lady Vilethorn back at the academy. Access to Mana dense animal reagents was limited to the dungeon back in Gryndor, and those parts were always attuned to one Mana affinity or another depending on the floor they came from.

Over the weeks of travel Ajax found himself using pretty much all of his Skills. Between fighting and his crafting he was already using a lot of them but it was the interactions with other sentient races that pushed him to use his social Skills as well as Skills he hadn’t focused on for years now.

One thing that shocked him about the sentient races was that their technology level seemed to be stuck at the caveman, or more appropriately goblin level, as the highest he had seen as he traveled. Some used very basic tools and weapons but most relied on claws, fangs and scales.

The lack of advancement made it very easy for Ajax to find any villages as all he had to do was look for the shabby built small dwellings or, more often, for caves or hollowed out trees around which they would build their lives.

“You are one of the awakened races?” a gorilla like creature exclaimed. A small group of three were talking with Ajax as he made his way past their trees when Ajax started asking questions about racial evolutions hoping to gain some knowledge. “And you’ve evolved to Ascended!”

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It didn’t take too long for Ajax to learn creatures were split into three different types. There were the inferior, the awakened and finally the Ascended. Inferior creatures could evolve to become awakened but they couldn’t evolve again into Ascended, on the upside their offsprings would be part of their awakened race and could evolve. Inferior races were the best adapted to raw Mana density meaning their stats grew proportionally with the Mana density in their bodies, the downside was that this was their only racial way of increasing their stats where awakened and Ascended races had specific ways of increasing their Stats that were much easier to scale, for humanoids it was the stats they gained by clearing a dungeon floor appropriate for their level for the first time.

The difference between awakened and Ascended races was harder to make since each one had a different path to power but Ascended races generally had a much longer life span than the awakened races. Ajax did learn that for an awakened race to be comparable to an Ascended one it would have to evolve around level one hundred. Having evolved so much sooner and having continued to push his stats by delving more dungeons Ajax was sure would have no problems facing even Ascended races of the same level, that wasn’t even counting all the Skills and extra stats he had courtesy of Divine Witness. One crucial difference to mark however was that all Ascended races were sentient while not all awakened races were, some of them were animalistic and based their actions on pure instinct until they finally gained enough power to evolve and gained their sentience, the change could be traumatic according to the people he talked to.

Another thing he noticed as he moved through the land was that he had yet to encounter another evolved Ascended. He had met a few races that claimed to be able of evolving yet none of the people there had made done it so far.

As he traveled and talked to more and more of the sentient races spread across the Wild Lands Ajax couldn’t help but start to think of them all as people, it wasn’t something he had initially done, especially with the more animalistic looking ones but he had spoken to enough of them to realize that while they may not be all that technologically advanced they were still people.

As the third week since he left the dungeon came to a close Ajax was debating going to sleep. Twenty days of [Meditation] were starting to leave their mark as his mind started to feel more and more sluggish with each passing hour. It was getting to the point where [Focused Mind] was feeling the staring and it had already leveled twice in the past four days.

Before he could make a decision Ajax was surprised to see he had gotten an Achievement.

Achievement : Insomnia

Stay awake and alert for three weeks straight.

Requires one Discovery to earn: Requirement fulfilled by Researcher

Reward : Stamina, Mana and natural regeneration increased by 50% while sleeping. Can go longer without feeling ill effects from lack of sleep.

Ajax wasn’t sure how he should feel about the Achievement. On the one hand he was happy to have gotten an Achievement he hadn’t known about but on the other hand it had used up his remaining reward from Researcher and Insomnia wasn’t that good of an Achievement, it only covered a single Discovery.

He could have gotten an Epic social Skill with this Achievement, it might have taken a bit of time to get the system to give it, since he would have to try to force it but that would have still been an epic social Skill.

The lack of lesser versions mentioned added on to the fact that he had gotten the achievement before he actually fell asleep made Ajax guess that this was one of the Achievement chains that he could continue to work through. It wasn’t something he was going to be doing now since he didn’t know when the next benchmark was, it could be a whole year for all he knew.

Having decided to actually get some sleep and try out his new Achievement Ajax started to prepare a suitable space. Unlike before Ajax wasn’t going to simply be digging a hole in the ground, that would draw too much attention. Instead he found the closest cave and started placing wards and runes all around. He even used close to four thousand Mana over a long infusion of Life Mana to create a small lookout for himself.

Once he took as many precautions as he could, Ajax finally went to sleep. He had no issues falling asleep, staying awake for so long meant he was out like a light the moment he closed his heavy eyelids. He was halfway to the next dungeon but Ajax also knew that he would now be crossing through the territories claimed by other Ascended races.