Chapter 202

By the time the whole floor was clear Ajax had managed to finish brewing over two hundred potions of restoration and a total of twenty batches of Bait. Out of all those creations Ten batches of Bait were even of inferior quality and the rest were failures, though that had more to do with the fact that he was substituting ingredients so that he would only use herbs found on the first floor of the dungeon. As for the regular potion he managed to create one hundred and forty of inferior quality, ten of basic quality and one of Uncommon quality.

While all that might have seemed like great progress it was clear that repetition wasn’t the best way to get his alchemy skill higher. Over the whole exercise he had gotten a total of eight points in alchemy, three came from the one hundred and forty inferior quality potions, two of them coming in the first fifty when the recipe was still a novelty to him, another point came with the ten basic quality, two points he got for the batches of bait though he suspected that was more for the first time he ever substituted ingredients in a recipe. Finally the single uncommon quality potion got him two whole points by itself.

One other thing that the dungeon pounded into him was that his [Mana Milling] skill became much harder to use inside the dungeon. Not only did it allow him to infuse his own mana when preparing ingredients but it also opened the ingredients a lot more to the dungeon's free flowing mana. The one uncommon potion he made had also used the best ingredients his mana milling had produced from the environment in exchange for the same regular ones he brought in.

Overall the delve was still very much a success as it did give him the last one and a half thousand experience that he needed in order to level to thirty-two. This new level up did mean that he had to enter the second floor of the Goldmine before he leveled up again if he wanted to claim the +1 to all stats for clearing the floor at an appropriate level and he was hoping that his upcoming delve in a few days would do the trick.

As for the first leg of the tournament the order of the first four placements was exactly as he expected them to be once he saw how the teams split up. In first place was Benedict Steelblade, Prince Xavier took second, Lexi Manashaper came in third and Annabeth Goldmancer took fourth. The next person in the standing didn’t even have half the points Anna had gotten so it was clear that the points had been funneled into them but that was all expected.

“With an astounding lead Benedict Steelblade has managed to rack up one hundred and fifty points.” Professor Silvertongue praised the leader of the competition before everyone was ready to head out of the dungeon through the archway.

The lead was truly remarkable as the Prince only managed to get one hundred and twenty five points, while Lexi gobbled up one hundred and fifteen. The big surprise was Annabeth managing to get herself to a solid one hundred. Her team had been the second to find out about Ajax’s Bait operation and snagged the final two griffins, getting her within striking distance.

While things did seem to look up for the prince who would be getting another round with a full team backing his problems would crop up in the other two. Unlike Annabeth, Lexi and Benedict the prince wasn’t all that much of an offensive powerhouse meaning that the dead weight he would be carrying at that time would slow him down a lot more.

“How was crafting in the dungeon?” Dave asked Ajax as the two of them brought up the rear with everyone leaving the dungeon.

“Harder than I expected it to be.” Ajax admitted. His skill had been good enough to successfully make the potion five times in a row outside the dungeon and even get one of basic quality from five tries, inside however his success rate dropped to 75%. “But it did bring equal gains with it.”

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What excited Ajax most about this delve however was the Rare skill [Dungeon Crafter], he had unlocked it early on in his attempts, most likely due to his Divine Witness trait, but it hadn't even gotten to level two despite all the crafting he had done afterwards.

The biggest regret Ajax had about the run was that he had to leave behind his single Uncommon rarity potion. Even if only a few of the ingredients had come from the dungeon that was enough to make it so the potion wouldn’t be able to leave the dungeon with him, another forty of the inferior and two of the basic potion also shared the same fate and were left behind.

When it came to the remaining eight basic potions Ajax was going to give them to his grandparents to sell, he had to start paying back the money they had fronted him in getting the alchemy equipment. As for the one hundred inferior quality ones he was going to donate them to the Healing Union, his grandparents shop did have a reputation to maintain so selling inferior quality potions would actively harm that. Not only that but he did want to do something, even if it was only a good will gesture, for all the help Luna had given him since he arrived in the capital.

On their way back to the Academy Ajax had noticed something strange. He thought that it was his imagination during the last few days of the delve but even now the Prince was actively hanging back, closer to Ajax that he had been standing before this trip. Not only that but while he had been very cordial in all their interaction Ajax did feel a little hostility in the glares the Prince threw at him when he thought he wasn’t looking.

‘Does he know that I have access to [Curse Slash]?’ Ajax wondered. The execution of the curse user had happened a day before they went on their delve. It was the weirdest thing Ajax had seen from the populace in this new world. Most of the capital had taken to the streets to see justice served however the execution grounds had barely any people present as everyone was afraid of a last second curse the culprit might release upon death.

Ajax was reassured by both Blathazar and Evelyn that him having access to [Curse Slash] wasn’t going to be an issue for him, though both did urge him not to make it public for at least a few months. The human reaction to fear was one thing that hadn’t changed from back on Earth, even here if you took a random person off the street and asked him if there was something wrong with the skill now they would say there wasn’t as one of the king's own squad leaders used curse attacks. However while a person was smart, people as a group were dumb, all it took was one person with a few social skills and there would be a mob out to lynch him.

Immediately following his dismissal from professor Silvertongue, dismissal that thankfully only happened after the man confirmed that Ajax’s next delve with the Silvertongue house would take place in the Goldmine in three days, Ajax made a beeline to professor Vilethorn.

“Good afternoon professor.” Ajax greeted as he entered the lab/office.

“Ajax” the professor greeted with a slight incline of her head.

“You’re back already!” The teaching assistant greeted him more excitedly.

“So how did it go?” professor Vilethorn asked, with a bit of eagerness present in her voice.

“Worse than I had expected, I only managed a 75% success rate when it came to only getting a completed potion.” Ajax admitted. “Thanks once more for the ingredients.”

While Ajax did have to pay for the ingredients, they were already prepared for him and sold to him at a quarter of the market price, something he knew wouldn’t happen a second time and was only done to motivate him to pursue Alchemy.

“75% is a great result!” the teaching assistant quickly answered. “Most beginners don’t get past 50% their first time crafting inside the dungeon.”

“How many basic quality potions did you manage to make?” The professor however focused more on the quality rather than the quantity.

“Ten.” Ajax answered. “Though I did manage to get an Uncommon rarity one as well.”

“Really?!” the professor stood up at this and reached out her hand. “Can you let me see it?”

“I can’t.” Ajax shook his head dejectedly remembering the potion he left behind while taking a basic potion and putting it in the outstretched hand. “I only managed to get that by using some of the mana infused herbs from the dungeon so I couldn’t take it out, the same is true for two of the ten basic potions.”

“That’s a shame” the professor said as she took her seat again and examined the potion in her hand. “The use of mana infused herbs does lower the achievement of having created one on your first delve doing so but not by all that much. I expect that I’ll be seeing you in my classes throughout all six years you’ll be at the Academy?”

“That you can be sure of.” Ajax agreed before giving his goodbyes and heading home.

For the next two days he planned to relax, mentally at least following the five days of concentration he put into crafting potions. This means that he will be emptying his stamina with basic physical exercises and his mana by infusing the trees and plants he planted around his bee hives.