Chapter 182

Chapter 182

The battle was over quickly, with this being a crafter run team almost all of the combatants were at level fifty-five meaning they were slightly above the strongest monsters that could be found and would have stood a chance going even one floor higher. After all no house would risk its crafters without appropriate protection.

“Trevor, this place has a solid vein but I’m not sure how deep the cave goes. Make sure to clear it all out as this will be a perfect base camp for this delve.” Nina took her role as leader of the delve even if she was below Trevor in the chain of command that only applied during combat.

Trevor sent a scout to take a look deeper inside the cave while everyone else already started setting up the crafting facilities on the outside of the cave. Everybody seemed like a well oiled machine as they started getting the base camp set up, Ajax didn’t have an assigned role so he got to work skinning his own kills as he didn’t want to get in anyone’s way.

For the first time Ajax had forced himself to push past his own feeling of wrongness. Despite goblins, kobolds and imps looking slightly humanoid, Ajax didn’t have any issues when it came to killing them, he understood that this world was different from Earth and that life didn’t have the same value here. Skinning something so humanoid however was something that he did have a reluctance to, one that he had to push himself past.

Two of the corpses he had to leave off to the side to defrost as trying to skin them otherwise would have damaged the leather. “These are some clean kills.” Another of the crafters said as they approached him after he finished with the second kill.

“Was planning to use the skin for some leatherworking so I took care not to damage it when I killed them.” Ajax replied.

“I can see that.” He nodded at the two with a few frozen patches. “You mind if I try skinning those two, the frozen patches should add enough difficulty for me to improve my skill. I’ll use my other skills to quickly tan them as well.”

“Sure.” Ajax agreed, happy to have some tanned skins to work with as well.

While the other crafter had started skinning the other two imps Ajax had gotten started at making a pair of boots out of the snake on the first floor. The boots he had on were sturdy enough for the rocky surface but sadly they were a horrible fit for the hot atmosphere.

“That’s not bad.” Nina said as she looked over his shoulder. “You already have a leatherworking skill?”

“Tried my hand at a lot of things back in my village.” Ajax responded. “My parents weren’t all that keep to have me take up anything combat related after my brother joined the city guard so I went through everything else before it came to hunting.”

What he left out was that he had picked up most of those skills, and that his talent in those areas was in question considering his Divine Witness trait meant he could pick up most skills with enough practice. For the next two hours Ajax had put together a more decent pair of boots that would allow his feet to breathe a little without sacrificing defense.

“There is nothing else inside the cave and I couldn’t find any other exits.” The scout then returned. “The cave does run a few tunnels deeper but they are all dead ends and clean.”

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“Alright, everyone with a mining skill pick up a pickaxe and follow me.” Nina called out.

The bars the combatant smelted had a lower mana concentration than those created by the other two, using mana infused coals seemed to lower the concentration loss during the smelting process. As for the bars created by Nina and the smith the difference could be sensed in the flow of the mana.

The bars created by the smith had a very chaotic manapath whereas Nina’s had a smooth clear orientation. He couldn’t distinguish them once they were finished, without infusing some mana into them anyway, but it was obvious during the crafting process.

“We’ve got another Gargoyle incoming.” The scouted shouted while pointing towards a dot in the sky that was slowly getting bigger.

“Mind if I take it?” Ajax asked as he pulled out his bow.

“It’s all yours.” Trevor nodded

Ajax first fired an electric arrow much like he did with the imps only for it to bounce harmlessly off the gargoyle. Clearly the stone skin was too much for his arrows and his non enhanced strength to break through and the rocky texture was resistant to the electric effect as well.

His second shot was much more effective, despite it also bouncing off the ice mana froze a large enough patch to affect the wing causing the gargoyle to drop in an uncontrolled dive. The crash wasn’t enough to kill the gargoyle but it did crush one of its knees causing it to lose the leg. Ajax was quick to close the distance however and the gargoyle didn’t even get a chance to stand up before a metal infused hammer crushed its head completely.

With the gargoyle crumbling in front of him Ajax lowered his hammer as a wave of weakness traveled through him, a system notification opening in front of his eyes.

Curse of Weakness

Type : Temporary

Strength : Minor

Effect : Strength lowered by 10.

Cause : absorbing too much cursed mana

Duration : 1 hou