Chapter 186

Chapter 186

His theory that both the imps and the hellhounds sacrificed their stamina to turn it into curse mana had a solid basis, both when it came to this world as he saw the hell hounds getting tired a lot faster than any monster that level should after the amount of effort they put in, but also in terms of Earth knowledge as a lot of warlock tropes surrounded sacrifice for power, the only difference here was that the caster was also the one bearing the sacrifice.

With this hypothesis in mind Ajax was determined to sit out the next encounter as long as it was against imps or hellhounds and just observe in hopes of getting a better grip on his theory. This most likely wasn’t anything that hadn’t already been spotting but he wanted to work out his own theory before reading whatever else anybody else had already figured out to keep a fresh perspective and keep his Earth idea untainted.

As he was thinking about the curse mana theory however his work with leatherworking was finally showing his lack of skill levels. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t know how to make the gear, but as soon as he stopped making basic armor padding, the imp leather was getting too hard to shape into proper pieces, his bracers are the only piece of gear that came out right and they were simple circular pieces of leather. Even his pauldrons didn’t come out right and he was going for a light variant.

As he didn’t want to waste any more of the leather he had earned for himself just yet he took one final look out into the horizon and once he saw nothing he decided to go for another stint down in the mines and work on his mining skill a bit more.

Ideally he would be able to delve on his own for floors that were still at the same level as he was. He also knew that after floors passed the level one hundred points for their monsters their scaling changed but all that meant was that he had to work that much harder to make sure he could handle floors of his own level on his own.

Right now he probably would have had no issue taking the first floor of the Highlands by himself nor did he have any problem taking the Goldmine’s second floor on solo with the exception of maybe a few very bad matchups where he couldn’t properly hunt the monsters.

The issue with this was that the floors at this level weren’t worth a profit to solo. If he was to pay his way to getting a delve slot he had to make sure that he would be making a solid profit and for that to happen he needed to level and make use of the potions he could with his new stat increases.

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As he thought about it his biggest advantage and greatest weakness were both his mana. With [Syphon Mana] it meant that he had access to much higher stat levels that he should have even if it was only for a short period of time. His weakness therefore was if he should ever be left without any mana or unable to access it.

The clear solution to his issue was his curse theory. If he could figure out how the abyssal being managed to make use of curse man, even in its base form, it would provide him with an alternative from his reliance on his Legendary skill.

His day in the mine focusing on the curse mana inside the ore however proved useless. He did get a good workout from his mining skill but he was no closer to working out how to use curse mana for his own benefit than when he started.

From the looks of it curse mana instantly became attached to the first thing it came in contact with. When he tried to conjure it from his own mana pool it stuck to him and tried to convert the rest of his mana pool to curse mana. When the imps used it it melded with the fire mana to create the black flames. Finally when the hellhounds used it dispersed into the atmosphere when they missed but cursed the bite site when their fangs dug in. It was unlike any other mana type he had ever come in contact with and if he was to guess [Curse Mana Aspect] was definitely a Legendary if not even a Mythic level skill.

As he received his two hellhound skins Ajax decided to trade them both for a chance to get his weapons enchanted by one of the crafters once they got a change back on the outside. It wasn’t exactly a fair deal on either side: Ajax couldn’t make use of the two hellhounds skins he had earned due to a lack of skill but at the same time two hellhound skins were worth a lot more than a set of enchantments for a sword axe and hammer crafted from common steel.

It wasn’t until the fourth day of the expedition, as the mining vein was running dry that a massive attack formed of both imps and hellhounds stuck. Thankfully the imps were not only slow on the open fields but they also lacked camouflage giving the team ample time to get ready.

The surprise of the hellhounds was not something they were expecting but something that they could manage with the combatants at higher levels. Ajax was in the thick of it with the rest of the combatants but he kept a close eye on what both the imps and the hellhounds were doing.

Surprisingly it was the imps that finally gave it away as the fight drew to a close Ajax finally felt his slashed imbue curse mana into both sides of the flesh as he decapitated an imp. He had just gained the Epic skill [Cursed Slash].