Chapter 579
Ajax didn’t get a moment to celebrate his successful shadow jump as he felt a burning pain shoot up from his leg. While his shadow jump had been successful it had also thrown Ajax outside of the shadow he jumped to leaving him open, more than that HelSotHein hardly seemed surprised by his move and reacted quickly enough that one of the heads sunk its teeth into Ajax’s leg.
With the teeth puncturing his armor and cutting into his flesh Ajax couldn’t risk using Lightning Mana, he was so close the palace ruins were less than a hundred yards away from him so he wasn’t going to give up.
While Magma Mana wasn’t something Ajax usually used with his [Mana Conjuration] during battle this was because it was Mana intensive to create magma and the high density fluid was hard to use effectively, it was much easier to wield it with [Mana Augmentation]. Right now Ajax was thanking Lexi who had encouraged him to practice [Mana Conjuration] with the element as he instinctively summoned a sizable chunk from his leg and let it drip into one of HelSotHein’s mouths.
The effect was exactly what he was looking for as the jaw unlatched as the head started spitting out the molten rock but Ajax wasn’t worried about that, instead he flooded his leg with Life Mana to counteract the poison and launched himself towards the palace ruins.
[Danger Sense] flared so powerfully at that moment and Ajax could barely see why. HelSotHein had put its entire body into a tail whip, more than that Ajax could feel the boosting Skill working through its body and its output was stronger than even [Mana Syphon] offered him.
Ajax quickly let go of the Life Mana he was pushing into his leg and focused on both [Telekinesis] as well as Gravity Mana to help him dodge the attack. Unlike previously [Telekinesis] had a hard time getting any traction, HelSotHein was expecting it now but the added pressure from Gravity Mana was still enough to cause its leg to buckle, knocking off its aim.
That wasn’t enough to cause the tail whip to miss but it was enough to lower the power considerably, even with that Ajax still braced his shield and used Vibration Mana in hopes of lowering the impact further.
Once the blow connected Ajax could feel his shield dent as he was sent flying for a second time during the short chase. His plan worked out decently well the blow had connected at the point he had been aiming for, what he hadn’t planned for was the bone in his forearm snapping changing the angle he was sent flying at. In a last ditch effort to win Ajax focused on [Telekinesis] to alter his own direction, [Pain Resistance] was working in conjunction with the adrenaline pumping through his body to let him focus through the pain.
For the first time Ajax felt his [Telekinesis] work more in line with his input of force rather than fully pushing out its maximum power, that change in trajectory was enough for Ajax to send his body crashing through one of the few remaining windows of the ruin.
On solid ground once again Ajax was already getting up when [Danger Sense] flared for a brief moment before it vanished.
“You made it.” HelSotHein’s voice was excited despite apparently losing. “I wasn’t expecting that. I guess you win.”
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Ajax didn’t even try to stand anymore and sat down where he could start treating his injuries. He hadn’t been sure about it from the start but after about halfway through the chase he had gotten a pretty good idea but this last exchange had confirmed it for him. HelSotHein was really looking at this as a game and wasn’t actually trying to kill him, the only life threatening attack had been that final tail swipe.
“Sorry about the magma.” Ajax offered as he flooded his body with healing magic. Ajax could tell the attack was a reflex in response to actually getting hurt. While even its own blast hadn’t really done that much damage to HelSotHein, having magma poured into its mouth was clearly enough to do some real damage.
“Not at all.” The hydra waved away his apology. “It's a good lesson for me to never underestimate my opponent. Though I have to say you are extremely versatile, has there been a change in humanoid learning? I was taught that your kind don’t have such versatility when learning magic, choosing instead to focus on a few elements.”
“I’m something of a special case though there are some human mages who go for versatility they are usually all in on Mental stats.” Ajax had no issue explaining some generalities for the hydra, he had so much he could learn just from this chase, and that was if he wasn’t counting the breakthroughs he had in terms of his shadow jump and [Telekinesis]. “How do you move around this place so quickly without crushing everything? I felt the weight behind that last blow so you should have flattened most of the ruins.”
“[Reinforced Foothold].” HelSotHein answered, Ajax was surprised to see the hydra be so specific with its own Skills. “Handy Epic Skill though it has been getting more and more Mana intensive as I’ve grown bigger. Now then a deal is a deal, you won so you are free to go through the library to see if you can find anything interesting you may want to learn.”
“Thank’s for not biting me on the ribs.” Ajax answered back, looking back he could tell that HelSotHein had purposely gone for his leg despite having to angle to snake its head between his arm and his leg and get a good chunk of his ribs and chest.
“I wasn’t sure how well you’d be able to handle my poison and I didn’t want to kill you.” Sot explained. “Hein’s poison is quite specific, I have to say I am impressed you are able to get through the pain, especially considering how quickly you are purging it.”
Ajax welcomed the distraction as he latched on to the obvious conclusion. “Each of your heads has a different poison? That’s awesome!" The last part he could only get out through gritted teeth as he could feel his entire leg was now on fire. It didn’t take long to figure out that while Hein’s poison was strong it wasn’t particularly resistant and he had an easy time flushing it out. The one problem it did have was that the poison somehow seemed to fuse with his blood in such a way that purging it with Life or Light Mana meant he was stripping away his own [Pain Resistance].
Seeing that HelSotHein wasn’t willing to expand on his capabilities Ajax took the hint and dropped the conversation as he limped his way into the library, he wasn’t sure if the half hour time had started just yet but he wasn’t willing to waste any time if it had.
Despite the pain radiating from his leg Ajax was quite happy with the results of the race. Even if HelSotHein hadn’t really been trying to kill him, the difference in their strengths and the direct competition was enough to put a lot of pressure on Ajax, so much so that he had gained enough experience to level up. Tempted as he was to spend those Free Stat Points to help his healing along he chose to power through it instead.
The moment he got his hands on the books Ajax was swerving through the shelves trying to find the crafting section. It stood to reason that this would have been the royal library so Ajax was sure he would be able to find some secret Alchemy recipes, enchantments or rune designs.
The first section he found was the alchemy section, unfortunately most of the section was housed under one of the holes in the ceiling. Over the years the weather had destroyed almost the entire section but Ajax only spent a second lamenting the loss before he moved on to the enchanting and runic section that still seemed to have some fragile looking but still whole books.
Over the next half hour Ajax could feel his [Drawing], [Writing], [Reading] and [Cataloging] Skills all grow. It wasn’t easy, the time pressure along with the pain he was in made it all the harder to read through the books, find the valuable information in a discipline he had barely looked over before and accurately copy it in his own notebook.
Thirty minutes later HelSotHein still hadn’t said anything but Ajax didn’t wait to be asked to leave. He didn’t want to leave a bad impression on the hydra so he exited the library on his own and looked to see where his host had gone off to. Now that he was feeling better he wanted to offer the hydra some healing for the burns he caused and while he was doing that he could ask it for any information about the dungeons he would be heading towards.