Gamer Reborn

Chapter 360

As soon as the meeting between the elven king, Aranor and the prince was over the convoy started to move. Both Aranor and the prince joined the rest of the delve group but both went straight to sleep after the long hours they spent awake.

Having nothing better to do after he finished draining his mana into his Alchemy ingredients yet again Ajax quilt got to work on making a checkers board. He planned on introducing chess as well but for starters checkers was much more relaxing and easier to understand.

“Does this mean I win?” Anna asked with an innocent voice after doing a ten jump move to eliminate all of Ajax’s pieces.

After having completed his game board Ajax taught Lexi the game and proceeded to play and win three games as she learned to play, Anna had been watching them all that time and decided to give it a go after Lexi’s third loss.

“Yes…” Ajax whispered still a little in shock at how quickly he lost his competitive edge. A little defeated by losing to someone playing for the first time. Ajax relinquished his place and let others attempt to beat Anna.

It wasn’t all that surprising to find that Benedict was at the same level as Anna, games between the two of them always ending way before anyone lost all their pieces as they surrendered a game they knew was lost.

As the prince woke up he took a curious look at what Xavier and Arianwyn were playing before he dragged Ajax to another carriage for a private talk.

“Okay, this is important.” the prince said as he activated a number of privacy items. “First of all, you can recognise floors with humanoids on them?” the prince asked.

“Yes.” Ajax didn’t know why that was so important. “Most of them anyways.”

“Okay…” the prince let out a long sigh. “Do you know what that mana type is? More importantly if you pick it up do you think you could use it and Life mana to create people?”

Now Ajax saw why the need for secrecy. It wasn’t even that much of a leap to make but Ajax only knew the answer to one of those questions. “No idea what mana type it is.” Ajax answered honestly. “I also don’t know if it could be used together with Life mana to create new people.”

“If you don’t know what type of mana it is how do you know that humanoids were on that level?” the prince asked.

“Because humanoids have a specific mana type, in fact if you look into it deep enough you can probably find the specific combination for any creature on any floor.” Ajax explained. “On a low enough floor with enough time to experiment I think I might be able to even pin down what type of humanoid there is.”

“Why only humanoids?” the prince asked.

“For the same reason I can only tell that some floors have humanoids.” Ajax explained. “Specifically the ones where you can only find humanoids.”

“What if there is something else as well?” the prince asked.

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“Depending on how varied the something else is and how low the floor I might still be able to tell but definitely not on a high floor.” Ajax said. “One thing humanoids have in common both in the dungeon and outside of it is that they don’t allow anything else of equivalent power to live amongst them.”

“We do.” the prince said as he thought about a few specific bonds that even he kept his guard up around.

“One or two examples maybe, but not another species as a whole.” Ajax acknowledged. “We take over the entire ecosystem and have it rebuilt with us on top. The floors that have humanoids but also have something else are floors that have all of the rest of the monsters living on a separate part of the floor from the humanoids. With that little diversity I managed to learn and recognise the mana type that means humanoids are there since it is so exclusionary. Took hundreds of delves to do it as well.”

The prince took a moment to think on Ajax’s answer. He thought back to the thousands of delves he had done in his long life and while he could remember one or two examples that were different from Ajax’s statements but they were more the exception to the rule.

“Okay, good.” The prince lost his serious demeanor and the cheeky smirk he usually sported was back. “We can go back to the others now, when you get stronger however I want you to lead me to a few of these high end humanoid floors, I want to see just how good the weapons the dungeon can come up with are.”

Considering that if you wanted to find a weapon in the dungeon it had to be one that was wielded by a dungeon humanoid Ajax realized that his ability to identify humanoid floors was a lot more valuable than any other single floor type. What need would you have for high quality materials if you could already grab the finished item directly.

“There is something I wanted to ask you about.” Ajax said as the prince started to take down the privacy items.

“Oh? What’s that?” the prince asked.

Ajax spent the next few minutes explaining the choice that he had to make in regards to [Inject Mana]. His crossroads choice of increasing his combat power now and giving his Life mana a chance to become much more of a centerpiece in his planned ambushes or defensive holdouts.

“That’s a good question.” the prince said after Ajax finished explaining. “It’s also one that possibly has a correct answer however. What level is your [Mana Augmentation]?”

“Why does that matter?” Ajax asked, while he had been more open about his skills, giving out the exact level of his combat skills was not something he was willing.

“Because [Inject Mana] has become a feeder skill in terms of your combat.” The prince answered, not pushing to find the exact level. “Once you upgrade [Mana Augmentation] , taking the short term upgrade for [Inject Mana] will be almost inconsequential. Threshold upgrades stack if the skills are of the same rarity but in similar upgrades from different ranks, the lower skill makes almost no difference.”

Ajax nodded as he took in the information. [Mana Augmentation] was almost at level fifty. Given that Ajax couldn't help but agree with the prince that there was a correct answer. With that thought he finalized the selection and [Inject Mana] leveled to fifty-one with the long term efficiency upgrade.

“Not for nothing but I think you should definitely go with the long term upgrade.” the prince continued, not knowing Ajax had just done that.

“Why’s that?” Ajax asked.

“Because after you get back from running the Empire’s dungeon you will be named a Duke.” the prince said. “Even with the help you will receive early on you will still need to stand on your own two feet eventually, with your spreading reputation that will be sooner than later. I can’t think of anything making a better statement that your house is not to be fucked with that having the first people who dare attack your estate crushed by a giant golem created from Life mana. Or maybe an entire squad of just large golems? Or maybe both, a small squad with a large commander.”

Ajax found himself very much in agreement with the prince there. Every nobles estate had the usual defensive enchantments but his family deserved the best, of course he would create a ritual for Life mana to create protectors for his own estate. This was made even easier by the fact that all his ritual would have to do is store large amounts of his mana that he would then direct when activating and creating the defenders.

“Thanks.” Ajax said as he nodded towards the prince who finished taking down the privacy equipment.

With that the two of them returned back to the main carriage where they found an odd sight. Anna, Elara, Benedict and Arianwyn were all huddled together on one side of the checkers board discussing in hushed whispers. On the other side Aranor was sitting in a relaxed posture not looking all that interested in the game.

“What’s going on?” Ajax asked Lexi.

“Aranor started playing and he beat everyone.” Lexi answered him as Benedict finished the discussion and reached out to move a piece. As soon as the move was finished Aranor instantly made his own move. “It’s always like that he takes almost no time to answer any move.”

Ajax looked at the old elf in a new light. He knew that the game of checkers had technically been proven as solved back on Earth, but it had taken a team of people working with AI computers sixteen years to prove it. Was it possible that the elven champion could do something similar regarding the board state? Could he possibly think that many moves in advance?

Ajax wasn’t sure if that was the case but he was suddenly a lot more wary of ever taking part in a war where the elven champion would be on the other side.