“It didn’t even look like it was close.” Quinn whispered as she stared in awe. It was one thing to know how strong someone was, and another to see it. While Quinn was technically more powerful than Ajax right now, he countered her abilities so much, that he would win in single combat against her.

“At least you could see it.” Nelly had barely gotten a glimpse of the fight, with her Perception, she had barely been able to track where the fight was taking place, [Sense Mana] did paint her a better picture, but she wasn’t used to relying on the Skill so much to understand a fight.

“That was something else.” Ajax said as he returned, unlike the fights with the other two Floor Bosses he had faced, he wasn’t hurt or even that low on Mana or Stamina. Latest content published on NoveI[F]ire.net

“You crushed it.” Bobby cheered. “I didn’t see it but the fight ended pretty quick.”

“It was adapting to my attacks, some of those adaptations aren't things I had even seen before.” Ajax said still a little troubled.

The way the chimera dealt with his Earth and Wind Mana was something Ajax was very much interested in learning if that was in any way possible. The ability seemed to work like a modified Domain, instead of simply empowering the user’s spells and weakening the opponent’s it acted more like law about who could cast spells and who couldn’t. Ajax could even feel it fighting him on his weapon augmentations but [Mana Augumentation] was strong enough to push it off.

“Did it give you the ability to adapt like that?” Ajax asked, he knew there was no way the boon would give them the same level of adaptation but even something close could mean a lot in the long term.

“Yes and no.” Jones answered as his eyes flickered between Ajax and the squad members.

“They are going to find out what the boons do anyway.” Ajax said as he waved away the question. “We simply don’t know enough about what gains are possible to keep them a secret from the crown.”

“If you say so.” Jones let out a sigh before his eyes unfocused as he brought up the notification explaining his new boon. “ The boon says that we now gain resistance to any form of damage at the moment we take it, and that the amount of resistance we gain is proportional to the damage we took from the attack.”

“So you can become immune to all forms of damage, eventually?” Patrick focused on the absurdity the boon could grant from the explanation.

“No.” Nelly shook her head. “Every instance of damage expires at a set time after we take the hit. Multiple attacks from the same type of damage would stack together, but they wouldn’t extend the duration of the first increased resistance.”

Ajax noticed how Nelly didn’t disclose the specific time it took for the resistance to expire, but if he was honest with himself, he actually preferred it this way. He had gotten over the paranoia of his youth, but as he thought back to the assassination attempt, he decided that it wasn’t paranoia if they were out to get him.

“That sounds like the most balanced boon yet.” the prince said, as he rubbed his chin in thought. “Ajax’s boon clearly favors hybrid fighters, mages would also get much better use out of it than physical fighters. The beholder was clearly mage focused. But the chimera seems to help everyone equally.”

“It is clearly a front liner boon.” Donnie said, as he raised his shield.

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“I don’t think so.” Ajax said as he shook his head. “Clearly front liners would be keeping it active most often, but from what you said, the resistance increase scales with the damage taken from the attack. That means that you would constantly be getting small increases, but one solid hit on caster, and their resistance from that one hit could be more than all of yours added up.”

“It’s a healer boon.” Nelly’s son was still a little shy, looking at the ground, his voice barely a whisper in the presence of so many powerful people, yet everyone focused on him. “So long as you can heal from the attack, you can keep gaining more instances of high resistance.”

“You’re right.” Ajax nodded with a reassuring smile to the healer.”I will talk with Kate when I get back, see if we can get another healer or two to join you guys when you delve, with more healers you might be able to push even deeper into the dungeons, your Skills would soar quickly with that kind of pressure.”

“No thanks.” Ajax was taken aback by Jones’s words, not nearly as much as the prince or the squad members present however. “That would be too risky, I know you push yourself like that but that simply isn’t us.”

“You-” Quinn didn’t get the chance to voice her thoughts on the matter before Ajax interrupted her.

“Yeah, sorry.” Ajax said. “In my excitement I forgot that not everyone pushes themselves in the same way I do and for good reason.”

“Can’t argue with your results.” The prince quickly lifted his hands in surrender, with a joking grin on his face, as Ajax turned to glare at him.

“I know I can count on you guys if I ever need it, but you won’t risk yourself just to push forward faster.” Ajax said. “That said, I still suggest you add another healer to your roster and get better acquainted with your boon, as soon as you return to Lessis.”

Ajax didn’t say it, but he could feel that something was coming, the way the beastkin kingdoms were making moves, as well as all the changes that were happening thanks to his Stat trick and dungeon delving. The next war might not come a year from now, if he was lucky, maybe not even a decade from now, but there would be a war within a century for sure.

“Patrick, take your squad and clear the floor.” the prince said as he started leading Ajax and the Collectors towards the entrance arch.

“What’s wrong?” Ajax asked.

“I suggest that you keep a tight lid on what the boon does.” The prince said as he looked towards the Collectors. “I’ll talk to my father and brother to make sure it doesn’t leak from us but it could attract a lot of attention.”

“Why?” Jones asked, as the leader of his team, he was doing his best to understand the political realities that they now dealt with as retainers of House Hearthbound.

“Because from the looks of things,] all boons are something that can be recreated with Skills.” The prince explained. “Ajax’s Stamina to Mana or Mana to Stamina conversion takes two Skills to do, the Epic version isn’t as efficient as what his boon grants him but his boon is stronger than yours because he killed the Floor Boss solo.”

“Does that mean that there are ways to attune your Mana pool to specific affinities with Skills?” Ajax asked, suddenly curious.

“Yes.” The prince nodded. “Most commonly it is done with a threshold selection when the Skill reaches level one hundred. Some mages who leveled the Skill slowly while only focusing on one affinity have seen it at the level fifty threshold but very few.”

“If it gets about what our boon does, they are going to want to observe it in action, to see if they can learn how to get a Skill that does something similar.” Ajax could clearly hear the tremor of fear in Jones' voice.

Ajax realized then that this is what the prince was also worried about. Ajax had planned to do something very similar by using [Meditation], to focus on how the chimera had adapted after every hit, in hopes of gleaning some insight about how to develop his own Skills. The one thing he hadn’t considered, was purposely harming any of the Collectors to watch the boon in action, in hopes of learning something, but he could see how some nobles would jump straight to that.

“Why wouldn’t they do that with the other boons then?” Ajax asked.

“Because the Skills to recreate the other boons were known.” the prince answered. “And not only are they hard to achieve, but the results are too specific. For mages to truly benefit from an aspected Mana pool, they would already be focusing mostly on one element, your resource transfer is mainly useful for hybrid fighters. But a defensive boon like theirs, everyone would want it.”

“More than that, there isn’t a Skill that I know of that works like theirs." the prince said with a sigh. “The closest we have are the resistance Skills. They however work more like the chimera, increasing resistance permanently after exposure.”

Ajax could see it, the boon the Collectors had gotten could turn a fight on its head. So long as they managed to recover after taking an attack, they would become more and more resistant to such attacks for the duration of the fight.

“Look on the bright side,” Ajax said with as much cheer as he could. “With this boon, you should have no problem clearing the third floor of the dungeon back in the duchy. Especially the environmental floors that were making you hesitate, should be more than manageable now.”

That seemed to pick up the mood as the collectors, Ajax and the prince exited the dungeon. The Collectors then headed towards House Manashaper’s estate while Ajax and the prince headed towards the royal palace.