“If that was the most stable recipe you know how do you explain the cauldron exploding?” the prince asked more than a little annoyed at Ajax’s vacant stare.

Ajax didn’t even hear the prince’s follow up question as his eyes were locked to the change in his status screen. [Sense Mana] grew by four levels, [Expel Mana] grew by three, [Manipulate Mana] Grew by three, [Alchemy] grew by a whopping six levels, [Mana Syphon] grew by two, [Danger sense] grew only by one. But these were just the tip of the iceberg.

The meat of his reward were two Epic skills [Reckless Researcher] and [Unstable Alchemist], while the first one would prove hard to level and won’t show massive benefits in the short term it was something to consider for the long term and his future in alchemy once he started getting access to ingredients others simply couldn’t get because of the difficulty required.

His second Epic skill on the other hand was one that was bound to prove useful and see a lot of use straight out the gate. Almost all crafting done with substituted ingredients or inside the dungeon was inherently unstable and the more substitutions made and the deeper you delved the more unstable things got. Ajax would be ecstatic with the gains he sacrificed his cauldron for if this was the end of it. But there was still the crown jewel.

[Life Aspect Mana]. His first Legendary mana aspect. Ajax had felt the life mana as tried to syphon away as much as he could, not only that but with his senses trained on the mixture he got to see it in action as all of the ingredients slowly absorbed the infusion of life mana. Despite having no previous knowledge on this type of mana from his previous life Ajax felt that he had a solid foundation on which to start exploring the latest addition to his arsenal.

As great as life aspect mana was Ajax had also gotten a clear showing in why it won’t do much to increase his combat capacity in the short term. The short answer was his mana pool simply couldn’t support it, sure he might be able to create a few short lived elementals by combining his life mana with his other aspects but the amount of mana he had couldn’t create anything truly threatening at a moments notice.

In terms of his Alchemy and to a certain extent beekeeping however the sky was the limit. His daydream was unfortunately cut short rather abruptly by a sharp hit to the back of the head. “Did you hear me?” the irate prince asked his face two inches away from Ajax’s own.

“What? No! Oh… sorry.” Ajax started startled and ended with a sheepish apology. “ Can you repeat the question?”

“I asked : If that was the most stable recipe you know how do you explain the cauldron exploding?” The prince took a deep breath to calm down.

“The seed had too much mana.” Ajax said as he replayed and reviewed the brewing process. “Everything was going fine at the start, the problems started once the ingredients couldn’t accept any more from the seed, it had nowhere to go except for … out.”

“I hope this teaches you a lesson about being more careful in the future.” Lexi said as she started examining him for injuries. Ajax could guess how guilty he must have looked from the way Lexi’s expression changed the moment she looked at his face. “Of course you didn’t learn anything from it, because why would you?”

“I wouldn’t say that’s an accurate assumption.” Shadow spoke as he brought the shard of cauldron to Ajax. “If I were to guess I would say that the gains he made from this… experience would actually tempt him into doing it again rather than staying away.”

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Lexi felt a shiver run down her back at that and her eyebrows scrunched up as she scrutinized Ajax’s face more closely. “Oh god! I think you’re right, if he could he’d absolutely do it again.”

The words washed over Ajax like a bucket of ice water, not just because he wasted the expensive cauldron but because he now no longer had a cauldron to experiment with any other seeds he had collected.

“Does anyone happen to have a cauldron they would be willing to sell to me?” Ajax asked, he wasn’t shameless enough to only ask to borrow one as he knew very well that anything he might try to brew with a seed would end up exactly the same as this attempt, the sheer practice of using the seed was invaluable however.

“They don’t.” the prince said. “You’re not only the only alchemist here but also the only dungeon crafter, so nobody would have spare tools for you, even if they would be willing to let you break them.”

Ajax had the good sense to look a little embarrassed at those words but he didn’t deny anything, instead he nodded as he made his way to inspect what was left of his cauldron. It was a testament to just how well made the his cauldron had been made when he found the entire one third of it still in one piece. More importantly however there was liquid still inside it.

The batch he tried to create should have resulted into thirty potions. What little was left in the remains of his cauldron could barely fill up three potion flasks but even that was more than enough for him. [Inspector’s Eye] and [Alchemist’s Examination] told him exactly why his skills had grown so much. Spectacular elixir of rejuvenation - level 55.

Ajax had studied for years and even after all that training the best he had been able to create was Major potion. In the racking it went minor, lesser, plain, superior, major, greater, excellent, spectacular and flawless. His personal best had skipped greater and excellent and landed all the way at spectacular. He knew that his skill had nothing to do with this and that it was the overflow of mana but it was still technically his creation.

More importantly however was the reason why his creation was Spectacular, like all other Spectacular creations it had a unique attribute courtesy of the method in which it was created, for his elixir that was something his skills told him was overgrowth. His elixir wouldn’t trigger the usual potion restriction, this meant that he could empty his mana out four times in a row since he could down them one after another. It was such a shame they couldn’t be brought out of the dungeon for they would definitely have been useful for the tournament.

“Hey Xavier.” Ajax called out as he started carefully recovering the small amount of liquid inside the ruins of his cauldron. “I think I have a solution for your fight tomorrow.”

“You want me to drink something that not only exploded but did so in a violent enough manner as to tear apart a cauldron created for dungeon crafting?” Xavier asked skeptically. “Did you by any chance hit your head when you jumped away from the explosion.”

“He didn’t, I checked.” Lexi cut in. Unlike the prince she had full faith in Ajax’s assessment. “How good are they?”

“They’re my first spectacular creation.” Ajax said with pride.

“Spectacular!” Lexi cheered. “That’s like three whole tiers better than your previous best!”

“What is the extra effect?” Anna asked she also closed in to congratulate Ajax. A born merchant she knew very well that while all Spectacular creations were valuable, certain effects were simply better than others.

“Overgrowth.” Ajax answered.

Most people didn’t react, it was a rare effect, one exclusive to alchemy so it was normal that even most of the elite nobles wouldn’t know of it. The prince and Shadow however joined Anna in widening their eyes and locking their sight on the vials.

“Those elixirs… they don’t trigger the… potion cooldown.” Anna said mechanically before she recovered. “It’s too bad you can’t take them outside but I still think they would go for a fair amount even here.”

While the rest of the nobles might not know what overgrowth was they all knew exactly what having a refill of their stamina and mana could mean inside the dungeon. Those three little vials could make the difference in whether they cleared an extra floor or not.

“Thank you so much for the offer Ajax.” Xavier quickly turned around on his previous stance.

“I thought you didn’t want to drink my explosives.” Ajax threw him a shit eating grin.

“That was just a joke, how could I insult you like that?” Xavier didn’t even stumble showing his social skills as he went with the flow.

“You can peddle your ware tomorrow for now all of us need to get some sleep. We have the rest of the floor to clear and the rest of the delve to follow it.” the prince said as he waved everyone back towards their tents. “We’ll discuss the gains you made from this after the dungeon.”

Ajax nodded to the second part that was whispered only to him. He had followed along with the prince and quickly moved the conversation away from his gains. Unlike before he didn’t fear discussing his newly gained skill with the royal family or even his friends, that didn;t mean that he was willing to go yelling about his new Legendary skill however.