Ajax had a lot to think about as he lay awake in his tent unable to get to sleep. The most painful thing for him was the wasted opportunity when it came to the seeds, if he had another cauldron he could have tried different ways of infusing part of the seeds since it didn’t matter how much waste there was as they would become worthless after the delve anyway.

His next biggest worry was just how useful was this Legendary mana aspect. Unlike his [Mana Syphon] that could passively boost his combat ability by leaps and bounds in the dungeon or against mages, Life affinity came with a cost. So long as he was using it to amplify his own healing the gains weren’t massive but there was some improvement.

When it came to actually creating life Ajax barely managed to create a ringer sized Earth golem for around fifty mana. That might sound impressive, and in terms of entertainment maybe it was, but this golem had the same strength to size ratio as a human meaning it could do almost nothing, more than that the life mana ran out in about a minute. He was clearly going to mold his future fighting style around this but the tournament was too close to make any large changes now.

For his two new Epic skills Ajax currently faced the same problem as with the seeds, he simply lacked the tools to try them. Unlike the seeds however both skills had clear pathways and both will have their moment to shine in the future.

One big upside to a Legendary mana aspect was that despite its rarity, because of its power it was almost a sure fact that it had been previously studied and the kingdom would be able to give him a starting point for it. WIth that positive thought Ajax finally fell asleep.

“What do you want for the three vials?” Anna wasted no time the following morning once Ajax was awake.

“You want to buy them?” Ajax sounded confused since there was no way Anna could do another floor even if she used a boosting potion and all three elixirs, the level difference would just be too big.

“I want to sell them for you.” Anna said. “This is a perfect opportunity to push my skills in a way that my father’s fortune won’t diminish the difficulty.”

“I see now.” Ajax caught on quickly. “I want my cauldron replaced once outside.”

Anna winced at the initial ask. The cauldron would be very expensive and just three elixirs that had to be used inside this delve would have trouble gathering such an amount. Once she thought about it a little more she smiled however as this would be the perfect challenge to push herself against future noble powerhouses.

“I’ll try my best.” Anna said as she took the three elixirs, she kept true to her father’s number one rule : ‘never promise unless you are sure you can deliver’.

While Anna got to work getting Ajax a deal on those elixirs he fully joined in the floor clearing effort. It came as almost no surprise that Xavier bought one of the elixirs very quickly and got his mini-boss kill out of the way, everything became a lot simpler when you had a lot more mana and stamina to burn.

As the floor was finally finished and Shadow was doing a final lap to make sure no seeds were missed, Ajax started on his new idea for using the seeds. Without a cauldron to somewhat control the release of mana and without the ingredients to soak up the initial release the seeds were going to become unstable almost as soon as their protective film broke.

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Without anything to lose Ajax simply stood on the edge of the tree next to the regular earth water wind and light arch Ajax had identified as a good option for a regular floor. From there he would break open the seeds and then use both [Mana Syphon] and [Manipulate Mana] in hopes of delaying the explosion. For the first seed Ajax had only held on to it for two seconds after opening it up before he dropped it off the tree where it exploded and released a potent wave of Life and plant mana.

Despite Ajax trying his best to get a feel for the plant mana he could only barely feel it as an afterthought after the seed detonated, he couldn’t get so much as a hint of it while the seed was in his hands. Ajax theorized that this was because the plant mana was in the core of the seed. By the time he got to the twentieth seed his time had improved considerably from two seconds all the way to seven.

“Are you seeing any results?” Both the prince and Lexi got close after he dropped his latest seed.

“Not much,” Ajax admitted. “ The first time I was able to keep a hold of it and direct the mana for a lot longer, doing this seems almost pointless in comparison. The only reason my time increased so much is because I am working out a puzzle on how the seed tries to explode and I patch it up for a bit first.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?” Lexi asked.

“I thought about giving it up after the third one.” Ajax explained. “But then I realized that it was affecting me.”

“Affecting you how?” Both the prince and Lexi stepped closer.

“You both know how I discovered curse mana.” Ajax went off on a tangent instead. “I was constantly siphoning it from the air until it built up inside me.”

“Are you trying to do that with plant mana?” Lexi sounded worried. “You should really stop, unlike curse mana, plant mana has a very real physical element: you could be growing things inside your own muscles.” Of course she had insight into plant mana, Ajax made a small mental note to bring Lexi in on the experiments with life mana from the start.

“It’s not the plant mana.” Ajax said. “That’s too deep inside the seed, it only comes out when it explodes.”

“Then, the life mana?” Lexi gasped a little since she knew that was a Legendary mana type.

“Then you should definitely stop.” the prince chimed in. “Unlike curse mana, life mana won’t poison you but it also won’t go away. You’ll keep gathering more and more until you explode just like a seed.”

“That’s what I also thought would happen until just before I dropped the third seed.” Ajax nodded.

“What changed?” The prince threw up a privacy veil seeing that Ajax had no intention of stopping messing with the seeds.

“If I was absorbing the mana like I usually do in a fight that might be the result.” Ajax continued. “But just like with the gates I can pull the mana a lot better if I have direct contact with what I am siphoning. This also changes the entrance point so that all the mana enters my body through my hands.”

“That would be too much for you.” Lexi said with confidence as she had been training with him for years now. “I felt how much mana you are pulling your channels can’t hold up against that much.”

“No they can’t.” Ajax agreed. “But they also wouldn’t just burst, since the mana is still being spread throughout my body it's just moving around my body slower than I bring it in my channels it just forms cracks.”

“That might be a good way to reinforce your channels but you are doing too much too quickly.” Lexi said as she took his hands in hers.

“No he isn’t.” the prince said as he looked towards Ajax with an odd look that bordered on admiration. “The life mana does nothing to him because he is in perfect health, if his channels crack the life mana would then start working to repair those cracks.”

“You’re increasing the strain your hands can take when charging mana!” Lexi exclaimed, she even covered her mouth after the shout in embarrassment and looked around to see if anyone heard her, forgetting completely about the privacy barrier.

“That will certainly help in the tournament.” the prince chuckled. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Yeah, more cauldrons.” Ajax said a little dejectedly. “While this might still be useful it is still a waste compared to what I could have used them for. Also Lexi after you exit the dungeon on the next floor see what you can gather for me on life mana.”

This last piece of information causes both Lexi’s and the prince’s jaws to drop. Lexi was the first to recover as Ajax caught her in a hug and a kiss as she excitedly cheered “You got a Legendary mana aspect. I’ll see what I can find, though grandfather always complained that it was very mana intensive to try anything other than healing with it.”

“This certainly explains the look on your face after the cauldron exploded.” with that the prince dropped the silence barrier as they all moved to join the other as they made their way to the next floor. Ajax still kept hold of about ten more useless seeds since he could play with them anytime before he left the dungeon.