Ajax P.O.V

All the wolves in the surrounding area were culled and all that was left were a few deer. I could feel the anticipation, wanting to see if there was a difference in the monsters outside and inside a dungeon. As soon as the scout came back and gave the all clear, Jones turned to me.

“Alright kid.” He nodded for me to drop the bags. “Lets see what you can do, there are four deer and three stags around here, go get them.”

I frowned at his words. With my perception and tracking skills I had been able to pick out eight of them.

“Aren’t there eight of them here?” I pointed out.

He frowned and turned back to the scout.

“One of the stag bosses is around, but he is further away.” he confirmed as he gave me an approving grin.

I didn’t want to hold anything back for my first hunt. As soon as I spotted the first stag I drew back the bow and aimed an arrow for its head. I had observed the rest of the team engage with the deer and stags and noticed that their skulls had decent defense but it was all one line, if anything made it past it would continue unobstructed.

I drew a deep breath as I infused both metal and magma mana into the arrow. If the metal can pierce the skull the magman will do the rest. I ignored the look the caster was giving me as soon as I started to infuse mana and released the arrow one I was sure of the target.

My shot hit its mark. Dead center of the head, between the antlers. The stag managed to make two steps before it fell down, dead. It was exactly like I had expected, the combination of my [Piercing Shot] and metal infused mana was enough to get through the skull and from there magma was enough to do the rest.

The Collectors seemed very surprised by the fact however. I suppose I could understand why, I had just killed something that had eight levels on me in one attack. If they tried to fight something that had a third of their levels on them, forget killing it in one shot they would most likely die.

“What was that mana?” The caster was the first to speak. “It felt like two different forces at work in that arrow, not only that but you didn’t use any incantation or runic marking.”

“I did tell you my fighting style is quite a bit different. It does come at a cost however, that shot cost more mana than you think.”

I wasn’t about to go into the details of how much mana I had and just used, nor was I going to tell them about all of the different mana affinities I had. Some of those were Epic, especially the two I had used. I knew rumors about me would spread when we parted ways and they went on to a different city but I couldn’t have my entire repertoire out there.

The stag didn’t have a mana stone so we moved on to the next. The next three were two deer and one stag and I downed each of them with a single arrow. This was enough for them to trust me enough to take them on in single melee combat.

As I approached the third deer I decided on using the sword and axe. I didn’t need the range of the spear of the hammer against them, maybe the stags will be a different story. I pumped a slow rate of [Mana Syphon] through me and dashed forward. I was still slower than all of the other team members with the exception of Nelly, their caster, but my mana enhanced body closed the difference.

The deer was truly unlike those on the outside, instead of trying to flee the moment I approached it reared up on its back legs and looked to hoof me with the front ones. Dodging wasn’t all that difficult as all the strikes were telegraphed and a sword slice to the throat combined with an axe to the head was enough to kill it.

I was honestly disappointed in the dungeon so far. Everything was so weak it posed no threat to me. Even [Judge Threat] told me that none of the creatures I saw were a danger to me unless I literally gave them a free shot.

The next deer and stag went very much the same way, this time with my hammer crushing the skull and my spear taking out the heart of the stag before it could get in range, this despite the antlers on its head. When I got to the final one I could see the difference. This was a boss.

It was a much larger stag, its antlers easily three times as big as the other we had seen. Not only that but [Judge Threat] marked it as a light threat, instead of as a non threat that it did with the rest.

Sadly this didn’t make much of a difference and my spear made short work of it. It was just not a challenge, with everything being so much weaker when compared to the fish or the bear I had killed previously.

Two of the guys got to work processing the stag once I finished it off. They had told me that all the bosses had a mana core and that meant their bodies could be taken outside the dungeon, those antlers especially could fetch a decent price.

“Hey kid” Bobby said as he walked towards, behind him Jones and a few others were looking on curiously. “How about we have a small spar?”

I understand now. They had come to the same conclusion I had, this floor posed no challenge to me or them so this was a way for them to test if they could take me to the second floor.

“Sure” I said, setting aside my axe, sword and spear. I needed the hammer for this considering all the armor he had on. We each took up a stance and stared each other down. I waited for him to make the first move.

As soon as he took a step I pumped [Mana Syphon] higher than I had so far. It wasn’t something I couldn’t maintain for a while but easily triple the strength I had used so far in the dungeon.

As it turned out that was a good choice as Bobby was upon me in short order. Despite my enhanced speed and power he was both faster and stronger than me. Not only that but it seems years of running the dungeon had helped him raise his skills to a much higher level.

The one saving grace was that he was used to fighting monsters and not humans. This meant that a few faints were enough to keep him from splitting me in two with his axe. I knew the average level of the team was forty-five, but I was sure Bobby was above the average and not below. He could probably have taken the bear on by himself.

I swapped strategies and doubled the mana I put in [Mana Syphon], not only that but I used my earth mana to trip him up. The move put him in the way of what had been a wide swing of my hammer. A hammer I infused with void mana to get past his pesky armor.

The amount of adrenaline running through me from just fending off the metal giant had almost made me take this too far. I intentionally bent my elbow to take some of the power out of the blow and had it connect with his liver instead of his heart.

“Guh” despite pulling the blow it was still quite the shot and enough to bring him down on one knee. That was where overconfidence got the better of me. Despite [Danger Sense] trying to warn me I couldn’t react in time as Bobby used the shaft of his ace to take out my feet from under me and place the edge at my neck once I landed on my back.

The spar hadn’t taken more than a minute but it had clearly impressed everyone else.

“That was quite something to see,” Jones said as they approached. “You were already much better than we expected when we first decided to accept you but this was really surprising.”

“More so than you think, boss” Bobby growled out, his tone bringing his voice much closer to that of his brother compared to his usual jolly self. “He pulled back on that last blow. Despite that I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a massive bruise on my right side.”

“What do you mean?” Jones sounded confused and the others also looked skeptically on.

“When he landed that last hammer blow it wasn’t as heavy as the other one he threw. That is nothing to do with strength behind it but if I was to guess he was using a different mana spell on his weapon. It made his blow bypass my armor.” Even now with one hand holding the axe, no longer at my neck thankfully, the other held his side. “If he hadn’t pulled back, the blow would have been much stronger and landed on my chest. I’m not sure I would have survived it.”

Those words brought forth a wave of aggression from everyone but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“Now that sure is something.” Oddly enough Donny was the one to break the tense atmosphere with a booming laugh, the first I had ever heard from the man. “A kid almost did you in.”

“I think we should just move on to the next floor.” the scout pointed out the smaller arch the stag boss had been guarding.

“We will, but we've done enough for today. Tomorrow we’ll use the obelisk to clear out the floor and the day after that we can head up to the second floor.” Jones said.