Despite not intending to enter the next floor through the gate Ajax still felt a small desire to go through it. He quickly crushed it down, it was only eight stat points in total and it wasn’t like he was losing them he would have plenty of time, until he reached level fifty or maybe even fifty-one to enter the next floor and still get the bonus.

As the team departed they started cutting a straight line through the desert with the rock formation at their back. It didn’t take them long to run into a few more packs of wandering camels and snakes but there was nothing that proved an issue. Their first quick rest stop came at the first oasis they found.

They didn’t even get a chance to start relaxing since the entire oasis seemed to be empty. None of them believed they were lucky enough to find a nice relaxing camping spot in the middle of the harsh desert so they were already on the lookout.

Fifteen minutes and a close inspection of the ground led to them finding nothing that would point out the existence of anything else in the vicinity. Even Ajax couldn’t find a trace of mana residue anywhere. For once it seemed like nothing was out to get them.

They rested there for half an hour after they made sure it was safe before they packed up and went to get back on their journey. As they traversed the oasis to the other side from where they had sat Ajax picked up on an oddity in the water. Unlike anything he had felt before from in the dungeon there seemed to be a distinct lack of mana formed in a small ball at the bottom of the water near the edge.

“We’ve got a resource in the water.” Ajax wasn’t the only one to notice, Nelly also picked up on it but seemed to know what it was. “Small, rounded shape, I think we’re looking at a pearl from the location.”

How a pearl would end up at the bottom of the water in an oasis was something Ajax didn’t question. It wasn’t that he found it odd so much that he had already had spent many days he now considered wasted with Hatchet drilling into his head that dungeon resources were based very loosely on environmental factors.

He had gone through every example he found in books to at least try and make an argument that something more than one or two real connections had to be present. He was however left at a loss when Hatchet asked him to explain how a coconut tree could appear by the river in a thicket of trees, all of this in a frozen tundra biome.

“I’ll go get it.” the happy scout offered and headed purposefully towards the water before turning his head sheepishly and asking. “A small hint of where to look?”

“Fifteen feet to your left and two feet into the water.” Nelly directed him while the rest also approached eagerly.

“WAIT!!!” Ajax yelled as he spotted something hidden between the trees, but alas he was too late as he heard the water splash from where the boot entered.

In his time learning with Hatchet he learned a lot in theory about what he could expect to find in a dungeon. Sure he still had massive gaps in his knowledge left specifically so he could gain a few discoveries but some rules had been drilled into him religiously.

The most superstitious of which being that nothing in the dungeon is ever free. This much more of a false conjecture since sometimes the dungeon did indeed happen to spawn unprotected resources that could be taken out but enough bad endings had everyone checking gift horses like trojan survivors.

That however was not what had him on edge now though. No, it was the small part of an arch that he had glimpsed through the trees that had him on edge. Unlike resources, arches always had a boss around them. Even if the boss wandered away they would have found some traces of it beforehand.

That was unless the boss was still here. All beast type monsters in a dungeon were known to be highly aggressive, in fact all entities that could be found in the dungeon were known to be highly aggressive except one. The sole exception was known to be aggressive, neutral, in non-boss cases even friendly.

It was too late however as the scout didn’t even get a chance to plant his foot properly in the water before getting dragged by the appendage towards the elemental forming from the water. Elementals were known to be an extreme rarity before level seventy, any found below that level in the dungeon would simply react like a killer plant.

Ajax wasn’t shocked by the appearance of the elemental like the rest of the group and had already tossed a rope around the scout’s torso like a lasso and pulled tight to stop him from getting sucked up inside the elemental to drown.

With the rope pulled taut, Ajax turned to call for help but didn’t manage to get a word out before Donny already had a hand on the rope and his feet planted. A single nod was all they needed thanks to [Cooperation] for Ajax to know he could let go and focus on his new task.

The rest of the team was only a split second behind Donny in snapping out of it. Bobby was already heading for the rope as everyone else gained some distance and took out lasso’s of their own to throw in case the first snapped. Rangers were seen taking out special arrows that they started applying an oil-like substance to.

The only exceptions were Nelly and Ajax. Nelly was casting a longer chant meant to freeze as much of the water as she could without catching the scout. Ajax, sdaly for the unlucky scout, had overlooked his presence as he drew back an arrow imbued with lightning. Unlike his usual arrows however, this one he tried to spread evenly throughout the arrow instead of focusing it in the head.

There were three ways to kill an elemental. The first was to separate them from their element and spread them thin, not something they could do with so much water here. The second was to introduce enough impurities into the element that would act like a poison, something like shoveling enough sand in to make a muddy mixture. This would be possible but the amount of time it would take would see their scout dead ten times over.

The third way was to introduce large amounts of foreign mana into the elemental body spread as evenly as possible. This would force the elemental to gather its mana into a core which while it would keep it stable will also give it a physical weak spot.

The lightning spread through the water in an instant, thankfully the rope wasn’t a conductor so it didn’t reach the people pulling. A moment later a good chunk of the elemental started to have a layer of ice form, crack and form again. The spell only managed to create a third layer before it ran out of power but that was enough as a core could be seen inside the mass of water that started to take the form of a blob somewhat resembling a human from the waist up.

The core lasted for all of two seconds once it had formed before three arrows that sliced through water much easier than they should have pierced it. Ajax didn’t know if the piercing power came from skills or something else like the oil they used but he didn’t sense any mana from them.

With the core destroyed and the elemental dead the water came crashing back down soaking all six of the melee fighters that had been struggling with the rope, not only that but with the opposing force gone in an instant the scout turned into a projectile flying over the heads of the people pulling and crash landing face first in the sand.

Ajax and the other ranged fighters were far enough away to avoid getting soaked but both him and Nelly were breathing heavily. His arrow had more than one thousand mana infused and he had done it as quickly as possible. Pulling that much mana so quickly left him feeling a little dizzy and from the looks of it Nelly was in the same situation.

“Everyone alright?” Jones asked,

A chorus of confirmations came from the rangers and melee, with Nelly and Ajax giving an exhausted nod and the scout a thumbs up while spitting out a mouthful of sand.

“Anyone want to say it?” Bobby asked, looking around at the team in shambles. “No? Fuck it, I’m going to then. JACKPOT!”

Nelly must have seen Ajax’s confused look as she pulled him aside to take a seat on the grass to both catch their breath and explain.

“Elementals are somewhat unique, as you seem to be already aware.” she said, her words hinting that she noticed he had realized what was happening before any of them.

“I noticed the arch.” Ajax responded as he pointed it out. “Only place we didn’t look was the water so an elemental was the only thing I could think of.”

She just nodded at his explanation after thinking for a second. “The reason they are so happy is because elementals can be very much hit or miss in terms of their worth. It very much matters what they are made of.”

“A rock elemental made out of gravel is pretty much worthless. One made out of marble will see every high level merchant in a hundred miles have their skills suggest a meeting with you despite never meeting you before in their lives.”

“Then why are they so happy it’s water?” Ajax asked.

“Because it's very high quality pure water. It's used in the creation of strong potions because it can handle more mana without destabilizing the rest of the ingredients.”

“I see” Ajax nodded as he continued to watch the rest of the team continue the collection.

Nobody made any comment about the two mages sitting this one out as they knew they needed a moment to catch their breaths. Instead they continued to filter the water with their equipment. They ended up with an entire barrel full of pure water which was a little on the low side but understandable considering the boss was still very weak for an elemental.

“At least I got the pearl.” the scout posed triumphantly, his disheveled appearance and soaked and sand covered clothes ruined the look sending the entire team into a laughing fit.