Gamer Reborn

Chapter 454

“Are they beastkin?” Lexi asked a little confused as she saw the Aztec warriors with war paint and feathered helmets charge down the street towards them.

“No.” Ajax said before he sprung into action, level fifty combatants barely qualified as a threat to Lexi, Anna and Xavier so Ajax had no issue wiping out the small patrol.

“This has to be the weirdest sword design I have ever seen.” Xavier said as he picked up the macuahuitl, “Or is it a hammer, maybe an odd axe?”

“It’s a club.” Ajax provided.

“Isn’t that the same thing as a hammer?” Oliver asked.

“A club has the weight more evenly distributed across the length of the weapon, makes it less useful against a heavy armor but it’s easier to maneuver and deals decent damage even if the end of the weapon isn’t the part that makes contact.” Ajax explained. “Clubs are also usually longer than hammers because they don’t have all the weight on the end.”

“It’s still a bad weapon.” Lexi said as she examined the weapons. “All of these seem of bad quality.”

“That’s because they are old.” Ajax answered.

“What do you mean old?” Anna asked.

“Why?” Lexi asked. “None of us should have a problem on this floor, its why we risked the odd mana distribution.”

“Something that pays off really well if we find a way to grab a wall and take it with us.” Anna said.

“You should be careful because we came from people like this” Ajax explained “If they managed to survive and develop ways to melt metal and forge it it means they had ways to fight off threats, I’m guessing that means magic. Could be a good chance to learn something new.”

Ajax really hoped none of them could tell how nervous he was. Sure everything he said was technically true from what he knew about the Aztecs origin, as for the magic part he was mostly guessing that the System would make the old Aztec magic rituals adapt for use in their world. If that happened like it did with the blasters from the futuristic space floor it should happen here as well. @@novelbin@@

“What about the gold?” Anna asked as she noticed Xavier and Lexi be instantly excited by the possibility of any new magic.

“I’m hoping the temple has larger statues, golems that we can fight.” Ajax said as he pointed to the statue of a jaguar placed on a nearby street. “The bigger the better.” Ajax’s eyes also shone with a hint of greed that put a smile on Anna’s face.

“What are you doing with that?” Xavier asked as Ajax quickly moved and ripped the closest doorway off its hinges before stuffing it into his spacial ring.

“Experiments.” Ajax answered. “Lots of materials have unknown uses but how often can you play around with gold to see if something happens in alchemy.”

“I now see why you brought four storage rings with you.” Oliver says as he watches Ajax pull a second door loose.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As they ventured deeper into the city the group started to head straight for the temple. “Why are we going there and not just heading for the next floor?” Oliver asked. 𝘳𝙖ΝốΒÊⱾ

That put the group in a bit of a pickle. Ajax didn’t want to share his ability with Oliver, while they trusted him not to do anything stupid like trying to kill Anna again they didn’t trust him to keep his mouth shut in the long term, so far he hadn’t been there to see Ajax loot the corpse of whatever he killed on the previous floors.

“Because it's a temple made of gold.” the way Xavier said that made it sound like Oliver was the unreasonable one for not wanting to go see it.

“Also they might have some old runes carved there for protection, my grandfather would love those.” Lexi also brought her own support.

For the next half an hour the group covered a good amount of distance towards the temple, they encountered another two patrols but just like the first one these were simple physical warriors with odd weapons that Ajax had no issue wiping out. He had even intentionally played around with one of them to see if they could do something else but nothing came of it.

This changed when they ran into the fourth patrol. Like the previous three patrols this was a seven man group but only six of them were purely physical fighters. Ajax was the first to feel it but as he wiped out the first six with practiced ease Ajax felt the mana gather around the seventh member.

“He’s doing something.” Lexi said with excitement.

“Cuauhtli tlahtoani, tlahuizcalpanecatl,

In chīchīltik tlapāni,

Huey teotl mitoa, iuhqui tonameyotl.”

The warrior chanted without taking his eyes off the group, he clearly seemed confused as to why they didn’t just attack him but he continued his chant.

“That’s a really impractical chant.” Lexi said as she looked on with curiosity. “It even rivals some of the longest combat casts I know of and all mages who use those often end up dead because of messing up the chant mid combat.”

Tēcuani tzonpantli,

In tlāltikpak ohuaya ohuaya!

Xochitl, yaoyotl, in Cuauhtli icuic!”

As the warrior got close to the end Ajax notices he pulled out a more ornate knife, slashed his palm open before retrieving something that looked alarmingly like the heart of an animal and a mana core. The warrior stacked the items on the ground before dripping his blood over them and finally stabbing the knife down crushing the mana core and piercing the heart.

“Kreeeeeee-ahh!” Nobody knew where the high pitched eagle cry came from but they were all lucky Ajax was so much stronger than the level fifties. The moment of confusion caused by the cry of the eagle was all the warrior needed to charge towards them. Ajax could feel the mana infusing the warrior with power.

No longer did it move like a level fifty, it now moved more like a level seventy. Ajax could feel using his [Sense Mana] how the mana infused the warriors body. It worked totally differently that how [Mana Syphon] raised his own physical strength. Ajax made sure not to drain the warrior’s spell of mana as he moved to clash with him.

Even with the power boost there was still no threat to Ajax. The battle between the two of them looked more like a spar between a child and their teacher as Ajax put the warrior through his paces. It was less than a minute later when the effects of the enhancement began to fail, but not because of lack of mana.

“That’s just wrong.” Oliver said as he watched the warrior’s bicep burst in a shower of blood when Ajax pressed into his parry trying to see just how much strength he could handle.

The warrior’s knee was the next to go, snapping as he tried to pivot quickly enough to hit Ajax from the side with a surprise attack. It was all of nought as Ajax had no problem keeping up and blocking the strike. The fight ended when Ajax delivered a rather light kick to the mans ribs looking to make a bit of distance but he felt the ribs snap sending the warrior to the floor. The man’s chest now looked horrifying, despite no bones having broken the skin Ajax could tell how the snapped fragments were now poking at odd angles.

It took another five seconds of the man screaming on the ground before the magic empowering finally ran its course. With his curiosity satisfied Ajax felt there was no need to let the man suffer and he put him out of his misery by taking the head clean off.

“I’ve never even heard of a sacrifice spell like that.” Lexi said as she looked at the man’s body. “But that spell could be something very useful.”

“Useful?” Anna asked with a raised eyebrow as she took in the ravaged body of the warrior, most of the damage had been self inflicted by the man pushing his body too far with the use of the boosting spell.

“What are those items?” Lexi answered Anna’s question with her own as she pointed to the small pile a few ways off where the knife stood impaled into the heart with four shattered pieces of a mana core strewn around them.

“Heart of an eagle, around level forty eight, it’s mana core too.” Anna answered.

“The items had too much power for his body.” Lexi explained “The spell would work much better with lower level reagents, though the duration leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I don’t see how this is useful. Mages have weak and frail bodies, we wouldn’t be able to handle anything that would give us a worthwhile boost.” Oliver pointed out.

“It wouldn’t work for me either.” Ajax said as he finished putting his thoughts on the magic together, I am already pushing my body with my boosting skill stacking another one on top that pays no regard to the damage will hurt more than help.”

“But it would be great for Benedict.” Lexi said with a smile. “While he can use mana he is fully focused on physical fighting, he may have used a bit of mana to start the spell but there was no continuous cost. I bet it would work pretty well for hybrid fighters too.”

“It seems like a good last resort to have.” Xavier joined in now intrigued by the possibilities. “Shame the cost seems pretty high, that heart also seemed fresh so getting the sacrificial reagents will not be easy or easily available.”

“Let’s keep going to see if we can find another.” Ajax said. “Never a good idea to draw a conclusion from a single example.”