Gamer Reborn

Chapter 502

Ajax decided that his family was right. He was pushing himself a little too hard, and there was no reason for it. If there was a close timeline he needed to follow then maybe it would have been worth it but as things stood Ajax could take his time.

His decision for this was to split his training. Instead of his regular Skills training and his ettin staff training he would focus each day on one or the other. This led to a rather big discovery.

With the extra Mana and Stamina saved from not doing solo training before training with the staff Ajax added some of his own Mana and Stamina to the spell cast through the staff. The results were way beyond what he had expected. Despite his own contribution being less than 3% of the total cast, the control it helped him regain over the spell was easily making his spells half again as strong by simply helping him focus the Mana on the task he wanted.

“Your control has improved a lot.” Lexi mentioned as she watched Ajax’s fireball smoothly rise into the sky before exploding and releasing a powerful heat wave they could feel on their skin.

“It’s mostly because of adding my own Mana to the mix.” Ajax humbly said. “It becomes much easier to control as long as you have enough of an investment of your own Mana. More than that, it seems that the larger the concentration of your own Mana in the spell the more control you have over the entire spell.”

This realization changed the way they were hoping to use the staff. Instead of only having one caster repeatedly cycle through people to power the staff it would be much better to have the caster also be cycled through, not only would this add more Mana to the spell but it wouldn’t take such fine control to make use of the Mana infused into the spell.

“You’re probably right.” Lexi said with a nod. “But you do realize what that means we will have to do.”

Ajax nodded, a little disheartened at the thought. He knew very well that simply increasing the number of people trained to cast and control such spells wouldn’t be an easy thing. It not only took a lot of talent and training to learn to use the staff but the best users were those that specifically focused their Stats on taking advantage of the staff’s strengths. The staff could easily become a crutch that would limit some of their brightest mages.

Even more troublesome however was how careful they would need to be in selecting who would even have the chance to earn the position of a staff caster. The loyalty of the person would need to be ensured. A betrayal by a mage using the staff when they were desperate enough to use it could easily spell the end of House Heathbound.

Today was Jake’s first day actually learning something in school. It was the day when the crafters would start trying to help the students in unlocking Common skills. The process they were using to teach the students those skills however wasn’t one focused on ensuring the student gained the skill. In fact the lessons as a whole were geared towards teaching the gifted students as many Common Skills as they could pick up. The whole point was to push the students towards the crafting specialty they were talented towards and not to make them jack of all trades crafters with a few Common Skills suited for multiple trades.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I was thinking, since your control with the staff has improved so much, why not use it in the mornings when you are shaping the tunnels?You could save a lot of Mana that way.” Lexi pointed out.

“Even with the increased control it still isn’t enough to use it when making something as delicate as hidden tunnels. I could easily break the existing structure and cause a few walls to collapse.” Ajax answered.

“I don’t mean that you should use it the whole time.” Lexi explained. “Just for your first few casts when you are initially digging a new section. You wouldn’t even need to increase the amount of Mana you use at once, just have others provide maybe half the spell, that way you aren’t as drained by the end of the day.”

Ajax opened his mouth but found himself without words. Lexi was right, doing it like that would save him a lot of Mana, not only that but it would also give more people a chance to experience powering the staff. Ajax was sure that there had to be Skills designed to being a Mana battery, the only reason they hadn’t yet spread was because there wasn’t really a way to efficiently use someone else’s mana for a spell you cast. Even ritual spells were inefficient at best or required precision and skill from everyone who was part of the ritual.

“I’ll try that starting tomorrow.” Ajax nodded.

One thing Ajax was doing his best to pay more attention to was the weather. Now that he was ruling over so many people he didn’t want to fall back into a mindset that didn’t let him realize a problem existed just because he didn’t encounter it personally. This was the last week of Winter and already the clouds were starting to clear up, the winds were picking up and the temperatures that were already around water freezing were starting to drop.

“Tom, how is the construction of the new school building going?” Ajax asked as he and Lexi settled at the table while they waited for Jake to return.

“Faster than I expected.” Tom said. “With how quickly this new formula for concrete sets all six buildings should be done in a week and a half at most. Though I have to say it could be done much quicker, does it have to be built like that?”

“It does.” Ajax nodded. “Otherwise all the students will freeze or we will end up having to cycle all our mages just to keep them warm.”

The peculiar build they were discussing had to do with the fact that Ajax insisted the schools be built in layers. A layer of cement on the inside, followed by a layer of wood and finally a second layer of cement on the outside.

“And how does the wood help with that?” Tom asked.

“Cement is a lot more like steel.” Ajax explained. “While it can store a lot of heat it also allows heat to travel.”

As he explained, Ajax picked up a spoon from the table and formed a small flame in his palm and started heating up one end of the spoon until it started glowing red. With his [Heat Resistance] and [Mana Skin] Ajax didn;t have to worry about burning himself.

“As you can see while the place where heat is applied does warm up faster heat quickly travels.” Ajax then chilled the spoon before he picked up a wooden spoon, one that quickly caught fire when placed in the flames. “Wood on the other hand might not be able to store all that much heat but it works great at stopping it from traveling. The only reason heat travels along the wood is because the wood caught fire and the fire is slowly spreading.”

“So the whole point of the wood layer is to act as a barrier between the warm concrete that will absorb heat as we warm up the inside and the outer layer that is constantly chilled by the outside.” Sam was quick to pick up on the explanation, as a blacksmith ensuring heat was applied properly was a fundamental function of his daily work.

“Exactly!” Ajax nodded, happy to see all of his family nod as they understood his reasoning.

The discussion was then cut short as Jake excitedly bounced in through the door. Unlike his previous bored attitude he was now fidgeting with excitement as he talked with Jari and Nashara. Ajax didn’t even have to ask to know that school was about to be a popular decision in the eyes of most kids, especially if it was to take place in a warm school with large rooms that allowed them to meet their friends instead of being stuck inside during Death.

“I take it you don’t find school that boring anymore.” Kate teased her son as he sat down.

“It was great.” Jake exploded. “I managed to skin a rabbit all by myself, not only that but they let us take the skin home to tan for ourselves.”

Ajax had to work very hard not to facepalm when he heard. While school might be popular with the students it was about to become very much disliked by the parents who had to deal with the smell of their children tanning things in their home.