Chapter 664 (Patreon)

“We’re going to be using this as a dry run.” The prince explained for Ajax’s benefit once they arrived at the embassy. “ Since their secondary dungeon and their primary dungeon will have the same level final floor we are going to be clearing, one hundred and eighty.” 

“Aurexion and I can handle level one hundred and nineties.” Ajax argued about the main dungeon. 

“You can handle them if they are humanoids, what if they are elementals?” The prince brought up a good point, a group of resilient or slippery level one hundred and nineties could very well overwhelm and kill both Ajax and Aurexion since unlike humanoid opponents Aurexion’s size wasn’t always a guarantee of overwhelming physical strength.

“Fine, we’ll only push to level one hundred and eighty.” Ajax let out a defeated sigh, considering how far he pushed in the Republic dungeons beforehand that still meant he would be gaining eleven to all stats after just these two dungeons.

“Do you think Aurexion can gain the Achievement for killing a floor boss twice his level?” The prince asked the next question.

“I doubt it.” Ajax shook his head. “Acording to the Ascended races I spoke to they were surprised to hear about it, while it is still rare for them to kill floor bosses twice their level it isn’t unheard of in the lower levels. When working as a team that would become a lot easier though most Ascended races don’t really delve in groups all that often, the danger of greed over something valuable they find is often higher than the dungeon will present to a solo delver.” 

Ajax didn’t have high hopes of getting the Achievement for his bond, it wasn’t the boon of grabbing more things out the dungeon he was interested in since he had that covered but something equivalent to his own Ettin’s boon of using Stamina as Mana and vice versa would be even more valuable for a heavily physical and Intellect focused build like Aurexion’s. 

“You really didn’t tell my father and brother how to destroy a dungeon?” the prince asked after a moment of silence, he was still sulking a little he hadn’t been told about that little tidbit.

“Oh they know how to do it.” Ajax assured him with a smile. “But it would take repeated delves done in a short time or while taking great risks.” 

“But you said…” The prince was shocked Ajax had managed to get a lie past Archduke Goldenmouth. 

“I said I didn’t share the information.” Ajax smirked. “Aurexion told them how it was done.” 

“Is there any way to ensure that can’t happen?” The prince thought about getting some sort of preventative measures in place. 

“Besides stopping people from entering?” Ajax pointed out the obvious solution. “You could have a ton of people feeding their Mana to the dungeon each day…” 

Ajax went silent as something he hadn’t thought of trying before just occurred to him. His [Mana Syphon] worked in being able to predict dungeon floors by drawing out ever so tiny amounts of Mana from the dungeon arches and identifying what Mana type it was. But what if that wasn’t the only way to find something out about the next floor, what if you could push the desired Mana type into the arch to change the theme of the floor to better match what you wanted. How hard would that be? Would it be just as hard to push Mana into an arch as it would be to pull it out? The main arch of a dungeon sucked in Mana without end, were the arches dotted around the floors just small whirlpools for the Mana spent by delvers?

“What is it?” The prince asked. 

“Just something I am going to have to test.” Ajax said as he more and more possible theories formed in his mind. “Its a good thing I am going to have months inside the dungeon with a very high Mana density to help me regenerate my own Mana pool.” 

“Please try not to break the Republic’s dungeon.” The prince let out a defeated sigh as he realized Ajax wasn’t going to share anything until he had something more than guesses. 

“I just told you I can’t do it, at least not in one delve.” Ajax defended himself. 

“No, you said the method you know of can’t be done in just one delve.” The prince pointed out. “Whose to say there isn’t more than one way of doing it.” 

Ajax had to admit that the prince did have a point but considering the dungeons were all about extracting as much Mana as they could he doubted feeding it extra Mana would have any risks.

Ajax and the prince both went their separate ways after that. Neither one of them actually went to sleep, with them entering the dungeon soon they would be able to rest then taking advantage of the difference in the passage of time. The prince went to speak with the ambassador while Ajax headed for the main market hoping to stock up on some common alchemy ingredients he could take with him for his extended delve.

It was already mid day by the time all of Gryndor’s champions arrived at the capital seeing as many of them were spread out across the different battlefields, it would have probably taken another day longer if they weren’t all retreating slightly already in preparation for the champion grouping that was about to happen. 

“Ajax, why is there thirty thousand gold in promissory notes offered by the embassy circulating and boosting the republic’s economy?” The prince asked, a little annoyance slipping into his voice.

“Because alchemy ingredients, even the most basic stuff, that are useful when working with level one hundred and eighty floor level reagents are expensive.” Ajax defended himself. “I’m good for it.” Judy might want her pound of flesh after finding out Ajax just spent a massive amount of gold just like that after Aurexion’s stunt with the golden statue.

“You think I’m worried about the gold…” It was in times like this that the prince needed to remind himself Ajax was not yet even thirty years old and that he had grown up as a commoner.  He pulled up a privacy bubble around the two of them before continuing. “My problem isn’t the amount of gold. Hell, with your ability to pull stuff out of dungeons you could take out a loan in Gryndor’s name ten times as large and it wouldn’t be something we’d question you about being able to pay back.”  

“That’s what I figured, what’s the problem?” Ajax responded. 

“The problem is that you flooded a large amount of gold into the Republic’s market in the middle of a war while scouring the place for high end reagents. You used promissory notes in Gryndor’s name to do this and you didn’t inform me or the ambassador of what it was you were doing.” The prince tore into Ajax a little, despite his inexperience and youth Ajax was still a Duke. The prince himself had caused similar international issues, sometimes much worse than this but every time he had been at least chewed out for it and taken the lesson to heart so he would subject Ajax to the same treatment.

“I would have thought the ambassador would be notified when I took the promissory notes from the embassy.” Ajax felt a little chastised and guilty about his mistake. 

“Ajax, you are a landed Duke.” The prince rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The people who gave you those promissory notes are commoners. In their eyes if you didn’t let the ambassador know about it you did so for a reason and they are not about to risk the ire of a Duke by letting him know something he will quickly find out from doing his job of keeping a close eye on the Republic’s political situation.” 

“Oh…” Ajax scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry.” 

“It’ll all be fine.” The prince said as he turned towards the dungeon they were about to delve and spoke one final sentence before he lowered the privacy bubble. “Let's see if you can’t find something on floor one hundred and sixty four or one hundred and forty eight that might mollify the Republic when they see you walking out with it.” 

Ajax quickly picked up on the fact that the prince had specifically not mentioned whatever they could find on the last floor they were going to clear. Pushing to level one hundred and eighty was something that was extremely rarely done, maybe one or two delves a year were allowed by the royal family in Gryndor and hardly ever would things be taken outside the dungeon from such delves. Ajax’s ability to guarantee the result would surely get them something very valuable that he would get to keep. 

“This is going to be a quick climb.” The prince now addressed all the champions. “I know some of you are tired and still recovering and you will get a chance to do that once we reach the last floor and the time difference will be easily three to one.” 

With only seven champion level people entering the dungeon Ajax was expecting them to get to the desired floor in just a little under three hours, maybe four if they spent some extra time looking for some valuables on the later floors to bring out.

“I’m looking forward to what you can do, kid.” One of the champions nodded towards Ajax. “Heard you pulled off quite something. But to be honest I am more excited to watch your bond fight.” 

Ajax was slightly taken aback by the lack of formality. In the past month he had mostly kept to himself and the only people who talked to him were careful of speaking to a champion. Among other champions however that formality disappeared, the relaxed attitude and sense of camaraderie was something Ajax actually liked even if he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be calling him kid for much longer once they saw what his latest Skill could do.