When it came to picking a team Ajax knew better than to make a decision on the spot after getting his membership approved. It might have been the original plan to join a group as quickly as possible but with the help from the nobles he had more time and options when it came to picking.

The moment he was back in the tavern and going to the bar to grab a drink to celebrate joining the guild, who he was had already spread and teams started approaching him. What was interesting to see was that none of the old established teams did so. To them he was a passing curiosity. It was the newer teams that he was a draw for.

To put things in perspective, the people who were new were around level forty and in their mid-thirties. The older established groups had people around level forty-five but looked to be much older. Ajax was in earshot when one of the younger leaders asked the veteran why they weren’t interested in recruiting me.

“Because it’s too big a gamble with too little upside.” was the answer.

“What gamble?” the younger leader asked.

“Sure the nobles may endorse him and recruiting him will gain you a favor but that comes with risk. He is not just young but very young, I would bet my entire team's equipment he isn’t even twenty yet. This inexperience combined with enough raw power to join the guild usually leads to arrogance and carelessness.”

“Isn’t the reason he is joining us to remedy that carelessness and inexperience? A little arrogance is fine to put up with if it means getting a shot to make it big.” the younger leader argued back.

“That's why I said the gamble isn’t for my team. We are happy here in this backwater region where people above level fifties can be counted on two hands. Taking the risk of him charging head first in the dungeon and getting himself killed is not worth it. Should that happen we would earn the ire and not favor of the nobles.”

Despite the warning a lot of teams still tried to get Ajax to join them. To them the upside was worth the risk though they did start mentioning a few caveats about discipline while on a mission. As for Ajax he decided the best way to do this was to use the guild.

First he would have all teams that wanted to recruit him to make a formal request with the guild. In two days time he would review all his options and make a decision. The reason he gave was that he wanted to know all his options and not just those who happened to be present when he enrolled. This and that he would be going to celebrate his membership with his family.

As he was leaving he picked up a basic information packet about the local dungeon. He wanted to discuss it with Hatchet now that he had a chance to, with his old teacher being in the city, he would most likely decide on a team with his help as well.

With nothing else to do for the day he went to visit his sister and Alana, wanting to sign the documents they wanted so they could move forward with their company. With that done he took his leave and headed for the house his parents and Hatchet used so as to not get in the way of the girls.

It was almost noon when he reached the place and he could hear his dad hammering away at something near the forge that their new home came with. When he asked about his mother he found out that she worked with his sister and was returning to being a merchant and making use of her trait after years spent in an isolated village.

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With both his parents busy that left Hatchet. The man was surprisingly upbeat for someone who had lost a limb a few months ago. He was more than happy to look over the dungeon information and discuss it with Ajax.

“I don’t mind doing so but you do know it won’t really be all that helpful for you?” Hatchet said before they got into it.

“I know but I doubt any team is going to be willing to take me to the second floor without a thorough appraisal of my skills on the first.” Ajax acknowledged.

He knew that dungeons were, after the first floor, totally random. From the environment to the creatures and even what valuable resources could be gathered was totally random. The first floor was the only constant when entering a dungeon as that floor was always the same.

“Like most dungeons it has a starting level between thirty and thirty-three. This means the first floor bosses can go as high as thirty seven.” Hatchet started. “This means that there should be nothing that could reasonably threaten you as long as you remain focused.”

Ajax knew this. Nothing in the dungeon’s first floor would match up to the bear or the fish he had already dealt with. Thinking of them he realized he had forgotten to hand over the corpses to his sister to sell.

“Like the dungeon near the capital, its first floor is also a forest biome mirroring the outside,” he continued. “Where it differs is the power jump between floors being a whole twelve levels.”

The dungeon near the capital is the one Hatchet had known the most about. Unlike most dungeons, its starting level of power was much lower at only twenty-five to twenty-eight. This combined with a power jump of five levels made it the most valuable asset of the kingdom as a whole.

You see, the reason why people stagnated was because of lack of challenge. It’s why crafters and other life-style focused people ended up higher level than combatants. They could continually challenge themselves and their skills without endangering their lives. The reason why the guild teams stagnated at around level forty-five here was the lack of challenge for a group to take on the second floor meaning it would take longer and longer to level. On the flip side level three would sport fifty-four to fifty-six creatures as well as up to level sixty bosses.

A dungeon that only jumped five levels provided a good progression of difficulty for teams. This lets adventurers keep up a solid experience gain all the way to the higher levels like one hundred. It is when reaching level one hundred that monsters start to outpace humanoids, with skills reaching their cap around that time. The limit there comes from how high authorities allow people to delve as a group dieing means letting the floor they were on come out of the dungeon right next to the capital.

“A forest biome is one of the best situations you can have as an adventurer. It lets you best spot traces of what creatures it houses as well as not limiting you much in terms of fighting style.”

It had taken quite a lot of convincing from Hatchet until Ajax acknowledged that forest was the best biome. He had been partial to the open field option regardless of how much Hatchet told him that kind of thinking got people killed. Seeing an open field biome meant no cover, this led to three types of monsters being able to survive : flying, ground and subteran. All of which could attack at any time with only the ground ones being obvious.

“Now, let's talk about how you will prepare. Your role in this first trip will be very different then you are used to.” Hatchet said

“How so?” I asked.

“First of all you will most likely take the role of a porter. You will need to make sure you store them in such a way that you can drop everything at any time to react to an ambush.” Hatchet seemed fairly certain about this.

Ajax silently cursed but knew it was unavoidable. The porter was the weakest link, and the outside man in a team. With the gear weighing him down should the team need to sacrifice a member to escape it would always be him.

“It won’t be that bad. We are only going to be going to the first floor, plus I think they will want to get a good evaluation of what I can do so they might let me participate quite a bit.” Ajax said, trying to be optimistic.

“Yes, I suppose your pack would be on the light side.” Hatchet nodded.

Now when they were talking about heavy packs they actually meant heavy packs, even for their level of strength. You see massively expanded packs that carried all sorts of collection tools were required when delving papst the first floor. Not knowing what could be gathered from an environment meant you had to be ready to collect and store anything, this took a lot of space and weighed a lot.