Ajax made quick work of his cutting, his lumberjack skill getting some prolonged work for the first time in years. He had to admit he was rather curious about the two tag VIP’s they were escorting. According to their scout all three of the bosses in this area had spawned at their maximum level of thirty-seven.

Any decent adventurer would have no problem in dealing with a creature one or two levels above them by himself. The only reason that people didn’t attempt dungeons solo was that you could quickly get overrun or ambushed.

He was also interested in just how strong nobles were, what he saw during the skirmish was a very small sample size and it pulled in two directions. The two young casters he had seen could keep up with mages that were a few levels higher than them whereas the others struck him as just average. Of course all of this was if you looked at it in terms of their level, as far as he could tell the biggest advantage nobles had was that they got to the higher levels a lot quicker than commoners.

As the two heavily armored nobles approached the fox Ajax thought it should be an even fight. While they had a numerical advantage from the looks of things both of them were focused on heavy armor with shields and a one-hander, this was a bad match-up against a fox. Foxes were not only a speed focused creature but they also relied on hit and run tactics.

The fight started much like he expected with them charging the fox and getting nowhere as it just backed up then started running circles around them. Despite its speed however the fox couldn’t manage to connect with a single bite or scratch. It took the two of them less than a minute to adapt and use their numerical advantage to quickly deal with the fox.

Ajax was very interested in their fighting style. While he could tell that his individual weapon skills were around the same levels their movements seemed to flow better as they seamlessly moved from one strike into the next.

The second fight was the more interesting one, a few more members of the team came to watch this one vs one with the wolf. Unlike the fox the initial shield charge here proved effective as it allowed Jaclyn to land a heavy axe strike to one of the wolf’s hind legs.

The wolf didn’t just give up however. Wolves were particularly annoying creatures, their fighting style focused on bleeding out their enemy until it was forced to flee before starting the chase, in a dungeon this meant that while a wolf was always on the lookout for a killing blow it mostly targeted the legs and arms.

The fight played out in a slug fest, despite the armor the wolf managed to get a bite and swipe in but paid dearly for both. It all ended when Jaclyn baited the wolf into biting down on her armored forearm, she swapped her axe to her shield arm while dragging her arm back. With the exposed neck she drove the axe down and almost decapitated the wolf in a single strike.

With the battle over Ajax went over to the two arches the bosses were protecting and tried to see what his [Mana Syphon] could gleam from them. The two he felt were very different, one contained a very strong presence of water mana with a dash of wind, the other was a strong earth mana with a light shadow presence.

When Jones asked the team which of the two arches they would rather go for he steered them towards the earth one. The single most hated biome for dungeon floors was the multiple small islands in a vast sea he wanted to lower the chances of running into it. It wasn’t uncommon for teams to simply give up on the theme and simply eat the penalty of having a full floor break when they encountered it. Even the guild was understanding and simply charged them a fee and forced them to accept a few of the more unwanted missions they had in their backlog.

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Jaclyn P.O.V

The scratches and bite marks from the wolf itched something fierce but I was used to it. I was happy with how the fight went. The nod I got from Jones after it was all over suggested that I would have a solid recommendation.

I knew that despite already having earned my membership to the guild, that was the simple part of working as a solo adventurer. Nobody delved alone, despite that there were more than a few adventurers who didn’t have a set team, instead they just joined as extra manpower for specific missions or delves.

These types of adventurers were known as mercenary adventurers, teams usually contracted them when trying to tackle something that was dangerous. Mercenary adventurers lived and died by their reputation, nobody would risk working with you otherwise which is why a recommendation from a strong team was so important to me starting out.

Fighting the fox in a one vs one would have been much simpler for me. The issue there was that I couldn’t use almost any of my skills. The entire fight would have just boiled down to me outlasting its stamina. My speed was too slow to attempt anything else without putting myself at risk. Despite getting hit a few times, the fight with the wolf let me show a lot more.

As we were transported to the second floor I got the system message that my achievement was updated and all my stats were raised by one point. The floor we ended up in plunged us into total darkness. I quickly panicked, not being able to see anything.

“Stand ready, light a few of the lamps.” Jones' voice was calm and authoritarian.

The space we were in was quickly filled with a warm yellow light. From the looks of things we were in a cave or tunnel seeing as there was a rocky ceiling above us, despite this it didn;t feel cramped as the tunnel was wide enough for five or six of us to walk through side by side.

“This feels like a labyrinth floor boss.” the scout called out.

“Great…” Jones let out a tired sigh. “Get in formation, also start drawing a map, we won't just be relying on memory for this.”

Labyrinth floors, especially those in a cave network setting were very polarizing on whether people hated or liked them. The sometimes tight spaces, frequent traps and lack of light were certainly inconvenient. The lack of flying enemies, ease of funneling large groups through a choke point and potential of valuable metals that could be mined out did a lot to even out their down sides.

Both Devin and I were in the center of the formation. From here on out we were only going to observe and carry the bags, next to us was the team's mage and the low leveled young man, his name was Ajax I think. My level inspecting skill let me know he was only level twenty-six but from there I had a lot of questions.

First was why was he wearing a set of leather armor? My sense mana skill let me know that he was a caster, despite that however he still shouldn’t be delving in the second floor and definitely not wearing leather armor. The only theory of why they would take him to the second floor at such a level was that he was a healer. A combat healer could quickly level by delving above their level and getting their contribution by healing the group but he hadn’t tried to heal mine of Devin’s wounds.

The next one was, if he wasn’t a healer and I suspect he wasn’t, how had he joined the group. Devin found out that he had also recently joined them but that was as much as he got. My final and most burning question however was how did he level so quickly. He couldn’t be more than nineteen years old and he was already level twenty-six, that was a speed only seen with the talented children of viscounts, members of a ducal house or royalty.

As we moved through the tunnel heading further and further away I could see Ajax already sketching out a map. It wasn’t at all surprising seeing as how the key to getting higher levels quicker was by unlocking and using as many skills as possible.

Dad frequently complained about how nobles kept their superiority even if he understood why it was necessary. One of the things all nobles kept to themselves was how the Child trait had a hidden effect of lowering the requirements for gaining skills. They in fact actively pushed the image that getting skills during childhood wasn’t all that important to commoners while getting as many skills for their children. Then they would lean on all those skills to gain experience faster.

One of the tried and true methods was for children of nobles to unlock as many social skills as possible. It was why they hosted a party any time they had an excuse to do so. The more social skills a child could get the further and quicker they would level.

My brother was a great example of this, he had gotten quite a few more social skills than I did. We were still very young, at least compared to how old people who were born in nobility would get, but he had already risen two levels above me. This is why I want to become a mercenary adventurer in the first place, to have a way to supplement the experience I lost out on by not being suited to social skills.