“Is something wrong?” Luna asks, seeing that Ajax froze for a moment.

“No,” Ajax shook his head “Just that I haven’t met anyone else with the name Alfred before.”

He had no way to explain why a butler named Alfred would cause him to have such a reaction, but neither could he lie until he knew for sure Luna and Alfred didn’t have any skills that would point out lies.

“It is a rather unique name.” the man admitted.

“So how did it go at the Adventurer’s Guild?” Hatchet switched the subject to something that interested him more as he began to eat.

“It went fine, I passed their test for level thirty-two.” Ajax said as he took the open seat and started piling food on his own plate.

The answer however caused quite a big stir in both Alfred and Luna. Due to her attachment to healing magic and her study of the human body Luna was quite adept at guessing people’s ages, at least in terms of how far they aged before stats were applied to slow the process. It was something most healers picked up, this also meant that both of them knew Ajax was not even sixteen yet as he hadn’t aged.

“You passed the level thirty-two test?” Luna asked, surprised. “Do you mind me asking how old you are?”

“I am fifteen and a half.” Ajax answered.

Under normal circumstances he would be more guarded about this information but his age was part of the information the guild had on file so anyone with any pull in the capital could find it. Actively giving out his age would actually be more effective in keeping himself low key, since if one person used their influence to pull his records others might do the same to check what they were looking for.

“Only level thirty-two? You know you can pass even if you don’t win the fight and just put up a good match” Hatched fell back into his old role as teacher.

“I would have gone higher but the level thirty-seven they had on shift was wasted and the next higher was level forty.” Ajax said defensively.

Both Luna and Alfred were hit again with this information before having time to digest the previous part.

“Hatchet, what is he?” Luna asked.

Hatchet didn’t answer the question and instead just looked over at Ajax leaving the decision of how much to tell up to him. He only pushed initially to show Ajax that he trusted Luna with at least some of the information and because he knew Luna would just find out from the guild otherwise anyway.

“I’m a little different, I guess.” Ajax admitted after a bit of a pause.

He had in fact practiced what to do in case he ever needed to explain himself to someone. Having to do so to someone who was being relatively friendly about it would make everything much easier than he had been prepared for.

“Ever since I was young I managed to gain access to quite a few skills.” he started “ Unlike the other kids in my village I didn’t ignore them but I also didn’t focus on them. In fact I tried to gain as many different skills as I could while also training the ones I did get.”

Luna was well aware by now that this is what a lot of nobles did in order to get their children to level up faster, most did it through social skills as almost everyone had some talent for them but it didn’t explain the situation where someone would be able to become so strong by age sixteen.

“When I was almost ten years of age I asked Hatchet to train me as a hunter. It seems I had quite the talent since I managed to pick quite a few skills in that regard and training as a hunter also let me practice a few combat skills my brother taught me, he works as a city guard.” Ajax explained.

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“That still doesn’t add up to why you would be able to pass the level thirty-two test, let alone one even higher.” Alfred spoke up, earning himself a disapproving glance from Luna at the harsh tone.

“Did you know that if you pull up your status screen and you focus on trying hard to see through it, it makes the background of it all transparent? You can still see.” Ajax asked the question instead.

This was something that he discovered while messing around with the system when he was a kid, it was also a much easier concept to explain than how minimizing would be because nobody had used a computer before.

“No, I didn’t know that.” Luna said as her eyes took a faraway look people had learned to associate with someone looking at their status, something considered rude when done while talking with others. “Interesting, it does in fact work, what does this have to do with anything?.”

Luna’s tone was much kinder than Alfreds showing genuine interest. “Well, I learned about that before I turned ten.” Ajax explained, “when I earned the apprentice trait I learned that you can forcibly increase your stats easier while it is active.”

“Everybody knows this.” Alfred said, but his tone held no hostility, only some impatience.

“Yes, but this led me to not spending any of my stat points when I turned ten.” Ajax said.

“What did you do with them then?” Luna asked, not having put the puzzle together yet despite having all the pieces.

“Nothing.” Ajax said “I never closed my status. Instead I just focused on my training with Hatchet.”

“Without spending the points you would have made some great progress when it comes to forcibly increasing stats.” Luna pondered. “Especially since you were doing this from the start when all of them are much easier to grow, you must have gained a few levels worth of stats like this.”

“That’s not all.” Ajax continued. “The system grants experience in regards to how difficult something is to achieve, it’s only when entering a Dungeon that levels actually matter. Not only that but unspent stat points aren’t taken into consideration.”

This was the final piece, by not spending the points when leveling it allowed you to maintain about the same level of difficulty and as such gather experience from weaker and more abundant monsters even when you far surpassed their level.

“But, that would mean… what level are you now?”Luna asked.

The reason why even nobles took at least a few years when making it to level twenty-five and were finally able to start delving for easier access to levels was because of the sudden spike in difficulty that came with fighting for experience after someone turned ten. Without that spike someone could easily gain levels until at least level twenty-two, a lot higher if they had a lot of skills that could be used while hunting. From there with a few potions and the apprentice bonus they would be strong enough to go into the dungeon.

“Luna…” Hatchet warned seeing Ajax not answer.

“Oh, sorry!” Luna realized how rude that came off, straight up asking someone about their stats was quite rude.

“What is your plan now?” Luna asked instead.

“I was hoping to try and delve.” Ajax admitted as he put his cutlery down and let out a deep sigh. “But I found that getting a delving slot will be a lot harder than I expected. At least without joining a noble house or signing a long contract with a merchant organization.”

“Neither of those choices are inherently bad.” Luna said. “There are more than a few noble houses that treat their people well. Not to mention that you could add quite a few stipulations in those contracts with merchant organizations.”

“I don’t see myself trusting nobles enough to join a house.” Ajax shook his head. “ I know there are a few good ones.” The two noble girls who helped him get a team flashed in his mind. “ But the reason the salamanders attacked and Hatchet lost his arm was because one of the baron’s sons went and stole an egg, and nobody did anything to punish him.”

He was digging his nails into his palms a little as he remembered that. He would make that little shit pay for it one day, once he was strong enough.

He let out a deep breath before he spoke.“As for merchant organizations, my sister will move to the capital in a few years, I wouldn’t want to side with her competition when that happens.”

“Is that what happened?” Luna asked, though from the way mana was swirling around her it seems she didn’t take the news of how Hatchet lost his arm well. It was the first time Ajax saw someone with a lot of magical stats lose their composure like this. He also wondered if his own were high enough to produce a similar effect, he would have to get a good handle on his emotions if that was the case.

“Let this be something for us to handle Luna.” Hatchet said, putting a stop to a few plans that Luna was already hatching.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes.”

With that Luna turned back to Ajax and took a deep breath. “I owe Hatchet my life and he is one of my oldest friends, so helping him is a given. Helping you however isn’t something I feel obligated to do or that I really want. But seeing as how you are Hatchet’s student I think I can give you a chance.” The years spent in the presence of nobles were easy for Hatchet to spot in the Luna that was sitting with him now after all this time.

“A chance?” Ajax asked.

“Yes.” Luna nodded. “I could just add you as one of the protection details for our own teams that are heading into the dungeon. But this won’t come free. We have a few more annoying jobs that have piled up to do in the forests and fields surrounding the capital.”

“So you’re saying that as long as I do those I’ll get a spot?” Ajax asked, this was a much better deal than he expected.

“Sorry, the deal won’t be that good.” she shook her head and a smile he recognized from his sister and Alana took shape. “ For every three jobs you complete, without asking for their reward, I’ll get you one delve in the Highlands.”

“The Highlands?” he asked.

“The level thirty dungeon.”

“What about the level twenty-five one?” he asked.

“Let's first see how the Highlands goes, we’ll see about the Goldmine later.” and we’ll renegotiate that later was left implied.