Ajax was on his way back towards the bee hives with a full bag of different flower seeds on his back. He had checked a few things that didn’t seem to add up about the achievement description since he had already brought down one enemy that matched all the listed criteria.
It turned out that there was an extra requirement that the monster be at least level fifty. Ajax was pretty sure that the fish he had faced at the lake was close to that but perhaps it was only level forty nine, [Judge Threat] wasn’t the most accurate skill to use when getting precise measurements.
One more clarification that took a load off his mind was that you could use buffs on yourself, it was only outside buffs that discounted the achievement. With that cleared up he felt very good about his chances of gaining the achievement, all he needed now was to find a monster that strong, not the easiest thing considering he couldn’t solo dive in either of the dungeons and that entering with a team disqualified him from the achievement. He left that issue for later and started planting the seeds making sure to infuse mana into each one.
Two days of gardening later Ajax found himself with another problem, now that he could continue his beekeeping without worrying about wasting a trailblazer achievement he had to find a way to move entire hives without killing any of the bees lest they trigger his punishment. With that restriction he decided to resort to Earth’s method of smoking them before attempting to capture the queens and transport the hives.
This relaxing cycle of planting flowers and infusing them with mana, capturing bees as well as spending an hour or so every night recapping all the lessons that he had gone through at the academy. By the end of the second day he had filled the area with 100 hives and had given up on getting any more in the short term since the local bee population had taken a big enough hit that they were hard to find.
For the final evening before his first true delve in a capital dungeon Ajax went to have another meal with Hatchet and Luna. He was pleasantly surprised to hear that Hatchet had gotten a job with the Adventurer’s guild as an attendant to help test potential scouts. It had been a long time since Hatchet had done anything to do with the guild but it seems that teaching Ajax awakened a new passion in him so now he was looking for a few more students.
Not only that but he had officially also joined Luna’s house as one of her retainers, it was more of a formality since they were old friends more than boss and subordinate but it did offer him a level of protection and preferential treatment, after all no adventurer wanted to piss of the Healing Union.
After the enjoyable meal Ajax returned back to his own house. He took a look at the plot next to it where progress on the second house was starting to be made. This one would take a lot longer, not because it was bigger but simply because he wasn’t overpaying for a rush job.
The next morning Ajax was in gear and was carrying his trusty backpack. Unlike his class dungeon trip this time Ajax was fully decked out in gear, had sufficient rations to last him for a month and also brought gear so that he could adapt to any environment. A second mostly empty backpack was stacked on top of the first where he carried items for leatherworking.
Out of all the crafting professions Ajax could choose from leatherworking was the most consistent one. Since he didn’t want to make such a big investment in a set of tools that would soon be replaced anyway only for them to be unusable he got a set for an apprentice leatherworker after all the chances that both the second and third floor wouldn’t have a single species with workable hide were miniscule.
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The other thing he brought with him was his arrow making kit, getting a few tips on how to make decent arrows was one of the things he was looking forward to most since that would be a staple for him for the foreseeable future.
As he made his way to the dungeon Ajax finally caught a glimpse of the team waiting off to the side before the queue. The group was a lot bigger than the team the Collectors had, all in all there seemed to be thirty people in total. Twenty of them were clearly combatants, two of them looked to be there simply to carry all of their luggage.
Off to the side there were seven more all listening closely to a mousy looking woman that all eight crafters seemed to be giving their undivided attention. All of the members of the delve were young, none of them looked older than thirty by Earth standards though Ajax knew some of them could be in their sixties or seventies.
“You Ajax?” the leader asked?
Ajax took a good look at the man, he was wearing a set of cloth armor with a number of gems embedded here and there. He wasn’t all that tall and he was a little on the thin side but it was all muscle.
“I am.” Ajax nodded.
“Good to meet you.” The man’s stony face broke with a genuine smile that didn’t look like it shouldn’t belong to him but did as he offered Ajax his hand. “Name’s Trevor.”
“Likewise.” Ajax responded as he shook his hand.
“Let’s move.” he called out and the rest of the group quickly picked up all their gear and lined up to go to the dungeon. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk as we get to the third floor.”
The line moved rather quickly though Ajax could feel a disapproving look focused on him from behind though he couldn’t figure out who or why he was on the receiving end of it. Nobody gave the group bearing the archduke’s sigil more than a glance, though Ajax did receive a few inspection attempts though nothing that managed to get past [Enigma]. It seems that the people with a high level inspection skill knew not to try it on people connected with archdukes.
“Alright, everybody knows the drill.” the leader said once they were all inside. “ Ajax here is our guest and he is the teaching assistant at the Academy to Abbot. If I have to catch shit from him about how any of you treated him I will make sure the one or ones responsible will catch at least twice as much as I did. Am I clear?”
“Yes sir!” All of the combatants and even the two bag carriers answered in unison, with the crafters quick to follow.
“Don’t look so glum.” Trevor said with a cheeky smile. “From what I hear, if you judge him by his age you’re in for a quick wake up call. And that is something that all of you will get to see first hand as Ajax will be taking down the bosses guarding the arches for the first and second floor by himself.”
Ajax knew that soloing the boss before an arch was the easiest surefire way to know you had enough contribution that the floor would be considered cleared for the Dungeon achievement.
Unlike last time he came into this dungeon Ajax didn’t get the rabbit infestation variation. He was slightly disappointed by that as he would have like to grab a few for cooking on the upper floors
“Why such a big difference in quality?” A gentle yet disapproving voice sounded out from next to him.
“What do you mean?” Ajax asked the mousy woman that was inspecting his equipment.
“Your weapons aren’t great but they are at least decent, but your armor wouldn’t be anything more than a mild inconvenience to anything we could find on the third floor.
“I haven’t yet had the funds to try and replace any of the gear I had when I got to the capital a few weeks ago.” Ajax answered as he awkwardly scratched his head. “The weapons I got from a few overeager recruiters but they wore full plate which doesn’t match my combat style.”
“I was asked to provide teaching in any crafting professions, is there something you are interested in?” she asked.
“I would like to try my hand at everything.” Ajax said excitedly, “but for now I just brought tools for leatherworking and arrow crafting so that’s what I’d like to focus on. Maybe some mild alchemy if we get a good floor for it.”
“I specialize in blacksmithing, but I know a thing or two about leatherworking, should be enough to get you started.” she nodded.
Ajax was pleasantly surprised by the attitude the team had towards him, he supposed that Abbot was behind it and the way they were trying to get him to join their house. He still wasn’t going to make a long term commitment but he would certainly be amenable to helping them out if it wasn’t too far out of his way in the future if things kept going like this.