Activating the obelisk didn’t do much more than draw in the last few stragglers, fortunately enough for Ajax those last few stragglers were enough to give him the last push he needed to get to level thirty five.

“Besides the one big group following your first attempt at burning the forest you weren’t in any serious danger.” the prince said. “Are you looking to try the next floor to see if you can solo that?”

“No, this is enough for now.” Ajax said. “This whole training is about making sure I can safely clear the entire floor, if even with a good match-up like this I still had a close call there is no point in pushing further.”

“Whatever you say.” the prince shrugged. “You’ll have one more delve to get used to this before you depart.”

With the floor finally cleared Ajax put his mask and cloak back on as they excited the dungeon. He was tired and more than ready to just get back home and sleep for two days straight before he had to go back for the start of the new school cycle.

When Ajax got home he was welcomed and quickly questioned by his mother.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” she asked worriedly.

“No.” Ajax responded, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you look like someone that died, my lord.” Theron answered.

Theron's straightforward demeanor was something that Ajax very much appreciated. Despite his newfound nobility the bull beastkin simply added a respectful form of address but nothing else changed. This approach, while very much encouraged by Ajax, was one that had to be curtailed in any social gathering. This meant that the beastkin, much to his delight, had been excluded from the list of guards to be present for social events.

“Oh, that’s just because I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since the day I left.” Ajax waved away their concern.

“Don’t you know how important sleep is?” his mother scolded him. “How do you expect to keep your edge, especially in a dungeon if you don’t get any proper sleep?”

“It’s not for lack of trying.” Ajax defend himself. “I was waking up every time the wind rustled some branches because I was too on edge about anything sneaking up on me. For next time and for the actual delve I’ll be given a proper alarm barrier that should help with this.”

“Oh…” With that Silvia had the wind taken out her sails, “In that case let's have a bit of an early dinner and then send you off to bed.”

Dinner was a quick affair where Ajax silently demolished a small heap of food while being reassured that nothing requiring his attention had happened in the time that he was away. A quick cleaning later and Ajax was asleep in his bed.

As Ajax woke up a little late in the next morning he got to experience the upside of high stats, namely that once he got a few decent hours of sleep to rejuvenate his mind his body perked back up to peak performance.

“Ajax! You’re up great, mother wouldn’t let anyone wake you up.” Ajax hadn’t taken more than a few steps outside his room before Judy quickly ambushed him. “Follow me.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What’s going on?” Ajax asked.

“The details of the deal were made public by the royal family yesterday.” Judy informed him “According to Elija some of these meetings need to be handled by you personally, not only that but he also needs your input on what our plan as a family is.”

“What do you mean, what deal? I thought we all knew about the details of the deal for a while.” Ajax asked, confused.

“Yes, we did.” Judy nodded. “However our House now has one of the five delve slots for the Empire’s main dungeon and another four out of the twenty-one for their secondary one, and every other noble family also knows this. A few have already sent representatives to discuss buying one of them.”

That’s when it clicked for Ajax. Of course the royal family will make anything they agreed to in the deal public, that would allow a fair market where the noble houses could trade fairly with one another. Ajax was quickly ushered past the halfway filled with representatives and into his grandfather’s office.

“I thought Silvia said not to wake him up.” Aurora said when she saw Judy bring Ajax in. “Though it’s great that you brought him.”

“I didn’t wake him up.” Judy quickly denied. “May have been stalking outside his room.” she whispered out the second part.

“Judy told me what was going on” Ajax said as he took a seat. “Do you need me to sit in on any of these meetings?”

“No.” Elija answered.

“But I thought you said…” Judy frowned at her grandfather.

“I thought we agreed that his presence would be needed, just from a social point.” Aurora said.

“All of the houses just sent representatives.” Elija explained. “They all also just saw Ajax walk in here that should be enough. The bigger question is how many of the three slots do you want to keep and what do you want to sell them for.”

Ajax very much appreciated that his grandfather knew him well enough to put aside his spot knowing there was no chance he would be giving any of those up.

“I was planning on having Tom take one slot but he’s not strong enough to clear even the first floor of the secondary dungeon yet.” Ajax said.

The secondary dungeon started off with a floor of level Twenty-nine to thirty-four. Unfortunately the mini-bosses that needed to be defeated were all level thirty-four and Tom didn’t have a chance against them.

“I think I should keep one for Theron, he is still level thirty-six so he can take full advantage of that.” Ajax said, at level thirty-six Theron would still gain the stat points for clearing the first floor and he would still stand a chance at killing one of the level forty-four mini-bosses on the second floor so long as he got a good match-up and started with a good ambush to gain two floors worth of stats.

“That leaves us with two slots to sell, what are you looking to trade them for, anything specific, pure monetary value, some influence or favors?” Elija focused on the merchant side not even questioning Ajax’s decision.

“I’d like to focus one on getting a better footing in alchemy, be that in terms of recipes or rare ingredients to experiment with.” Ajax said. “But I’m not sure what else to get, this is not my strong suit.”

Aurora gave an encouraging nod as Ajax was leaning on her and her husband's experience and expertise. “Investing in your future as an alchemist is bound to pay off for us in the long run.” Aurora agreed. “Just from the rate you are growing at now you’ll be able to offset the cost of your training in half a century at most by delving with our retainers and making potions for them inside the dungeon out of whatever you can find.”

“I’ll get you the best deal I can for your alchemy. What about the second delve slot? Are you in need of armor and weapons?” his grandfather asked.

“Right now I am just starting to outgrow my weapons and armor.” Ajax nodded, despite the high level craftsmanship none of his equipment had mana-infused materials and he was starting to use more power than his weapons could handle.

“Is that really the best use for it?” Alana, who had been inside the room from the start finally entered the conversation.

“I’m not saying that getting Ajax improved equipment shouldn’t be a priority.” Alana was quick to add once Judy Elija and Aurora quickly frowned at her. “Just should we really be selling a delve slot for it at this time, almost anything that he can use now he will quickly outgrow in the next few years.”

It was hard for Ajax to find fault with her logic, especially when he was taking into account all of the possible extra stats he would be gaining from dungeons.

“I think it would be much better to sell the delve slot in exchange for influence to grow both of our trading companies and than simply spend some more gold in getting him some better equipment even if it's not the best for his current power level.” Alana finished.

“Yes, that is a better choice.” Elija nodded as he thought things over. Despite his extensive experience from his years as a successful merchant he had overlooked the speed of Ajax’s growth. He knew just how hard truly top end equipment was to obtain so he had focused on that instead of how long it would remain top grade in Ajax’s hands. “It would put us in a bit of bind financially with both buying the equipment and expanding into the new opportunity but that should be covered by the gold influx from the honey deal.”

With the plan made Ajax and Judy left as Alana Elija and Aurora prepared to receive the representatives. Judy had initially wanted to also remain for the discussions but it was agreed that since nothing would be finalized in any of the upcoming interaction her presence there would actually prove as a hindrance since here close familial relationship with Ajax, the head of the noble house, would give her seniority and undermine Elija’s authority.