“So stupid.” Ajax mutters a little downcast as he rubs his left shoulder.

It had been about ten days since he first entered the dungeon as part of the group of five and Ajax was planning to exit the dungeon today. Ideally he would have liked to stay a lot longer on this floor theme but he knew that even coming out like he planned he would just get the night to relax before the delve into the next dungeon began.

As for why Ajax's shoulder hurt, he had nobody to blame but himself. After having activated the obelisk four days ago he had spent ten hours killing everything that was left on the floor before he started back up on his Alchemy. Turns out one of the orc patrols was far enough away that they had gotten the drop on him when he was just setting up his equipment and nailed him with a well placed arrow.

Not only had Ajax not been running his [Mana Syphon] at the time but his defense was much more focused on evading rather than blocking so the arrow reached deep. It wasn’t enough to actually do more than inconvenience him when he was taking out the remaining patrol but the poison on the arrow made it so he could still feel some discomfort despite the healing potions and rest time he had.

Before he steps out of the arch to exit the dungeon Ajax takes another look around to see the greenhouses he picked clean. Despite spending almost a week just practicing his alchemy in one of the most wasteful ways possible he has still just barely managed to go through all of the ingredients. Before he stepped through the arch he made sure to once again place his hand on it and try his best to memorize the mana he felt from it.

When Ajax excited the place he had made sure to make it look like his alchemy set was totally unused why his armor and pickaxe would be damaged and dirty. All this was done to better convince the Empire that he had stopped on the third floor out of greed.

“Ajax!” It took a moment for the one guard that was left to watch the dungeon to realize who he was looking at after most people on the expedition had already written Ajax off as dead due to not coming out in so long. “What took you so long boy? Do you know how worried we were?”

The guard made to approach him but was quickly intercepted. “Stay back, not before we examine him.” The dungeon guards quickly made sure nothing could be passed or hidden.

Ajax knew to expect something like this. Even now every last bit of space in his special ring was filled with the ore from the rainbow mini-boss he killed on the third floor. Everybody expected that he either died or found something special and they wanted to see what it was.

The guard was shocked when he took the ring and looked inside it. Like most spacial items he got an instant knowledge of what was inside and he felt a headache coming in from how full it was. Most shocking however was that most of it was taken up with jewels. Not ore that may contain jewels but the straight up gems with a lot of them being on the very large side of the scale as far as gems went being bigger than his fist.

“That is quite the find you made there, I can see why you would stay inside so long for this.” the inspector says, despite the gems only being from the third floor their quality is still something else to normal people. Not only that but the amount he brought out is about equal to the amount that gets brought out of both dungeons in total in two months, let alone the fact that it is made up from a large variety of gems. “There is of course the tax the empire places on goods taken from the dungeon.”

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The amount of gems brought out by one person would be enough to speed two or three jewelers and enchanters through some of their early level bottlenecks. “The deal states that there is no tax to be placed on this delve.” The Goldmancer guard finally manages to approach as he also motions for the spacial ring to be returned to Ajax.

“You’re going to have a lot of questions to answer and not much time to do it when we get back.” the guard whispers to Ajax once they finally start moving away from the dungeon. “Was it worth it?”

“Yes.” This is the only word Ajax actually spoke since he exited the dungeon but the conviction he had when he said it along with the gems collected let him know the young man had made great strides.

Ajax barely made it four steps into the compound the kingdom was using for their base of operations before he was slammed into and hugged. “What took you so long?” Lexi, who had been slightly depressed from the floating rumor that Ajax had died, wasted no time before quickly letting him go before it got awkward.

“Yes, I will have to insist that you answer Lady Manashaper’s question.” The crown prince along with Xavier and Anna stand not too far away looking at him with slight frowns marred with a hint of relief. “Though it might be best if we do it somewhere a bit more private.”

Once they made it to the private room the first thing the crown prince asked Ajax was for a confirmation of the story Anna and Lexi had presented him with, despite fully trusting their version of events he had a duty to verify everything.

“The dungeon guards really looked like they bought the cover story, Your Highness.” the guard mentions once Ajax mentions how he stored most of the body of the miniboss in his ring for the crystals. “It helps that he all but stumbled on a literal fortune.”

From there Ajax makes some slight mentions of the next two floors all but glossing over them and making sure not to mention the droid or blaster. The crown prince had high enough social skills to see that he was masking something but not he simply decided to let it go as simply some word opportunity the dungeon presented him with.

“There was what?” Everyone was left slack-jawed however once Ajax described the theme of the sixth floor.

“I couldn’t just let the opportunity slip away, that was tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of gold worth of alchemy reagents.” Ajax defended his actions. “The alternative was to come back here and attend some noble parties.”

Ajax couldn’t wipe the grin off his face as he thought about the progress he made in alchemy, the experience he gained and especially the two Rare skill [Stabilize Mixture] and [Mass Production].

“I won’t argue you made the wrong decision, you clearly haven’t.” the crown prince says. “But you do know you can’t just keep avoiding social events, it isn’t that big a deal doing it here in the Empire but once we get back you may have to attend a few more.”

Ajax knows the crown prince is right in his assessment, he even gets more than one or two commiseratory looks from Lexi and Xavier both of whom have had to put up with social events they wanted no part in.

With the interrogation over, Ajax quickly makes the rounds of the compound in order to find Theron. He is not surprised to find out that Theron had already made arrangements to have the worms looked after while he is in the dungeon. He could clearly see the anticipation in his retainer as he looked forward to delving the dungeon for extra stats after spending the better part of two weeks in the compound being haunted by merchants looking to buy his prize.

“Great to see that reports of your death were greatly exaggerated, my lord.” Theron greeted Ajax with a voice that sounded extremely respectful despite the amusing memories the words brought Ajax from his previous life.

Everyone delving in the morning got to bed early and Ajax all but collapsed onto the bed and was out like a light before his head even hit the pillow after so many days of extreme concentration. He was so tired that he ended up getting woken up by one of the servants before quickly getting geared and heading out.

“You don’t have to worry this delve will only take two, maybe three days.” The Goldmancer booster guards grin as they take in his tired state.

Ajax simply nods his thanks but he knows that it’s in this dungeon that the true challenge truly lies. The first day won’t be anything special; they might get through two or three floors if they move quickly as the lower leveled people get their stats. The second day however Ajax knows he will have to face a level sixty-four and if he gets a decent match-up on the next floor maybe even a level seventy-four.