There was more than a little grumbling at the king's threat. While the majority of the kingdom had adapted over the decades since the peace treaty nobility tended to live for much longer. Even then the ones most resistant to the change were the old low rank nobles who were already approaching their death at the age of only three hundred years. They had been born into nobility but didn’t amount to much so thinking of the other races as inferior brought them up higher in their eyes.

Ajax spent the majority of the trip swapping between his own carriage, the Goldmancer carriage that Lexi and Anna shared and the king’s mobile reception room. The first big revelation of the trip had been when they first arrived at a city.

Despite having already been told that the Republic was a melting pot for the four humanoid races, the layout of a city took him completely by surprise. Unlike the usual fully stone buildings he had expected, the city was spread into three different areas.

The first area was the usual stone housing Ajax was familiar with. This took up about a full half of the city. The more awe-inspiring half of the city was the sparse forest that took up the other half of the city, it was filled with massive trees that had their trunks hollowed out in order to provide housing. Even more surprising was that those trees were still alive despite the dwellings that were carved inside them.

The final part of the city was the dwarven undercity that sprawled out beneath both parts of the city, it was indigenous to see how the dwarven population had used the roots from the elven trees to secure their own habitat inside the city.

“We’re only a few hours away from the first dungeon.” Lexi said as they traveled through the elven part of the city taking in the odd nature filled city.

Despite the city basically being a sparse forest it still very much had the foot traffic and ambiance of the city. “I think we will be delving into it tomorrow.” Ajax nodded. “We are simply waiting for whoever the other booster is to come.”

“Who do you think it will be?” Lexi asked.

Ajax had thought this over many times and there was only one clear answer. “They’ll send their champion.” Ajax was sure of it. The stealth based powerhouse was the perfect selection to both scout out new talent and ensure that no funny business is happening inside the dungeon.

A very odd sight entered the pair’s eyes as they turned the corner. A large worm with spidelike legs was wrapped around one of the housing trees.

“What are they doing?” Lexi looked at the same time both curious and a little worried.

“As it turns out the worms ability to remain perfectly level is highly desirable when making delivery inside the woodland part of the city, especially so since they can easily deliver to any floor they need to without taking it up the stairs.” Ajax explained. “It took Judy about thirty minutes since we arrived to have four days worth of work for the worms already fully booked.”

As much as Ajax was joking about his sister's mercantile nature the truth wasn’t very far off. The potential the worms represented was quickly shown off and then capitalized on. It wasn’t just his sister that had been quick to do so but his grandfather as well, most interestingly they had gone as far as to auction off time slots and this worked with a raging success.

“Oh sorry, excuse me sir!” An elf with light brown hair murmured as she bumped into Ajax. She did her best to assume a submissive posture asking for forgiveness while extenuating her rather large bust before turning to walk away.

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She didn’t get very far however as Ajax’s had clamped on to her wrist like an iron manacle. “My pouch” he said threateningly, “now”.

The elf didn’t waste any time producing his small pouch that barely held more than half a gold coin in silver and copper. The meek demeanor was gone however, she put up no resistance to him taking back his money but instead of the usual apologetic tirade that came from pickpockets she just sneered back at him knowing he won’t be taking this any further.

As for the reason Ajax bothered with a coin pouch, the answer was very simple: almost all street vendors had issues with young people that openly used a spacial storage item anywhere near their stalls. Ajax very much agreed with their logic so he had taken to having a small pouch with a bit of money around. Since the pouch wasn’t part of his regular outfit however it stood out and this wasn’t the first pickpocket he stopped today and he knew it won’t be the last.

“It still seems very odd to me every time I see it.” Ajax complained to Lexi, not for the first time.

“It took me a bit to adapt to it as well but that’s just how elves are.” Lexi said.

Ajax wasn’t talking about the attempted theft, instead he was talking about what he learned about the elven aging process. Apparently while elves had the same life expectancy as humans their bodies aged very differently, they would mature as normal until the age of ten, meaning they would look like an eighteen to twenty year old back on Earth. After that however their bodies simply stopped aging until the final few years of life where they aged all at once.

The way to track an elves' age was by the color of their hair. At birth all elves had pristine snow white hair. As they aged however their hair would start turning more and more the same color as their eyes. While this made them very suited for physical builds as they would essentially remain in their prime condition for most of their life it did come with the disadvantage that their bodies were more suited to magical and hybrid paths that pure physical ones.

The rest of the day proceed in much the same manner for the couple as they explored the city, their evening entertainment however was taken up by an urgent meeting inside the king’s carriage.

“I do not know what gave you the impression I was not being serious but I hope this is the only example I will need to make.” the king seethed as two of his guards held on to one of the barons.

“Referring to elves as ‘knife-ears’ on the first day since we arrived in the city.” the king continued angrily.

“He was a thief,” the baron defended himself. “Would you have me give my coin pouch to a pickpocket?”

“I would have you capture him and take him to the guards.” the king snarled. “Cut off his hand if you want to meet out justice yourself. The only things I commanded of you was no killing and no racial slurs!”

“With that unpleasantness out the way we also asked you here to let you know that our other booster arrived earlier tonight.” The king’s oldest son changed the topic once the baron was escorted out, being sent back to the kingdom with his carriage and any people he brought with him.

“Who is it that they sent?” The patriarch of house Steelblade asked.

“The shadow.” despite the price all but whispering the words they carried though the entire room and pandemonium descended.

“You can’t be serious.”

“You’re expecting us to go into a dungeon with him?”

“I am not going into a dungeon with a foreign master assassin!”

“Enough!” Unlike previously the prince didn’t use a skill to instantly silence the room, he recognised that their complaints were valid so he let them settle down on their own, but the decision was already made. “This is the way it will be. I will be along with you to keep an eye on things but anyone who wants to drop out of their spot can do so now with no repercussions.”

Despite all the complaining and more than one fearful look from the selected delvers not a single one volunteered to give up their spot. Giving up four foreign dungeon spots wasn’t that easy and everyone knew that some rewards were simply worth the risk. The chances that the elite assassin would actually do something were very small.

“Good.” The prince said when he saw that nobody was complaining further. “We will be leaving tomorrow morning after sunrise.”

With that the meeting was dispersed and Ajax exited the carriage and started to make his way towards the inn he had booked with Anna and Lexi coming with him. He had only made it a few steps outside the carriage before he felt [Enigma] activate. Unlike the other times it had activated throughout the day [Enigma] was actually broken through for the first time in a while.

Ajax was quick to turn and survey his surroundings but despite his quick reaction he couldn’t find anything.

“What’s going on?” Lexi asked also on high alert.

“Someone broke through [Enigma]” Ajax answered. “They didn’t get my skills and my exact stat numbers but they got my level, name, age and even how my stat distribution presents. More than that I don’t have any idea who did it or where they did it from.”

“That was quite rude of me, I apologize.” all three of them jumped a little as a tall panther beastkin materialized behind them. None of them had any idea how he got there.

“It was indeed rude, though I remember you letting me slide on more egregious offenses.” The prince was out of the carriage with a smile on his face as he approached the beastkin, his eyes however were on Ajax silently asking if he was okay. “You just couldn’t wait until tomorrow, Shadow.”