Ajax slept a lot better that night after the conversation with Shadow. It led him to make a lot of realizations about who might be a potential ally. Of course his subconscious chose that exact night to prove just how wrong he could be. Two nightmares back to back where he was chased down by the dwarves and elves from their Empire equivalent kingdoms left him panting in cold sweat.

Despite the bad dreams Ajax still managed to get enough sleep that he wasn’t more than grumpy in the morning and he was definitely ready for the dungeon. An entire procession of the best young fighters in Gryndor marched up to the dungeon that morning.

With a floor jump of sixteen Ajax was planning on clearing four floors. With the way the jumps should play out the final boss was going to be the only challenge and he was only going to be a level ninety-seven, not the biggest level difference he had taken on but definitely not something he was going to attempt without a temporary boost potion.

Much like last time they did a dungeon like this the group started bleeding members as soon as they passed from one floor onto the next. With a high start of a full fifty man raid team the weaker members started being dropped off once they cleared their assigned floor, What was new was that there were four people besides the boosters that were going to try the floor instead of only a single one.

This clearly must have been a special occasion that the dungeon didn’t want Ajax to miss out on as the floor that spawned around them took all of them by surprise, not all for the same reason however.

Much like how the dungeon had managed to create a star wars themed floor before when Ajax was all alone, it had somehow decided that this floor will be a steampunk theme. The worst part was that Ajax hadn’t even had a clue that the floor would end up like this or that the dungeon could pull in things from his world into this new one.

Unlike the sci-fi machines from star wars steam powered machines are something that would actually do a lot better integrating in the technology of this medieval world, mainly because all steampunk does is turn water into energy which is a cheaper and more tedious way of turning mana into energy.

“What are these humanoids?” Richard Steelblade asks as he takes in the site of the sprawling steampunk city that took up the entire floor. “Are they all infected by metal?”

Much like Ajax read in his sci-fi when he was young, steampunk upgrades tended to slowly and methodically replace as much of their body as they could with working appendages.

The constant hissing caused by the numerous steam based machineries did no do a lot to put most of the party at ease. The prince and Shadow were the most excited about the floor as they had never seen anything like it before and they had already started hunting for anything permanent that they could take out with them.

Underestimating the brawler minibosses turned out to be a very big mistake. While they were all a lot slower than usual humanoid bosses would be at their level, their steampunk armor provided a turtle like defense as well as a power killer blow every time enough steam had built up.

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Neither of Ajax’s other two tournament competitors had managed to kill a miniboss. The prince had ended up intervening both times to ensure the survival of the bosstee.

“Alright kid you’re up.” Shadow nodded to Ajax. “I expected you to call it quits after that last floor but it seems like you are going all the way.”

The reason why they were taking turns fighting the minibosses they ran upon was simple. It was the most efficient way to manage downtime after having already used an enhancement potion.

Ajax wasted no time chugging a potion of his own. His entire body felt so light and responsive all of a sudden. His brain worked overtime catching each and every small twitch of all the other people around him. Both of his competitors looked like death and Ajax was finally ready for combat.

Ajax’s opening move might be a controversial one as he had never done this before. Instead of infusing his arrow with a strong penetrative force that he knew had next to no chance of hitting it. No he had infused the arrow with as much cold mana as he could manage

The effects of the arrow were immediate as the holder was covered in a small sheet of snow that was already melting off, the steel engine had dropped its high temperature and the pressure powering the bosses armor was starting to run low.

Without the pressure there the armor stopped being as effective in aiding its wearer to fight others . The strong defense it provided was still there and not to be underestimated but without a high amount of steam his speed was almost non-existent.

Unfortunately the humanoid was still strong enough to ruin Ajax’s day if he played around too much and his potion ran out and he entered the weakening period. The fight was by no means easy but it did turn out rather simple. Ajax’s chosen method of winning was death by a thousand curts and he slowly cut deeper and in more dangerous places as he was simply keeping up the pressure until he ran out of blood.

“How did you do that?” his competitors were still picking their jaws off the ground as the fight ended.

“I simply made his armor as useless as I could.” Ajax replied

What followed was a two hour conversation on the state's water can be found in and any way to exploit it. Despite the quick and rushed lesson everyone remaining knew that the secret to beating the humanoids was to cool down their exotic armor rendering it dead weight.

It took Ajax another two hours to get past the backlash of the potion he used, unlike him his two competitors didn’t look all that well as they were forced to take a second potion when they tried for the second time, the backlash compounded with such potions so even drinking only two granted rather debilitating fatigue.

Walking through the final arch and passing the level one hundred monsters Ajax made sure not to step away from the arch. Both boosters would be clearing this following floor themselves and AJax very much intended to be long gone by then.

“You did very well.” Shadow congratulated him. “That was four floors just here. I am almost afraid to let you go through our main seeing how many stats that would gain you. You will definitely make quite the showing at the tournament.”

“Are you looking to back out of the deal?” The prince was quick to pounce on the topic.

“Not at all.” Shadow says with a shake of his head. “I think I will find the experience a motivational one.”

Ajax didn’t stay to listen to them bicker, as soon as he swiped the increase in stats by one from clearing the floor he was quick to back out. He knew these monsters would be way out of his range in terms of what he can deal with.

“He is definitely something.” Shadow says once he and the prince are the only ones left as they look to kill the entire floor to ensure nothing too powerful is released outside.

“Any chance he is prejudiced towards other races?” Shadow continued to ask.

“No!” the prince responded as the two were methodically smashing through each monsters as it got in their way.

“Of what makes you so sure?” he asked.

“Because his brother’s wife is a feline beastkin and his niece is also part beastkin.

“I’m not going to lie, a lot of people are going to be happy to hear that.” Shadow let out another sigh of relief.

“The Empire was thrilled.” The prince threw it out there.

“I am looking forward to seeing how the elves react to him.” Shadow smirked. “I can see however why you decided to go through the dungeon first, even as strong as he is right now I still think he has a bit to go until he can stand up against the ice princess. Who knows maybe those extra stats would be enough.