As Ajax entered the large ball room he was surprised by the variance he could see in attendance at the party. Even after all this time in the Republic he was still used to a more segregated split between the races. This wasn’t out of need but preference since most elves would stick to the elven side of the city, dwarves to the underground and so on.

While humans were the most numerous at this event there were a large number of noble elves, dwarves and beastkin as well. It was the elves in this mix that really threw him off, since elves didn’t really physically age after their teen years besides their hair color; a lot of the older groups of noblemen simply contained what looked to him like teenage elves with deep hair colors.

“That’s going to take some getting used to.” Ajax mumbled as he walked in with Lexi.

“I thought you did fine when we met with the elves.” Lexi asked as she looked at him confused.

“I didn’t have a contrast for their age then, it's odd looking at someone who seems so young and knowing they are the same age as the old man next to them.”

“If it helps, the prince is older than most of the people here and he looks to be middle aged.” Lexi said with a teasing smirk.

“That doesn’t help and you know it.” Ajax complained.

As they made their way towards the center of the room where the other four tournament fighters were waiting Ajax asked another question that had been bothering him. “How come the republic only gets two spots while both we and the elves get three?”

“It makes the tournament easier to arrange if there are only eight participants. Not only that but since they get a spot in any tournament that happens since they have a border with each of the other races they agreed to only get two spots.” Lexi explained.

While this might seem like a pretty large detriment it wasn’t all that big a loss. The prize only went to the winner of each section so they weren’t giving up much by only sending their best and second best representatives.

Tonight was also the first chance Ajax got to see the Republic representatives in person. Both the dwarf and the feline beastkin looked young, this was almost a given considering their age was only fifty and their levels closing on eighty.

His eyes however weren’t on his competition. His sight was drawn towards the next tier of competition instead, those under level one hundred. All of these people people looked old, Ajax knew that it was because they had specifically trained and even invested their stat points around being representative champions for their nation.

Their builds were focused around a few combat skills that were trained obsessively to increase the amount of power gained within the limited one hundred levels, next was their stats that were less focused on vitality meaning they had a much shorter lifespan and much lower health pool for increased power. With most of them being full mages, Ajax was legitimately worried that a stiff breeze could kill one of them if it managed to make contact.

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The last people in the center were the no limit champions. This included the prince as well as the leader of the first and second squads from Gryndor as well as Shadow and an elf Ajax didn’t know from the Republic. These were the true powerhouses and strongest people in their respective nations and people Ajax did not want to piss off until he got stronger.

“Thank you all for coming.” An old man joined by a beastkin, an elf, a dwarf and king Gryndor himself loudly announced one Ajax had joined the other tournament competitors. “It is our great pleasure to celebrate the best that our nations have to offer in our champions that will be taking part in the tournament. I invite all of you to celebrate and enjoy yourselves tonight.”

Ajax recognised the four with the king as the members of the council that rules the Republic. He also silently cursed the old man about the ‘enjoy yourselves’ part of his speech. Ajax knew for a fact half the champions would much rather be doing something else tonight than attend a party. This was easy to spot as well as the level one hundred limited champions didn’t have the social skills to mask their emotions.

“Oh noooo….” the prince complained as he pulled Ajax and the other two young participants close once they accepted their applause from the guests. “I really hoped he wouldn’t show up tonight.”

“Who -” was all Ajax got to get out before the prince pointed all of them towards a table.

Sitting at the table was a kind looking older man that seemed to draw no attention to himself talking animatedly with the beastkin opposite him. The dog beastkin made for a comedic sight as he had numerous empty beer tankards and a chicken leg in each hand as he chewed.

“That right there is Archduke Goldenmouth, the best politician in the Republic.” the prince said. “It is widely known that he is more than nine hundred years old and in that time he managed to get the Legendary [Talker] skill past the level 100 bottleneck.”

“I heard about him.” Richard Steelblade said as a small shiver ran up his spine. “It’s said that even the best politicians have to constantly be eating and drinking when talking with him so that they don’t accidentally let something slip.”

“I don’t care how rude it comes off as, you Ajax are not to talk with him without the king or my brother present and by your side, if he approaches you a polite greeting and a hasty exit from the conversation is exactly what you will do.” the prince said.

At first the instruction surprised Ajax until he realized that it wasn’t any of the secrets he was still keeping to himself that they wanted to hide, it was the secret behind his training method. Over the years all the other nations had managed to find out almost all the information behind Ajax’s method to strengthen their young nobles despite all the false information the kingdom spread.

The last line of defense the kingdom had used however was that only the children in question were taught how to specifically make their system screen transparent. The information of what they were doing was out there in detail but the linchpin was still secret after all these years because so few people knew it. Considering the ages of the people here Ajax suspected that it was only him, the king, the crown prince as well as Archduke Goldmancer that actually knew the trick and could leak it.

As Ajax headed off in the opposite direction from the Archduke and towards Lexi he felt [Enigma] activate. He quickly turned towards the direction he felt the inspection skill coming from wondering who would be using an inspection skill on him at such an event.

As he turned his gaze met that of the feline beastkin competitor. [Enigma] let him know that the inspection got nothing but his threat level, from the confident walk and smirk on the beastkin’s face Ajax couldn’t help but wonder if he was really that strong or if somehow [Enigma] managed to fool his skill.

“Good, you’re a real threat.” the beastkin said as he stopped a foot away from Ajax. “When I heard someone younger than twenty-five was going to be competing I thought it was a joke but you’ve got the strength to take part. I hope I get to face you in the ring.”

That’s when it clicked for Ajax, it wasn’t that [Enigma] fooled the skill, it was that the beastkin was happy Ajax was strong, he was looking forward to the fight. “You might end up regretting that after we fight.”

“Nonsense, the only thing I might regret is if one of us is knocked out before we get to meet.” the beastkin responded. “Win or lose I can tell the fight will be a close one, two or three hundred years from now I’ll be able to claim I stood against the monster you’ll become in the ring and put up a fight. That’s an honor I’ll be happy to risk losing for.”

Ajax couldn’t help the smile that broke out on his face at that. He was starting to like the beastkin and could clearly tell that he was part of the faction that was hoping he would become the future war deterrent. “In that case how about we agree to a duel after the tournament if we don’t get to face each other in the ring?” Ajax extended his hand towards the beastkin.

The beastkin champion gave him as strong a handshake as he had felt from a pure mage before showing his race’s enhanced physical prowess. “That just made my night.”