Ajax woke up with the worst hangover he had ever had in this life or his past life. Archduke Goldenmouth had managed to interject himself into a conversation he was part of and Ajax could actually feel himself slipping up. While he wasn’t normally a fan of wine that was the only thing that was close at hand and he had ended up eight glasses deep by the time he had managed to extricate himself from the conversation.

Ajax frowned even more as he remembered the awkward meeting he had with the Republic's second representative in his group. The dwarf was the first pure runic caster he had met, unlike the prince who was a spellblade he was a pure mage with the power and speed that runes offered.

“What happened to him?” the beastkin asked Lexi after he noticed that Ajax’s demeanour had changed from earlier in the evening when they first met.

“He had an encounter with the archduke and only the strong wine was close at hand.” Lexi explained with an awkward smile.

Neither of the competitors seemed to take offence of the fact, in fact the brief look of fear that crossed their faces followed by the pitying look they gave Ajax let everyone know that they knew exactly what he was going through. More than that it seemed that everyone he met at the party afterward seemed to be very understanding of his situation.

Despite the hangover Ajax was more than ready for the dungeon delve they were going to in the afternoon. Since they were starting later Ajax would only have to fight on the second floor since they were going to camp out before going to the third floor.

“How come we haven’t yet held an auction for the rest of the steampunk gear?” Ajax asked his sister as they were on their way to the dungeon. Word had gotten out about the unique items their team had pulled out of the dungeon.

“We’re waiting for the elves to arrive.” Judy told him. “Just because their kingdom as a whole is currently hurting for money that isn’t true of their high nobles. More than that because elves are so focused on magic they will place more value on them.”

It was a cruel twist of nature, despite the elves retaining their physical prime for most of their life they were also naturally inclined towards magic, the few fully physical champions they had throughout the years had all gone down in history, not for their feats so much as for the amount of time they remained active.

“Do you think you can get me something for them?” Ajax asked.

It was well know that since their entire nation was almost entirely made up of a large forest elves had access to a much larger sample and variety of alchemical ingredients, more than that they were vastly different from the ones Ajax could find in the Republic, Gryndro or the Empire since all three were mostly dominated by large open grasslands.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be looking into setting up a long term trade route with one of the elven nobles so you can get your roots and leaves.” Judy teased him.

Ajax was ecstatic at the news, with a regular route even if the deliveries were months apart he would have regular access to what he had previously considered exotic ingredients. “How do you plan on setting up a route, we are too small a noble house for that.” Ajax was slightly skeptical.

“With their help.” Judy said as she pointed towards the fully grown worm that was curled around one of the elven treehouses. “Alana and I had both gotten our start by being traveling merchants. Our organization and grandpas are both slowly combining under our noble house. Much as it raised us to a new level Alana and I are simply outmatched.”

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Ajax now understood the problem, Judy and Alana weren’t ready to be dealing at that level. While the initial move up had proven useful for their skills as it was a new and challenging experience they hadn’t caught up yet in terms of skills and levels and the novelty has worn off. They were actually being stifled at the top and forced to rely on Elija and Aurora.

“Any trade route to the elves will have to pass through the Republic as well.” Ajax said more to himself. “You and Alana will be going back to traveling merchants but you won’t simply be going a step back down, as international merchants I feel a few more skills may open up to you.”

“That’s not all, hopefully with us traveling so far so often we should be able to make a few connections with foreign nobles for our house.” Judy said. “It won’t be long until we gain that ducal title after all.”

Ajax knew she was right, it had been six years since Ajax had gotten his Baron title and he knew the king planned on granting him a ducal title in four years. While nobody expected a baron to have connections across national lines, dukes were an entirely different matter. Duke Manashaper was a prime example of a duke who had more political currency than the royal family with nobles of other kingdoms.

All of this turned out to be too much for Ajax to think about so soon after a night of heavy drinking so he simply relaxed and hoped the headache would go away as he got ready to head to the dungeon.

Unlike the previous two dungeons Ajax noticed that almost all the participants were now fully equipped with enhancement potions, with the jump between floors being only eight levels it was possible that the potion could make enough of a difference for all of them to get one more floor.

The fifty man procession got a lot of attention, especially with the prince and Shadow leading it and heading towards the dungeon. [Enigma] had gotten a good workout, Ajax had stopped counting the failed inspection attempts on him after he got to thirty but none of them managed to get anything more than his name.

While Ajax wasn’t as bothered by the attention, not everyone shared his outlook on the issue. More than once a spy had ended up being chased down the busy streets hoping to pass on whatever information they had managed to collect.

Unlike the other dungeons they had gone to despite the small level gap on the floors, the first floor started with the level thirty-six to forty-one range. All of Ajax’s former classmates were at the level forty-two or forty-three meaning it took a lot longer than usual to get past the first floor.

The level of difficulty on the second floor wasn’t that much higher, the boss monsters were only at level forty-nine the number of people who could benefit from them was much larger and they ended up clearing a good portion of the floor by the time everyone who needed a kill got it.

It was after they finished with the second floor that the first issue cropped up for Ajax. The arch they decided to use for the third floor was one that was full of metal mana, Ajax was almost sure that it would house metal elementals and even with the help of boosting potions Lexi, Anna, Benedict and Xavier wouldn’t be able to kill a metal elemental at level fifty seven.

“We’re not using this arch.” Ajax approached the prince when they made camp for the night.

“Why not?” The prince was surprised, he wasn’t against using a different arch but he didn’t know why Ajax cared.

“Too much metal mana in it.” Ajax explained. “Metal elementals are a bad match-up for everyone that is down a fair number of levels.”

“And how do you know th-...” he stopped midway through his question. “ [Mana Syphon].”

It wasn’t a question but Ajax nodded his confirmation all the same. “You just lost me a bet.” the prince said.

“What?” Ajax wasn’t the only one surprised. Lexi, Anna, Xavier and Benedict were all still in shock when they figured out Ajax could somewhat determine the theme of the next floor.

“You got too many plant based floors during your delves over the years.” the prince explained. “I bet my brother you had an intuition or a specific dungeon skill to increase your odds. Never thought it’d be something like this.”

Lexi was the first of the others present to react. She quickly stood up, walked over to Ajax and gave him a hug and a kiss. “Thank you.” She realized that he was sharing a secret to make sure that she and the others would clear an extra floor.

“I’m thanking you too but don’t expect a kiss from me.” Xavier broke the ice as he patted Ajax on the back. “You’re going to be the most requested person for crafting delves when we get back.”

Everyone had a chuckle at that. “That explains why you were heading for specific arches in the previous dungeons.” Shadow grunted. “Though I’ll appreciate it if you can keep us away from wet floors going forward.”

Shadow had noticed how in the later floors Ajax had been heading towards specific arches after finishing the last miniboss even if they weren’t the closest ones. It made perfect sense why now that he knew he could intuit the type of floor they would house even a little.