Ajax was tired as he moved to exit the arena. Despite being the more heavily injured of the two fighters the healers weren’t prioritizing him. Ajax didn’t know if this was favoritism because he was one of the Republics champions, because he was the loser of the fight, or just because he experienced excruciating pain tear through his body towards the end of the fight.
It wasn’t long until the healers agreed that there was nothing they could do for the dwarf other than let him try and process the pain he had felt and they all moved to patch Ajax up.
“What are you doing to help us along?” one of the healers asked as they were almost finished with his injuries. “It’s like I hardly need to focus and my healing spells go right where they should.”
“He’ll be keeping that to himself.” the crown prince said as he arrived at the healing quarters, half of the members of the first squad behind him. “You alright, kid?”
“I’ll be fine.” Ajax responded, normally he’d be a bit peeved at still being called a kid but the crown prince was older than four hundred years old so he more than qualified as a kid in his eyes. “Got a killer headache.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” the healers asked as they moved to try and inspect him.
“Because there’s nothing you can do about it.” Ajax responded. “It’s self-inflicted by overuse of complicated spells.”
All of the healers winced at that. Focus headaches passed a lot quicker than low mana headaches and most casters weren’t familiar with them as most spells didn’t require that much focus. Any healer however was more than familiar with focus headaches and every one of them knew the only thing worse than a focus headache was to have both a low mana and a focus headache at the same time.
“How bad is it?” Ajax asked after they left the healing ward.
“You just relax for now.” the crown prince said. “Best to go over the shitstorm you caused once you have a clear head.”
Ajax returned to the royal seating to thunderous cheers. Everyone was content to let him relax for a while as they prepared for the final tournament. For the first time since the start of the tournament Ajax was actually going to watch the remaining fights as a normal spectator. With his headache there was no point in trying to break down the fight using his mana sense in search of any small bit of insight.
“How are you?” Lexi whispered to him as she pulled harder into the hug.
“I’m just fine.” Ajax tried to assure her but they both knew that last fight had been very close, if the dwarf’s armor would have held up to the pressure the rune output the match could have ended very differently.
By the end of the day Ajax was the final representative Gryndor had in the tournament. In the end the finals would be elf versus beastkin, elf versus human and elf versus dwarf. The old elf was a wonder to behold, Ajax was honestly shocked how he had managed to get so good when he focused solely on wind magic.
“Are you better now?” Lexi asked as she tried her best to get Ajax to lean on her as they walked back.
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“Just a little tired” Ajax said as his stomach rebelled and decided to inform everyone that he was also in need of maintenance. “A bit hungry as well.”
“Sorry to say this but you won’t get to pull your disappearing act again tonight.” The king burst Ajax’s bubble.
“Why not?” it took everything in his power to get the question to come out without sounding like a whimper.
“More than a few people have questions after what you pulled off in the arena today.” the king said. “We might have been able to postpone the magnetic mana until after the tournament but since you also showed your [Cursed Slash] they focused on that to get at least a small glimpse tonight over dinner.”
“How could they do that?” Ajax asked. “I thought there was nothing wrong with Stamina based curse attacks.”
“There isn’t.” the crown prince confirmed. “But you’re the first hybrid fighter to ever gain a stamina based curse skill, most other hybrids or mages just focus too much on magic for that to happen.”
This was why Ajax hated politics. Everyone who was important knew that Ajax hadn’t used something that was over the line. His situation could be used to make it look like he could have access to something that was forbidden and they used that as leverage.
“What’s the plan for tonight?” Ajax asked with a defeated sigh.
The king actually deferred to the crown prince for this one. This meeting was something that would most likely not affect anything in the short term so as future king it was up to him how he wanted to play this.
“I was actually thinking of revealing some of the facts about your specific training method.” the crown prince revealed.
“What?” Both Ajax and the king turned in surprise to look at the crown prince.
“I have to say that your training method managed to both overperform and underperform what I expected from it when I first heard about it.” the crown prince confessed.
“How could it do both?” Ajax asked.
“You were the initial end result, the only end result we had seen until two years ago when the first people who followed in your footsteps spent their free stat points.” the crown prince confessed. “The increase in power is significant, easily five levels worth of stats even in some of the worst cases, but nothing like the increase you’ve shown.”
“Okay, so if that’s where it underperformed, where did it overperform?” Ajax asked.
“That was with the fact that anyone who tried got results.” the crown prince said. “I was expecting it to work on one in five people, maybe one in four and one in three when it came to nobility. Yes the results varied on effort but all but the laziest of people got to reap the main chunk of the reward.”
“So if it’s so good then why are you going to reveal it?” Ajax tilted his head questioningly.
“Because it’s going to get out, so we might as well choose how it does and profit from it.” the crown prince explained. “Every single child born into nobility has access to your method by now, there is no way it won’t leak in the next year or so. But if we release it to everyone now every other nation will have a big problem that we don’t.”
“You want them worried about rebellions.” Anna spoke up as she looked towards the crown prince. “Our noble lines have all had years to get ahead of the commoners' talents who would come after. You let everyone know how it’s done now we’d still have a group of nobles older than the commoners who will keep their lead enough to curtail any revolt. Everyone else however will have to put in a lot of effort to make sure there won’t be an uprising in a century or two.”
“It won’t be very long, about a decade at most but it should keep their focus away from you.” the crown prince nodded to Ajax. “You were planning on heading outside the kingdom after your delve in the Empire, that should ensure the big players aren’t too focused on you.”
“You’re planning on going on an expedition?” Lexi asked him, a pang of regret in her voice as she knew she couldn’t join him. The next decade would be essential for her to set her foundations by learning and mastering as many of her grandfather’s spells as she could, sure she could postpone all that but it would simply continue to grow the gulf of power between her and Ajax.
“I want to try for a bond of my own.” Ajax admitted. “There is nothing inside the kingdoms that is a strong enough variant to bond with me, my only chance would be to hope for an egg to drop in a dungeon, that’s not even to mention the gains I could make by delving dungeons that are spread outside any kingdom’s borders.”
What Ajax didn’t mention was how he knew that all the ruins he saw as landmarks on the maps he studied during his time at the academy came from a humanoid empire. The royals of the nation seemed to be under the impression that the humanoid kingdoms were slowly expanding. While that was technically true, what they didn’t know was that their empires were pushed back millennia of development every time a ruler decided to challenge one of the superior races and give it justification to strike back at humanity.
“Who are you expecting to come tonight?” Ajax asked.
“Three members of the Council, the elven royal family, and a few dukes from both countries.” the king’s oldest son flippantly said with a sadistic smile as he watched Ajax take a mental blow after each mention.
“We managed to exclude Archduke Goldenmouth, if that is any reassurance.” the king offered, and as much as Ajax didn’t want to admit it the words were like a security blanket to him.