Ajax woke up the next morning to find that Tom had stayed up the entire night with Fluffy still the shadow cat was curled up in a ball with shallow breathing all but radiating mana.Looking out the tent flap he noticed the sun was already out for a while so he approached his brother.

“You need to report for duty, the ceasefire just ended.” he said but didn’t let Tom respond before he continued. “ I’ll take care of her, If I feel anything change in her mana I’ll get her to the healers and send somebody to grab you.”

This seemed to be enough to reassure him as he softly petted his bond before getting up to leave. “Thanks” he said as he squeezed one of Ajax’s shoulders before walking out of the tent and picking up his speed to a jog.

About an hour later Kate had woken up, it seems she finally recovered from fatigue and drained and was now finally in tip-top shape. She carefully examined Ajax before applying all of her healing. The gash on his leg had now healed a thick crust still marked the top of the wound but it would all be gone by nightfall, not only that but the bruise also dropped to the side of a golf ball and would soon be gone as well.

Now that he was more alert and rested he paid more attention to the process. Unlike regular casting, healing seemed to work differently, not only did the healer have to gather mana outside of her but also infuse it into the patient slowly before chanting the spell. This is why high level healers were so hard to come by, it took a lot of skill and practice to be able to infuse enough mana for some of the stronger spells in both a reasonable time frame and without hurting the patient.

Without the pressure of time Kate spent half an hour redressing his wounds, after all her efficiency would be higher this way so why rush. A few minutes after they were done Fluffy had also finally woken up and started to move.

The cat quickly got its bearings before jumping into Ajax’s lap and purring contently. With a small smirk on his face Ajax petted her to find that her fur was now even softer than it was before, not only that it seemed like her even her eyes started glowing slightly stronger than before. Whatever had happened it clearly helped the young pup.

With Fluffy finally being fine the three all went out to breakfast, though both Kate and Ajax were kitted out in their full gear. With the ceasefire over everybody had to be ready to move at a moment's notice.

It was highly surprising for most of the camp when their afternoon consisted of training drills with very little to suggest the war hungry state they had been in a few days earlier. Tom joined Ajax halfway through but was quickly mobbed by everyone on the field, they all wanted to know what was going on.

“Woah, woah. Calm down everyone and shut up. I don’t want to repeat myself for every person so just listen.” he tried to wrangle the crowd. “The reason why we aren’t moving yet is because both sides have had their spies culled and are only now sending out more with the ceasefire finished. We would likely have a good idea on the situation by tonight and tomorrow we expect to be on the move again. As it is, everybody with some experience in stealth and infiltration has already been sent out.”

After Tom said that Ajax noticed that he hadn’t seen the hunter squad leader or the veteran all day, only the rookie was with him at training. If even the hunters were pulled for spy duty it means that they are looking to end this war quickly.

Everybody was surprisingly happy at the news, Ajax supposed that this was because a lot of them were quite a bit older than he was and had families they wanted to get back to, after spending the last three months away from them.

The rest of the day moved on without any excitement up until the end of training. As everyone was finally released for the day a small crowd had formed a circle, after trying and failing to squeeze his way through, Ajax quickly climbed up a post to try and get a look from above.

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His plan worked out and in the center of the crowd was Spencer, his lackeys and Tom. He knew this was not going to go well but was also reluctant to leave his brother alone without backup or an officer nearby.

Despite the fact that many of the guards didn’t like Spencer very much they were also too young and weak to actually stand up to him out of fear of what a noble could do to retaliate, even if he was only the son of a knight. This didn’t make them any less interested in the situation taking place as the crowded in to get a better look just made them very unlikely to interfere.

Ajax couldn’t hear what was being said because of the noise they all made but judging from how Tom and Spencer were given a lot of space in the center and both drew their swords some type of duel was taking place. He silently took out his bow and an arrow, ready to intervene should anything happen to his brother.

The duel was moving fast, despite the age advantage Spencer had it seemed that they were both of equal level. This meant that it all came down to skills and where their stats were invested.

The difference between them became clear less than a minute into the duel. While Spencer seemed to have more in depth skill when it came to fighting he was clearly out of practice. This should have been obvious considering that as a noble he was higher level than Tom at the age of ten and had likely been trained and drilled as the son of a knight. To have the same level now meant that he had been ignoring his training for the last few years.

Tom on the other hand was sticking to simple basics and adjusting more and more to the complex style with every exchange. He had been pestering the older guards to train with him constantly the last five years after he had been so powerless to help Ajax with the vampire that night.

Something else Ajax noticed was how springy Tom seemed to be now. He was always a quick fighter but now he seemed much more flexible, he wondered if this had anything to do with the fact that he bonded a feline, after all his movements did somewhat remind him of the way Fluffy’s mother bobbed in and out of range.

The duel reached its apex when Tom baited Spencer, he had placed his sword in a bad position that made Spencer reach out to disarm him. What Spencer didn’t see was that he would be overreaching to do so and found himself in a choke lock before his opponent's sword even hit the ground.

With things taking such a turn Ajax relaxed a little on the arrow he had drawn but didn’t yet put away the bow. It was a good thing too as when it became obvious that it would be seconds before Spencer would lose the lackey directly behind Tom made to charge him from the blind spot.

He didn’t get more than halfway there before an arrow sprouted in front of his feet startling him out of his charge. Looking at the way the arrow came he saw Ajax up on the post, this distraction was enough to buy Tom enough time to choke Spencer out and finish the duel.

That was enough to let Tom slip away with Ajax and it seemed that there would be no more excitement at least for today. The brothers had dinner with Kate before returning to their tent. For the first time in a month Ajax wasn’t feeling worn out at the end of the day. He was not yet feeling sleepy so he went outside to gaze at the sky.

This night had to be the clearest he had ever seen since being born on this world. There was not a cloud in sight and he could see what looked like a million stars scattered across the sky. It was then that something caught his eye, a white trail moving slowly across the sky.

Achievement : Autumn Watcher

Gaze upon a comet of the god Autumn.

Increased Perception by 10.

Requires one discovery to earn:

Excessive stamina usage repeated over short time causes fatigue.(Has been discovered by others before you)

He didn’t have time to waste, at the speed it was moving the comet would be out of sight in a few minutes so he sprung into action.

“Tom, Kate wake up!” He spoke loudly, almost yelling in his excitement as he dragged the two out of bed and outside the tent before they even had a chance to get their bearings.

“What is it?” Tom yawned.

“Look there, see that little white spot moving across the sky?” Ajax excitedly said, showing his teenager demeanor for the first time in years.

“This is why you dragged us out of bed at this h-” his tirade stopped abruptly as Ajax noticed both his and Kate’s eyes gloss over, in the distinct way that symbolizes someone reading a message from the system or their status.

“I’ll go tell the commander.” Tom quickly broke out of his shock and dashed away leaving Ajax standing out there with Kate in her nightwear.

“This does seem like a good enough reason to literally drag us out of bed.” she said with mock annoyance before leaning in to give him a warm hug and whisper “Thanks.”

As Tom was running around informing the commander and Kate sluggishly returned to bed Ajax was left thinking more and more about what achievements did and how they worked.

He came to the conclusion that achievements are actually the main reason why humanoids are so low on the food chain in this world. The presence of magic that makes scientific innovations less important for comfort, the presence of much stronger beings in the forms of Dragons but the way achievements worked must have been the biggest hurdle.

It actively stopped the way humans reached the top of the food chain on Earth. Because discoveries had to be made by the person and not taught, it discouraged sharing information and education.