Chapter 466

Ajax watched in fascination as Bob managed to talk with the members of the royal squads about his work with cement. While it was clear none of the squad members were all that familiar with building they were all trained in gathering information and reporting anything relevant to the crown. 

j“Maybe I should use my other Achievement slot to gain [Social Understanding] as well.” Ajax murmured as he watched someone younger than him that was raised as a commoner in Lessis handle a social situation he would have no doubt tripped up in a few years ago.

“It’s not a bad idea.” Lexi said from beside him. “Though you should consider all your options, there are Achievements that can help with crafting and your Alchemy might need a bit of a boost if it is to keep up.” 

As much as Ajax might be jealous of [Social Understanding] it wasn’t enough to make him feel the tiniest bit of regret about choosing [Enigma] back when he did. The privacy skill had proven itself invaluable so far and that was a trend that was likely to continue. 

“This is certainly interesting.” The prince said as he approached them with a chunk of concrete in each hand that he broke off from the edge of the road. “Not all that solid.” 

As he said the last word his right hand clenched slightly and large cracks spread through the chunk as small dust started to fall.

“It’s not infused with any mana at all.” Ajax chided him. “Of course it’s not solid for someone like you. Not to mention that I told you this wasn’t really a finished recipe.” 

Ajax wasn’t sure how he’d done it but it seems that Bob had heard his words and he all but materialized next to them. “You’re going to improve it?” there was no masking the excitement in his voice, Ajax could also see the moment [Social Understanding] won over the excitement as he hastily followed with a cough and a bow of the head.“My Lord”

“Not for roads.” Ajax made sure to clarify. “There is no practical way to make it durable enough for road building without expensive materials. I will be experimenting with it to see how it handles mana infused reagents but what I have now is what I will be using to pave all the main roads in the duchy.” 

Ajax could see the war of emotions on Bob’s face, before it settled into apprehension. “All the roads in the duchy, My Lord?” Ajax could guess that the young man just saw the next few decades of his life flash before his eyes and he was second guessing his choices for a brief moment.

“Yes, it will take a few decades.” Ajax nodded. “But road building is an easy first step for training builders, the number of skilled builders in the duchy will steadily increase over the next half a century.” This was something that Ajax considered a major necessity considering the expected population growth.

“Is it really worth it to have so many roads built?” the prince asked. 

“Did you notice how much quicker the carriage moved once we got on the concrete?” Ajax answered with another question. “I bet merchants will be willing to pay a modest fee to shorten their trips, and with how centrally located my Duchy is, not to mention that all who go towards the Empire from the capital will pass through.” 

“You stand to make a lot of money.” Anna joined the conversation. “More than that you will also increase the merchant activity in your duchy providing a competitive market that will lower cost for your people as well as easier access to exotic goods.” 

“You said you won’t improve it for road building, what about for something else?” the prince asked as he looked towards the half built manor where the mana dense stones were secured with concrete.

“There is a lot I want to change when it comes to cement for any structure building.” Ajax said as he walked towards the edge of the road next to where the prince plucked his two chunks of rock. “You see roads will always deteriorate, with enough use. A cheap, plentiful and easy to repair road mixture is what you need.” 

As he said that Ajax ripped another chunk off the side of the road. “Repairing this damage won’t take all that long, with how malleable cement is before it hardens it’ll also make it easy to fix and sort of odd damage” 

“The same can be said for building.” the prince pointed out. “It might take longer but they still get damaged all the same.” 

“It’s not the same.” Ajax said as he shook his head. “Damage to a road can come from anything, a fight breaking out, a monster running by, a heavy cart breaking a wheel and dropping. That all causes large damage on a specific point in a short amount of time.” 

“For buildings, outside of a siege the damage is always gradual.” Anna pointed out. “It might all collapse at once but for that to happen cracks will have formed over time.” 

“Exactly.” Ajax nodded. “The mixture I am planning for construction is one that will slowly reactivate when wet.” 

“Reactivate?” Bob asked, intrigued by the idea. 

“The base rock we currently use for cement fuses together permanently once it dries. I am planning to have a mixture that will slowly reseal any cracks naturally as getting the set product wet will partially return it to a more malleable state where it will reset once again resealing it.” Ajax spoke with passion as he shared the information he learned a life time ago back in his architecture lessons, he planned to let a whole new world experience the wonders he felt the first time he saw pictures of the roman coliseum, the greek parthenon, and maybe one day even the pyramids. That last one was more questionable as even in modern day Earth they hadn’t figured out how they were built.

“And how do you expect to pay for all that?” Judy asked as she listened from one side. “It might be profitable in the long term but we first need to get the duchy settled before we invest our more modest wealth into such projects.

“Ah, yes.” Ajax’s cheeks reddened slightly in embarrassment as he rubbed the back of his neck. “About that, you see I had a slightly fortunate encounter when I delved in the Empire.”

As he said this Ajax produced what remained of the lower half of the golem from his storage ring. Everyone who joined him on his journey to the Empire knew what to expect, his family however was all shocked, staring wide eyed at the massive pile of gold. 

Judy was the first to break out of her stupor. “It’s missing a whole leg, did the Empire fleece you?” Her joking tone made it clear it wasn’t an actual dig at her brother but just her way of handling the odd situation.

“That is quite the find there, dear.” his grandmother Aurora said as she approached the gold and pressed a finger to it. “It has decent mana infusion as well. This solves all our short term solvency issues and we can even start taking some long term projects outside of this road idea of yours.” 

“The Empire did take the leg, taxes they said.” Ajax chuckled. “They did let me delve their other dungeon as well for it though. I wouldn’t say I made it out too bad, especially with this.” 

With that Ajax produced the other half of the golden golem, though still misshapen from the fall it had taken it was clearly a bit larger than the legs portion had been even before a leg was chopped off.

If the first half shocked Judy, the second half seemed to break something. “But… but…was it all for nothing” Alana was quicker to recover and was at her friend’s and partner’s side in a moment whispering comforting words. “What we do is still very important. We are the ones who will now get to spend all that gold. It will be just like it was back when we first started, we’ll take his gold and invest it. Instead of one hundred gold pieces, it’s now a massive pile of mana infused gold.” the joke seemed to be enough to break through to Judy as she turned a fiery look on Ajax. “If you think you can spend most of our wealth on stat enhancement potion in five years you better think again.” 

It was at that moment that Ajax decided he could wait a while before telling his sister he had already promised a part of the gold for potions already. “At least the greedy imperials called it tax so we won’t have to pay that again.” Elija said with a chuckle.

“I’m sure my father won’t tax you on.” Xavier said. “Though you might receive a royal request to not suddenly flood the market with gold.” While Gryndor wasn’t as light on gold as the Empire was, inflation would still shoot through the roof if so much gold was suddenly unloaded on the market all at once.

WHACK. The crack of skin on skin contact echoed slightly drawing everyone’s attention to Bob whose left cheek was starting to turn a deep red. “This can’t be… I’m sure I’m dreaming.”