Chapter 410

The knowledge that bees help with pollination was new to the elves, they knew that bees were attracted to flowers but they hadn’t pieced together that the flowers had adapted to make use of the bees. 

One of the things Ajax was more cognizant of needing to keep a secret was that he had figured out how to infuse mana into the bees. During his time in the academy the hives were now on their third queen. The first had only lasted between a year or two depending on the hive but the second queen had lasted almost four years for all the hives. 

More important however was the fact that with every new queen the amount of mana each bee was infused with seemed to grow. Their study into this was still new but Ajax theorized that if everything surrounding a creature was infused with mana their offsprings would naturally be better adapted to mana. 

Bees were the perfect test subjects for this since they had enough hives for variety and every queen would birth thousands of bees before the new generation. The latest generation of worker bees had become active only a couple of weeks before Ajax had left yet it was clear that these bees were different from the hives he had initially brought, the only question remaining however was what would happen once the bees crossed the level twenty threshold that seemed to differentiate animals and monsters? 

Even now the stings from the latest bees had started to actually cause some damage to some of their non-combat retainers and they were only level five. Thankfully none of the hives were aggressive, one of the things Ajax had known to look out for every time a hive changed its queen was if the new queen was aggressive towards humans, twice now he had had to remove and kill said queen and simply wait for the hive to provide a replacement.

As they arrived at the embassy Ajax noticed that it wasn’t as nice or as large as the one Gryndor had in the Republic, he was sure this would change in the coming decades as nobles would start traveling more often but even now the building was a definite step up to their housing in Deepwood.

“How do you want to do this?” the prince asked once Ajax took a seat. “The Blackthorn heir’s birthday party is in five days and we are invited to attend.” 

This was a true invitation that Ajax could reject if he wanted to without causing a political incident. The easiest way to do so would be to simply delve Sylvanthal’s main dungeon starting tomorrow. Like all other main dungeons it started with a base floor from level twenty five to thirty and grew by five levels per floor. Given the chance Ajax would most likely push all the way to challenging a level one hundred and thirty miniboss, that would be on the eighteen floor of the dungeon. There was no way they would clear all that in time for the party. 

“We’ll delve their secondary dungeon tomorrow.” Ajax said after taking a moment to think about it. “Do you know who will join us?” 

Their secondary dungeon started with levels thirty one to thirty six and had a nine level jump each floor. The group would only have to clear as many as ten floors, and the tenth floor was already a stretch seeing as the miniboss there would be level one hundred and thirty five. Even with a favorable match-up Ajax was worried about it.

“Aranor, Arianwyn and Elara will all join us.” the prince said. “I’m not sure if they will tag along for the final dungeon in Sylvanthal but they’ll delve with us for both of the ones here in the capital. Along with them two of the ranger squads will also join to help clear the final floor, or on the off chance that two arches on the final floor have a valuable element for their main theme they will split up to clear both.” 

Despite knowing that Sylvanthal made a very compelling reason for sending two ranger squads, Ajax's initial thought when he heard was tinged with a bit of speculation about how much power they were sending. In an odd twist of fate it was the idea that a single ranger squad was enough to handle all of them inside a dungeon that calmed Ajax down, what would be the point of sending two if that was their aim.

With that settled nobody spent any more time as they headed straight to bed. Ajax and Lexi simply cuddled together as they both prepared for the trying fights they would face in the coming days. 

Of them all Anna was the most nervous, despite heading straight to bed she spent the first hour twisting and turning in her bed before she finally fell asleep. The reason for this was the fear she felt. It wasn’t the upcoming fight she was afraid of however, it was that Lexi would leave her behind. 

Anna and Lexi had been best friends from the age of ten, more than that however Lexi had been Anna’s only true friend until they had joined the Academy. Throughout all this time they had been inseparable and while Lexi had almost always been the better mage they were still relatively close in terms of power. 

As of late this dynamic had started to change. It had started with Lexi gaining a Domain, followed quickly by her gaining the Legendary affinity for Vibration mana. This had been a massive jump in power but because of how offensive both gains were Anna hadn’t truly grasped the difference because Lexi couldn’t truly bring them to bear in their sparring without putting Anna in danger. The realization came when Lexi managed to push one floor further than any of them. 

Anna’s sleep that night was anything but restful, she had barely gotten five hours of sleep before she woke covered in a sheen of sweat. 

“I’ll do it...” she promised to herself in a whisper between deep breaths. “No matter what, I'll bring down the level seventy two.” 

Despite knowing that she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep Anna laid back down in bed as she tried her best to relax, she knew it wouldn’t be long until sunrise.

The news that they would be delving Sylvanthal’s secondary dungeon brought a big smile on Arianwyn’s face. She knew that if they were delving them main dungeon not only would she possibly need to leave early so that she would not miss her cousin’s party but also that Ajax, and by extension everyone else, would also attend. 

That night the queen and king had questioned Arianwyn as to why she was so attached to this group. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had friends before, there weren’t all that many of them on account of both her position as princess and her sheer talent, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for her here. Other than Darkclaw, everyone else was either a lot younger or much weaker than her, in most cases it was both.

“I don’t know.” Arianwyn admitted. “Maybe it’s because I know that they all have the potential to catch up with me. You always told me that a few decades wouldn’t matter as we got older, I guess I just realized that now.” 

Both the queen and king had shared those words in hopes of having Arianwyn befriend some of the older elves who could spar with her when she was younger but they were still very happy with this turn of events. It was clear as day to both of them that not only Ajax but Lexi, Anna, Xavier and Benedict would all become future champions, seeing their daughter make lifelong friends who would live that long brought them both so much joy.

The group that entered the dungeon was a lot bigger than usual. A total of thirty one people entered and as soon as they were inside one of them couldn’t hold back any more. 

“Can you really do it?” one of the widest elves Ajax had ever seen asked him before he even had a chance to look around the floor. 

“Rimthel!!” the ranger squad leader shouted to chastise his subordinate before turning an apologetic look towards Ajax. “ Forgive him, he’s very passionate about smithing and it has been more than twelve delves since he has seen any floor with quality metals above level ninety.” 

Ajax was surprised to hear the elf was a smith. He knew that there were elven smiths just the same as there were human mages or dwarves farmers but that one of them was not only a good enough smith to work with such mana dense metals as well as being strong enough to be part of the ranger squads was not something he expected.

Once the squad leader turned away Rimthel slowly crept close to Ajax and whispered so softly Ajax could barely hear it. “Can you?” 

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” Ajax responded with a grin the prince would have been proud of.