Chapter 407

For their final few days in Deepwood everyone was on edge, despite that nothing more came of it. They were safely escorted all the way to the border where two ten man squads of some of the strongest elves in Sylvanthal were waiting for them. 

“Do take care of yourself Baron.” Lioriel addressed Ajax as they were crossing the border. “I hope you take no offense if I don’t invite you to visit in the future.” 

“That’d be up to her Majesty.” Ajax responded with a small grin. “She is the one who decides who her ambassadors are.” 

“Lord Starfury.” Lioriel gave a deep bow towards the Sylvanthal’s champion. “Your next visit is eagerly anticipated.” 

Aranor only answered with a deep nod of confirmation as the group continued into Sylvanthal. Ajax chose to ignore the exchange taking it as a small bit of payback for his last comment but Anna wasn’t so quick to overlook it.

“What trade agreement did they offer?” Anna asked as soon as they were outside of earshot of the border.

“What makes you so sure we were off-” Arianwyn tried to cut her off but Anna interrupted her as she explained her reasoning.

“Your kingdom is in financial straits, despite this your and Elara’s existence as future powerhouses bodes well for your father’s reign.” Anna said. “Since they only offered a deal now I suspect the Queen learnt of your agreements to delve Gryndor’s dungeons and of the reciprocal deal for more of the nobles to delve multiple dungeons.” 

“They don’t want to be left out so they are offering to pay you to pass off some of the royal family's potential powerhouses as your own.” Lexi snapped her fingers as she put things together. As everyone turned towards her at her outburst she blushed slightly “Sorry.” 

“Deepwood, the Empire and Highmountain can’t publicly take part in the exchange. Their radical views on other races would cause a civil uprising if they were to accept others in their own dungeons.” Xavier reasoned. “Even with that being the case it would be too much to miss out on.” 

“While they won’t be able to send anyone who is already well known, that is not really an issue for any of their royal families. The royal families purposefully keep their prodigies secret, so they could all pay their nearest kingdom handsomely to add a few people to their rosters.” Anna nodded. “Gryndor, Sylvanthal and Brightstone all have a rather sizable source of income in their grasp.” 

While Gryndor and Brightsone were more financially secure Sylvanthal were much more likely to accept taking the deal. Seeing how Deepwood had lost some potential assets already as they attempted to kill Ajax they would be that much more hard pressed to increase the potential of their next generation.

“Interesting as this all is, I'm going to get some sleep.” the prince cut into the conversation. The financials aspects as well as the political relations between kingdoms weren’t all that interesting to him, there was a reason he didn’t even try to hold on to his original position as crown prince and passed it to his younger brother. “Wake me up in a day or two.” 

The groups next stop would be Sylvanthal’s capital but that was weeks away. Without the added danger they were in while in Deepwood the group had no issues going slower and stopping here and there on their trip instead of keeping the carriage moving 24/7.

Ajax in particular was excited to be back in Sylvanthal, if for no other reason than the simple fact that the prince would no longer be their only booster, Aranor had joined them inside the first two dungeons and he had no doubt he and maybe even some of members of the ranger squads would also join them now. With some many high level people there Ajax will no longer have to give up on certain floors just because the following one could pose a threat to their booster. Sure the agreement they had didn’t state that they would help with the boost but Ajax was sure they would be agreeable if he could help them with the floor’s dominant mana.

Without the haste the group now also had much more freedom with their training. Considering all of the stats they had gained from Deepwood’s dungeon it wasn’t a surprise that they would be looking to shore up their defenses. 

It didn’t come as much of a surprise to Ajax that Darkclaw, Arianwyn and Elara were all spending numerous hours working on their physical training. While all of them were mages and extremely focused on their mental stats this also meant that their physical stats had the largest percentage increase from the recent dungeons.

Ajax himself was more focused on the [Alchemy] side of this. With his most recent gift from the Queen of Deepwood Ajax knew he wasn’t yet prepared for all the possibilities these reagents could provide him with. Considering the number of ingredients he hadn’t even heard of before and Divine Witness he was all but sure he could gain a Rare skill just from experimenting. This would all have to wait until he was back in Gryndor, until then all he could do was reserve most of his mana for infusing a large amount of his new reagents with Life mana. 

Months spent on guard had finally come to an end and everyone could breathe a sigh of relief. This became all the more obvious when one of the ranger squad leaders reported to Aranor.

“Aranor, there are about fifty people two and a half miles ahead.” Ajax, Lexi, Anna, Benedict, Xavier, Darkclaw and even Harold all tensed at the news hands going for their weapons.

“Assassins?” Aranor asked.

“Common bandits, even the kids could take them, some of the higher level ones are close to level sixty. They are about to ambush the merchant caravan ahead of us.” the leader said with a wave of his hand. “My squad is already moving to handle the situation.” 

This showed the difference in their escorts between here and Deepwood. Ajax couldn't help but feel the difference, back in Deepwood they had had twenty people who were around the same level of power as himself led by Lioriel who was much stronger. Here however they had twenty or so people around Lioriel’s power level led by people who were around the prince’s level of power. Unlike back in Deepwood their guardians weren’t even worried about their mission, simply mentioning the bandits while they were already being dealt with.

As they continued their travels Ajax had more and more time to think about his House. This most recent expedition had made him certain that he wanted to help push his own people higher. Even with how new his own ducal House would be they did have something very valuable that they could trade. 

Ajax was sure that he would be able to sell his services as a dungeon floor detector to Sylvanthal and the Republic in exchange for some of his own people and family delving the dungeons. The deals would be pretty easy to close since the people getting access to the dungeon weren’t future powerhouses but instead just slightly talented people who had connections.

“Are you looking forward to seeing your family again?” Ajax asked Arianwyn as she took a break from her training.

“I’m glad I made it back before my cousin’s tenth birthday.” Arianwyn said with a smile. “I promised him the tournament would be over well before his party but with this trip we would be cutting it close.” 

This cousin wasn’t part of the royal family. Arianwyn’s mother had married into the royal family and it was her sister’s son that was turning ten soon. “You’re all invited to the festivities of course.” she followed up as she finished her break and started her training again.

This news left Ajax with a small conundrum. Should he make an exception and tell Arianwyn's cousin about the trick to increasing his Stats slowly until the age of fifteen? The king of Gryndor had made an announcement that it would all be public soon enough, there was no doubt that if he told Arianwyn’s cousin that the royal family of Sylvanthal would find out as well. Then again did that really matter as much considering there was no going back once the free Stat points were spent.

“Are you okay?” Xavier asked as he noticed Ajax was struggling with the choice. 

Ajax asked Xavier to put up his privacy bubble before he explained the situation. “What do you think I should do?” Ajax asked. “I don’t want to undermine your grandfather, or worse cause a political incident by letting the cat out of the bag early with Sylvanthal. On the other hand this is a great opportunity for me to not only build some international connections for my House and prevent some bad blood.” 

Both Ajax and Xavier knew there would be some pretty strong resentment coming from everyone who had turned ten close to when the announcement was officially made. Not sharing this would upset Arianwyn a lot, not so much that it would endanger their budding friendship but she wouldn’t let this go easily either.