Chapter 388

The situation quickly turned a little awkward for the noble elves once their powerful supporters followed Aranor’s suggestion, clearly they hadn’t expected it to go this way. 

“Not even a shred of courage.” Xavier commented with a snicker to his friends as he saw the nobles their own age look to each other to make the first move.

“What’s that supposed to mean mana-starved?” The most hotheaded of the elves sniped back. 

Xavier’s eye twitched at the racial slur. Despite his extensive training as a talented member of the royal family there were things that he just hadn’t experienced, it took all of his willpower to hide the anger and push on with the script he was playing out. 

“It’s clear none of you are courageous to the point of stupidity.” Xavier continued as he put on a smirk reminiscent of his uncle. “They would have come before we entered the dungeon, challenged Ajax and been sent to the infirmary.” 

The elves could do nothing but look around awkwardly at that, all of them knew it was true. Some of them had in fact had family members or friends that had wanted to challenge the human genius but their families went as far as to imprison them to ensure that wouldn’t happen. 

“But to not even have enough courage to challenge one of us without any support.” Xavier continued while shaking his head in mock disappointment. “You might as well leave now.” 

This was what Xavier’s entire plan hinged on, he would need to be challenged and not the challenger. While the challenger had an advantage in deciding the stage where the fight took place the challenged could set the terms for the prizes. 

“You’ll regret those words mana-starved.” the same hotheaded elf responded. “I, Ruffius Leafblade, grandson of Duke Leafblade, challenge you to a duel!” 

“What are the terms of the duel?” Xavier asked. 

Xavier was smart enough not to jump into this head first, a duel to first blood would not be one he would accept against a family of wind mages who specialized in long range attacks with wind currents that carried poisonous leaves. 

“Duels are traditionally to first blood of course.” Ruffius said with an evil grin.

“Is that so?” Xavier seemed to ponder, Lioriel was on the verge of challenging that claim but the looks coming from the elves around Aranor quickly stopped her in her tracks. Clearly they wanted to enforce Aranor’s words on any help the humans would receive as well. “Is that also the most prominent format in the last ten duels you took part in?”

Xavier’s question turned Ruffius’s grin into a scowl  as he admitted that eight out of his last ten duels had been under the rules of surrender or unconsciousness with no lethal attempts. Ruffius further spent another ten minutes trying to change the format but none of his arguments held any sway and it quickly became clear that this format was the only one Xavier would accept from someone slightly older than him. Ruffius was prepared to push more on the matter but he quickly changed his tune once he noticed one of the others with him was willing to take his chance away from him. 

“So be it, have the format you prefer, not like it will change the results.” Riffius said. “Lets go and settle this in the closest arena.” 

“You don’t seriously expect me to follow you right now?” Xavier sounded outraged at the premise.” 

“Why not?” Ruffius took his refusal as a sign of fear. “Scared you will lose?” 

“I’m not leaving Aranor’s size without my uncle present, and I know he won’t leave this courtyard until my uncle exits the dungeon.” Xavier said. 

“You insult my honor by suggesting I would have you attacked on the street.” Ruffius’s face went a little red as he growled the words, clearly his social skills left a little to be desired. 

“Who said anything about you?” Xavier waved away his complaint. “My inn was attacked just last night!” 

Ruffius had nothing he could say to that, any attempt to have the fight now was lost, he could now only hope that his father would be understanding if Ajax chose to challenge him that he will refuse that duel. 

“Fine!” Ruffius said as he turned to walk away. “We will have our duel after your uncle exits the dungeon.” 

“Lord Leafblade, aren’t you forgetting the stakes for the duel?” Xavier asked pushing his social skills to the limit to make himself sound simply confused, from the looks the elves around Aranor trained on him he wasn’t as successful as he thought. 

“And what do you think we should wager?” Ruffius asked more reserved than before, despite his ego he knew that his family's wealth paled compared to any royal family.

“We are still young members of our family so the prize shouldn’t be all that high.” Xavier said as he tried to make his request sound more reasonable. “The winner can choose one renewable resource from the loser’s family.” 

Ruffius’ eyebrows rose as he was shocked by the opportunity. A royal family had access to all the resources of a country, the elf was tempted to pinch himself to check if he was dreaming. Even the elves around Aranor seemed pleasantly surprised by the terms Xavier offered. 

Lioriel on the other hand saw straight through Xavier’s plan, after all they had just learnt about fortress tree’s the previous night with her there to witness it! And despite their great value, fortress saplings were technically a renewable resource that each high placed noble family had access to in order to maintain and grow their own house’s main estate. She was however unable to put a stop to this as Aranor had slowly made his way next to her, a simple hand placed on her shoulder allowed him to unleash his full aura on her alone keeping her from reacting for a few moments. 

“Those terms are agreeable!” Ruffius quickly agreed to the terms out of fear that Xavier would change his mind and left the area. 

“That was almost too easy.” Xavier said as he turned back to his friends. 

“You best make sure not to lose.” Anna's words sounded like a bucket of ice water. “The same way something like a fortress tree can be considered a renewable resource so can the next hatchling of your family's griffins.”  

Those words brought Xavier up short as he spotted the mistake he made as he focused on keeping anyone from suspecting that everything had already been planned out. His uncle had told him to make the best for a renewable resource currently in the family vault as the mated pair of wild griffins the royal family kept only mated once a century and even the only one offspring would appear. The next one was still two decades away but with the wording of the prize the next griffin pup could be claimed.

Xavier was still sure of his victory but this added pressure was something he wasn’t looking forward to for the next day until his uncle exited the dungeon and he could put all of this behind himself.

Inside the dungeon the group’s sleep break extended to over ten hours as they looked to push to the finish for most of them before another break would be needed. The next three floors didn’t pose a challenge for any of them, even Harold breezed straight through the level eighty seven mini boss. The strength gained from their previous dungeons was starting to show more and more. 

“What’s with the sad face?” the prince asked Ajax as he noticed him looking a little dejected as they traveled to the arch for the next floor. 

“It’s nothing,” Ajax shook his head. “I was just hoping for an achievement but it seems this isn’t one of them.” 

“What achievement?” The prince was excited now. 

“The previous floor I cleared marked my one hundredth dungeon floor clear.” Ajax said. “I was hoping there was a bonus for it but there doesn’t seem to be anything.” 

The prince started coughing as he choked on his gasp of surprise. “You’ve cleared one hundred floors.” the prince said as he looked at Ajax intently. “I guess I was aware that you just kept stacking more and more but it feels different now to hear you have an extra one hundred to all stats just from dungeons.” 

Ajax agreed that the number was extreme, made even more so by the fact that it could be increased further by 10% just from potions since stats gained from dungeons also increase the amount of potions you can take, more than that those 10% could be allocated however you wanted so long as you had powerful enough potions. 

“I know it’s already a lot.” Ajax said with a wistful sigh. “I just hoped there would be a bonus for the hundredth one, even something as small as it giving +2 to all stats instead.” 

“You should just be grateful there is no diminishing returns on it.” the prince said. “The system sometimes limits progressive gains like this, I have to imagine there is one for this as well but further along than one hundred. For your sake I hope it is as far away as possible.”