The following morning Ajax was no closer to the design of a sigil for his new house and to be honest he wasn’t even inclined to try his hand at it. Despite the training he had as an architect back on Earth he knew that creativity was not his strong suit. Therefore before Ajax left along with most everyone else from the family he had a request to make after breakfast.
“Hey, dad.” Ajax said as he put away the last of the plates. “Can I leave the house sigil design to you, creativity was never a strong point for me.”
Sam was very glad for this to happen as while his smithy wasn’t yet properly set up he couldn’t do anything and he knew he would be left alone with everyone else already having their jobs.
“I’ll have a few choices made by the end of the week.” His father confirmed with a wide smile.
With that bourden taken off his shoulders Ajax got suited up in his basic gear and grabbed him dungeon alchemy set-up and headed for the Academy. Despite going on a delve with the rest of his class it would still be only to the first level of the dungeon, they had all already been told that they would only be going to the first level of the other dungeon for their final exam of the year, delving to the second floor was out of the question due to the randomness factor it presented.
One thing Ajax did manage to note was that everyone in the class had made serious progress growing at least one level, with a few that were close to the level point at the start of the year gaining two.
“Oh good, you came.” Professor Silvertogue poked his head into his office as Ajax was getting ready to head to class.
“What do you mean good I came?” Ajax asked, surprised.
Ajax was perfectly justified in his confusion as he had cleared his leave of absence with professor Silvertongue repeatedly.
Professor Silvertongue crashed into a chair inside the office “I thought I would need to send someone to get you, and that would have been a whole other political issue on top of it being awkward.”
Ajax was suddenly glad everyone from his family told him to come otherwise that awkward moment would have come to pass and if there was anything Ajax handled worse than social interactions with nobility it was awkwards social interactions with nobility.
“Here, I was also asked to give you this.” the professor said as he placed a ring on Ajax’s desk while also picking up the old one he gave him. “Is this one empty?”
“Yes,” Ajax asked confused, “But why?”
“The main reason? Simply because before the ring was the sign of my family’s investment in you despite you not officially joining.” The professor said, “Now with you being given a noble title and with a reward waiting in the wings this whole dynamic changes.”
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As Ajax infused his mana into the new ring and found that it was much bigger than his previous one. Not only that but he felt the ring latch on to his mana once he fed it and even sensed a scroll already being inside.
“This ring now symbolizes our support for an up and coming house as such the quality needs to be higher.” he said with a serious look before slumping down. “There are also another five to ten other smaller reasons that one of my siblings can spend five hours explaining to you in detail if you are interested enough to ask. Suffice to say, I wasn’t.”
“You forgot a scroll inside it.” Ajax said as he pulled out the scroll.
“No, we didn’t.” the professor corrected. “Like I said before the ring has a different meaning, you can keep this one with you at all times as not only is it locked to only your mana until you unbind it but that scroll is tied to a locator rune, if someone steals it you can track it down really fast.”
The size of the ring was a real upgrade as now Ajax didn’t even need to take a bag with him despite carrying all of his alchemy set-up, he simply shoved everything into the ring and headed towards his class.
As Ajax opened the door to the classroom everyone threw a glance towards the door and froze staring at him once they realized who it was. People’s reaction to seeing him varied wildly, some were happy to see him, some couldn’t care less and others shot him venomous looks, some attempted to mask them but the feeling was obvious regardless.
The first to approach him however wasn’t the fuming prince, nor was it Lexi or Anna. It was Benedict who came up to him with the most neutral expression of the bunch giving nothing away.
“Thank you so much for your hard work.” Benedict said as he placed a hand on each of Ajax’s shoulders and his neutral expression turned into one the happiest expression Ajax had ever seen the guy make. “I’m not sure if you realize just how big of an effect all of this will have on our armies and humanoids as a whole in a few centuries but it could be the start of not only a revolution but also the starting point of the first expansion humanoids have made in living memory.” Chapters fırst released on 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⚑𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚⚑𝙣𝙚𝙩
The ending part of that sentence made Ajax quickly freeze up for a second as he digested what was said. Could his discovery end up leading humanoids to try to expand their territory, according to the history lesson the dragon gave him the only reason nobody of real power bothers with humanoids is because they stay in their place and as such are protected by the old accord, this has the potential of going very wrong. Thankfully anything of that sort is still centuries if not millenia away at this point so he will have time to find a solution for it.
Despite Ajax’s thought spiral at the idea Benedicts approach broke the ice and both Lexi and Anna came over to congratulate Ajax on his awarded title. Despite both groups seeing Ajax’s discovery as a positive thing there were a few nobles who just stood there keeping their mouths shut and looking like they just bit into an unripe lemon.
“I had thought you were just extremely talented.” A raspy voice cut through the chatter.
Ajax turned to see it coming from the prince. “Then again I suppose that having the good fortune of discovering a new way to interact with the system can be considered a talent. You should however keep a close eye out as while luck can be considered a talent it’s the only one that eventually runs out.”
With that the prince and his whole entire entourage left the classroom, though a few of the nobles that followed him out gave Ajax a few looks of pity, signifying that they had no issue with him but they knew that showing that would have them join him on the prince’s shit list.
“Don’t mind him.” Anna said after the prince left. “It will take him a while to get over the fact that his lead in the battle for succession was cut down but he’ll come around.”
“Still probably a good idea to give him a bit of time and space to do that.” Lexi butted in. “Wouldn’t hurt to keep a closer eye on your surroundings until then either.
“Oh just forget about him.” Benedict's best friend Rick said as he stretched up in order to put one arm around Ajax’s shoulders dragging him a bit down in the process. “After we are done with this delve I am taking you drinking.”
Rick quickly picked up on Ajax’s confused face, they hadn’t really gotten along all that much ever since the first delve they did as a class and even with Benedict's approval Rick had kept a bit of grudge.
“My big sister is a right bitch and you should have seen the look on her face when she found out that my little sister might be in a better position to inherit the main title. That alone made my day.” Rick explained. “And that’s not to say anything of how much this all means to my little sister.”
“You might have a few people holding a grudge, and most of them will be focused in the academy both in the classes that are above us and the next few that are coming after.” Lexi said. “But I doubt you can enter any tavern in the noble district for the next year without somebody deciding to buy you a few drinks as thanks.”
Ajax simply nodded in agreement. He hadn’t thought about the nobles fighting for succession who would be happy about his discovery yet and found that to be a pleasant thought. As for the prince Ajax already planned to try and teach him his own weird style of casting, though after that last interaction the timeline for those lessons changed from in a few weeks to in a few months.