Arriving at the trainee housing Ajax didn’t know what to expect but what he found was certainly not it. Instead of just a building he found an entire compound that could easily house over a hundred people. It had a canteen, garden and two dorms.

“Present your token.” The bored gate guard said as he put forward his open palm.

Ajax didn’t reply anything to that and simply placed the token Alfred had given him that morning into the hand of the guard.

“Ajax, new to the city.” His voice sounded bored as he read the information his token reader presented, his eyes however widened at the last part of his information. “Combat oriented.”

“Yes” Ajax simply confirmed , happy to know that the token only had such basic information.

“Your room will be on the second floor, number sixty-three.” the guard handing the token back to him. “Dormitory near the gate is the male one, you are free to go to the canteen and visit the gardens but the female dormitory is off limits.”

With a nod Ajax took the token and headed inside looking to drop off his pack in his new room. He had been told that they separated the boys and girls sleeping quarters. While they didn’t frown on fraternization they believed that should be the least of their focus while they were still trainees.

As he walked through the place he noticed that there were people of all ages moving around the compound. Unlike other organizations, the Healing Union had no age or level requirements to join as a trainee, but those who were younger or higher level were of course on the fast track to move up.

He had no issue finding his room, a small closet-like space two meters by four where he found a bed, a desk and a small wardrobe. As he was quite tired after the long day spent searching the forest he didn’t bother doing much more than putting his pack down, throwing off most of his clothes and crashing on the bed.

He now had some plans to make. Because of the problem with the delve slots he was about to find himself with a lot of extra time on his hands, at least in the short run before he built up a bit of a reputation for getting the job done. Only question was, what to do with it. He was highly tempted to revisit a lot of the skills he had gained throughout his childhood as they would be a good way to get a lay of the land.

There was however a small problem with working on his skills, he could only level once. That was the upper limit he could allow himself to reach before getting a spot in the Goldmine. With the monsters starting at level twenty-five even the strongest creature there will not surpass level thirty. This meant that he had to be at most level thirty-two if he wanted to gain the extra one point to all stats from clearing the floor.

Two considering he stood barely at 1510/55100 experience into level thirty-one this wouldn’t seem like that big of a limitation but that would all change quickly once he started pushing himself in the Highlands dungeon. A single delve on the fourth floor with levels fifty-seven to sixty-two would grant him at least half a level the first time, that’s not to mention the floor leading up to it.

‘THUM THUM THUM’

A powerful knock on the door broke him out of his thoughts.

“Trainee Ajax.” a voice sounded on the other side.

“Yes?” Ajax said sitting up on the bed just before the door opened and a man dressed in the Healing Union’s uniform strolled into the room.

“My name is Jackson, I am a full member of the Union” he said as he showed off his official uniform. “ I am also the recruiter you have been assigned to. I have here your list of chores for the next two weeks. I don’t care which shifts you take but all of them must be completed and signed off on in the next fourteen days.”

Ajax took the scroll and opened it up. On it he found a checklist.

Prepared Breakfast 0/1

Prepared Lunch 0/1

Prepared Dinner 0/1

Watered Gardens 0/1

Cleaned Gardens 0/1

Mission completed 3/5.

He had been told going in that he would have to do his part of the chores. It wasn’t much since the maintenance of the place was rather simple with over a hundred people working together. He was surprised to see that they had already updated his number of completed mission.

“You can feel free to exchange chores with your fellow trainees. This however is not something we will police. The trainers signing off on a chore will sign on any sheet given to them by whoever completed the task. So if you want to trade with others make sure they are trustworthy to keep up their part.”

Jackson knew that this system was ripe for abuse. Some of the trainees took full advantage and always tricked others into doing all their chores but this was a good lesson for them. It also didn’t matter all that much since these chores were the bare minimum, those looking to move up were also scored on how they dealt with their chore list.

“I’ll see it done.” Ajax said as he put the sheet to the nearby desk.

“You also didn’t put down your age or level.” Jackson said as he looked at Ajax.

“That’s correct.” Ajax nodded.

“I know some of you combat types like to keep that to yourselves.” he let out a deep sigh. “With how young you look however I suggest you get your age registered, it will most likely not just reduce your chore amount slightly but you’ll also be able to move up a lot quicker.”

This advice gave Ajax a good impression of Jackson, he really was trying to help him out but not digging for information only telling him to put down his age which anyone could find from the Adventurer’s Guild. The problem was that Ajax didn’t want to quickly move up the ranks. He wanted to remain a trainee and use his deal with Luna to build his reputation up by completing delves and requests.

“Fine.” Jackson shook his head as he saw that Ajax wasn’t going to change his mind. “Do as you will. If you have any questions you can always reach out to me. Also I suggest getting your chore list updated every time you complete one. If you lose the chore list between getting it officially updated and having finished the chore we will give you a new list but it will only be marked with the jobs we have you having completed on file.”

With the last bit of advice Jackson took his leave and let Ajax get his rest.

Thinking about the chores that he now had to do Ajax knew what would take up his next few days. He had never been one to procrastinate but with the delve happening in a few days he had to make sure to get his chores done before then as he didn’t know how long the delve will take.

For the two open missions he planned to go and collect more honey once he got his hands on his first few hives. Might as well collect the bees while he is at it and hit two birds with one stone. The rest of his chores will take one day, maybe two depending on if he can get on all the cooking shifts in one day.

With his plan made Ajax was eager to get to sleep but he found sleep hard to come by. For the first time in months he found himself unable to spend his mana before sleeping. Emptying his mana pool here would draw a lot of attention so he made a small note to himself to always make sure he spends a good portion of his mana before returning to sleep.

After spending an hour tossing and turning Ajax was finally able to fall asleep on the hard mattress. The sleep was restful and he felt none of the fatigue he had from the previous day as he woke up. Planning to get the chores out of the way quickly he opened the small wardrobe and put one of the sets of clothes all trainees were given while planning to wash his own clothes and armor.