While all of the strong people in the room had a very good poker face, the same thing could not be said for the royal family's younger generation. Besides Xavier’s jealous glance towards Ajax the king’s granddaughter was also looking shocked at the statement.

“Why you?” Duke Manashaper asked.

“You’re going to be busy looking into this new potential discovery, not to mention that so long as he wears a little bit of a disguise before he enters the dungeon nobody will question it and they will just play it off as one of my whims.” the king’s oldest son said. “Besides I also want to see what he can do in the dungeon.”

“Hah…” the crown prince let out a deep sigh. “In terms of power and cover he is indeed the best candidate to let you have your training without anyone else finding out.”

“Also one of the best to analyze anything I might have kept to myself.” Ajax responded.

“I am fine with signing a contract about no revealing anything I find out about you.” the excited prince continued.

“And what happens if you break it?” Anna asked, knowing full well that there anything he might guarantee that might harm him could be counteracted by a good enough skill.

“His family gets a hundred million gold coins.” the prince said offhandedly

‘Ack’ Ajax choked when he heard the number. Not even a decade ago Ajax had become the richest person in the village he grew up in because he had received a hundred gold coins, a hundred million would be enough to rocket his family into contention for the title of archduke Goldmancer.

“Monetary deals are the best to make.” Anna murmured. “No skill will let him skip out on the tab.”

“So it’s settled then.” the prince clapped his hands. “I’ll come get you in two days.”

_________________________________________________________________________

Two days later Ajax found himself standing in queue for the dungeon alongside the king’s oldest son. Even with a few days to discuss this with his family he hadn’t managed to find a better option.

The sole limitation that Ajax put on himself for this delve was that he was going to be keeping Void mana concealed no matter what happened. The plan was for him to delve all the way to the sixth floor of the dungeon and no further. Despite having delved even as deep as the eighth floor as part of a team, solo delving was a lot more risky and required different skills.

“Finally.” Ajax said as they entered the dungeon and he removed the mask from his head. “This thing is so stuffy.”

“It might be but with the enchantments it carries it made sure that nobody got a read on you.” the Prince said as he also changed from his common clothing to his battle gear.

It was now Ajax’s turn to be shocked. The prince's gear easily ranked as some of the best gear he had ever seen. The only ones that could compete with it was the one he saw some of the royal squad members wearing. Even then the prince’s gear was completely different from the others he had seen due to the numerous runes that were etched on every open surface of the armor.

“First time seeing a good runic set?” the prince asked.

Ajax didn’t open his mouth to respond and simply nodded his head.

“Well don’t look too impressed two third of the runes you are seeing are illusions and even the rest are a little distorted to all senses.”

Ajax knew the reason why that was, much like how chanting mages made sure to muffle and cover their mouth when chanting runic mages did much the same thing with illusion magic to protect their runes from being copied.

“Well go on then.” the prince said ." The first few floors will be a snoozefest anyway.

Ajax was quick to prove the prince correct as he easily cleared the way to the closest arch he could feel and then simply overwhelmed the boss guarding it. The same scene also played out on the second, third and fourth floors. Ajax did make sure to get accurate readings on the arches he chose, he even ended up clearing four different arches on the fourth floor before he got to one that he felt good about.

His ability to at least somewhat narrow down what type of floor he will be facing next will be one of the key abilities he will rely on to ensure that the floor he wants to fully clear out won’t be something that would counter him.

The quick dispatching of monsters and bosses ground to a halt in a very fast manner once Ajax got to the fifth floor.

Even with the monsters only being level fifty at most he now found himself on the other side of the numbers game. Whereas on his previous delves a group of fifteen to twenty people took on each pack of monsters he was facing similar odds against him from those very same small packs.

“Wow so you really can keep on sucking up mana from the air without even getting tired.” The prince let out a low whistle once the fight Ajax was having with an ogre patrol group ended. “You are definitely going to be a menace when delving the dungeon as it naturally provides you with denser and denser mana at each floor. Well at least so long as you don’t hit a mana drought floor.”

No adventurer in their right mind like drought floors. While all of the books Ajax had read on the subject had reinforced that the drought floor challenge effect didn’t mix with other environmental challenges that was only true for the lower floors. One thing that all drought floors did have in common however was the fact that the monsters spawned there would have at least one adept mana consuming ability so that they could keep a hold of their mana.

Ajax was glad for the praise and gave a shallow nod at the compliment while he caught his breath/ “This next floor will be the one I clear out.”

“You’re going up another floor?” despite the questioning structures the princes tone made it clear that not only was he not against the idea but that he was a strong supporter

Ajax took his time on the fifth floor hunting for a suitable archway. He made sure to play it off as a luck based skill to the prince, that turned out to be a splendid idea as the prince himself had a luck skill and it was one he relied on whenever he went delving in deeper floors to pick a good floor theme.

“A forest?” the prince asked as he took in his surroundings once they got to the sixth floor.

“Forests are my best biomes.” Ajax said with confidence.

“Oh how come?” the prince asked.

“I spent five years training to be a hunter and an adventurer in a forest before my leveling speed really picked up.” Ajax shared.

Besides the much stronger density of mana in the air the forest seemed exceedingly normal to Ajax as he started exploring it. That is until he almost bumped into a eight foot tall hairy bipedal monster that seemed to resemble some descriptions of Big Foot from back on Earth. Unlike on earth however this specimen wasn’t a solitary one but instead traveled in packs of five.

Oddly enough the forest was dense enough that the space between trees was small enough to give the large monster issues when maneuvering. Ajax took full advantage of this as he quickly made short work of two of them. His sword and hammer were finding their mark and easily made it past the thick protective layer of fur they had. Or is that just thicker body hair?

Despite their apparent intelligence the remaining three Big Foot’s didn’t try to escape and instead focused on attacking Ajax. Their plan was quickly foiled as Ajax used his Ice mana to no only slow them down with the cold but to create a very slippery surface on the ground resulting in the monsters not able to keep their footing while also attacking him.

Once there was only one monster left, the survivor decided he had seen enough and tried to make a run for it. Unfortunately for him he followed his instincts to get away from Ajax as quickly as possible. Even with the tight spacing of the trees this meant that he had taken off in a straight-ish line away from him. This made landing a headshot with an arrow almost too easy for Ajax.

“That wasn’t so bad.” the prince said as he inspected the bodies Ajax left in his wake. “They don’t really have the agility needed to fight you in a place light this. Let's hope that there is something interesting for you to fight on this floor.”

“AAAAAUUUUUOOOOOO…. GRRRR….AAAAUUUU” Ajax didn’t get a chance to respond as a strong howling and growling filled the air. More than that Ajax could tell that this howl didn’t come from a wolf and that was making him second guess his life’s choices.

“No need to look so scared.” the prince waved him off. “These are wendigos, not a werewolf boss.

Ajax did let out a sigh of relief at that reassurance, he still remembered well the power that the kitsune had wielded and didn’t want to end up facing another floor boss just yet. With that he swapped out his sword for his axe as he prepared to engage with the cannibalistic creatures.