After getting through the gate and sharing the loot Jones dismissed the group as he said he could do the report to the guild in person. Apparently while skimming on taxes was not only a tried and true practice all delves were to be reported to the guild. Ajax didn’t know why that was and everyone was in too much of a hurry for him to ask them now.

As he made his way towards his brother’s place Ajax thought that he should probably get his own room in the city as he was going to be staying for quite a while. He planned to be at least level thirty before he left for the capital and that would take at least one year.

He probably cut a comedic sight as he walked through the city carrying a small bag in each hand as well as a half empty barrel on his back. His compensation came in the form of two dozen mana cores and half the water from the elemental. The other bag contained enough crocodile skin to order himself a full set of gear. Ajax had tried to argue that it was too much but apparently the group had a standing rule about first upgrading its members before selling, it was also why Nelly was given the pearl free of charge.

The sun had fully gone down by the time he reached the door but he could hear voices on the other side. A few knocks later his brother opened the door. He froze in the doorway for a couple of seconds before he wrapped Ajax in a tight hug.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Sorry, we cleared the second floor of the dungeon as well but that took a while.” Ajax responded.

A small crowd had already formed behind Tom. Kate, Alana as well as his parents and sister were all there and all seemed relieved to see him back, they were all clearly worried that he had been a few days late.

“Might as well let go of him so he can come in.” Kate teased Tom who had yet to release Ajax from his hug.

Ajax made to step into the house when he faced a new issue. The barrel was too big to fit through the doorway. This wasn’t a problem he had experienced before so Kate took the two bags off his hands while the brothers were left to solve the problem of getting the barrel inside.

“Can’t you just leave it out there for the night?” his dad asked.

“Too valuable to just be left lying around, this is most of my share of the loot.” he responded and that drew a curious look from Judy and Alana.

Kate turned out to return with a solution a moment later as she brought Ajax his backpack that he had left behind. He hadn’t needed it with all the ones the team provided for him but it was large enough to fit the barrel inside. Magic still never ceased to surprise him but at last the barrel was inside the house.

“When you say the barrel is most of your share, what exactly did you get?” Judy had managed to wait until they were all seated around the table but that was as far as her patience lasted before her merchant instincts took over.

With the two bags nearby Ajax grabbed both of them. The table was clear so he placed them in front of himself before he opened the one containing the mana cores.

“I have two dozen of these.” He said holding one up. “They are all the weakest we got, twenty are from level forty-two and the other four are from forty-threes, but considering how Fluffy almost overloaded from the bear core I think these should be perfect for her now that the water is likely to be running out.”

The feline in question materialized next to his hand the moment she heard her name and hungrily sniffed at the core he was holding.

“We can’t accept that.” Kate and Tom both said as one as they looked at the bag filled with cores.

“Yes you can. I know neither of you are in a position to afford something like this for Fluffy, even if in the future you might, she needs them now to help her early development.” They both looked down at that as they knew he was right but didn’t want to accept more charity.

“I’ll tell you what, I was hoping you could help me out Kate, you can take them in return for that, what do you say?” he offered.

“How could I help you?” she asked.

“I was looking to learn a bit of healing magic,” he shared. “Light as well but I am particularly interested in holy.”

“I can’t.” she said without hesitation. “There are rules I am under while learning from the Healing Union that won’t let me teach anyone anything about healing. The first spell I taught you ‘Alzinoth’ is the commonly known one and the only exception.”

“I know that and that is not what I meant.” he said “We both know that I use my mana differently than any other caster. Not only that but different casting methods interfere with each other, it's why runic casters don’t learn to chant and chanters don’t use runic items, they interfere with the muscle memory.”

“It’s also why I stopped using the few chants that I do know. I haven’t yet tried using a runic item but it will most likely conflict with my way of casting as well.”

“Then how do you want me to help you?” she asked, confused.

“I picked up most of my magic by watching other magic in action,” he explained. “ I didn’t really get a chance to get a close look at any of the spells used before, so I was thinking if I could just, I don’t know, follow you around and use my [Mana Sense] to see if I can pick up some light and holy healing and adapt it.”

He trailed off at the end, not sure how he could get that to happen, after all the Healing Union wouldn’t let him just stick around when they were teaching magic.

“That wouldn’t go against my oath but I don’t see how you would be able to enter the tent to observe me in action.” she said.

“He could go in there as a mana battery.” Alana said.

Everyone turned a confused look at her.

“We have a few deaspecting mana crystals.” she continued seeing the confused looks. “Our smallest one can only hold two hundred mana, if you take that you can say that your family member is taking a few days off and is giving you his mana to help you get more training in. But since the crystal can only hold two hundred at a time he needs to be there to recharge it.”

That was a surprisingly plausible excuse. Considering the few times Kate and Tom had publicly helped Ajax nobody from the Union would question why he wanted to help Kate. Even if they took some precautions against him learning their healing knowledge it wasn’t like they would block out his [Mana Sense] which is what he needed to analyze the spells.

“That could work, but if I remember correctly those crystals eat two to three times the mana they can hold.” Kate said.

“The one we have with two hundred only takes twice the amount so he should be able to refill it once and a bit more a second time.” Alana said.

“And since I focus more on Intellect and Wisdom my mana pool is only eight hundred an extra two to three hundred would be quite a lot of extra mana to help me increase my practice time.”

“If the transfer rate is one to two I’ll be able to give you more than that.” Ajax mentioned.

He felt a lot of eyes turn to him at that. They all knew Ajax had a lot more stats that he should but he never told them exactly how many he had. He hesitated to give away his exact numbers but felt that he could trust his family with the information for now.

Name : Ajax

Level :26

Experience : 100/40600

Traits: Divine Witness

Health: 1880/1880

Mana: 1900/1900

Stamina :1550/1550

Vitality :188

Strength :154

Endurance :155

Dexterity : 154

Intellect : 191

Wisdom : 190

Mind : 190

Perception : 162

Stat Points :0

After his last level he spent his stats much like he did the last ones he got. From the two levels the forty-four points were split with four in Mind, Intellect, Wisdom and Vitality as well as three in all the rest.

“I have a mana pool of 1900.” Even with the bad conversion rate this was enough to refill his sisters entire mana pool and more. Especially since he would be recovering mana throughout the day he could probably triple her mana amount.

“Ajax, I know I haven’t asked this before but how are you spending your points?” his sister asked.

“I am trying to spread them out evenly, maybe with a bit more of a focus on my mental and vitality.” he said a little whidrawn.

“Stupid.” Alana exclaimed.

“Why?” Ajax asked as he looked at her confused.

“Because you can get an extra 10% in your stats from potions.” she explained.

“I still don’t see the problem.” he said.

“The potions not only get harder to make but also need more expensive materials depending on where they need to raise the stats from.” she breathed and exasperated sigh. “You now have the money that in the future you will be able to afford some potions, but you should leave one or two stats lower so you wouldn’t pay exorbitant prices for the same number of stats. If you wait a year or two we will have the contacts needed to let you buy them.”

Ajax could definitely see her point, stat points per level were worth the same amount whether you were raising a stat from sixty to sixty-one or from one thousand to one thousand and one. He did feel rather stupid about this and wondered why Hatchet never mentioned it to him.

Then again Hatchet had never been rich, considering how much it would cost for him to upgrade his stats through potions it was never viable.

“Speaking of your contacts ,” he said, trying to switch the subject from his mistake. “That other bag holds quite a bit of oasis croc leather, I was hoping you might know someone who could make me a suit from it.”

“I know a guy.” his sister nodded.

“As for the barrel, I was hoping you could sell that for me,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “It’s got the water from a level forty-six water elemental.”