With the arrangements made Ajax quickly took his leave. Walking away from the school however Ajax quickly realized that his plans for today were flawed. He had initially intended to spend today setting up all of the bee hives that were made while he was in the dungeon, doing that however ran the serious risk of either getting him an achievement or a new trailblazer skill that would mean he would lose a free achievement.

His destination didn’t change at all however as he made his way towards Luna’s house so he could change out of the fancy clothes he was wearing now and then he planned to go through the city and get some furniture for his newly built house.

“So how did the meeting go?” Hatchet asked him after he got changed.

“Went really well, I got offered a position as a teaching assistant.” Ajax answered.

“You did?” Luna asked, surprised. “I was pretty sure all of the teachers already had their slots filled.”

“They do.” Ajax confirmed. “All but Silvertongue. He is starting teaching this year so he has his slot open. The headmaster bent the rules a bit by letting me be the assistant for his homeroom class instead of him personally.”

“Silvertongue?” Luna looked confused hearing the name. “Since when do the Silvertongues have someone good enough to teach at the academy?”

“I am guessing that would be Abbot Silvertongue.” Alfred jumped in. While Luna became adept in dealing with politics since she has been a guild master she didn’t have his breadth of knowledge on nobility. “He was something of a black sheep, a real talent when it came to magic and fighting but not so much in terms of politics. If I was to guess his family forced him to take this position just to have someone keeping an eye on the incoming class.”

That statement certainly cleared up quite a bit about the professor to Ajax, his perpetual poker face and the irritability that he felt through the man’s aura when it came to the functions of his job. He just didn’t want to be doing it but couldn’t refuse it either.

“I’m not sure if I should congratulate or pity you Ajax.” Alfred followed up.

“Why is that?” Ajax asked, confused.

“Because you are the perfect opportunity to get his family off his back in these next six years. While no doubt every strong noble family will be trying to entice you to join them, his has a duty to provide you with the delving opportunities you need.” Alfred placed a tea in front of Ajax. “At least for the first year or so they will be bending over backwards to get you whatever requests you have hoping to give you a good impression of them, all while also trying to recruit you at every turn.”

While Ajax wasn’t excited to hear that, now that he had seen a bit of concrete proof that he wouldn’t be forcibly recruited even with nobles knowing a lot about his abilities, he was willing to put with an aggressive pitch to join in exchange for easy access to the dungeons.

“So what are your plans now?” Hatchet asked.

“I’m going to be buying some furniture today and getting the newly built house ready, thankfully it is pretty close to the academy so I won’t be crossing half the capital every morning.” Ajax said. “Tomorrow I have to go in early to get my uniform and Achievement taken care of.”

“Oh? And what achievement is this?” Hatchet asked with curiosity.

“Right, I totally forgot to mention this last night since the duke being here caught me by surprise. I got an achievement called Trailblazer, part of its reward is that the next achievement I gain will have its discoveries cost ignored.” that’s as far as Ajax got with his explanation before he was interrupted.

“What?!” Luna asked, almost crushing the tea cup in her grasp. “What kind of achievement is that? And more importantly how do you get it?”

“The achievement is for being the first to ever gain a skill. It increases said skill by two ranks and makes your next achievement free in terms of discoveries. Not only that but you can gain its rewards multiple times so long as you keep gaining Trailblazing skills.” Ajax explained.

“That’s… actually a fitting achievement. Which skill was it that you managed to gain?” Luna asked.

“I’d rather keep that to myself.” Ajax said.

“Oh! Sorry I didn’t mean to pry, I know how combatants are about their skills.” Luna quickly apologized.

“No, it's not that.” Ajax shook his head. “It’s just that I think there might be some other Trailblazing skills that come as an offshoot from it and I would like to get those rewards as well.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Luna said. “But I would like to ask that you don’t keep it hidden for too long, a big part of gaining skills is natural talent so if you don’t gain any in a year or two could I ask that you share it so that others can have a chance?”

Ajax simply nodded since he had already made a similar deal with the headmaster, after all he wasn’t about to reveal that he had a massive increase in natural potential that meant the only skills he wouldn’t gain would be some that he would be particularly bad at.

“So what achievement are you getting tomorrow?” Hatchet moved the point forward.

“They’re helping me get ‘Enigma’ . It's supposed to grant me a Legendary tier privacy skill.” Ajax said

“You might want to reschedule that, they might have someone reading your skills there to learn your trailblazing skill.” Luna tried to warn him.

“I thought of that too, the headmaster agreed that there would be none there who would be able to do that.” That Luna actually relaxed at that gave Ajax a lot more confidence that he wasn’t being tricked. The only reason he was willing to even risk getting his skills inspected was that beekeeping could be found just as easily by having someone tail him for a week.

Having changed his clothes and enjoyed a filling breakfast Ajax spent the rest of the day collecting furniture and ferrying another thirty wooden hives to his plot of land. He made sure to just dump them there and didn’t even set them up just in case that would be enough to trigger something.

As night came Ajax had finished setting up the furniture. While he wouldn’t be living in this house all that long as he planned for it to be a gift to his brother and Kate it is still the first house he bought and the first time he was living alone since he was reborn in this world. Sure he had technically slept alone in a tent when he went delving but that didn’t really count.

Surprisingly sleep was hard to by as he laid on the straw mattress. He spent his time trying to remember all that he could about beekeeping. He knew that smoke would make them more docile, not that he had any issues with them since his stats made him practically impervious to the normal bees but more that there might be a skill in there for him. Gathering the honey definitely didn’t have a skill for him as people had been gathering honey from wild hives for centuries if not millenia.

An interesting thought came to him when he thought about planting flowers all around the hives and infusing them with mana. Would the fact that the pollen came from mana infused flowers matter? He knew different flowers were used back on earth depending on what the honey would be used for after but he didn’t know any specifics.

Ajax didn’t remember when he fell asleep thinking about honey but he felt rested when he got up the next day. He felt determined to get a blacksmith and a leatherworker together and have them make a proper mattress for him sometime soon as he straightened out his back. A quick wash later he got dressed, grabbed a sandwich to go and made his way over to the academy.

Unlike yesterday the guards on duty simply opened the gates for him. Ajax was slightly surprised at that since they weren’t the same guards as yesterday. The wary and incredulous looks they were giving him made Ajax feel like Dave had shared with them the outcome of their spar. As he was about to pass the gates he suddenly remembered a small issue.

“Where can I find Professor Silvertongue’s office?” he asked the guards, he had never actually seen where on the first floor it was since he had gone straight to the headmaster’s office yesterday.

With the specific direction he got it took him another minute to get to the correct room in front of which he saw twenty people talking together with the headmaster and professor Silvertongue besides them.

“There you are Ajax.” the headmaster greeted him. “Everyone, if you could please inspect the young man, I have a rather busy schedule I would like to get on with.”

Ajax was surprised to see the headmaster come in person. He even got slightly alarmed when he noticed that all twenty people stared at him and yet nothing happened. Ten seconds, then twenty went by yet still nothing came of it.

“Why is nothing hap-” Ajax started to say after a while but he stopped as he got the notification.

Achievement: Enigma

Be inspected by twenty different people within one minute.

Have no privacy skills.

Requires twenty Discoveries to earn : Requirement fulfilled by Trailblazer

Reward : [Enigma] skill.