The full twenty people entered the first floor of the dungeon, despite Oliver now being locked up and awaiting a trial once they returned to the kingdom it was clear that a substitute had been found to take his spot.

Despite there being twenty people altogether only five of them could actually gain anything from the first floor, with the monsters highest level being thirty-four Anna, Lexi, Xavier, Ajax and Theron were the only ones who could gain the stat points for the floor.

Unfortunately for Anna and Lexi they would both have to step out with Xavier on the next floor as while they might have been able to take out a level forty they simply don’t have enough mana to kill a level forty-four even with a good match-up.

The fights against the bosses on this floor ranged from hard won battles for Xavier Lexi and Anna, to a weak resistance the monsters managed against Theron who was thirty-six and Ajax who all but one shotted his own opponent without issue.

Going from the first floor to the second still took them a couple of hours as they did have to search for five different mini-bosses but it was a relatively short journey. Entering the second floor of the dungeon the team was ready to grow smaller.

“Don’t linger around this time as well or I’ll get the impression you just don’t like us.” Xavier joked with Ajax before he, Lexi and Anna stepped out. The young prince had started making an effort to befriend Ajax ever since he came back from his perceived demise inside the dungeon.

The second floor theme wasn’t all that special, a rocky mountain range much like Ajax had encountered in the previous dungeon, this one however wasn’t set in such a high altitude as to have snow and that cold of a weather.

Much like in the previous floor Ajax had no trouble killing the level forty-four miniboss, the challenge would only start to ramp up from the next floor. Two more of participants were only level forty so this was the only floor they could gain stats from but despite the four level difference they had no problems killing a bear and an eagle respectively.

The big challenge on this floor came down to Theron. As a full physical fighter fighting up eight levels was a lot tougher for him than it was for a mage like Lexi and Anna or even a spellblade like Xavier. Not only that but he simply didn’t have a high enough proficiency with ranged weapons in order to use them in such high level combat.

It took the team almost three hours before they finally managed to find a mountain goat miniboss scaling one of the cliffs. The reason for picking a mountain goat was simply that is was Theron most favorable match-up in this environment, despite the eagle being weaker and more fragile Theron had no way to deal with its flight and a bear was too offensively inclined to take on in melee combat.

Throughout the entire battle Theron showed off his great reflexes as he continuously dodge the goat’s charge while also landing a blow as it zoomed past him. It only took six hits before he managed to cripple one of the legs and sent the goat face planting into the rocky floor. From there Theron kept the pressure up as it used the cripled leg as a way to keep his stance from the sharp horns.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

It took Theron ten minutes before he finally brought down the oversized mountain goat and he had an open gash on his left arm from where the goat managed to graze him with a horn on one of the charges.

“Not bad, you’re only level thirty-six and you can handle something like this.” some of the other nobles commented as they measured Theron’s performance. “Too bad you’ve already joined a house.”

Despite the words paying lip service to Ajax’s presence he was sure that once they exited the floor Theron would be presented with at least one offer to join another house. Ajax wasn’t worried about him taking the offer so he didn’t even mention it when he congratulated the bull beastkin on his fight.

As they entered the third floor the group lost another three of its members, of the remaining fourteen people eight of them were going to be leaving after they cleared this floor. This would just leave Ajax, the three guards and one other person going on to push past the fourth floor.

These people were all considered to be young having just barely passed forty years of age and being already above level fifty they were the next generation of noble talents that every house was giving every opportunity they could to grow stronger in a time of peace.

Without Ajax checking the arches they used to go up a floor in the dungeon a small issue cropped up when the third floor turned out to be one of the dreaded water dominant biomes. If there was one silver lining it was that there were plenty of birds flying above the hundreds of small islands and that with the increased aggressiveness it only took ten hours before everyone managed to get a solo kill on a miniboss of their own.

It was only once they entered the fifth floor and most of the party left that things turned serious between the remaining five people.

“You do understand your role in here Rex?” one of the Goldmancer guards asked the last member of their team, he was the one to receive Oliver's spot in the dungeon.

“I do, after I get the upgrade for this floor I’m to stick around for another twenty hours near the next floor’s arch and only exit after that.” Rex replied with a grin at his fortune to be selected for the newly opened spot.

Ajax had spent most of the time on the second floor skinning the minibosses so that he would have something to show for himself as a reason to stick around inside the dungeon, after his previous stunt it was believable enough that he would just need someone else to cover as being the last person boosted.

For the first time since entering the dungeon Ajax was finally also given the stronger gear that had been prepared for him ahead of time as the mini-bosses on this floor would be level sixty-four.

Ajax could feel the enchantments on the gear as the armor though much sturdier than his usual set felt even lighter, not only that but he had been given a metal mana attuned warhammer, this meant that he would be able to use a metal augmentation without feeding it through his gauntlet. The same applied to the wind attuned sword, fire attuned axe and ice attuned shield that had been loaned to him.

Ajax was used to fighting level sixty-four monsters but he had only done so as a part of a team in a group battle, while the guards would ensure that the battle remained a one versus one with the miniboss it should still prove a good warm-up unlike the rest of the floors.

Funnily enough the floor seemed to be of a similar biome to the first floor of the Goldmine dungeon back in Gryndor. Despite the much larger floor size the forest surrounding a mountain with griffins flying up above was a very familiar sight for all of them.

Ajax was slightly disappointed with encountering such a biome on this floor instead of the next, despite how deadly they are as a pack wolves are one of the best monsters to find on a floor for boosting as a lot of their power comes from their group tactics while boosters can isolate the boss in a one versus one.

It didn’t take the group long before they ran into the first pack of deer on the floor but Ajax was content to simply let Rex take this mini-boss as he simply watched. Rex more than lived up to his level sixty-five expectations. The man was a full on rogue with two daggers that he used to slowly bleed out the stag while always keeping well away from the reinforced antlers.

The fight lasted about twenty minutes, unlike Theron’s however the Rex was the one on the offensive throughout the entire fight simply content to keep prodding the stag until it got slower and slower due to blood loss before he slit its throat.

“We’ll make camp here for now.” the guards said after the battle. “That should give you some time to rest before you have to fight. Even with us being level ninety-fives we won’t risk setting up a camp on the next floor.”

Despite higher level people being able to stay awake for a few days straight Ajax knew that it would still affect them so taking a break now seemed like a very good idea. Tomorrow he would have a wolf to fight and hopefully a good biome for a level seventy-four.