That night Ajax had trouble going to sleep. It wasn’t out of fear for himself however, he just couldn’t stop going over the fight in his mind. He managed to fall asleep about halfway through the night, the exhaustion of his body finally overcoming his active mind.
When he woke up the next day Ajax found that he felt both better and worse. His body had finished clearing out what was left of the poison so he no longer felt any consistent pain, but the damage the poison left in its wake he had yet to recover from. Every movement hurt more than it did the day before but the pain was almost negligible when he was standing still.
“You’re awake.” Lexi exclaimed when she came in to check on him, a tray of food in her arms. It was almost noon but everyone was aware that Ajax very much needed his rest. “Are you better?”
“The poison is gone.” Ajax noticed her nod at that, he quickly put together that Lancel must have explained his situation to his family. “It’ll probably be another day or two before I do anything physically straining.”
Lexi nodded along as she placed the tray in bed and started to feed him his breakfast. Lancel had explained how any movement would be painful for him over the next few days but it was important that he eat to better recover his strength.
“What do you want to do today?” Lexi asked after feeding Ajax another forkful of scrambled eggs.
“I think I’ll train Fluffy and then oversee the training of all our future alchemists.” Ajax answered after swallowing.
“Training with Fluffy?” Lexi sounded skeptical at that, she very much didn’t want Ajax to push himself just because he had come so close to death in such a helpless situation. The rest of his family had already told Lexi how Ajax had thrown himself into training after his run in with the vampire more than a decade ago.
“I’ll just be watching over her.” Ajax reassured her. “Tomorrow I will go over the progress the quarry has made once I have a better idea of how our alchemists are progressing. We will soon have twenty thousand former slaves arriving and we will need a lot of cement if we want to house them all.”
As much as Lexi wanted to tell Ajax not to push himself she knew that it would be pointless, more than that she knew that Ajax did have to push himself. This latest attempt on his life made it clear that while Ajax was now firmly in the ranks of the elite he was still quite far from the peak of power. That he was quickly closing that gap was obvious to anyone who tracked him so this would be the most dangerous time for him.
“Fine.” Lexi said as she continued to feed Ajax. “I’ll send Jake, Jari and Nashara to you once they come back from school, they’ll be happy to have you training them as well.”
After finishing his breakfast Ajax slowly got up, washed, got dressed then went and joined Fluffy. Ajax was surprised to find that Tom wasn’t at the manor, he had already left for Lessis as he had a lot of work. This was something he noticed about every member of his family that morning.
“I hope they aren’t avoiding me.” Ajax mumbled as he and Fluffy went to their private training space to help the shadow cat practice with Void some more.
Over the course of two hours Fluffy ran her Mana pool dry. Her attempts at using Void had started to show some consistency, one in every twenty swipes would have at least one claw using Void.
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“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you got that Skill but it's certainly not something I was expecting.” Ajax was shocked when an hour and a half into the training Fluffy started energetically jumping around the room with happiness.
The Skill Fluffy got was [Self Preservation], the Skill was only an Uncommon Skill and it was a weaker version of the Skill Duke Manashaper had. Fluffy had gotten the Skill after repeatedly ripping up her own claws when she got Void Mana to activate. With the new Skill Fluffy was now stopping her swipe right after the moment of contact with the Skill helping her prevent any self inflicted damage.
Following the training with Fluffy Ajax spent another hour overseeing the alchemists, he had initially planned on spending two hours there as well but one hour was all he could take. With how easy the most basic of cement recipes was to follow it all came down to just properly measuring the ingredients and following the correct steps for any half decent alchemist. Since he wasn’t looking to give out any of the better formulas, Ajax was content that they would have enough cement for roads.
“Uncle Ajax.” Ajax suppressed a grunt as Jake slammed into him as he gave him a hug. Even in his injured state Jake didn’t have the strength to inflict any pain on Ajax, that said Ajax hurt himself as he loosened his muscles and moved to absorb the impact otherwise Jake’s hug would have felt like slamming into a stone wall.
Training Jake, Jari and Nashara was a lot more interesting than watching the alchemists. Despite having unlocked the use of Mana none of the kids had made a decision yet on which style of spells they wanted to focus on so the training remained physical for the time being.
“Did something happen today?” Ajax asked Jari and Nashara when Jake was out of earshot.
“There were a few…” Jari started but took a moment to choose the best word. “comments made.”
“Comments about what?” Ajax asked unsure what would cause an issue.
“A few of the kids, some who hadn’t been more than acquaintances before, seemed to group together with negative things to say about House Hearthbound.” Nashara explained. “They all seemed angry and… sad.”
It all clicked in an instant for Ajax. The children of the guards who were with him yesterday. Of course their families had been notified of their deaths and despite it not really being fair Ajax could also understand why they would blame house Hearthbound for their deaths. For a long time Ajax had blamed House Nestor and for a short time all of the nobility for what happened with his village.
Unfortunately he also knew there was nothing he could do about that in the short term, he did however make a mental note to talk to his brother about keeping an eye on those kids. It was natural for kids to act out in these situations and he was sure the guards would turn a blind eye considering the situation, that situation could easily escalate.
“Have you not yet found a weapon that you prefer?” Ajax asked after he saw that Jake, Jari and Nashara had all gone through basic warm up exercises with all of the weapons they had access to.
“I did but I want to be able to use all of them.” Jake said proudly. “Just like you do Uncle Ajax.”
Ajax had to fight the instinct to facepalm. The only reason why he could use so many different weapons was because he had a Skill for each of them. He would have to try and lead his nephew to focusing on one or maybe two weapons as he was sure the kid would otherwise waste a lot of his training time on a weapon he was just not suited for.
At dinner that night all of House Hearthbound seemed a lot more tired, despite that they all also looked a lot more at peace with the assassination attempt than they were the night before. Ajax didn’t know what caused this change but he was glad his family was moving past it.
“My Lady.” Lancel presented Lexi with a letter halfway through the meal. Ajax would have frowned at the interruption but he recognised the seal belonging to the royal family of Gryndor.
“We will have a royal representative arrive in a week and half.” Lexi said as she read the letter. “Nothing in here shows they heard about the assassination attempt but I am guessing the bird was sent out before that even took place. It’s addressed to me since they assumed you would still be in the dungeon.”
“Why is a royal representative coming then?” Ajax’s question was met with flat stares from the rest of his entire family.
“Ajax, dear, we are about to have a workforce of just under twenty thousand skilled miners.” Silvia said with a helpless shake of her head at Ajax’s lack of self awareness. “The amount of stone and rock we are about to pull out is going to make waves throughout the entire kingdom, and that’s without even taking cement into account.”
“The Empire’s royal family was deeply connected to House Septimus’s operation since it affected the market so much.” Elija explained. “It’s only natural that the king would want to weigh in on what we do in a similar position.”
“Still isn’t this all happening a little fast?” Ajax asked.
“Ajax, you said you’d be in the capital to see the Arianwyn and Elara before they leave.” Tom pointed out. “That means you’ll be starting to make your own way to the capital in one month. They want this meeting to happen before you meet with all the nobles who are currently gathered in the capital so of course they would send someone here as quickly as they can.”
“I imagine they will also be sending another champion.” Lancel weighed in. “That way you won’t have to make a choice between having me come with you or me staying here to protect your family, considering what happened.”