Chapter 623

“Are you sure that is a wise decision?” Lancel asked as he and Ajax watched Theron lead the dragon away while slackjawed guards moved out of the way of the massive creature. “Your family will certainly be anxious to meet your bond.” 

“My family will be happy to see me.” Ajax said before nodding to his missing arm. “And very incensed at my missing arm.” 

“I still don’t see the problem.” Lancel said. “Unless your bond is the reason you lost the arm?” 

“No, thankfully it was nothing of the sort.” Ajax shook his head. “But dragons have a certain ego. The bond between us is a little different from regular bonds, it is a bond between equals.” 

“You will find anyone who genuinely cares about their bond to agree with that statement.” Lancel pointed out. 

“I don’t mean how we see it, I mean in the eyes of the System.” Ajax explained. “It's why Aurexion can be in humanoid lands without other Ascended races coming to remove him. We are linked. But while he might see me as an equal and extension of himself, the same does not extend to other humanoids, especially ones that haven’t yet evolved.” 

“Ah… I see your point.” Lancel said with a nod. “As happy as your family will be that your are back they will chastise you for your missing arm, something that could trigger your bond.” 

“He is a little short tempered at the moment but we are working on that.” Ajax said. “For the safety of all involved however it's best he is not present for my family reunion.” 

Just then Ajax looked up to see his entire family descending from the sky. Lexi might not have a flight spell sorted yet but her mastery over Wind Mana was good enough to create a slow fall effect for his entire family. He very much expected they had been informed of the commotion and didn’t want to waste the time to get to him so they all chose the most direct path. Internally he was happy they had chosen to do so as it meant they wouldn’t encounter Aurexion just yet.

Ajax smiled back to the greetings he was showered with as they landed with all of them moving towards him but since Lexi had been at the front she was the first one to reach him. She jumped and threw her arms around his neck as they shared a kiss. At the same time however the rest of the excitement died down as Ajax returning the hug had moved his travel cloak and revealed his missing arm.

“Son…” 

“My boy…” 

“Ajax, your …” 

“Brother…

“Uncle Ajax what happened to your arm?” Where everyone else trailed off in shock Jake had no such compulsion and his alarm grew. “You’re not dying are you?”

“I’ll live.” Ajax reassured his nephew. He also wanted to ruffle his hair with his remaining arm but Lexi, Judy and his mother had already started the process of patting him down for any other injuries that might not be immediately obvious and he knew better than to try and move away.

“That’s a very low bar.” His mother was irate. “You promised to be careful!” 

“This was me being careful…” Ajax trailed off as he thought back to the long slog that was the fight with the troll. He had taken so many precautions and he was still caught off guard by the enrage.

“How about you tell us what you’ve been through?” Tom offered, his political training making him the first to regain his composure. “We were just about to have breakfast and you look like you could use a bite to eat.” 

Ajax was about to push that back until the introduction with Aurexion happened when a burst of greed and contentment flooded through the bond letting him know that Aurexion had arrived at the vault and that he could take his time while his bond made himself at home.

“I am a little hungry.” Ajax admitted with a small smile.

Table manners were left by the wayside quickly as Ajax’s retelling of his time in the Wild Lands had his family hooked but his hunger at the same time had him cleaning out the table rather quickly.

The first part of his journey was interesting but within the realm of what they had expected the Wild Lands to be like. His travels, the dungeon, the spider ambush and even the Mana dense zone were all things they imagined one would find there. The interaction with  HelSotHein however was something new.

“You could speak with a hydra?” Lexi was extremely shocked by this, she had enough time during the lead up to get used to Ajax’s missing arm and while she was curious why he hadn’t simply regrown it since his Life Mana should have been capable of that she was patient enough to wait until they got to that part of the recounting. Communication with the Ascended races was something new however. “It speaks our language?”

“They do.” Ajax nodded while making sure to put emphasis that HelSotHein was a person, if there was one thing the trip to the Wild Lands cemented for him was that all Ascended races were sentient beings and could not be simply considered powerful beasts. “It all ties back to the rise of humanoids.” 

Ajax had already told his family what he had learnt about the agreement before he left for the Wild Lands and how a human so powerful it even cowed the Ascended races had managed to trade for humanoid protection back then. It only followed that he had also been the ruler of all humanoids at the time and his decision to have humanoids learn the Ascended common tongue as their official language was a good decision.

“Wow, we really messed up his plan.” Judy couldn’t help but let out a sigh of disbelief. When everyone turned towards her at her exclamation she backed up her reasoning. “We are the best crafters among all races, he gave us protection and ensured we were understood. He wanted to set us up as THE traders for Ascended races.” 

“Seing as we ended up isolated with miles of desolate border surrounding us, yeah I’d say we didn’t really do as well there.” Ajax had to acknowledge that his sister’s point of view made a lot of sense. It especially made more sense when considering the friendly relations with the elemental hawks who would have a lot to benefit from humanoid crafting as they could create focused treasures to help them gain affinities during their rebirths.

As Ajax continued his retelling he got a fair amount of interest when he mentioned he had transcribed a number of books from the alchemy section of  the royal library of an old kingdom. He got even more attention when he explained that dungeons could apparently be both created and destroyed.

“How do you destroy or create a dungeon?” Lancel asked. 

“That… I don’t know.” Ajax realized nobody had told him either answer, he knew that extracting Death Mana had destabilized the dungeon but the process for either result wasn’t explained to him. Maybe Aurexion knew, he would have to ask his bond later.

Ajax’s family as a whole was ecstatic to find out about Ajax’s progress with social Skills as well as about the other random resources he picked up on the way on the way towards the sidhe territory. From there Ajax had to get a little creative with his retelling of events as he couldn’t risk a slip about his trick against the sidhe and their deals. What he did manage to explain was how the sidhe’s powers worked and how if encountering one they should make sure to not agree with a deal in any way shape or form.

The following dungeon as well as Ajax’s travel to his final dungeon in the Wild Lands were mostly glossed over as he didn’t want to get too in depth about his time with Veyra, he did however describe in detail what a devourer was, since humanoids weren’t at all protected from them and they should also be killed on sight if ever found in humanoid lands.

“Did you manage to get the everburning tree?” Lexi asked, she knew that Anna would be interested in that. 

“I didn’t.” Ajax said, hiding that Aurexion had in fact grabbed it. “I had to run from the devourer.

Ajax’s retelling of the final dungeon invited a lot more questions. The revelation of [Spell Direction], his encounter with a werewolf and actually getting bit by one and the after effects and finally him soloing a level one hundred and twenty floor where he found a Death gem and fought the floor boss invited a lot of questions.

“So that’s why you didn’t regrow your arm.” Ajax had explained what he had learnt about dealing with the werewolf bite as soon as he revealed that he was bit, not looking to worry them any more than usual.

“I am hoping that with the research you’ve been doing, Kate, as well as Luna you can work with one or more of the royal healers to regrow my arm.” Ajax explained his plan for rearming himself.

Going on to finish his story about his time in the Wild Lands there was one obvious question that came up. 

“You’ve got a dragon bond?!” Tom exclaimed. “Where is it?” 

“He’s in the vault.” Ajax said before explaining Aurexion’s condition and how he planned to help his bond reverse the effects. 

“So you’re telling me it’s only level eighty and it swatted you like a bug.” Lancel was suddenly very interested in Aurexion. 

“Aurexion makes for a good counter to me, as well as a good complement to my abilities.” Ajax admitted. “But he is stronger than me, though I am hoping to catch up a little.” 

“You’re telling me there is a greedy, slightly unbalanced dragon in the vault with our gold?!” Judy finally got over her shock before she stood up from the empty breakfast table and started making her way towards the dungeon. 

“We should follow her.” Ajax said as he stood up and followed in her wake with the rest of the family looking forward to meeting Aurexion.

The sight that greeted them was not something Ajax would have expected. Aurexion was coiled around the massive gold statue and was nibbling at it, to Judy's great distress.