Gamer Reborn
Chapter 515

Chapter 515

Lancel watched with apprehension as Ajax and Lexi welcomed the elves to the party. For the first time the Hearthbound manor was home to a true noble party filled with some of the best of the youngest generation Gryndor had to offer.

“Rex, are you sure this is fine?” Lancel asked the other Gryndor champion, one in service to the crown.

When talking about the youngest generation at the highest levels of power, champions refer to people under one hundred years old. Those who manage to reach the level of an elite combatant who can delve beyond level one hundred in the dungeons by that age are those powerful enough and young enough to have a good chance at being a champion in the future.

Most of these people however all come from noble families with only one or two commoners becoming champions every millenia for the simple reason that even if they are talented enough by the time they make their talent known they’ve already aged too much. The promising members of this generation are all seventy years old or younger on account of all of them being born after the peace treaty was signed, with more being much younger on account of the royal family deciding to wait.

“It will be fine.” Rex nodded. “Ajax Hearthbound is a Duke in his duchy and Xavier is not yet crown prince. Though I still think he should have just been married into House Manashaper and not given his own duchy.”

The reason Lancel was concerned was because with two royal families present and soon to be three Ajax would be the overarching authority in these interactions with the champions present all there simply to keep each other in check.

It was easy for the champions to take note of the change in atmosphere as the elves entered the room. Aranor headed straight for the two of them leaving the elves to mingle with the rest of the young nobles.

“How many duels are you expecting?” Aranor asked.

“Shouldn’t be that many, maybe two?” Rex answered.

“All of the elves will fight today.” Lancel shook his head in disagreement. “They only have one day before the empire arrives and Gryndor has to play middle ground, all of the elves will be challenged.”

It didn’t take long for the first argument of the evening to break out, more than that everyone could tell that the argument had been manufactured.

“I think I have put up with these insults long enough. I’ll have you know my family prides itself on their alchemy .” the noble said as he addressed Leandra Deeproot. “ I demand a duel.”

Lexi tactfully stepped on Ajax’s foot as he was about to point out the man had been in the wrong, more than that in his opinion Leandra had actually been quite subtle in pointing out a mistake so amateurish he was tempted to facepalm when hearing it.

“Since your family prides itself so much on their alchemy I trust it wouldn’t be an issue to include any and all alchemical items as part of the duel?” Leandra responded to the challenge.

It was easy to see the reluctance of the noble man’s face at the terms but he couldn’t simply back out at this point. He agreed to the stipulation before they both turned towards Ajax, who now received a small push from Lexi, a signal they had worked out beforehand.

“I shall officiate the duel , but our guests have only just arrived.” Ajax’s voice resounded in the room. “ The duel shall take place at the sixth bell in the arena.”

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It was barely midday, this proclamation calmed the crowd as they were now in no hurry to throw their challenges knowing that it would be at least six hours before the duels would take place. More than that it would be rude to have another duel challenge thrown out right after the host indirectly asked for patience regarding duels.

“Both of them wanted the duel.” Lexi explained to Ajax. “That is Camilla’s son and he is not all that gifted when it comes to combat so he was looking for an easy duel against Leandra who is not combat inclined. In the same way Leandra was happy to take up his challenge not just because she knew she was a tempting target and he was one of the better match ups she would get but because she also saw an opportunity to assure herself access to her alchemy.”

“That went better than I would have expected.” Rex nodded towards Ajax. “Who do you think will win?”

““Leandra”” Both Lancel and Aranor answered at the same time.

While the young Berrymore was a more capable combatant despite being at a level disadvantage he simply didn’t have the dueling experience to deal with Leandra’s alchemy, at least in the eyes of the champions.

“You’re not usually this talkative.” Xavier teased Ajax right after he disengaged his most recent conversation.

“I’d rather they just get straight to the duels and be done with it.” Ajax said drawing a look of wide eyed surprise from Xavier and frowns from the three champions. “Don’t look so worried nobody else could hear me. I used Vibration Mana to wipe out the sound before it travelled.”

“You’re never going to unlock your social Skills if you don’t at least try harder than this.” Xavier said with a relieved sigh as he shook his head at Ajax’s antics.

“So who do you think will challenge who?” Ajax asked Xavier as he looked around the room, his eyes tracking the elven guests that had now split apart, Leandra the most relaxed of the all having gotten her challenge out of the way quickly.

“Emeris will challenge Benedict at the first opportunity.” Xavier pointed out. “He hates his relationship with Elara. Elara will be challenged by James Watergate for the same reason. I’m not sure who will challenge Fealin but they will think it’s their idea and it won’t be. And that leaves Arianwyn with either Levy Firebreath or Ramus Deepfort.”

Ajax surprisingly knew who all the people were, James Watergate, Levy Firebreath and Ramus Deepfort were all stand out talents from Gryndor but all of them had just missed the cut for the under fifty tournament in the Republic despite having been along for the delves Gryndor took part in beforehand, they were also the only ones he suspected could even stand a chance against Arianwyn or Elara.

Ajax nodded in thanks as he made for Elara and Benedict, he hadn’t really had a chance to talk to them when they arrived yesterday and he was looking to catch up with them while taking a break from the more stressful topics the other nobles from Gryndor wanted to discuss with him.

“I would have thought you two would have gotten sick of each other after two weeks of traveling together on your way here.” Ajax teased the couple who were more and more open with their affections, at the same time making sure he silenced his words in the same way he did earlier.

“Ajax!” Benedict all but hissed.

“It has been a while, Ajax.” Elara smiled, her [Sense Mana] Skill high enough to pick up on what he was doing. “That’s a novel and subtle application of a spell. And you can do it to my words as well, can you teach me how to do that?”

Unlike his conversation with Xavier his trick with Vibration Mana now pulled the attention of more than just the champions as plenty of people were close enough that they should have overheard the conversation but were confused to not hear anything.

“I doubt it but I think Duke Manashaper is working on a similar chanted spell.” Ajax replied with a smile, stopping his spell and letting everyone once again eavesdrop.

“When did you find the time to do that?” Elara asked. “I’ve heard you’ve been quite busy as of late.”

“I learned to delegate.” Ajax answered, his smile dropping, however as Emeris joined their little group, Ajax could already tell that it wouldn’t be long before the second challenge happened.

Much to Elara’s surprise Emeris had a much more respectful attitude as he joined the conversation. It was clear Ajax’s Aura had left an impression on the man.

“Think you would still say that across the arena from me?” The loud words drew the attention of the entire room. Ramus Deepfort was challenging Fealin.

Ajax had barely made his way across the room to officially legitimise the duel when Emeris turned around and challenged Benedict with James Watergate using his challenge to challenge Elara at the same time.

“Your prediction turned out to be spot on.” Ajax praised Xavier after giving the go ahead to all three duels. “Couldn’t have warned me they would all happen one right after the other?”

“This was orchestrated by Fealin.” Xavier's words had a bit of anger. “Emeris must have asked him for an opportunity to challenge Benedict and since Fealin thinks Emeris can win he decided to get Ramus to challenge him since Levy would have a very hard time with Arianwyn and he knew as soon as Emeris challenged Benedict, James would challenge Elara.”

“He’s looking to have all the elves win.” Ajax picked up on what was happening.

“I think he stands a good chance for that to happen.” Xavier looked a little troubled by what just went down. “Depending on how these duels and tomorrow’s duels with the Empire turn out I might have to ask you to duel as well just as a show of force.”

For the next hour everything calmed down as everyone was now just anticipating the duels. Levy Firebreath even showed his political skills by catching on to Fealin’s game and had tried to avoid Arianwyn. He had almost made it but half an hour before the first duel Arianwyn managed to get her own challenge out even as she threw Ajax an apologetic look as he approved their duel to take place last.