With his work, he got enough blood and over the time of a week, his strength increased by another 100 kg. The technique "Art of Evolution" allowed him to increase his body fitness comprehensively. So, his speed, reflexes and vitality also were increasing. The only thing, that concerned his is that he didn't know the limit to which he would could do it.
He had prior experience of building a mana core and he knew that he could construct one immediately with the use of a few mana stones. But every cultivation technique he knew about, tells that once they reached the limit, it would form automatically and that is how he had done before.
It was general knowledge that the usual limit for punch strength was close to 1500 kg during body refinement and after that it would barely increase afterwards but it wasn't so in his case. It was still increasing by 50kg-100kg per week which couldn't be considered the peak. So, he was had a few doubts until today when he discussed the same with Dean.
After another tiring session of working for dinner in the evening with chef Bloom in the kitchen, he found Dean waiting for him outside the kitchen at night.
"Hi Dean," said Ajax as he saw the baron stage guard waving at him as soon as he got out of the kitchen. "Didn't expect you to wait for me here."
"Yes, I didn't either. I went to your room and found out about you working in the kitchen daily. I asked for you, but this chef Bloom sent a message to wait till your session was done," said Dean.
"Oh Sorry! He is a bit strict," apologized Ajax.
"So, how is the training going?" asked Dean.
"The guard training or the chef training?"
"I know about the guard training. I am asking about chef one."
"It involves a lot of reading and cutting up ingredients. I never cooked anything in the kitchen here. I am always chopping, dicing or cutting ingredients and Bloom insists that I improve before I move on actual cooking," answered Ajax.
"You can choose some other job if you are not satisfied or find it boring," said Dean. "For someone with your talents, you definitely will have other options. I still find it hard to believe that you chose to be a cook."
"He is not wrong. I read the books and the science is right. It is useful to learn these things and the books he gave are very helpful. I am learning a log about different herbs and beasts. It could be very useful in missions too."
"I know. It is like knowledge of alchemy and could provide useful," said Dean nodding. "I myself dabble in alchemy for the same purpose."
"Oh! So, why are you here?" asked Ajax.
"You didn't have dinner yet? right?"
"Na, I didn't," replied Ajax.
"Good. How about we get out of the military area. You should know the restaurant 'Wok of a Warrior' right?"
"Ya, I know. It has a catering contract with the guards and I have worked there for a week before I joined the guards," said Ajax to which Dean nodded.
"I know that, but you never have been a customer of that establishment, right?" asked Dean. "You never had a chance to actually avail its services."
"I never did."
"We have booked a private room there. The others are waiting and we can talk about the rest there," said Dean as he led him out of the inner part of the fort toward the restaurant.
After a few minutes, Ajax could see the familiar 20 storied building of the restaurant where he worked a week before. Following Dean, he stepped in the restaurant through the main entrance as a customer for the first time.
The restaurant has a large circular hall with a large circular pillar at the center. The floors and walls were wood panelled decorated with a multitude of swords and shields along with parts of animals like heads and antlers.
The hall itself was busy with a number of customers all seated along long wooden tables each of which could seat at least 20 people. It had a rustic look giving the appearance of a bar made specifically for soldiers like a mess, more than a fancy restaurant.
The walls had a number of crystals which provide a calming yellow light throughout the hall while it highlighted the decorations. The servers dressed in white shirt and black pants moved easily through the busy crowd as they attended to the crowd.
There was a circular wooden staircase around the central pillar leading the floors above. One couldn't see the kitchen at all and all the personnel seemed to enter and exit magically through the wooden wall directly opposite the entrance. It was clear that the entire place was filled with arrays and magical instruments that provided security and various utilities giving the customers a pleasant and enjoyable experience.
It was the first time that he had been to any dining establishment in this world and this one definitely awed him. In his past life, he had the chance to visit many, but this one was something that he would remember all his life.
Ajax was taking in the entire view of the hall as he realized how much the world changed due to the presence of mana. At the same time, he also started to observe different things like the exits on the floor and what could be used as weapons due to his habits as an agent.
"You have never entered any dining establishment, right?" asked Dean. "Even in the capital, I doubt you went out much?"
"No, I always had food at the palace. It was considered dangerous to dine outside and everything we want, we could have it ordered into our rooms," answered Ajax.
"So, how is it then?" asked Dean.
"A lot more than what I expected," said Ajax.
"Don't expect the same out of every dining establishment," said Dean. "This franchise is unique. You won't see so much use of arrays in any other one. It is because these restaurants are present in only forts that such security measures and arrays are used."
"Are those weapons real?" asked Ajax suddenly. For some reason, they didn't feel like mere decorations but actual weapons placed there.
"Yes, they are real ones. All the personnel here are mostly veterans and are all trained. They are basically security and in case of emergencies can use arrays to get access to those weapons and use them," explained Dean.
"Emergencies? What emergencies?"
"Don't let the current situation fool you. This is the border. It a border fort. If you have read your history, you would know that many a times such forts were attacked and sometimes occupied changing the border lines. So, it is not excessive to expect and prepare for such emergencies," said Dean.
"Wow! So, where are the others?" asked Ajax. "I was hoping to meet the entire team other than you and Syam."
"Not in a public hall. We have something important to discuss. The bottom half of the restaurant floors are all public ones like this one. The top half provides private rooms and more specialized services and meals. Let us go," said Dean as he led towards the staircase at the centre.
As he reached the centre, one of the personnel received them. "We are supposed to join Mr. Blatt in a private room," Dean informed the personnel.
"We are expecting you. It is the 18th floor," he said as he placed a hand on the pillar which activated some array and the area in front of them became translucent and shiny. It was clear to Ajax that a portal was opened and he was surprised to see such facility in a restaurant.
"We have a teleportation facility to travel between floors?" asked Ajax.
"It is not called teleportation. That is costly and will not be used in such regular transportation," explain Dean. "This is called flight portal. It works different and has little cost. The arrays manipulate air to let customers move comfortably through the pillar through flight."
"Come," said Dean as he dragged him into the portal. As they went into it, Ajax found the both of them enclosed in an white field like an air bubble. A couple of seconds later, the bubble burst and they exited out of another portal.
The floor they got off was much different from the ground floor. Instead of a large hall there were in a circular corridor which had four walkways breaking of it in mutually perpendicular directions. The circular corridor was decorated with large stuffed figures of beasts and the walls having the weapons hung on them like in the ground floor. There were doors on the wooden walls of the walkways which opened in to the private rooms.
Other personnel came to receive and on finding out that Dean was searching for Blatt, he led them to a private room. On entering, Ajax found a square table which could seat more than 30 people. There were more than twenty people sitting, six of them were guards and the others were trainees almost all of whom Ajax could recognize. Though he recognized them all, the only ones he did interact before were Timothy Reesman and Jean Creek.
"Ha, finally. We have been waiting for an hour here," said Syam as he saw Dean and Ajax enter.
"He was in the kitchen and you know the spirit chefs. Like any other artisan they hate being disturbed during work," said Dean.
"I explained it to them already Dean. It is stupid to expect anything else. Especially from chef Bloom when you ask to take his latest and most promising apprentice during training time," said one of the guards.
"Fine. Let it be. We are already late," said Syam waving his hand.
"All the trainees move to the right side," he said indicating them the trainees to group towards his right.
"My name is Syam and I am a captain of special squad," he introduced himself. "The late arrival is Dean, the tall guy there is Brook, the lady is Van, the short one is Derek. They are my team. The last one is called Raban."
"Ok! Dean, it is time for you to speak," said Syam.
"So, you just didn't tell them anything because you didn't want to explain," said Dean as he came in front of them shaking his head.
"Trainees. Today, we have brought you guys here because we have.. Damn this is hard," said Dean breaking his sentence in the middle. A couple of seconds later he started again.
"Ok. There is a special division among the guards, called hunters. We deal more with the issue inside the border than those outside. We capture traitors, eliminate any beasts or their followers if they entered inside border lines. Handle any issues with greedy nobles who are willing to partner with beasts, etc. You guys can guess right?"
"For this we have our own network of spies throughout the empire providing us information. Most of them are civilians. Some are criminals pardoned in exchange for help. There are quite a few families and clans who are long term information providers for this division," explained Dean.
"The problem is that they though they can get information to us, they can't take action against traitors as it is usually dangerous and not expected of civilians. So, it is here that we are to take charge," said Dean pointing to the trainees.
"You want to train us for this special division?" asked Jean. "Why us? We are just trainees. I thought trainees at body strengthening are only sent to fight beasts in groups for graduation. Nothing about fighting humans and capturing traitors or criminals."
"True," said Dean.
"We don't ever recruit for our division at your level. At the very least, knight stage guards are recruited. Some special ones like deviants whose attributes suit more of our clandestine operations like shadow attribute and also taken," continued Dean pointing to Timothy.
"This time we are kind of forced to do recruit prematurely," interrupted Syam.
"Yes, there has been a coup that occurred in the kingdom on whose border the fort lies. So, some changes happened and some mistakes made by some of the administrators and nobles. This kind of resulting in an increase in the cases that we have to deal and we expect it to escalate more later," explained Dean.
"So, you want to do so recruiting in advance based on the current information you have about the current trainees," said Ajax. He had already understood about the situation. He had seen it before in his life as an agent. Whenever there is an expansion of any clandestine organization or if a large number of deaths occur, it is practice to bring in new blood. Training the young to suit the organizations needs, is one of the most effective practices for such organizations.