( A few days later, The day of the dungeon event )
For Max, the few days after his wedding flew in a breeze.
He had lots of work pending, however, for every second that he was not working, he spent time with Asiva like only newly weds would do, enjoying the finer luxuries in life.
He buffed up the security around the palace tenfold, bringing some of their best tier5 fighters from the army and stationing them as palace security staff.
He also made sure that if Asiva were to move to any location in the palace, she was to be escorted by 5 layers of security and temporarily banned her activities outside the palace outright.
Although to a third person his actions might have seemed excessive, Max wanted to take no chances when it came to Asiva's security after the Angakok incident.
It was his own compulsion as a lord that forced him to go away on dangerous adventures time and time again, however, he was now aware and conscious about the fact that there existed those that wanted to harm his family in his absence.
As a counterbalance against those, these security measures were taken as Asiva was instructed that the moment she senses danger, she was to break the return totem, that would immediately teleport her out of Dombivli and put her on planet radiance, inside the headquarters of the True Elites guild, where any enemy would need to tear through an army and sir Jhonny to touch her.
Although Max could not be fully convinced with even these measures, with Furball present and Asiva herself being competent, he believed that these measures would help at least save her life.
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As he arrived on Ixtal alongside Severus, Anna, Sebastian and DarkSorrow, the first thing that Max noticed was the intense hostility in the eyes of the Aurelius clan hosts who wished nothing more than to chop him down where he stood.
" MAX RAJPUT, THE LORD OF THE BLOODFALL CLAN, HAS ARRIVED " The Aurelius representative announced in a grudgeful voice as the Bloodfall bannerman walked ahead of Max holding the banner.
With his head held high, Max strolled through Ixtal with his closest friends watching his back as he flexed his chainless wrists to every Aurelius official that gave him dirty looks.
As he walked over the Sanguis river bridge, the river suddenly turned turbulent and began flowing torrentially as Max grinned at the phenomenon.
It added to the rubbing the Aurelius clan in its face as at that moment Max felt a presence peering down on him from the tall palace.
Max turned to face Regus, a smug smile on his face as he pointed at the third button on his robe to remind Regus of the simulcast device that he had used to broadcast the trial.
It was a vain provocation, one that would have gotten him in deep trouble had the circumstances been different.
However, after the universal verdict, Regus could not go after Max for such childish provocations and hence had to take his insults with silence.
If he was internally outraged, he did not let it show externally as the king maintained his impassive face as he looked down on Max.
Ignoring him, Max kept moving as he eventually reached the dungeon area where Lucius Aurelius was apparently already waiting for him.
23 clans had already arrived before him, hence there were a few dozen people already outside the dungeon with their respective clan banners.
The lower clans were being led by their Lords themselves, while the true bigshots like the Saint Maximus clan or the Velter clan or the Titus clan, had the expedition being led by their second generation or their generals.
Max's presence shocked many as it was a known fact by now that he was a god.
God's usually did not participate in this dungeon as they had a lifespan of several thousand years and did not need to take the risk to enter a place where they could die as a mortal.
Nonetheless, nobody questioned Max directly about his decision as they were more than happy to see him get slaughtered out of his own stupidity.
After the recent Shenanigans, Max had become almost as popular a figure as the vampire king himself as he was a household name within the vampire society.
His reputation was divisive and he was a polarising figure amongst the youth.
Many aspired to be like him whereas the conservatives hated him for tarnishing the reputation of the king.
Hence Max did not lack individual's who wished to harm him ' Accidentally ' inside the dungeon run and he was acutely aware of this fact.
" I think you must already be aware, but I'll repeat it just incase you missed a point " Lucius said as he tried to make sure that Max understood how the scoring worked inside the dungeon.
" An epic ranked artefact is worth 1 merit point, An legendary rank artefact is worth 10, A semi-divine artefact is worth 100 and a divine artefact is worth 1000.
The more artefacts you turn over at the end, the more merit points you get, however, you can choose whether you want to turn over a treasure or not.
Inside the dungeon, there are several stages.
Clear stage 1 and you get a ' shard ' , usually these shards are only tier7 or 8 in nature, however, there was one dungeon run when it turned out to be tier10.
I'm not sure if you remember, but there was an auction where a tier10 shard of life showed up many years ago, it was from this dungeon.
However, that's beside the point, the main objective is to collect these shards.
1 shard = 10,000 merit points, irrespective of the grade, and it only increases if the quality exceeds tier8.
A shard can only be obtained by clearing a stage and as of now we don't know what is the upper cap in the number of stages inside the dungeon.
The furthest a group has gotten is stage 3 but the challenge changes every year and it's never the same twice.
This year, my father has announced that whoever amongst me and my brother has more merit points, would be named crown prince and that's why if you can contribute even 30,000 merit points to my campaign, I'd remember the favour forever " Lucius explained as Max picked up on an interesting detail from his explanation.
The shard of life that had made two monarchs go into a bidding frenzy a few years ago in the seven galaxy bank auction was a treasure that had originated from this dungeon.
If the dungeon was so powerful, it was no wonder that so many bloody wars had been fought for the right to control this place.
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/// A/N - Chapter 2 of 7, enjoy ///
