Ajax was only brought back into the moment after Balthazar started walking towards a different aisle. He still could get his head around how the man had been alive for four thousand years, even the two hundred that normal people lived here seemed like a lot to him after he ended his first life before the age of twenty-five.

“How could you survive for four thousand years?” Ajax finally asked.

“I’m only three thousand nine hundred and seventy four.” Balthazar said cheekily but then continued to explain. “It isn’t a secret however, are you aware of the effects that stats have on aging?”

“All physical stats except Perception slow down the effects of aging, physical stats more so than mental ones.” Ajax answered.

“That is correct but it is not the complete truth.” Balthazar said. “While all the stats affect aging, even Perception, they do so at varying rates. Perception is by far the worst , then Wisdom and Intellect are next but both are quite a bit better and Mind is a good chunk above them. Then we reach the physical stats, Strength and Dexterity are about the same and are above Mind with Endurance being a decent chuck above them. That leaves us with Vitality, which is the opposite of Perception by being a solid bit better than Endurance.”

“Then why isn’t that knowledge better spread?” Ajax asked, confused.

“First of all, that is because most people don’t make it too far past sixty in their entire lifetime.” The old man answered. “ Not only that but most people, even in the non-human kingdoms, focus on an almost purely physical build despite access to magic because of the longer lifespan this grants.”

“I don’t see the issues with sharing the knowledge.” Ajax still answered.

“The stats also affect an aging body differently.” Professor Silvertongue answered. “Did you notice, in the previous question we spoke about the effect of stats on aging. Well the stats have a completely reversed effect on age.”

“Isn’t that the opposite of what you just said?” Ajax didn’t know what to think.

“No, what I mean by that is that as your body ages past its prime you’ll start to see your stats be given a penalty. There will be no numerical value reduced but an old man with four hundred strength can’t overpower a young man with even two hundred. But an old man with four hundred Perception still has better senses than a young man with three hundred and fifty.” Abbot explained.

“The final piece of the puzzle is that stats applied only slow down the aging process after they are applied.” Balthazar said. “ Two people with identical stats and a common average build can have the same stats at around level eighty but one of them has aged half again as much as another simply because of the order they increased their stats in.”

“Wouldn’t sharing all this mean people would live longer on average?” Ajax asked.

“Yes, and perhaps one day it might even be a good idea to spread this information, after all making an educated decision on this would bring about a lot of good.” Balthazar nodded. “But how many commoners do you know that are getting a good education? This information is being distributed but only to those who also receive enough education to make appropriate choices.”

“If we were to spread this information out wildly, almost every member of the kingdom would spend 80-90% of their stats on Vitality at level ten as that would lead to them living the longest. Can you imagine what doing this on a large scale would mean for society?” Abbot asked.

That question made it all click for Ajax, vitality was very important in combat, but that was only when it came to defense, Vitality had almost no benefit for offense, meaning that if everyone was focusing on vitality with most of their stat points they would all be extremely weak for their level as they begin leveling, and those other low stats would then affect their skills. Even with low skill their leveling speed wouldn’t change that much since the difficulty factor would still be there but the end product of those skills would be much worse than it is now.

“I see you can put it together.” Balthazar nodded. “Now imagine what would happen if a kingdom that shared that information to its common people was attacked forty or fifty years down the line.”

Ajax already knew the outcome would be disastrous. Forty or fifty years wasn’t enough to let said kingdom build up a numbers advantage by having its people live longer due to the investment in Vitality but they would be weakened by having their soldiers be much weaker due to the cost of the investment.

While it may seem unfair that only the poor weren’t given this information while the nobles and the affluent merchants profited from it, sharing it would do more harm than good before something akin to minimum public education was introduced.

“This brings me back to the initial question, how did I manage to live so long.” Balthazar said as he entered one of the aisle and started perusing the shelves looking for a specific scroll. “You see in my youth I was dedicated to efficiency, but I took it to a very far extreme.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head as he struggled to remember those days. “ I wanted to get as much out of my stats points as possible, so the day I turned ten I spent all of my stats in the one stat that grew the hardest naturally, Vitality.”

Ajax was a bit surprised at the parallel this took with his own life, he had done almost the same thing at the age of ten, only instead of spending all the points on one stat he simply didn’t spend them.

“But that wasn’t the end of it, even after that point I continued to stubbornly only spend my points on Vitality while rigorously training my other stats, both physical and mental.” he continued. “Right now trying to do the same thing would lead to stagnation, but back then the kingdoms weren’t as stable as they are now.”

“How does that help?” Ajax asked, if anything he thought the kingdoms not being stable would be an obstacle for this sort of choice.

“I can see why you would think that but I was lucky to be born as the son of the head of one of the three Pillar houses.” Balthazar said.

“The equivalent of the three archdukes of today.” Abbot supplied.

“Yes, thank you.” Balthazar nodded. “As such, my father had the wealth and influence to afford having me taken to delve as many as six dungeons for their full floor achievements. three of them even being five level jump dungeons like the Goldmine. That combined with my talents for healing magic and stat potions allowed me to have stats that far surpassed what my level should have been able to achieve even if most were focused on Vitality from a young age.”

“This is the result.” Abbot said. “A very aged body, so much so that even with physical stats that surpass yours he has to rely on magical items and mental stats that mark him as a more than competent mage.”

“I made my mistake in going too far with my obsession with Vitality.” Balthazar admitted. “I managed to gain at least one hundred and thirty points in each of my stats through pure training over the years, with the exception of Vitality of course.”

“Ah here we are.” Balthazar said as he picked up one of the scrolls and handed it to Ajax. “The achievement Against overwhelming odds.”

Ajax accepted the scroll, while the parchment had the same thickness as the one that contained Bullying the rolled up scroll was a lot smaller meaning that the amount of information on it was much smaller, he quickly unrolled it.

Achievement : Against Overwhelming Odds

Requirements : kill an enemy at least twice the level you are alone.

Two discoveries cost.

Rewards : skill [Judge Threat].

In depth requirements : Kill an enemy beast or monster (humanoid are not acceptable) that has not been weakened in any way( Previous wounds, environmental damage, environmental disadvantage, exhaustion). Without any help provided, all magical or enchanted gear used has to be selfcrafted, plain weapons are allowed, buff skills or effects not allowed. Enhancement potions crafted by others are allowed so long as they only affect you and not the enemy.

Observations : Hidden reward, remove one instance of the punishments Bullying or Coward if afflicted when first achieved. Hidden rewards are repeatable twice for killing five enemies twice your level alone and again for ten enemies.

Note: Enemies killed inside the Dungeon only count if you are not part of a party delving the dungeon and are doing so alone, this regardless of any interference or lack thereof. Attempting to achieve this in a Dungeon is heavily discouraged.

Note : Killing a beast that has been well cared for in a natural environment does still count even if said beast was held in captivity as long as all requirements are met. (Monsters used for entertainment in a colosseum or ring fight.)

Note : Killing bound companions does count so long as the system believes the fight was genuine and the humanoid bound didn’t interfere to weaken the enemy in any way.