Gamer Reborn
Chapter 509

Chapter 509

Lexi P.O.V.

I can barely hear the words Sam says as I try to process what Ajax just said. What the Trait he has gives him, more than anything what the Trait he has means. Divine Witness, even if we don’t look at all the gains this means he at one moment or another interacted with one of the gods.

His explanation that he doesn’t know when or how he got the Trait doesn’t help much. If a god didn’t want him to remember the interaction I am pretty sure it's something they would be able to make him forget.

It’s a good thing I look towards Ajax as I am trying to wrap my head around all of this because what I see there is enough to shock me back into the present moment. The fear and vulnerability are spelled out all over Ajax’s face. It must have taken an incredible amount of courage for him to share this, more than that he told me at the same time he told the rest of his family.

“You’ve had this Trait all along.” It’s Aurora who follows up after Sam. “Don’t look so afraid, you’re still the same grandson I came to love as you were a moment ago.”

Aurora’s words act like the starting gong for everyone else to offer their own reassurance to Ajax that they don’t see him any different from how they did before. It also focuses them on Ajax’s feelings and fear of rejection.

I can see Ajax’s fear turn to joy as the words of acceptance pour in. But in the moment his eyes meet mine I can see the fear make a comeback. I’m not the same as his family, our interactions haven’t been the same and unlike them who were tied by blood we were tied together by choice.

I can’t say I am not a little hurt that he didn’t choose to trust me with this until now but I also can’t say that I don’t understand why he didn’t. It was clearly weighing on him heavily and it isn’t something I’ll hold against him. The problem I run into however is that I can’t stop myself from asking ‘is there anything else he is hiding?’.

A hug and a kiss from me do a lot to reassure him but I can’t get out the same words that his family just said, this revelation did change something, at least for the moment. It’s nothing to do with my feelings for Ajax or my trust in him, he hadn’t lied about any of this to me before. It will just take me a while to adapt to this.

“This is a lot of stats you're gaining from the Trait.” Judy says, with the initial reveal out of the way the specifics of the trait start being discussed, everyone is clearly avoiding the title following Ajax’s explanation before the reveal but that still leaves a lot of different things to focus on.

That direct Stat increase is the easiest of the benefits to focus on. There doesn’t seem to be any hard to grasp about it so it makes for a perfect starting point. “That’s more than a hundred extra stats you got already!” Alana presses.

For a normal level fifty one hundred extra Stats that they could assign however they wanted would be massive, for Ajax who has already gained so many extra Stats in a number of different ways the difference wouldn’t be as exaggerated but it was by no means to be underestimated.

“It’s actually more than that.” Ajax explains. “These stats are like regular stat gains, which means that they increase my potion limit as well.”

That makes sense, pretty much all Stats gained increase the potion limit, except for stats gained from potions of course.

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“The slight increase to forcibly increased Stats must have already lost its effectiveness.” Silvia focused on the next least important of the benefits. “Though it does explain why you seemed to grow so quickly as a child.”

“It’s actually in part what made me focus so much on my status points that I kept saving them even beyond the age of ten.” Ajax admitted. “Watching the numbers grow slower and slower as they started to get higher and higher is one of the main reasons I wanted to push them as high as I could before I spent my free points.”

“I’m not sure what to say about a slight increase.” I point out while poking him with my index finger in the ribs, already I can feel myself getting over the fact that he hid something for so long. “You’ve told me your baseline before you spent your free points before and it was impossibly high.”

“A big part of that was because of my Prodigy Trait.” Ajax defends himself as he awkwardly arches away from my index finger. When he shares his Stats at the age of ten it still seems like they are higher than normal but not that insane.

“What about the Skill level limit, does this mean that with the Duke title you can now reach level one hundred and ninety with your Skills?” Elija as usual takes his time but when he finally speaks it's always to the heart of the matter.

The question is probably the most important one of them all. Skills are limited to level one hundred and fifty, all other increases in Skill level I’ve ever heard of have been exclusively up to the limit of one hundred and fifty. But that is missing from Ajax’s Trait as he read it to us.

“I don’t know.” Ajax shrugs his expression extremely guilty, no doubt about not being able to shed some more light on his own Trait, even if it is because he genuinely doesn’t know. “It’s the first trait and Skill level increase I received, I’m not sure if they work additively or if it’s the first gain the first received. I don’t even have a Skill at level one hundred let alone beyond.”

Ajax’s words made sense. Nobody around our age had such high level Skills, even if he did get a boost to his Skill leveling speed it would have needed to be quite a high boost in order to make up for the ever increasing difficulty of leveling Skills.

“I’m guessing this last line is directly tied into why you took so long to share this with us.” Tom said as he pointed towards the parchment where he wrote down the details of Ajax’s trait.

I felt Ajax’s hand squeeze mine so hard I would have thought it would crush it for a moment when he noticed the parchment. Clearly while he was now ready to share the details of his Trait, having the information written down made him very uncomfortable on a deep level. This along with the instant Light spell that followed to heal my hand helped me move further along to being okay with him having kept all this to himself even before our engagement.

That’s when it hit. This is what was bothering me so much, that Ajax didn’t share this before we got engaged. That he asked me to tie our lives together despite me not knowing all that he knew.

I didn’t get a chance to focus on the discovery as his brother pushed on. “Don’t worry I’ll burn this after we are done and then spread the ashes in two piles, one I will bury and the other I’ll scatter to the wind.”

“That was a big part of it.” Ajax answered the previous question. “The other is that it was never the right time to share it. Over the last year there was one thing or another, or there was someone nearby that I would not be comfortable hearing about and I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t eavesdrop.”

“This brings us to the final two lines.” Judy said with excitement. “They are obviously related, and it does make it easier to explain how you got to level eleven before the age of ten.”

“But wait, if you had this Trait why did you have to try all those different professions in the village?” Silvia asked.

Ajax’s eyes found a sudden deep interest in the floor as he answered the question. “I might have intentionally tried all of those to gain the Skills before moving on to the next.”

“Then the reason you spent so long as a farmer…” His father left the sentence unfinished.

“It’s because I really wasn’t meant to be a farmer. It took that long for me to gain even a few Common Skills even with the Trait.” Ajax said.

“How many Skills do you have?” Alana asked at Ajax’s confession.

“More than a hundred.” The words were a mere whisper yet they resounded like a bell in the silence of the room.

“How do you have so many Skills at the level you have them at and are not already level eighty?” I ask as I know the level of a few of his Skills at least.

“That’s where the second part of the Trait comes in.” Ajax said. “While it might be easier for me to level my Skills it also means that I gain less Experience for doing so. With my Skill levels I probably should have gained enough experience to get at least two people if not three to my level. I am actually glad this part of it will be offset by the experience boost from my evolution.”

With that we all decided it was a good place to stop to process everything. Tom carried out his words as he burned the parchment before we all left to rest and take in everything we heard tonight.