[NR] Compared To Chess - Chapter 719

Over the following nights, Rosha and Courtney made a habit of ending the night sitting next to each other by the fire. There was always something new to see, at least there was if they looked deeper in. What stars could be seen changed night to night. Never the same twice, even if they occasionally spotted groupings of stars that seemed familiar.

Rosha, “Is it the same sky, mixed up or entirely new skies?”

Courtney looked up, “Probably both. The areas near the settlement are more stable, as made obvious by their repeated experiences with giant beasts. Further out? Well, then things get less certain.”

Rosha chuckles, “Like cloud watching, but for constellations. It feels like I’m back in my spaceship, zooming through the cosmos. Can’t go back to the other game, sadly.”

Courtney sighs, “Nothing you can do about it. Your father owned the account and you were a minor. While there are laws in place to extract your account from his control as an adult, what is left would be a shell.”

Rosha’s face falls as she remembers, “It is already a shell. There’s a reason I wasn’t allowed to play for the last week. He ground all my achievements to dust, broke all my connections, and sold off all my gear.”

Courtney frowns, “I didn’t hear about that.”

Rosha smiles, though the sadness doesn’t leave her face. “The only reason I realized what happened is because some of my stuff was unique enough that I recognized it in a niche blog that keeps track of when such things end up getting scrapped.”

Courtney shakes her head, “And there isn’t a way to get it back because none of his actions were technically illegal.”

Rosha nods, “If I took him to court I might get access to the account, but the company won’t restore my stuff. He owned it at the time as my parent. At most, the court might order him to pay me a pittance to make up for the losses.”

Courtney, “Blarg, getting fair compensation would be impossible, even if they did a better job of accounting for emotional attachments. What are fines to a man like your father? While a lot of punishments have gone over to be percentage based, some things aren’t.”

Rosha’s sad smile turns devilish, “Do you think that with cultivation we could cause a second fall of the corporations?”

Courtney sighs, “That would be hard. Cultivation, even more than money, seems to be most proficient at gathering power in the hands of the few. At least technological advancement raises the floor.”

Rosha lays her head on Courtney’s shoulder. “Meh, enlightened dictatorship would work. We keep ahead long enough and it sounds like the world would be in the palm of our hand, potentially more literal than previously imaginable.”

Courtney, “Except people like your father will be quick to snaffle up all the special herbs out there. It isn’t like the fact there are power infused herbs out there is a secret from people like them.”

Rosha, “I doubt cultivation is so simple as to allow someone to pop pills to the heavens and beyond.”

Courtney shifts to reposition Rosha’s head, “Well, I’ve been analyzing what information I got from Jason and the tests. Now, would I say you can’t pop pills to reach immortality? Not at all.

“In fact, alchemists tend to advance in that manner if where they live has the herbs for it. There’s even the fact that I’m pretty sure advanced cultivators can handhold people. Not to their own level, but still quite high. The caveat being that those raised in such a way tend to be unable to advance on their own anymore.”

Rosha smirks, “Except all of that requires someone around who is already steps ahead of you or knowledge we lack.

Courtney nods, “So even if they can buy the right stuff, they wouldn’t be able to use it.”

Rosha smirk deepens a touch, “And any alchemist who gets to the point they could help? Well, they’re strong enough to not be swayed by the money. Not to say there won’t be those who are greedy to the extreme. Just that if these herbs end up how it sounds like they will, the ones that would move an alchemist will be truly rare and not something you can buy with money. We simply have to make sure those currently on top stay away from cultivation long enough that they don’t have the personal power to get a stranglehold on them.”

Courtney sighs, “That’s going to be completely on our shoulders.”

Rosha puts her arm around Courtney’s shoulders and gives her a quick squeeze. “It might seem daunting now. Just my father alone has had decades to become an expert at all that slimy political glad handing. But we will have an advantage.

“All we have to do is keep things hidden long enough. For as we cultivate our bodies, so too is our mind cultivated! We can make up for all that experience through sheer brilliance.”

Courtney sighs, “It doesn’t matter how long a person new to chess has to think about their move. When sitting across from a chess master, chances are they fail.”

Rosha laughs, “Well, then they simply aren’t using enough time! Maybe it pushes back how long we have to keep things secret, but if anything that’s better for us. We simply need to get to where we can think out all the ramifications as things are happening. To go beyond being someone new to the game.

“With your chess example, instead of using the time between turns to grind our face against the board? We could spend our time reading books on chess theory. Besides, a general improvement to our mind doesn’t mean we suddenly get bullet time to react however we want! It means we learn faster, remember more, react quicker, have better intuition, and just connect things we might not have.”

Courtney leans more heavily into Rosha’s shoulder, “You have a good point. We’ll just have to ask Jason about cultivating the mind. That way we know for certain instead of simply assuming things based on a whiff of context and some half remembered novels.”