[NR] Getting Out The Punching Bag - Chapter 701

Rosha thinks for a moment before she realizes something. “Oh! It’s like the difference between plastic surgery and the extreme practical effects makeover stuff used to dress someone up like a movie monster or what have you.”

Courtney nods, “Yeah, like that. You can keep applying layers of make-up and prosthetics past the point where a person would need to stop and recover after just getting their nose altered. Even with modern tech, surgery still needs time to recover from.

With that, the pair settle back into taking care of the clearing. As despite their earlier complaint about how often monsters are attacking, they’ve only been facing monsters every other day. Not to say that isn’t a lot, but it isn’t some unending stream of them, either.

Better yet, the monsters tend to show up around noon. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, just as a new gaggle of monsters didn’t literally show up every second day. Still, it is close enough and provided the two with ample time to get other things done.

Rosha, in particular, is taking time to work on her arrow crafting skills. There is more than enough wood lying around and an early flock of birds provided the fletching. The only thing missing is proper arrow heads, but she is fine with preparing blunt wooden arrows for now.

Courtney, on the other hand, is focused on her magic. Rosha isn’t the most active user of the stuff, but Courtney didn’t have a choice. She is both the healer and crowd control. Roles that probably should have been given to separate people, but with three people you tend to wear many hats.

In particular, Courtney is focused on trying to combine the basic heal spell, a touch range stabilizer, with shadow magic. After all, shadows are already touching her teammates by default and shadow magic is known for one of the easier to develop a blink style spell with. So it shouldn’t be the hardest to reach out and touch someone through the shadows and heal them.

Then, as night rolled around, the pair gathered by the campfire and huddled next to each other as they enjoyed their meal. Oh, and Rosha spent a good bit of time petting Lily. It is only fair.

After all, Lily was getting a bit sulky that she wasn't getting to help fight the attacking monsters. Not that Rosha was stopping her, per se. Rather, both Rosha and Courtney are ranged fighters while Lily is more of a melee type. So, by the time Lily gets to the monsters, they tend to be dead.

The peaceful nights are quite the change from their usual time out in the Deep Wilds. The two of them across the fire, facing each other so nothing can sneak up on them. Then having to extinguish it as soon as possible so their night vision can recover and monsters aren’t drawn to it. Because of course monsters would be drawn to fire instead of the usual animal response to avoid it.

To just sit snuggled up next to each other and watch the stars come out? Even if said stars tend to change night to night. The two might not like being stuck in the same place, but this experience relaxed them. 

Though they were out of there the second Jason is back. Even before NeoRealm, Rosha had been the nomadic sort. Just another nameless spacefarer, traveling port to port across the stars in a small well-armed merchant ship.

Of course, this is likely a response to how her family treated her and especially her father trying to trap her in his expectations. That didn’t matter to her though, as she enjoyed the exploration for itself. Which really did make the Deep Wilds the perfect place for her. Never retreading the same path twice?

Some explorer types would hate that they can’t map things out. Rosha instead appreciates there isn’t a push to do so. Just her, Courtney, and a never ending forest which no one can map.

And as the fire finally dies down for the night, Lily returns to Jason’s house while the two do final clean ups, before retiring to their own house. Tomorrow would bring its own challenges and a trip to town to sell their loot. For the night, though? They rest peacefully.

Outside of NeoRealm, Jason doesn’t get to rest peacefully. As he managed to locate all eight of his extraordinary meridians, it is now time to test out his condition after reaching the peak of Meridian Clearing. So, after a few stretches, he heads over to the living room and pulls the military punching bag out of the corner.

Well, he started to pull it, only to find out that he could now lift the punching bag. Not by much, but enough to manhandle it into place. Jason took that as a good sign.

And when his punching routine made the bag dance like a normal punching bag, he is sure of it. That kind of physical performance is supposed to be limited to those with a license or in the military. Jason shakes his hands out. They’re a little sore, but don’t feel bruised.

Jason sighed, he was powerful, but still mortal. This was the starting point. He smiles, because it is a start. Of course, it is likely he would reach the peak of power in NeoRealm well before he gained world shaking power out here.

That is fine, though. Inevitable even. After all, not only is NeoRealm a “game world” where power is easy to gain. There was the whole five to one time ratio. Even if they ran under the same rules, you’d be advancing faster over there, just from having more time to do so.

Jason grabs a quick glass of water before returning the punching bag to the corner. He had been out for almost two days, about what was planned, so now it is time to return. A final set of stretches and Jason is back in his capsule.