[NR] Growing Plot - Chapter 696

The group is leaving the settlement to return to their clearing. Jason looks over at the others and after a moment of thought, frowns. “What are your levels right now?”

Rosha and Courtney glance at each other and shrug. Rosha says, “I’m level 31”, and Courtney follows up with, “I’m level 33. The healing I did on the wall counted for more as far as I can tell.”

Jason sighs, “43.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow, “Ten entire levels ahead of us? Rosha wouldn’t ever suggest it, but on both of our behalf, if you need to go strike out on your own? We understand.”

Jason shakes his head, “I’m leveling too fast. Right now? I need to focus on gaining a new skill or two for combat and re-star-ing my stats. Besides that, I really should put more emphasis on my irl body and cultivation.”

Rosha tilts her head to the side, “So what? We’re back to the thing where you’re the homemaker while we go out and hunt? I have nothing against that sort of thing, but I would assume new combat skills would need, you know, combat?”

Jason shrugs, “At some point? Sure. To get started? Not at all. Besides, there is a reason I’m bringing it up while still six levels away from the bottleneck. Give myself some padding for defending our clearing and testing skills.”

Courtney nods, “You do seem to have thought this out. I guess the big question will be how closely we are in reaching the bottleneck.”

Jason shakes his head, “That isn’t a problem. The problem is we don’t know what System quest we’ll get when it is time to breakthrough. While the 4th bottleneck doesn’t require a personalized quest to be completed, for some that is actually worse.

“A generic quest could be just about anything, which also means something hard or impossible on your own. Whereas a personalized quest, while harder, will always be something you can complete.”

Rosha shrugs, “Eh, we have the three of us. Whatever pops up should be fine. Besides, while I would be loath to do it, there are my irl resources and as a last resort, my families.”

Courtney, “Besides, while you might get a seemingly impossible quest, it is believed that the System cannot give literally impossible quests for a bottleneck. You might need to suffer to get through it, but there will be a way. One’s own actions not withstanding. There are more than a few stories about someone managing to kill the wrong person or destroy some McGuffin, forever locking them out of advancing.”

Jason shakes his head, “Can’t help bad luck.”

And with that, Jason’s time over the next period of time was set. The group gets back to the clearing and they fall into their routine. Rosha and Courtney would go out and hunt while Jason would build up the clearing.

Though as the days pass, he falls back on something else from the start of his time in NeoRealm. With the buildings built, Jason began to farm. After all, it isn’t like all those interesting herbs that the other two kept finding.

Not that he was having much success with said herbs. They didn’t travel easily, the transition between zones anything but gentle, and their clearing differing greatly from the plants natural habitat. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t able to plant anything.

He still had his old reliables. Not all of which he had spares of or the ability to plant. His ginseng was singularly singular and the Focusing Tea would simply take too long to grow. Though the Bloody Lingzhi wasn’t the easiest either.

Still, with work and a quick trip to buy some actual farming tools, Jason is able to get everything planted. Of course, he first attempted to do everything on his own and while he could mimic the tools with his Energy, there is one major roadblock. No amount of Energy control was going to make anything other than a hand trowel when what Jason needed is full size shovels and such.

It was during the first pass of laying out his garden that Jason finally could pinpoint a change to their clearing. He had been told it would happen, but to see the proof is something else. Jason had measured out an area for his garden long ago, back when he was setting everything up.

Not just that, but he had recorded down the numbers for later. Except when he went to remeasure everything? The area marked out by four moderate sized sticks had grown, and not uniformly.

Not only is it longer, but the short side that faced away from the center is also wider. What was once a rectangle is now more of a trapezoid. Good thing the Deep Wilds seemed to know not to adjust the buildings. Though likely the only reason Jason noticed is because the four sticks marking things out were not considered a single unit.

Anyway, Jason simply shrugged and re-measured his farm plot. Not that he was against a bigger farm, but he had to admit his own limitations. Or rather, better to be careful and ease up to those limits until he knew where to stop.

Would suck to till a giant plot of land and not use even half of it. Jason wasn’t afraid of hard work, but pointless work? That smacked of the troubled times and a sure way to grind at one’s soul.

Whatever the case, tilling a new field, no matter the size, was tough work. It certainly didn’t help that the grass in the clearing was a particularly hardy breed. He couldn’t just till it or the grass would grow back just as strong and twice as thick. The foundations were so much easier since tamping down the soil helped prevent that and he could do a few things since he didn’t want to grow things there afterwards.

In the end, though, Jason was left standing in front of a decent sized field, planted with Energy Herb and Gloom Weed. There was just one last thing to do.