[NR] Farther Along Than He Thought - Chapter 664

Halina claps, “That’s the ticket! Now just give the council a few more hours and they’ll probably settle on that.”

Jason sighs, “You already suggested banishing them for the duration of the event?”

Halina smiles, “I can’t take all the credit. Me and my brother spent the night hashing out various plans. Oh, and since I’m not the most liked, Siegfried was the one to suggest it and thus also the one that has to keep up with the meeting.”

Jason, “Anything to get out of that mess?”

Halina shrugs, “To be fair, stuff like banishing travellers falls under his remit. Though yeah, even sitting here on the sidelines is a bit much for me.”

Rosha, “So why are we here?”

Halina nods towards Siegfried, “My brother will need you soon enough. Someone has to repeat the same thing everyone else has said about how travellers work.”

And she wasn’t wrong. Within half an hour, Siegfried had to call the group over to explain. This didn’t actually move the conversation forward, though. It was a political deadlock, not helped by the angry townsfolk outside.

The team was thankful that after their interrogation; they were allowed to leave. Though Halina accompanied them.

Halina puts her hands behind her head and stretches, “Ah yeah, good to be out!”

Courtney, “They expect you to return.”

Halina laughs, “Expectations and reality don’t always match! If they wanted me back, they should have told me to return after escorting you out. Now, do you have a plan for what to do next?”

Jason shrugs, “I personally expected them to weigh us down with tasks.”

Halina nods, “I’m kind of surprised myself. Then again, they also let me get away. They might be a wee bit distracted.”

Jason looks around at the crowded street, “Fair enough.”

Halina, “Anyway, since they didn’t give you anything to do, I have a couple tasks that need doing. How do you feel about fetch quests and checking up on things? I’d normally say you might even get to fight some rats, but even they are absent right now.”

And so, with nothing better to do, the trio splits up. Rosha spends the time bringing things around and chatting with the few people still manning the various businesses. Courtney, on the other hand, focuses on inspecting warehouses. On the lookout for any signs of forced entry, or missing supplies. After all, stealing food out of the field isn’t far off from taking it out of a warehouse.

Jason, however, had other plans and returned to his inn room. It had been a while since he could focus on irl matters. Now, with some sort of event happening, the inn room isn’t the safest it could be. Though he felt relatively safe for the moment and Courtney was going to message him if he needs to get back in.

After settling everything in NeoRealm, Jason logs off and wakes up to the capsule lid opening. He was feeling confident. This was going to be the most concurrent time out of the game he has had in a good while.

A check around the apartment shows that he has the place to himself and so, after a snack, Jason settles down in the living room. Though he doesn’t go right to cultivation. With the extra time, he decides to take stock of everything.

At the surface level, Jason can tell his body is alright. The capsule was doing alright at keeping his muscle tone. Though even then, there were hints of backsliding. To be expected and easily solved by just taking a little time to exercise in the future.

There was one thing of note when it came to his body. Jason could feel that his blood was vigorous. The capsule must have recently run a vaccine or controlled flu. Sure, that did occasionally result in people waking up and feeling a mite bit crummy, but it solved so many problems. A big one being that if you just spent all your time in the capsule only to have to leave, your immune system is going to be in shambles. Not like you would normally find sickness and disease within a capsule.

Satisfied, Jason sinks even deeper into the metaphysical. His meridians, which despite not being able to focus on them for hours, the constant work minimized backsliding and now nine of his 12 main meridians are excavated. This gives Jason pause.

He had been mindlessly chipping away at it and hadn’t even noticed getting to the halfway point, let alone reaching three-fourths.

Jason takes a few moments to meditate on the speed of advancement before coming to a conclusion. With cultivation, especially early on, mental stamina can sometimes be the biggest bottleneck. 

Few are capable of sitting motionless for hours, their mental acuity draining as they focus on digging out each meridian. While going too fast will strain the meridians, if excavating at a slow and steady pace, few can get even half way to that limit. However, unlike with physical stamina, the VR time difference helps one mentally recover faster.

And so, while Jason hadn’t been rushing, the slow and methodical chipping away, up to five times a day, showed amazing progress. Not only that, but as he looks closer, it seems that his meridians are in much better condition than would be normal at this step.

Even the slowest excavation of one’s meridians will irritate them. Jason would have to keep an eye on it, but it seems that small amounts of irritation soothes faster. There should be some limit to this, but NeoRealm’s 5x time ratio is at least a good starting point.

Still, sometimes it just feels good to make more than incremental progress and so Jason settles into excavating the tenth meridian. With only three left, it was so close he might be able to finish before the event ends.

Not that he dares to even think this. While he didn’t necessarily believe in fate, no reason to tempt it. The event could go bad at an astounding pace.