[NR] Paranoid - Chapter 519

Courtney sighs, “I guess we’ll have to depend on getting lucky.”

Jason rolls his eyes, “Hey, it isn’t like we need the reverse meridian stuff. We’ll definitely get a ton of mystical herbs with an extraordinary meridian opened and that will help. Beyond that? It will be on us to find them ourselves.

“While hard, most people who were serious about cultivation in my last life managed to open at least one of them. So opening them all might go a little slow, but we’ll have resources they never dreamed of.”

Courtney sighed again, “You do realize I still don’t believe your whole ‘past life’s nonsense, right?”

Jason shrugs, “I’d be checking if you got replaced or maybe ended up being brainwashed if you weren’t suspicious. Your job is literally to be paranoid about Rosha’s safety.”

Rosha, “Can’t she just be there to guard me? Paranoid doesn’t exactly sound all that nice.”

Jason, “No, paranoid is the correct word. If her job was just to keep you safe, she would have booted me in a heartbeat. Safety doesn’t mean going out on a limb to try real life cultivation.”

Courtney frowns, “And how would being paranoid lead to such an outcome? If anything, I would say that it would result in an even more extreme response.”

Jason nods, “It could. However, you looked into my claims and came to a certain conclusion which flipped the script. You realized I wasn’t just blowing hot air and cultivation had legs.

“That meant I had a path to power that could threaten Rosha. A means that exceeds your ability to protect her and maybe even her family’s ability. That changed the priority. Now she has to learn this along with you so that she will protected.”

Courtney, “That’s not the only reason!”

Jason shrugs, “It is enough of a reason for you to put up with my nonsense and crazy story about remembering a past life. Now, we have a bit more of the day to go before we need to be back in NeoRealm. I’m going to use this time to cultivate.”

There was a ton left to be said, but neither Rosha nor Courtney were ready to say them yet and so the trio separated.

After logging off and climbing out of his old, Jason can’t help but shake his head. He couldn’t tell if Courtney truly didn’t know or if she was simply holding the information back. Because while the world might not have cultivation, they certainly weren’t babes in the wood when it came to the crazy energies floating around their atmosphere.

The number of black super soldier experiments going on at any one point in time must be mind-boggling. While he was sure none of it had gone beyond the most basic of bulk energy gathering. It wasn’t like he himself was all that much stronger right now.

Plus, while such bulk energy gathering might forever block them from the path of proper cultivation. It was certainly capable of extreme, if fleeting, power. Though fleeting only refers to it compared to the lifespan of a cultivator with a similar level of strength.

Jason wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but his memories point towards the act as not negatively affecting lifespan. It just doesn’t provide the extension most cultivation should. That and the limit is based on how much energy your body can hold.

The amount can be shockingly high, especially since the act of holding so much power also tends to make a person go through a second growth spurt for a handful of extra inches in height. However, such a force in a human will only be a personal threat in the early stage of cultivation.

Much more dangerous would be when a beast takes the path as unlike most sapients, their size doesn’t tend to be as limited. There is a reason “animal but giant” is such a popular fantasy beast. Not that there aren’t giant sapients and such, seeing as the vanilla giant is a thing. Just that they tend to be born that way whereas an animal can just keep growing.

Though animals tend to be the source of many of the first cultivation methods. Because while the giant ball of energy method is something they’re more capable of than sapients. They also tend to have innate instincts on how to properly cultivate hidden away within themselves.

Jason sighs at that thought. While using those animal sourced methods as inspiration isn’t the worst beginning point. To directly copy them leads only to problems, especially if the source is a powerful beast in either cultivation or bloodline. Each person is unique, let alone when you take into account the barrier between species.

When you directly take in the method of those stronger than you or from a special bloodline, it corrupts you. Many civilizations in his old world’s past had been chained to one mythical beast or another with their high level members becoming ever more dependent on their source. It certainly didn’t help that doing such a thing fed the beast your karma and luck.

Those qualities might be obscure and mystical, but the effects can’t be denied. Sponsor beasts tend to have to do a lot of work to protect their followers from a world where Fate’s river only brought bad luck. Of course, this also made those cultures even more reliant on those beasts while the beasts could leave if the water got too hot.

If not for a few good natured beasts and the gods themselves, Jason doubted humans in his old life would have ever stepped beyond being a vassal race. Then again, innate sapience has its own benefits that likely would have eventually shined through. It seemed to him that the destiny of all mortal races is to rise and fall with time.

Jason just hoped that in his current life, the rise and fall would span the rest of this dimension’s existence. Or at least last till the end of his own life. While rare, ancient cultivators of extinct races would occasionally pop up. Such a sad fate to be the last of your kind and unable to do anything about it despite a personal strength few ever even dream of.