[NR] Confusing Rachel's Dad - Chapter 488

Courtney sighs, she had spent so many resources on so many strange things. Though she had to admit, it likely worked to confuse Rachel's dad. He was likely trying to find what she was really researching since stuff like the soul wouldn't exactly help. After all, even with the secrets about NeoRealm that Courtney did know, there wasn't even a hint of the soul being mentioned.

In fact, science as a whole had discounted souls as a thing for quite a while. An oddity when they were now dealing with energies that were basically magic. Courtney could only shake her head at this. It was probably a blind spot as a result of the various past backlashes against what people now called the proliferation of unfaithful cults.

All that aside, there was some decent literature on the concept of souls if you looked in the right places. The only question was how the theory translated into reality. This line of thought brought her endless sighs as the only source of first hand information once again comes from Jason.

Courtney sets down that line of thought as it would only lead back in on itself. Later she can grill Jason for more info. For now she felt a deep desire to do something.

Except there wasn't anything. For the first time in a long while Courtney had nothing to do. Even as a child she constantly had to fend off kids from other families. No place was safe as even in Rachel's old space game people would approach.

At least those types were easy to handle as the game wasn't set up in a way that favored the various families. Now? While she was sure some knew where they were in NeoRealm, but that didn't matter. Despite the planet NeoRealm was set on being in theory about the size of their own world, spatial magic ruined the comparison.

It wasn't only the Deep Wilds which stretched out what was and was not. Way too many areas ended up literally bigger than life. Field where a famous battle happened? It'll end up twice the original size within a hundred years as long as the story and myth is on people's lips.

Then you take all those kinds of events and locations and add them together over millions of years. Some even theorize that the Deep Wilds is just the original wilderness that covered the entire planet before sapients started taming things. Courtney actually felt that theory held water when it came down to it.

Without nations to draw their lines on the map and numerous creatures that literally reshape the terrain in passing? Well, a collective belief that the wilderness was an endless ever changing location would hold some water for those people. Now that sapients have made their mark, much of the original landmass was set in stone, but the shadows are infinitely deep and the wilds an endless danger.

With that in mind, Courtney pulls up the local maps again. She had already researched the next location the groups should head, but where they were heading, terrain was unnervingly fluid. Still, the broad strokes should remain true given the amount of time involved.

Then, once they had arrived there, that would nail down the details of their campsite and attract similar areas. Similar in this case meaning old growth forest. Tall trees spaced a good distance apart with little to no underbrush except where the canopy was broken.

Not that a forest was hard to find in the Deep Wilds. While there were just as many mountains, deserts, plains, and bodies of water. They tended to be bracketed by forests. After all, while any of those terrains could be just as deadly as the forest, only an ocean really came close to a proper forest in hiding what is and is not. Even the sparsest forest will heavily limit a person's line of sight.

Though it certainly helped when you could have trees that competed with mountains over who is taller. And those aren't even the world tree style entities from deep within the Deep Wilds. At that point you begin to lose the whole "on a planet" thing and any ability to nail the locations down.

On the edge of the Deep Wilds there is a tradition of homesteading. After all, if you build a house and set up a path back to civilization, it gets locked in place as long as it isn't abandoned. Entire kingdoms have been wrested from the place.

Though sometimes you also find entire kingdoms in there as well. Courtney pulls up a rough map of one such place. It was only 80 years ago, well, 400 years in NeoRealm, when they last found a kingdom.

That was an exciting time and would have been a good location to go to. Except they didn't stick around. The kingdom was actually based around using the Deep Wilds to move their land around.

They almost got stuck in NeoRealm proper as even removing the roads people had built up over a decade didn't fully disconnect their land. The answer in the end was the complete removal of all travellers. That was a bloody night.

Though now knowing what she does, Courtney cringes once again. Knowledge gleaned from Jason bubbles up and the connection between the System, players, and NeoRealm becomes more solid in her mind. The player's presence didn't lock the kingdom in place because the System didn't want to handle the extra land.

Players instead are directly connected to the System and NeoRealm's Energy. So the Deep Wilds aren't just a part of NeoRealm. They're like another realm that connects.

That would explain why the deepest parts can't connect. They're simply so far off from the natural order as found in NeoRealm that it can't fit. Maybe the System does have some control over it, but at this point Courtney doubts it could force the issue.

She flops back as her chair turns into a bed. Courtney rubs her eyes, everything leads back to Jason. So many things have begun to fall into place that she didn't even realize were off before.