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[NR] Working On The Path - Chapter 721
🕑 Added 2025-07-16 17:12:06 +0000 UTCA few nights later, Rosha and Courtney are once again sat by the fire.
Rosha stares up at the ever changing sky. “The world is going to get strange.”
Courtney shrugs, “For the better if we manage it right. Besides, what is ‘strange’ in the first place? We have full dive VR, which would be seen as strange if not impossible in the past. The fall happened and yet strangely enough, through hard work and suffering, we managed to rise up better than ever. It isn’t perfect, but maybe we can inch it towards an even better future.”
Rosha sighs, “I guess if anything, we’ll live to see the fallout. Though for the moment, I guess we should focus on NeoRealm. I wonder—”
Off in the settlement, Jason is staring up at a sky that is quite different from what the other two are seeing. “—how long will it take me to finish this road?”
He was making good time. Though it certainly helped that gravel isn’t exactly an expensive material. The stuff is used for a lot of things and supposedly there was a mine nearby supplying most of it. Still took time to haul around though and a proper road bed took more than just spreading said gravel over the dirt. With a sigh, he heads off to bed.
Then, bright and early next morning, Jason is back to the grind. It had taken a while to perfect, but he had figured out the best method for him personally. Alongside knowing how far his cart of gravel would go meant he is getting pretty efficient at things.
Jason trundled along his gravel path, the cart heaped high if easy enough for him to pull. Which is somewhat of a shame as he’d only gained a single point of Strength, bringing him to 266. Sure, every point mattered, but he had hoped for more by now.
If he was honest, the bigger difficulty at this point isn’t in pulling more gravel, but rather not wrecking his path. The wheels on his pull cart are already quite thick and yet any more and weight and he’d have to rebuild the road as he went.
Still, he reaches the end of the path so far with a full load of gravel and leaves the cart at the edge. There is a small strip of prepared path that doesn’t have gravel as his method isn’t quite precise enough to pick up right at the edge of the gravel itself.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Jason starts in the center of the prepared area and heavily walks towards the clearing. Each step taken a half stride long, Stamina draining out of him as War Stomp blooms out each time. And specifically Stamina to take advantage of Runic Bloom's ability to block healing.
When he had first been testing the use of war stomp for the path, Jason had tried using Energy. Which seemed to work quite well. Except in a magical place like the Deep Wilds, plants didn’t easily give up the ghost and would regrow quickly. An annoying discovery, as it meant he had to go back and redo some of his work as the plants would push through the compacted soil and gravel.
Good thing for him that War Stomp: Runic Bloom seemed to be enough to actually kill any plants underfoot. Which admittedly, there aren’t that many under the forest canopy, but there are enough that such plants are a going concern.
So Jason walked, placing one foot directly in front of the other until he had gone enough steps. Not because he is out of Stamina, though it was close. Rather, this is as far as the gravel would cover and so Jason turned around to check on his work.
Jason couldn’t help but sigh at the sight. Mainly at the fact that he could still see where he started. This wasn’t some long jaunt through the forest. His Stamina is not high enough to freely use a combat ability so much and also because gravel only goes so far.
Either way, it is time to rest and recover. Jason walked back over to his cart and sat down on the bench seat before taking a deep drink from his bottle. The drink didn’t taste the best, a heavy iron taste to it.
Which, fair enough. What was in the bottle is an infusion of his Bloody Lingzhi. The mushroom might have been a Qi herb, but it also had properties to help with things like blood flow. So while it might not have been some potion of Stamina recovery, Jason almost preferred it.
The mushroom infusion was more gentle on the body. Providing the body with what it needed to restore itself. Which must be doing something because ever since he started using it during his breaks, Jason’s stamina has gone up by 34 points! This raised his total to a quite decent 213.
While resting, Jason takes the time to meditate. Not cultivate, rather, simply calm his mind and clear his thoughts. Now, admittedly, this is partly because he found doing so and not cultivating allowed him to recover Stamina at a significantly higher speed.
Still, there is a reason regular meditation was seen as beneficial irl. Though with the caveat that you shouldn’t mess around with it. Not everyone is suited for every form of meditation.
Jason opens an eye just a smidge to glance at his current stamina. It is full. Or rather, three, two, and one. Now it is full. The feedback for how much Stamina you have wasn’t the greatest, but Jason had been practicing his sense of it. He wouldn’t claim to have perfected anything, but at this point he at least knew when he is close to full, half, and empty. Important markers for both travel and combat.
He smiled as getting it so close this time. Though time waits for no mortal and so Jason stands up and does a few stretches before repeating his walk. This time to the side of his original path with just a slight bit of overlap.
If anything, the overlap between his feet is bigger. Though more because while he has figured out how to stretch the bloom into a lozenge shape, the ends are still rounded and so needed to overlap for complete coverage.
