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[NR] Literally The Speed Of Thought - Chapter 702
🕑 Added 2025-05-14 10:32:07 +0000 UTCJason’s private room loads, except the fact he even has to acknowledge the fact it is loading? That’s odd. In even the earliest days of VR, it was recognized that you need buttery smooth fps. In fact, at this point? To be sold as a VR game? You can’t have an “fps”. The game must run at literally the speed of thought, plus a decent amount of wiggle room.
Jason took this as a good sign. For the capsule to need a perceptible amount of time to load? It meant something had changed, and for the better. Which, given his recent cultivation success? That he just reached the peak of meridian excavation? Well, having the capsule admit he had changed enough to throw the capsule off its game was quite something.
Though it seems the capsule only needed that first bit of loading as when he enters NeoRealm proper, everything is smooth. Except, there is something wrong. Despite all of Jason’s stats, the world felt slow. As if each second took longer.
A state of being that he recognized. He is out of sync. In his last life, this hadn’t been a problem for him. Hades, irl this isn’t a problem for him, because he trained his three aspects evenly. Body, mind, and soul.
Jason even trained them equally in NeoRealm. Except for one detail. The soul is directly connected. Oh, and the mind likely had done bleed through, even if the capsule was literally set up to prevent that sort of thing. Don’t need someone gaining the reflexes to punch a fool bringing that into reality. Especially when going from a body like Adonis to that of a pencil pusher.
What he was feeling? It is his soul having advanced beyond his body and minds development. Which thankfully could be handled. After all, this isn’t like the body or mind.
A body being too strong for the mind and soul was a physical disaster. You would constantly be breaking things. A mind being too strong causes the classic “bullet time” effect where everything seems to move slow, including your body. It could be maddening.
The soul, though? Well, Jason looked around and observed the effects personally. Things did seem a little slow, likely the mind bleed. More pronounced though is an affect like an AR overlay.
Jason watched a bird in the distance. There is a slight aura, but that isn’t the problem. In fact, this is likely the mysterious “sense” those who are a higher level used to judge a person’s level despite the System.
No, the problem is that every few moments that aura seems to almost jump off the bird. This shadow doesn’t go far, always snapping back to the bird’s body. And this view of potential action? All living things displayed it.
From a tree branch moving in the wind and yet its aura constantly trying to return to how it would be without the wind. The various prey animals that seem to constantly be darting for cover. To the air itself, which shimmered as the various spores and airborne life jittering around.
It was only the lone fox that Jason spotted, which seemed calmer. Still, occasionally, the aura would jerk for hiding. However, hidden and tense, the aura was mostly stable until moments before it pounced on some prey animal.
Many a fool would see this sight and call it a blessing! To be able to see a being’s intent, to know their most likely action? Amazing! Who wouldn’t want this sort of sight?!
Except it wasn’t “future sight”. It wasn’t even a predictive view as shown by the fact that things like tree branches weren’t following the wind. These ghosts of action simply displayed an unbiased personal view of what the being intended to do.
Except, even the most basic of feints would show the lie to this being some fantastic ability. A feint seen like this would appear to continue as if an actual attack. In fact, a well-trained fighter could react faster than the aura could keep up with. They could snap their shield out to catch an attack and return it to the resting position without their aura ever moving.
After all, the aura was the soul and not the body or mind. The soul of a prey animal was constantly flinching from potential attacks. The trained fighter’s muscle memory acts and reacts faster than either their mind or soul could react.
Which meant seeing the potential actions not only didn’t help, but could be harmful against anything besides beings that were barely sentient, let alone sapient. Nevermind the fact that non-sapient beings barely have an aura to begin with.
Jason settled back and sighed. This would take a while and his teammates weren’t going to be happy. Oh, and there they were.
Rosha knocks on the door, “Jaay-son! I saw you moving! Can we leave now?”
Courtney politely coughs, “Maybe we should listen to what he has to say first?”
Jason gets up and opens the door. “So, I’m going to need a little before I’m good.” Then he invites them in and explains his situation.
Courtney, “Huh, well, that explains one of the mysterious problems I’ve seen mentioned. Though it’s going in the reverse direction.”
Rosha, “I’ve heard nothing about it?”
Courtney nods, “It doesn’t seem to be a thing in NeoRealm. Where it is mentioned is those scant bits of info from those who broke the level cap.”
Jason, “Ah, that makes some sense. The System likely works to limit not just mental bleed, but spiritual growth. Once a person breaks the System’s chains, that sort of growth likely isn’t limited anymore.”
Courtney shrugs, “No way to know except get there ourselves. Now, how much time do you need? It doesn’t sound debilitating, but I can’t exactly judge such things for you.”
Jason, “I’ll need a day to settle things down. It won’t fix everything, but I’ll be at a point where I can handle things here.”
Rosha grimaces, “Yeah, about that. Been a lot more active than you said it was. We were getting attacked at least once a day. Know anything about that?”
