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[NR] A Little Family Help - Chapter 630
🕑 Added 2024-09-04 09:42:24 +0000 UTCWhile Jason ponders on how many immovable rods he should ask for, things are happening out in NeoRealm proper. That wave of magic that was riled up by him finishing his tome was spreading outward. It wasn’t too fast and likely would have taken a long time to propagate across NeoRealm. Except the place is chocked full of spatial tunnels.
Whether it was from the System itself to maintain the world and make sure monsters, like the first boss Jason had fought, could pop up where needed. Or the various nobles making hidden tunnels as escape routes. Oh, and a ton of smuggling.
So the wave of magic travels “slowly”, it is still quite quick, until it hits the first tunnel. The wave travels through that and suddenly is spreading from two epicenters. Except, spatial tunnels tend to have other tunnels nearby, at least if they’re made by locals.
And so, as the wave exits that first tunnel, it hits three others. Yeah, from there it sort of goes crazy. The wave blossoms outward at speed. With the biggest boost coming when it hits the first kingdom portal hub.
Such a simple concept, a town built around having portals to the nearby kingdoms. Not every kingdom can afford such a thing, but there is enough that upon hitting one, the wave is in multiple new kingdoms every second. Thus a wave of magic that should take exactly a day to cover all of NeoRealm, at least if you don’t count all the dimensionally expanded space, covers the world in just under an hour.
And all over the world, numerous crafters groan in frustration as certain things begin to react differently. It isn’t a big change, rather, an adjustment to make the manual Jason had written more accurate. Well, partly that. The System threw in a bunch of other tweaks and changes to both throw people off and to act like a balance patch.
Yes, the entire reason the System screws crafters over whenever someone perfects a crafting manual is to hide an update with breaking changes.
Anyway, all across NeoRealm, people begin to hunt down the origin of the wave. Each new manual is a potential gold mine. You never know what someone might have standardized. Sure, Jason’s book on immovable rods isn’t the most important, but no one knows that yet.
Of course, the kingdom Jason is nominally in easily pin points the origin as being within the new expansion. Though to do so, they end up alerting the surrounding kingdoms to this. Not that knowing it is close will do them much good. Jason was far enough into the Deep Wilds that the actual point of origin was obfuscated and scrying would not work.
However, it did mean they had standing instructions for their officials in case someone showed up wanting to sell the manual. Someone like Courtney, who set out with Rosha the day after they got back. Since people already knew, waiting would only make those same people worry. And Jason finally settled on six rods after some prompting by Courtney.
Anyway, all it took was for Courtney to reveal a quick replica of the first page that Jason had whipped up for the settlement’s leader to pass her on to his superiors. This involved the pair being sent on to the nearest city within NeoRealm proper by a kingdom owned trade caravan. Once there, she is about to be brought to the local person in charge.
Before that happens, a person from Rosha’s family intercepts them. This isn’t one of Courtney’s own, but there wasn’t much of an option. She didn’t have the clout yet to delay such a meeting and so had to rely on the main family.
This has the unfortunate consequence of letting out the fact that she at least knows who made the manual. But that was inevitable. As long as Jason wanted to sell it, people would find out. The biggest difference between now and later is that now, the family would have a chance to try and stick their fingers into things.
Courtney will be doing what she can to prevent this. Part of which will involve Rosha taking a little heat. Though she would have anyway. After all, if you’re her family and had to guess who made the manual, would it be the servant, the Mana-less friend, or the talented young mistress?
Well, even if that last one wasn’t true, the employees would likely have to act like it might be. Let alone in this case where Rosha is actually considered pretty decent, even if not specifically with Mana. Either way, Jason isn’t even on their radar as the possible creator.
After all, it wasn’t an Energy wave that swept through NeoRealm. It was a wave of Mana. Rosha’s family would be more willing to believe that they had met some kind of crafting hermit out in the Deep Wilds that had asked them to handle the sale over it being Jason.
In fact, Rosha had suggested that very thing. It wouldn’t be the first or even third time such a thing had happened and only twice was this because the System wanted to force an update. Courtney however shot that suggestion down as for something this important? Truth tellers would be involved.
Even though it would delay the family from learning the truth until after any deals went through. They weren’t at the point of having lost trust. To straight up lie to the people from Rosha’s family would only set a dangerous precedent.
Besides, the reason they needed help from the family was with the bartering. Would they prefer to buy the manual themselves? Yes, but they wouldn’t be willing to pay as much as the kingdom would.
While it wouldn’t be hard for them to produce the rods. A kingdom sees such things as a strategic resource, increasing the worth of the manual to them. All the while Rosha’s family would simply see it as another potential revenue stream and not a very good one at that. It isn’t like people stop being able to make the rods all of the sudden.
