[NR] System Powered Effect - Chapter 620 (Patreon)

Jason frowned. He was happy about a new skill, but the last effect was going to be trouble. “Seeking Perfection”? Nothing is perfect, only as good as possible, given the conditions. This was one of the steadfast rules of his last life, proven repeatedly over the eons. No matter how “perfect” something looked, all it ever took was someone stronger to examine that thing to find flaws.

Though depending on how the effect works, it won’t be too bad. Either the effect will always have something to point out or eventually it caps in what new flaws it can display. The second one mainly being a problem for those who would believe there actually wasn’t anything left to improve. And the effect would top out eventually, no question about it.

After all, even just reading it, Jason can tell this is a System powered effect. A natural ability to pick out flaws doesn’t only show the next most flawed thing. Such an ability reveals all the flaws you are capable of noticing. Sure, maybe it will be limited by where you are looking or some other factor, but this effect isn’t how it would work. The System is judging what is a flaw and directing you towards what is the next flaw to work on.

So, if you ever reach the edge of what the System can judge, the effect will stop working. In fact, knowing how the System works, Jason is willing to bet that going beyond “perfect” will not have any effect. Not because it wouldn’t, but because the System won’t allow it to. Jason is actually beginning to suspect that any effect that mentions an “intuitive” sense is just the System wallpapering over its own opinions on the matter.

Then again, a number of his skill effects seem to be related to the System’s manipulation. In fact, Jason was willing to bet any time an effect mentioned a very round number, the System is either boosting or constraining things. That or lying, however, Jason feels that lying wouldn’t be in-character for something like the System. Instead, it was much more likely that it was rounding the numbers.

Hell, the fact HP was an actual stat meant it had to be. There is no magical point where something is dead. It is all on a spectrum and you can be dead in many ways, both physically and mentally. Yet in NeoRealm it has been confirmed time and again by the curious that even if you’re taking damage one point at a time to an extremity, zero is dead even if that wouldn’t make sense.

Of course, the corollary that as long as you don’t have zero HP, you’re still alive is also true. Beyond that, while things like brain damage are problems for the locals, that can be cured. Which Jason assumes is the result of the System grabbing a snapshot of their mind and holding onto their soul in some sort of stasis. Whatever the method, it likely had a natural limit, if only because the System doesn’t allow a revival after a certain period of time and unlike everything else, there isn’t a round number attached to it.

Jason sighed, despite things being so strange compared to what he understands of how universes work, it could equally be said that this was the natural way NeoRealm worked. If it wasn’t for the fact that there were places outside of the System’s control, he wouldn’t even be able to tell what was caused by the System.

Though just as equally, the System could also be seen as a “natural” part of NeoRealm. If anything, the System pre-dated NeoRealm even being an actual place. The only question there being if the game system and the current System were the same thing or if the connection was similar to the game NeoRealm and the world NeoRealm. While technically the same, different at a fundamental level.

Jason didn’t exactly have a way to delve into such mysteries though, and so focused back on hunting. The moles were an excellent find, their fur having a unique quality. As a general rule, fur bearing creatures will have the fur grow pointing towards their tail.

This is messed around with more on NeoRealm because of things such as multi-tailed creatures. Even if those tend to start with one tail, towards which the fur grows, and then develop more with age. Still, when you rub your hand on their fur, it feel different depending on the direction you rub it. Thus the saying “to rub someone the wrong way”.

Moles aren’t like that. Their fur feels the same no matter which way you rub it. Jason didn’t know why this was the case, he just knows it was and after a quick test, knew it worked that way for NeoRealm moles as well. It might not be as unique as irl, he wasn’t sure, but this was an interesting quality, nonetheless.

So he settled in to hunt more of them. If anything, they were perfect for him to trade. Their pelts had a unique inherent property that would be stripped if used as vellum, so better to trade them away for hides that had their own properties that made for better vellum. Besides, he had managed to do pretty good butchering the one mole and so, at the very least, any future moles should result in similar quality results.

Over the next day, Jason managed to snag two more moles from the hole he had found. He might have managed more if purely killing them, but that wasn’t hunting. Instead, he made sure to draw away each body and carefully butcher them with equally good results as the first. The only difference being the level of the second mole, which has been one higher.

After that, Jason moved locations. Not just because it was likely the moles would catch on, but because there would only be so many in an area. Even if they kept stumbling into his ambushes, they’d show up less and less often.