[NR] Chapter 296 - Ruffles Her Hair (Patreon)

Back in NeoRealm, Jason once again starts to question if he can train his soul or not instead of just trying. Now though that he has cleared his head irl and has a tighter grip on himself this doesn’t deter him. If the soul can be trained in NeoRealm that would be a major breakthrough and another oddity. He had already tried some basic things in his VR room, as well as some of the other VR games that he had access to before becoming an adult. None of them worked, but the excessive resistance he is experiencing right now points to a more positive outcome this time.

Jason however recognizes these tangents of thought for what they are, more delicate attempts to delay him. With a shake of his head, Jason settles in and begins to meditate. He doesn’t have anything else planned for the day, so decides to go with the flow and see how long it can last.

The answer to that turns out to be quite a while, ending up barreling right past lunch and nearly to dinner. He only stops because Courtney knocks on his door to tell him food will be ready in half an hour. Not that he couldn’t have ignored that and continued, but he felt enough time had been spent on it to know if the test worked.

All it will take is to check if his soul has grown faster than it should have and he would know. Though can you really check your soul while in a VR game? Sure, in the other games he could but NeoRealm was special. In the end he decides to put off checking until after dinner. He had things to ask Gregor, anyway.

With a shake of his head, Jason gets ready for dinner. Out in the den, things smell amazing. Peter had taken over dinner and had somehow set up a firepit in the center of the room with a number of skewers grilling various meats and veggies. Every once in a while he would sprinkle on a spice or slather on a sauce. Though unlike how Jason is used to this kind of cooking, the food is kept a lot farther away from the fire itself, allowing for a much slower cook time without burning everything to charcoal.

Though to finish up Peter does bring the skewers right down to the fire to add a nice char. It is only then that Jason notices he spent half an hour watching the process. He isn’t alone in this, everyone else was there as well. Though now that the food is finished they suddenly realize how hungry they are from watching food cook and they start to dig in.

Jason isn’t sure what everything on their skewers are, but it all tastes amazing. Though some of that praise definitely goes towards the various spices that had been added. One of the sauces especially caught his attention as it didn’t stay a sauce. Instead, the liquid had cooked off and left behind a crunchy shell on the meat that Peter had put it on. It had just the right balance of sweet and salty, which combined with the mild flavor of the meat to electrify his taste buds. Luckily for him, this was a bit too much for the others so Jason only had to fight with Peter over those tasty treats.

Now full, everyone sits around the fire in silence. Soon enough though Courtney turns towards Jason and sighs, “I’ve done some preliminary research.”

Jason nods, “And by that I assume you mean looking up stuff while in VR? Nothing against that, but you can’t really test the basic bits out that way.”

Courtney rolls her eyes, “No, but I can check if you plagiarized your idea from somewhere. Though I must admit, it looks like a large portion of the process is completely new. Each element of course has been seen before, but that would be like saying a new song was copying another because it used music notes.”

Jason shakes his head, “It would be hard to have a completely unique thing related to the body. If anything, most basic actions have been tried at some point or another. What I’ve told you is unique and I only assume this because it hasn’t become a thing yet.”

Courtney shrugs, “Well, I’ll be looking into it more but I likely won’t be able to pass it on until after we’ve left.”

Jason nods again, “I expected that. This kind of thing has been the realm of scammers and cults for way too long for you not to be cautious.”

Off to the side Rosha pouts, “I understand, you’re talking about the thing I’m not supposed to learn about yet. Don’t just talk about it right out in front of me! You’re both teasing me something fierce right now!”

Courtney smiles and laughs, before reaching over and ruffling Rosha’s hair, “Consider us even for earlier!”

Rosha rolls her eyes, “As if even or not matters. We’ve been friends much too long for such things to matter. That and I’ve lost count, anyway.”

At this point Gregor coughs, “Do me and my husband really have that weak of a presence to you guys? Hello, we’re sitting right over here. Yes, your drama is amusing but if I wanted to watch a drama, I would go to the theater. At least there I would be assured an ending.”

Jason laughs a couple times and then sighs, “Sorry about that. Just some traveller nonsense. We’re just used to locals not being able to notice when we talk about stuff like that. Sort of slips our mind sometimes that personal things originating from us being travellers doesn’t get forgotten.”

Gregor nods, “I must admit I have noticed this. Too many times I’ve come upon a couple travellers talking about personal foibles in the middle of a busy street. They only shut up about it when another traveller is nearby so it isn’t hard for locals to listen in. Amusing? Yes. But if I have to be honest, I would much prefer not to be included in such nonsense as deeply as some of them seem willing to share.”

Jason shakes his head, “This is a good warning for use I guess. Anyway, I have something to ask you after dinner. It involves cores so while everyone here is knowledgeable, it is probably better to talk about it in more privacy.”

Gregor nods again, “No problem, we can make use of the library. I was going to be looking for something in there, anyway.”