[NR] Anything, Which Annoys Courtney - Chapter 545 (Patreon)

Courtney rolls her eyes, “So what? We don’t have the only kind of talent that matters? Are we doomed to failure unless we find a ton of rare resources?”

Jason laughs, “I think you took the wrong lesson from what I said.”

Rosha tilts her head to the side, “Pretty certain you just went and pissed on the concept of being talented and then said we weren’t.”

Jason, “Well yes, but I meant it to mean that having talent doesn’t matter. All classical forms of talent are simply a matter of lacking knowledge or resources. Instead, what matters is something pushing you forward. Even things like personal willpower and perseverance don’t matter as they can be built up over time.”

Courtney, “But isn’t the idea of never giving up core to most cultivation novels? Like, it seems half of success for the various main characters comes from them not giving up in the face of soul rending pain and unconquerable odds.”

Jason shrugs, “Well sure, they need that. What tends to make a good story is the classic ‘weak to strong’ dynamic. So, you take an orphan off the street and give them a chance. At that point, only the truly willful can keep going.

“Even if the orphan you choose to do this to has a clear path to immortality, without the will to see it through? They’ll just end up gaining a bit of power and stopping. Some might not even escape the slums, instead using their increased strength to be a common street tough as long as it means a place to sleep and food to eat.

“And yeah, you need that kind of will to reach immortality. However, you don’t need the will to start. That is something you can cultivate, the same as any other kind of strength. So for someone like you two? You don’t need the will to get started.

“Rather, the start is easy for you. What you have to look out for is being spoiled or too comfortable. I’m sure all those stories had more than enough examples of the classic ‘silk pants’ living off their families money and success. Even if they’re considered talented, that will only take them so far.”

Courtney, “But we still need a ton of resources.”

Jason snorts, “Everyone needs a ton of resources. The difference with this is that what we need is more exotic. Just consider how much food and water people need to live! It wasn’t that long ago when people had a problem feeding everyone.”

Rosha, “Hey! It has been a good while since that was a thing. We managed to figure out world hunger, even if I will admit it took more time than it should have.”

Jason, “It happened within the last thousand years. Sure, that is fast for mortal advancement, but even without cultivation some people have already broken past the natural limit on the human lifespan.

“Once cultivation spreads, even just the most basic dantian formation art, a hundred years starts seeming a lot shorter. Now, I will admit that forming a dantian doesn’t extend your lifespan by hundreds of years. However, you already have technology to extend life without extending the intrinsic lifespan of a person so the two sides should have a synergistic effect when used together.”

Rosha groans, “Just what we need, another way for the rich old guys to live longer.”

Courtney turns to her, “Need I remind you that technically, you fall in that category if you take off the gender bias?”

Rosha sighs, “And that just means I’ve been around those types more than enough to be sick of them.”

Jason shrugs, “You don’t need to be too worried about the current batch. If a person’s lifespan is like an hourglass, what cultivation does is slow down how fast the grains fall. Oh, and once your body stops growing, cultivation becomes harder and harder the older you get. Though the ability to cultivate when older is also a form of talent, same as gaining lifespan, so I’m sure someone will stick around to annoy us.”

Courtney, “What even decides what a talent is?”

Jason shrugs again, “Not being a true talent? Though some restrict it to things they see as directly related to cultivation. They felt someone with a talent for digging being compared to their talent for using a sword was belittling them. The idiots. Someone able to dig holes through things can be quite powerful

“In the end, ‘talent’ is literally just something that makes you better at a thing than others, but is not related to outside circumstances. For instance, my memories? They’re not a talent.

“The only reason people put so much emphasis on talent is because while you can have someone talented in chewing, you can just as easily have someone talented at excavating their meridians. And while cultivation extends a person’s lifespan, the quicker you advance, the more you have to extend. So yeah, if someone gets through the early stages quicker, they have more time to break through in the later ones.”

Courtney sighs, “I guess that is the same with any talent. Someone who is good at math might not be capable of things that others aren’t, but they can get there quicker and start working on what lies beyond. Too bad we don’t have literal mad scientists to advance things even quicker.”

Jason, “I’m sure they actually exist. You’re just discounting the difficulty of advancing tech on a civilization level. Not only is knowledge that is too advanced tend to get lost as others can’t pick it up. But the hardest part of putting such things into use tends to be making the tools to do so.

“All you have to do is look at the machines we use to create even household goods at the moment. Even if someone went back in time with the knowledge of how to make all this stuff, chances are they don’t manage anything because the tools don’t exist. Hell, the tools to make the tools to make the tools might not exist. Something as common as a fusion generator wasn’t exactly an unknown thing, we just took forever working up to having the equipment needed to make one.”