As luck would have it there were no other guests at the inn so our group was able to relax overnight. Rosha and Courtney decided to just sleep through the night while Jason had other plans. Cultivation was cultivation, whether it was in game or out of game so he had decided to split the night up. For the first hour and a half he cultivated as normal though without his planter out. That would have just been tempting fate to bring out here.

When that time is up an alarm he set with his menu logs him out automatically. Now in his personal zone Jason starts the process to get out of his capsule right away. While he might have five hours in game to work with that only gives him an hour outside of VR.

Jason doesn’t even bother to dress or leave the capsule room. Instead, he sits on the floor right there and starts to meditate. With the last couple of attempts he now knows what to sense for and all the energies that flow around him become visible to him. Quite the mess really. He can’t get a good count on it but there seems to be around 57 different mystical energies. Give or take three which may or may not exist. They sort of phase in and out which makes it hard to know what type a particle may belong to.

One particle is quite familiar to him. How could he miss the Qi from his previous life? Of course it had to be one of the rarest types. That would make his work a lot harder as he could not just travel a path he already knows and do it in any reasonable timeframe. Plus it wasn’t like he was the best with it to begin with.

Jason has a better plan though. If he didn’t match his old world’s energy why not look for what fits him? Why not look for multiple energies? This would take time but he felt it was worth it. However time passes and soon the hour is up so he has to jump back into the game. He comes to, still leaned up against the wall shared with the inn’s kitchen. Then of course settles back into his ingame cultivation for another hour and a half.

His night was a bit groggy but that was bound to happen with his rest being so broken up. Rosha and Courtney both are annoyingly chipper as well. This would be a perfect time for some coffee except for the fact that the inn didn’t have any and he hated coffee. He had tried to get a taste for it because of how pervasive it is but some things just aren’t meant to be.

One cheap breakfast later and the party is once again on the road. A dirt road this time so Jason takes Lily back for safety reasons. Rosha sulks for a while but as the day wears on, it is hard for her to keep it up and soon she is back to enjoying the scenery. Time passes and the day draws to a close. Despite Jason’s stamina stat the group traveled less distance than the day before. Courtney and Rosha didn’t know why either so while the two set up camp he checked online.

The answer pops up early enough in his search so when Jason waves the web browser away the camp is still a work in progress. Random info can wait so he jumps in to help. Especially since this time he would have his portable planter out as well. As they finish up and Courtney cooks their dinner over a campfire, he fills them in on the details.

“The answer feels obvious in hindsight. Apparently that road was enchanted. While it doesn’t show up in your status page when you travel on the road it sets your stamina to 15 or provides a plus three if you already have the stat. That road is actually somewhat low tier. For instance, there is a special road paved with precious metals that stretches between the capitals of two empires. Stretches farther than I care to think about and sets the stat to 100 or adds 33 as a bonus. Caravans on it travel around like they were using a plane. In more ways than one as large sections of that road are suspended in the air.”

“Causes quite the weird situation were for a number of places it is faster to travel to the capital than to the other instead of heading directly between cities. Not that weird of course since that is sort of the point of it. Much easier to tax trade when it has to travel through the capital. That and it stops enemy armies from abusing it.”

Rosha opens her eyes wide and goes “ohhhh, that explains some of the rumors I heard floating around a few gatherings I went with my mother to. The main player hubs should be like swiss cheese because of all the secret roads that crisscross the areas. Teleporters either require a lot of mana or a high level person to use like those judges that came in for our trial. Roads on the other hand are more passive about it so are easier for those with low levels to use. Even the empires would be under a lot of strain if they tried to teleport messengers everywhere.”

The two go back and forth with a number of theories. This goes on until Courtney interrupts them and tells them it is, “time for dinner. Just some chicken and greens. You can both wonder about the mysteries of fast travel later.” They shrug and sit next to the campfire with her. The food is better than the meals at the inn but only just. It could be better but they decided on decent food for longer instead of stuff like fresh spices for only the first part of the trip. Of course depending on how well they can hunt after the fresh meat runs out will affect this but that is life sometimes.