[NR] About Death - Chapter 791 (Patreon)

The trio are walking down the road on their way to a larger city as Jason digests what he learned earlier about the special quest for the level 99 bottleneck. “Courtney, do you have the information on common quests for 99? And on the known impossible quests?”

Courtney shakes her head, “I know the broad strokes. Tomorrow, I can have more for you. If you want?”

Jason nods, “The 6th bottleneck is important outside of the System and for it to require a special quest that some easily complete and others deem their own quests impossible? Well, that is interesting for multiple reasons.”

Rosha, “Oh right, didn’t you think it was some sort of actual bottleneck unrelated to the System?”

Jason, “Well, you basically just repeated back to me what I said, but yes. And it has to be related to the soul, which of all the things NeoRealm provides? In the future, even if cultivation becomes a major thing irl, people will still play NeoRealm for that.

“To have an entity as powerful as the System personally figure out a quest for you to elevate your soul? There is value in that. In particular, the soul is the final limiter on lifespan. You can keep a body alive forever, but eventually your soul will give up.”

Courtney frowns, “What are the various limits on lifespan? Because you wouldn’t say final if there was only the body and the soul.”

Rosha, “Yeah, is the mind a limit as well or some such?”

Jason shakes his head, “Not the mind, well, not technically. What you’re thinking of is still a part of the body. If the mind fails because the body has failed the mind, that isn’t really the mind’s fault. Though there is an element of the mind is important.”

Rosha, “If not the whole mind, then how could a part of the mind make a difference?”

Jason smiles, “Why, of course it is the Will! That’s a bit of a softer boundary, but losing the will to live can kill you. Anyway, let me just give you the common stuff.

“First is the body, which is what irl is being worked on. Then comes life force, which is not the body. Life force is like Qi, but non-magical. All those martial artists who claim to be able to hurt someone without touching them? In theory, this is what they would be using. The reality being more that they’re likely all scams? Anyway, regular martial arts and exercise will improve this aspect. So even if irl they perfect the body, you’ll still have to work out.”

Courtney groans, “What? That sucks!”

Jason raises an eyebrow, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Proper cultivation also cultivates life force almost as a side effect. Now, those two are the physical limits. A soft and hard limit.”

Rosha, “How is the body a soft limit?”

Jason, “Well, you can linger with a body that is actively dying. Once the life force is gone? You drop dead. If you’ve seen a story where doctors are confused why some old guy has fallen over dead? That could be life force. Not anyone young, though, unless they’re ill with something that is also draining their life force. A body will have enough life force to survive until you’re old.

“But yeah, a soft and hard limit for the body. Then you have Identity and Will. Some people like to say they’re another soft and hard pair, but that is nonsense. Both are quite soft, especially identity and you can even miss it when someone faces identity death.”

Courtney glances over, “How do you miss when someone dies?”

Jason, “It isn’t fully recognized by many, though more easily seen among sapient golems and their like. Basically, this is when the body and soul don’t die. Rather, the beings’ very identity changes so much that they are no longer the same being.”

Courtney, “How would that even be identified? I’m completely different from when I was a child, does that mean I’ve suffered identity death?”

Jason shakes his head, “No, not like that. Natural growth and expansion of the identity is different from this. A traumatic event can completely change a person’s view of the world without actually changing the person underneath.

“The reason this is most often recognized in golems is because their identities have harder edges at the base. Some main programmed directives. They can change those things, but it will be using logic to bypass it. Not a sudden change where they go from following a directive to not following it without any underlying logic. That is them dying and a new entity being born in their place that no longer necessarily has the same base directives.

“Anyway, after that is dying because you don’t have the will to go on. This one can technically happen at any time. However, it is seen as coming after the others because for a cultivator? That is the order in which they’ll come in.

“Though that’s also propaganda of a sort. Someone can lose the will to live when their entire family dies and others will swear up and down that means they weren’t proper cultivators. It is like that old toxic nonsense where a man isn’t supposed to cry. Except this is for all cultivators, because you’re expected to ‘fight the heavens’ and what not. Family died? Fight whatever killed them. Oh, it was sickness? Become a doctor or an alchemist. Maybe just try for immortality to personally beat death.

“The only proper death by will for a cultivator is when they’ve tried everything and they simply lived so long the years wore them away. Which brings us to the last limit, the soul. There are an infinite number of ways to extend your life just one moment longer including what is the magical equivalent of suspended animation.

“Many ancient organizations and families will have at least one ancient hidden away in a coffin made of something or another to preserve their last breath of life. All so they can be taken out as a last line of defense. And this is for all levels of cultivation. Whether it’s a mortal kingdom’s founder who sealed themselves in something blood themed when they reached the limits of the mortal realm or an ancient sect who has elders that failed reaching immortality at the final hurdle being preserved in small worlds, literal man-made dimensions, set aside purely to preserve them and stop their souls dissolution.

“After a certain point? The only thing that can cause a cultivator to die is for something to kill them or their soul to leave. And seeing as those who get that far tend to be limited by a lack of comprehension instead of experience, means that is basically just the soul because they’re not leaving their cultivation chamber unless absolutely necessary.

“But yeah, the soul will simply reach a point where it can no longer support the cultivator. This doesn’t destroy the soul, mind you, and some theorize that the soul doesn’t actually have a limit and this so actually something to do with everything else failing the soul. However, either way, the soul leaves the body and you die. Because technically? Everything else isn’t True Death. You can recover from anything else with the right techniques or medicine. Once the soul leaves? You are truly dead, no take backsies.”

Rosha, “Huh. Fair enough. I have more questions.”

Jason nods, “Feel free to ask!”

And so she does as the days pass and they get closer to their destination.