Quantum Cultivation by Jace Kang (simple e reader TXT) 📕

its tail, pointing toward another door. “We have to go through a nurses’ station, but there’s a service maglift on the other side.”

Maglift, eh? “Will that get us to level three?”

If Ken shook his head any harder, he might give himself a concussion. “It will get us to the ground floor, but then we’ll have to go to the main lift bay.”

“Will we meet with much resistance?”

Ken chewed on his lip. “I don’t know.”

“What about the force fields?”

Wringing his hands, the boy shuffled back and forth on his feet.

Right. Well, they’d think of that as they went. Focusing on the wall of water, Ryu inhaled, using a basic Fire Path technique to draw out the heat. The wall solidified to ice.  “Lead the way, Ken-kun.”

The young man’s head bobbed up and down like a seal’s as he took off down the hall.

Did seals still exist? They’d been hunted to near-extinction eight centuries ago. Ryu banished the silly thought and followed, watching as Ken skipped along. If the kid could actually calm down, all that nervous energy could be channeled into Cultivating a Fire Path.

Really, from what he’d sensed before, the boy’s Core gave him nearly unlimited potential to Cultivate, if he worked out the blockages in his meridians.  To start, he needed to root himself and focus. “Straighten your spine and square your shoulders,” he called.

Ken looked back, eyes wide like a puppy. When he tried to straighten his spine, it looked as if someone had shoved something somewhere it wasn’t meant to go.

“All non-security personnel,” a disembodied female voice echoed through the hall like a ghost, “shelter in place. Do not, we repeat, do not engage the prisoner.”

Ryu grinned. That meant fewer obstacles. Indeed, every person they passed pressed their back against the wall and just watched.

Ken might be as helpless as a newborn, but at least he knew his way around. They’d taken a few turns, and for all Cultivation of the Five Paths was worth, it had never given Ryu a good sense of direction.

After a few minutes of encountering no one, Ryu said, “It looks like they aren’t sending anyone to pursue us.”

Shaking his head, Ken pointed to a spot on the wall. “They’re tracking us. Well, you. They’re probably trying to block off paths of escape, and then they’ll close in once they figure out a way to stop you.”

“That’s low-key disturbing.” Ryu scanned the spot, and even with superior eyesight developed through Wood Path Cultivation, he didn’t see anything. He nearly barreled into Ken, who had skidded to a halt.

“Wait.” He turned and gaped. “Low-key? Is that some kind of ranking where you come from?”

“Oh, hah. It’s English slang from when I was a child. Abbreviations, slang, emoticons…they were all a part of how we communicated across all the languages of the world. I guess a lot of terms fell out of use in the last eight centuries.”

Ken resumed his walk, slower now. “There was more than one language back then, wasn’t there?”

“Hundreds,” Ryu said, gesturing for Ken to keep walking. “But there was one country that was stronger than the others, and everyone in the world spoke their language. Some better than others.” His cheeks warmed. He was definitely one of the others in this case.

“We call your era the Age of Greed.”

“Sounds about right.” In its avarice, mankind had almost destroyed the world. Ryu’s poor health had led him to his pilgrimage to the World of Rivers and Lakes early in life. He’d never seen how humans had turned it all around and created…this. Beyond the ripple effect of the Cataclysm, he knew very little of the world of his birth. “How did we keep from going extinct during the Age of Greed?

Still walking, Ken scratched his head. “Our ancestors discovered alien technologies from thousands of years before, some hidden in plain sight. From that, the leaps and bounds in AI helped us find solutions to energy production. If I remember correctly, by 2300, most humans were genetically engineered. Mankind learned first how to travel faster than light speed, then how to fold space.”

“And then the world was at peace?” Some futurists of his era had predicted as much. “Is that why everyone except you looks the same?”

Ken shook his head. “Sadly, no. The world was so interconnected, and people intermingled like never before. But in this very city, a purity ideology took root, creating the Asiatic Empire. They started a war to ensure their bloodline remained undiluted.”

“What did your ancestors do to cause the Cataclysm?”

Ken slowed a step and looked over his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“When the Heavens rained fire, about four hundred years ago.”

“Oh, the Onslaught.” Shuddering, Ken spoke in a fearful tone. “In our exploration into space, we met friendly races like the Elestrae, Eunanae, and Madaerae. We also encountered the Tivarae. Their galactic

empire had been at war with the Elestrae Confederation for tens of thousands of years, and were worried an Elestrae alliance with humans would alter the balance of power. They devastated every major city on Earth with orbital bombardments.”

So the Cataclysm had been caused by alien weapons, not something humanity had wrought on itself. Now Ryu shuddered. Back then, the effect had rippled across the planes into the World of Rivers and Lakes, ravaging it with earthquakes. If not for the powerful Earth Path sages, both his world and this one might’ve been completely destroyed.

Ken’s eyes brightened. “Something did come of it: nothing brings people together faster than an attack from the outside. People of all races and creeds united and made even greater advances in science. Like the shocktroopers you fought: they’re bigger and stronger, so they could fight the Tivarae hand-to-hand.”

Ryu nodded. Those men had been so physically powerful, yet energetically bereft.

“And the weapons! We now have ones that can