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

the Emerald Empire sent a Transcendent to close off most of the portals.”

“How?” Kentaro asked.

“By establishing a ward.”

This was beyond believability. Still, Kentaro stood there at her side, bouncing in excitement.

“Kyoto has dozens of portals, which is why so many temples and shrines were established here.” Ryu waved a hand in an arc. “Even though they are closed off, energy from across the planes seeps through. Honnoji Temple was built over a junction in the energy meridians of the Earth. Thus, the most powerful ward was focused there. In 1583, Oda Nobunaga learned of the ward, and in his own quest for immortality, had planned to dispel it.”

“That’s not what we learned in school!” Kentaro said.

“Of course not. It goes against the very fiber of humans’ beliefs.” Ryusuke chuckled. “In any case, before he was able to do so, Akechi Mitsuhide stopped him. And for reasons beyond our understanding, the ward was reinvigorated and strengthened with the destruction of the temple.”

Aya hadn’t gone to school, but of course her parents had made her take classes through an EtherCloud school. She’d learned about how Akechi Mitsuhide had betrayed Oda Nobunaga in the Honnoji Incident.

“Until last week,” Ryusuke said. “We don’t know how, but the anchor disappeared, and all the portals across the planet unlocked. I was sent by the Union of Sects to reseal it.”

Eyes wide, Kentaro turned to Aya. “Last week, there was that Purebred girl at Honnoji Academy…”

Aya nodded, thinking back to the footage she’d seen. “She removed an istrium meteorite from an old well.”

Ken shook his head and held his rounded fingers out. “It was a starfighter core, perfectly smooth, about this size.”

“That’s what the government wants you to believe,” Aya said. “Because they don’t know what it is.”

Ryusuke stared at Kentaro. “You say it was smooth? About the size of a head?”

He nodded.

“If only I could see it…”

“Give me a second.” Grinning, Aya jacked into the EtherCloud with her bridge. On her conscious command, Ai brought up archived footage from last week, then transferred it the portable emitter she’d brought along. Jacking out, she turned the emitter on. “Here.”

An image of a beautiful Purebred holding a blue sphere materialized.

“Fascinating.” Ryusuke’s eyes moved from the sphere to the girl’s face. “She’s gorgeous.”

Aya’s stomach knotted. Though on the bright side, maybe that meant he wasn’t interested in men?

“Is she from the World of Rivers and Lakes?” Kentaro asked. “There was no record of her. All we know is that she had a tuning fork, and she stepped through a wormhole aperture and disappeared.”

Ryusuke shook his head. “Not that I know of. Maybe she’s from another plane. Which makes me wonder how she would know of a Dragon Pearl, and what she plans to do with it.”

Kentaro sucked in a sharp breath. “Dragon Pearl?”

“Yes, it’s the source of a dragon’s power.”

Aya gasped. “You mean, dragons are real?”

“Of course they are. In any case, one of the items that was in my pocket can restore the ward’s power.”

Having watched many people lie, Aya heard something in his tone that suggested he wasn’t telling them the entire story.

“Now, here’s the thing: unsavory things can come through the portals from the World of Rivers and Lakes. What you would call yokai or demons. And I have sensed that one has crossed over into this plane.  If I can find and kill it, it will leave behind a gemstone—like the Dragon Pearl—which we can use.”

“Use for what?” Kentaro asked.

“To speed your Cultivation. For now, we have to do it the hard way.  Let’s get some rest; we resume at dawn.”

Chapter 13:

The Purebred

K en’s rattling body jerked him into consciousness.

“Wake up, Ken-coon,” Master Ryusuke said. “It’s almost dawn.”

Coon? What did that mean? Ken frowned. In one of the Once Upon a Time in China sequels, Wong Fei-Hong had gone to America’s Wild West, and coon was a nasty insult to African people. Ken had felt rage for them, empathizing with being beaten down for nothing other than their circumstances of birth.

He shook the idea out of his head. Africa only lived on as a continent name now, its people’s genes having mixed in with all the other XHumans over the centuries.

Maybe Master Ryu meant nothing by it. “Get up,” he said.

Back and shoulders stiff and sore, Ken groaned as he rose. The combination of hard training and the uneven ground at the park conspired to make his body feel as if it had been beaten and battered by a gorilla. He stretched his arms out and yawned.

When he opened his eyes, he found Aya standing beneath a tree a few meters away, repeating the same motion over and over again.

“What is she doing?” Ken asked.

“A basic pattern from Yang Family Taiji.”

Taiji, Ken had heard of. The same actor who portrayed Wong Fei-Hong in Once Upon a Time in China had also been the titular character of The Taiji Master. He’d watched the movie on the analogue video cassette so many times, the already-dull image was now streaked with white lines.

There was nothing dull about Aya’s motions. She moved smoothly, easily, as her hands formed a circle, swept out, then repeated again. Now that he looked carefully, he recognized the motion.

“Holding the Ball to Parting the Wild Mare’s Mane,” he said. “But her stance is too high. It’s supposed to be low, thighs parallel to the ground.”

Master Ryu favored him with a raised eyebrow. “You know about Taiji, then?”

Excitement building in his chest, Ken nodded.

“Then you would know that it is Chen Family Taiji that drops so low.”

Ken’s shoulder slumped. “I didn’t. I thought it was all the