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

you can even fall into someone and hurt them,” Master Ryu said.

Like Jackie Chan in The Drunken Master. Ken grinned.

After moving one more step back from the tree, where the fall did sting a little, they continued practice through late morning, followed by meditation into the early afternoon. Ken realized that visualizing the flow of Qi helped to rid his body of the aches and pains from all the falling.  At some point, Siena disappeared and came back with food, which they ate.

With their full bellies, Master Ryu told them to rest for a half hour.

“When we’re done digesting, I’ll teach you the basics of Mongolian wrestling. I don’t know the Kappa’s Path well enough, but this style of wrestling is close. I—”

A siren went off.

The familiar female newscaster spoke again. “Alert: by Ministry of Defense orders, all citizens should avoid the area around Jodojiko Bridge near Ginkakuji.”

Aya swiped her hand through the air, and her projector brought up a map. Kyoto’s gridded streets came up, with a red dot marking the bridge.

Ken peered at it, but he wasn’t good at reading maps.

“That’s very close, only a five-minute stroll away.” She chewed on her lip and looked up. “Do you think they found us?”

In the near distance, aircraft propulsion hummed. Ken focused on the source. A sleek gunship hovered not far away, its mirrored surface reflecting the sun.

Six shapes dropped from it, and power armor whirred.

Ken’s stomach twisted. Would the woods provide cover against them?

In Aya’s projection, images appeared of a short stone bridge spanning a narrow canal. Six shocktroopers in power armor moved to surround it, miniguns at the ready.

Ken scratched his head. “What’s going on? We’re up here, and it looks like they are targeting someone under the bridge.”

The image blinked out, replaced by the head of an attractive female newscaster. “The Ministry of Defense has cut our feeds.  All citizens are warned to stay away from the area.”

“I need to see who they are attacking,” the master said.

Chapter 20:

The Cultivator

R yu raced down the path. He knew if there was a constant in the universe, it was that Kappa hid under bridges. The way this authoritarian society worked, the last thing Big Brother wanted was to let the brainwashed populace to know that yokai were more than just old fairy tales.

Though now that humans had made contact with alien species, perhaps they’d just explain them as some unknown beings from a different star system.

But no, it was a Kappa. Ryu had seen a flash of the telltale cup of water on its head, its turtle shell, and its mottled green skin. Capture it, and he’d find out where their portal between here and the World of Rivers and Lakes was.

At the temple’s sand garden, monks were studying the designs he’d drawn for Aya’s and Kentaro’s pair meditation. He ran past them and to the gates, ignoring their stares. From there, it was just a few minutes’ sprint to the bridge. When he got within two hundred feet, he paused between two buildings and watched.

The six shocktroopers had formed a perimeter, wrist miniguns hot. A gunship hovered about a hundred feet above. The green form of the Kappa was submerged, its shell barely visible from Ryu’s vantage point.  Given the small size of the green patch, there was likely only one.

“Come out with your hands up!” the shocktrooper closest to Ryu yelled.

Nothing.

With a snap of his wrist, the shocktrooper who had spoken sent the men to engage. Their power armor hummed as they drew closer. The miniguns on their wrists whirred and spun.

Unlike a Tofu-Kozo and many other yokai, Kappa would likely be harmed by energy weapons. If the soldiers killed it, it would be that much harder to find its comrades and the portal it had used. Ryu dashed toward them.

“You have three seconds. One.”

The men’s heavy boots clomped on the pavement, sending ripples through the canal’s waters, but the green blob didn’t move.

“Two.”

They were within ten feet of it. Its form sank deeper into the water.

“Three.”

Still no response. The men came to a halt and pointed their miniguns.

Connecting to the canal through the vapor in the air, Ryu skidded to a halt and swept his hands upward in a Watershaping technique. The water in the trench slashed up, knocking the two men closest to Ryu back.

“Fire!” the leader yelled.

Energy bolts sprayed out toward the Kappa.

Flowing into another Watershaping technique, Ryu transformed the sheet of water into a prism, wrapping around the yokai like a donut. The bolts fizzled as they struck the barrier, sending out a cloud of steam.

After a moment, they ceased fire and advanced deeper into the thickening fog. The lead shocktrooper leaped as if he had Light Foot training, vaulting over the ring of water and shooting into the center. He landed behind the soupy curtain of mist with a splash.

Twirling in a circle and shooting his arms out to the side, Ryu sent the ring of water blasting outward, then sucked the heat out of the area and into a Fire Path’s Blazing Globe in his hands. The fluid crystalized into ice, freezing the three advancing shocktroopers.

He unleashed the Blazing Globe at one of the shocktroopers who’d been knocked back earlier, just as he was gaining his feet. It sent him sprawling back onto the ground. His armor glowed from the heat.

Ryu dashed toward the bridge.

The second shocktrooper had climbed to his feet and now turned towards him. He raised his minigun, which started to spin and whir. In his other arm, he ignited the energy blade.

Reaching him, Ryu slapped the man’s minigun arm with Splashing Hands. The