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

“A lot if we’re moving.”

“What if we’re stationary?”

“For a minute, inconsequential. But it takes exponentially more the longer I maintain it.”

Ken pointed back the way they’d come. “There’s another two tactical teams coming up behind us. Make us invisible, and they’ll walk right past.”

Hopefully.

She gave a nod, and he pressed his back to the wall. She joined him, her body right against his. When the footsteps came closer, he gave a signal, and she whispered a word.

Fifteen Peacekeepers in enhanced tactical suits crept past with guns in hand. Usually, the sound suppressors in their boots would muffle their footsteps, but time and time again, Ken’s new ears had heard them. All a result of his Advancement to First Rank in Water.

After a minute, they had all passed.

Siena motioned for Ken to stay quiet until they’d gone farther down the hall. He motioned her back up the hall toward the maglift. She moved without a sound in her bare feet, and at first he tip-toed before remembering he was wearing sound-suppressing boots just like the Peacekeeper tactical teams.

In the maglift bay, the flashing numbers revealed the maglifts were in use. Those higher up were coming down, while those lower were rising up.

Converging on them.

All except one, on level five, where the landing pad was located.  Had Master Ryu arrived? Was Aya holding the maglift for him there?

Ken went to the central stairwell landing and listened.

Some footsteps echoed up from below, but they sounded at least two or three levels down.  Up above, two men whispered among each other. A quick glance revealed they were manning the Vulcan gun tripod…but at the moment, they weren’t paying attention.

Ken darted up the steps.

Their eyes widened, and they fumbled with the Vulcan gun. Right when they’d taken control and shifted it to face him, he was inside its arc. A Xingyi Fire Metal punch sent the first careening back into the second.

Siena came up to his side.

“Level eleven,” he said. He pointed up. “One more to go.”

The voices in his ear resumed. “Teams 9, 12, 21, and 27 have met up with Teams 17 and 23. There is no sign of the targets.”

“Search the floor,” came the response. “Team 9, double back.”

“We need to hurry,” Ken said. “They might come back to the stairwell.”

With a nod, they climbed up to the twelfth-floor landing, where nobody was waiting.

Ken chuckled. “Aya said it would be harder the higher we went, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

Siena held up her jewels. “Since we can bypass the force fields, it makes it eas—”

The doors slid open, revealing a single man with a visor Ken had never seen before.

Though he wore a tactical suit, it had a different design in its fabric.

A prototype?

The Peacekeeper punched, his fist a blur. It landed in Ken’s chest and sent him back into the wall of the stairwell. If not for his Iron Shirt, he might’ve died; or at least had the wind knocked out of him.

Siena pointed her guns, but the Peacekeeper knocked one off-line, sending its shot twanging into the wall; and then in the same motion, caught her other arm and pulled it so that the weapon pointed at Ken.

Ken had the presence of mind to roll over and avoid the pulse, but the Peacekeeper had Siena’s arms tied up like the Wing Chun trapping Master Ryu had taught.  He head-butted Siena, knocking the Elestrae back through the open doors. In the same motion, he plucked her guns out of her hands.

“How were you able to use these?” he asked her, staring at the firearms.

Her head wobbled back and forth, and she had to blink several times. She started to climb back to her feet, but then stumbled.

“Go to the lab!” Ken yelled. “I’ll take care of this one.”

Could he?

With a nod, Siena redoubled her efforts, regained her feet, and disappeared out of Ken’s line of sight.

The Peacekeeper started after her, but Ken leaped up and seized his wrist. The officer turned around and swung. It was fast, but this time Ken was ready and deflected it with the Xingyi Fire Form. The parry was combined with a simultaneous punch, one which had felled several Peacekeepers already.

Not this one.  Moving like a blur, he slipped back out of range. When Ken followed up with the same technique, the man countered…with something akin to the Xingyi Water Form!  The Peacekeeper’s hands swept Ken’s punch to the side, and then countered with his own punch. Water Dousing Fire.

If not for Master Ryu’s Xingyi drilling that first night, it would have slammed into Ken’s flank. Instead, he countered with Xingyi’s Earth technique, again a deflection and a strike.  But when he followed up with another Earth attack, the Peacekeeper countered with snaking motions that resembled the Wood Form. Wood Rooting Earth.

How was this possible? While not exactly the same as the Xingyi forms, the movements were similar enough to be efficient. It was just like how Aya picked up techniques so fast, and was able to come up with counters.

It’d been part of the AI she used!

This man’s tactical suit was the same.

Inserting unpredictability, Ken engaged with the Metal attack of Xingyi. As he’d planned, the Peacekeeper countered with the rising defense of Fire—and this time, it was an exact copy of Ken’s earlier Fire technique. Fire Tempering Metal.

However, Ken stopped his technique halfway, and dove at the man’s knees. He took him to the ground, scrambled up his body and achieved the mount. He launched two punches, both of which the man deflected, but Ken caught up his wrist and transitioned into a choke.

Four seconds, and the man fell limp.

Ken gained his feet and looked down. The tactical suit made this man