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

boy had much more to learn. “Come here, Ken-kun, and guard Miss Keiko.”

Doing as he was told, Ken disengaged and hurried over. Ryu handed him the knife, then strode over to Smith, who now faced off in a Xingyi Earth stance.

“Not bad,” Ryu said. “You have form, but sadly, no substance beneath it.”

Expression twisting into anger, Smith launched himself at Ryu.  His rapid execution of modern techniques was almost cute. Ryu caught him in the chest with a Fire Fist, and allowed the energy to transfer into the skinsuit. Smith hurtled back into the opposite wall before tumbling down to the floor.

Keiko gasped.

“Are you all right?” Ken asked her.

In response, Keiko launched her own series of punches and kicks. Using the Xingyi Water Form, Ken brushed all her attacks aside before catching hold of her wrist and twisting her to the ground.

Keiko looked up at him in shock.

“Very good, Ken-kun.” Ryu was equally impressed with how he held back so as not to hurt the captain. He turned to her. “As I said, your skills are admirable for what you are. However, now even Kentaro can defeat you with ease.”

“What I am?” Keiko asked.

“XHuman. Your kind has apparently edited the genes for these martial abilities out of their genome,” Aya said.

“But not you?”

“Because of my genetic defect.”

Ryu looked around. “Where’s Siena?”

“She went ahead.” Kentaro pointed out of the maglift bay.

“You can let Keiko go.”  Ryu started heading out.

“Wait,” Aya said. “The Peacekeepers’ internal communications have been restored. They’re saying…”

“Yes.” Kentaro touched the dot on his ear. “Get down!”

The boy leaped and took Keiko to the ground.

An explosion rang out from the side of the building, and the shockwave would’ve flattened Ryu if he hadn’t rooted. Oranges and reds lit up the lab.

Ryu dashed in to find Siena using the edge of a table to pick herself off the floor. On the right side of her head, all that was left of her beautiful golden hair were singed strands. Her face, too, was red and blistered, with several small cuts.

He tracked the shards of glass back to the source. A gaping, smoldering hole had opened up at the far end of the lab. A gunship hovered outside, and its miniguns began to spin.

“Are you all right?” He hurried toward her.

Her trembling hand left a blood stain on the table.

Right by his pills. Six in all, including the blue one he needed to close the Portals. The Kappa’s splintered walking stick lay on another table to the right, beside his staff.

His staff!  If he could get ahold of it, he could make quick work of the gunship, retrieve his pills, and be off.

The gunship’s miniguns unleashed a barrage of red bolts, and Ryu slid feet-first beneath the spray. He darted over beside Siena and kicked the table over, the pills with it. Two blasts jolted into the metal in quick succession, superheating it to red. Ryu huddled over Siena.

Though she didn’t speak, he made a quick scan of her Qi.

She’d advanced to First Rank in Water!  If her Core had been impossibly dense before, it had now solidified and its Essence concentration increased by an order of magnitude.

Still, it hadn’t filled with Qi. If he could get ahold of one of the three green pills, it would replenish her immediately.

He looked back to the maglift bay. Given the angle, Ken and Keiko were out of the line of fire.

Aya’s voice filled the room. “It’s the Ministry of Defense! They’ve attacked Peacekeeper headquarters!”

The shooting ceased, but was followed by several thumps. Ryu hazarded a glance over the melting table. His pills had rolled in several different directions, the all-important blue one off to the left beneath another table. The sparking violet pill had ended up to the right.

Beyond them, eight shocktroopers in power armor and two of the wiry assassins were fanning out from the hole in the building.  He’d have to fight through several of them just to reach his staff.

And outside, the gunship had turned so that its side door faced the opening. A sniper knelt there, rifle pointed in.

“I’ve done a scan,” Aya said. “The shocktroopers are wearing prototype power armor. My hacker friends speculate it’s similar to the new Peacekeeper tactical suits.”

Well, Smith hadn’t presented much of a challenge, and neither had the shocktroopers before. Ryu leaped over the overturned table, eyes on his staff, only to find a holoprojection of himself landing beside him.

He ducked under a shot from the sniper, rolled, and picked up one of his green Core-fortifying pills. “Siena, swallow this!”

When the Elestrae’s head popped up, he tossed it; though she had to dodge another shot from the sniper, she still caught it and ducked back down behind cover.

Ryu angled toward his staff, only to be cut off by another sniper shot.

That damn sniper. Transitioning into a Fireshaping form, he raised his hands and stoked flames out of the remnants of the explosion.  It created a thin curtain of fire between them and the hole.  With a pull of his hands, Ryu drew the fire inward.

The sprinkler system activated. Water sprayed.

Shifting to Watershaping, Ryu coalesced the droplets into a rope, which he launched outward. Two shocktroopers moved out of the way with commendable speed, but as he intended, the rope shot past them and wrapped around the sniper’s ankle.  With a yank, Ryu sent him tumbling down. His scream was cut short by a thump.

In doing this, though, he’d revealed himself. The weapons that had been aimed at the holoprojector now trained on him.  All eight shocktroopers advanced in his direction, their whirring miniguns firing, while the two assassins moved to flank, squeezing off shots with their sidearms.

Though he dodged all the incoming pulses, they were moving him farther away from