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

tactical suit prototype, the shocktrooper armor AI learned combat from whoever it was fighting.  Using Wood attacks would trick it into countering with Metal…

…which would make it vulnerable to Fire.

Within a split second, Bodhi launched its first attack, a knee attack from the rooster stance, followed by a driving punch.

The shocktrooper spun and parried with what looked to be the circling guard of Xingyi Metal. As he set up with something akin to an Iron Palm strike, the movement of his arm left an opening in his defense, right where Master Ryu had dented the armor in his flank.

Ken circled his fists, then drove forward as he spread his arms open. The motion penetrated the armor while the spreading rent it open. The following punch exploded through muscle and ribs, driving into the Bovine’s lung.

Bodhi’s movement to engage the next shocktrooper counterclockwise in the ring had shielded Ken’s attack from view.

Ken leaped to follow. Like the last time, Bodhi attacked with the Wood Form, and his target countered with an even smoother version of the Xingyi Metal Form. This time, it left an opening in his chest; and while Ken’s spreading motion didn’t tear open the armor, the ensuing punch pounded the weakened metal into the man’s heart.

It was even easier with the next, since his hand had been severed by Master Ryu’s Water Whip. Ken’s fist punched through the weakened section covering the shocktrooper’s stomach, sending him reeling onto the floor.

Two seconds had passed, and the three from Siena’s rear to right flank were down. Five remained. They started to move, the two to Siena’s left flank and one to her right turning to face Bodhi.

Still on Bodhi’s right, mostly shielded from the surviving shocktroopers’ view, Ken correctly guessed Aya would continue counterclockwise spacing. Bodhi cut to the front, and when the shocktrooper followed, it exposed its dented rear armor. Again, a Fire Punch, supported by Ken’s new Iron Fists, smashed into the man’s spine.

He hazarded a glance at Siena.

Facing two of the shocktroopers, the Elestrae spoke a word, reached into her interdimensional space, and withdrew a pair of energy blades. Her opponents powered their own on, drove in and attacked, one slashing high, the other low. She back-flipped between the cuts while simultaneously sweeping her swords at their midsections. Their armor superheated on contact with her weapons, yet they both riposted with precise stabs.

She landed on one foot, dropped her swords, and caught one’s wrist just above the blade emitter. With a twist of her hips, she used his momentum to pull him into his comrade’s stab.  The first’s lurching motion drove his weapon through the hot spot of the second’s armor.

As Ken finished off the next shocktrooper behind Bodhi’s feint, Siena did a back handspring, retrieved her swords and double-slashed through the last Bovine’s neck.

The assassin shifted his guns from Master Ryu to them, then engaged the autofire. Dozens of pulses surged toward Ken, and another dozen toward Siena.

Ken ducked beneath them, but tripped over a fallen shocktrooper. The assassin’s aim started to lower. This was it.

The man split in half with a spray of blood and sparking of wires. The left and right sides of his bodies fell away, revealing Master Ryu.

“Impossible.” Keiko gawked. “I can’t believe what I just saw.”

The splintered Kappa cane lay at Ken’s feet, and he knelt down to retrieve it.

“The gunship,” Bodhi said, pointing at the hole in the side of the building.

The Ministry of Defense gunship was rotating, bringing its guns and missiles to bear on them.

Chapter 38:

The Cultivator

W oozy from being on the receiving end of several dozen stun pulses, Ryu blinked away the haze in his vision. The way his limbs felt at the moment, there was no way he could reach the gunship with a Water Whip, and certainly not with his meager Fireshaping skills.

He took stock of his pills, scattered among the bodies, warped columns, and upturned tables and equipment throughout the room. Two green Core-fortifying pills.  A red Fire-energizing Pill. A yellow Earth Enriching Pill. And of course, the all-important sparkling violet and glowing blue pills that he needed to close the portals. His staff lay too far out of reach for him to use.

“Get down!” he yelled.

With the gunship only a second from facing them, its miniguns already whirring, Ryu leaped over a shocktrooper corpse, slid under a table, and scooped up the little red ball.  Connecting to what energy he had left in his Core, he energized his meridians and flicked the pill through the opening in the building and into the gunship.

Invisible to all but Ryu’s Wood Path sight, the energy of the pill blossomed out. Meant to energize the Fire Aspects of the body, they ignited the gunship’s missiles. The explosion rippled out, blasting shrapnel from the hull into the building. The remains of the gunship hurtled downward. The floors rocked as it smashed into the building somewhere below.

“Get the blue pill!” Ryu pointed near the maglift bay to where the precious treasure had rolled. Without wasting a beat, he dashed toward the closer violet pill near the gaping hole in the building’s side, scooping up the two greens along the way.

Aya, now replacing Bodhi, joined Keiko, Siena, and Kentaro in following his finger with their gazes. They converged on the pill. Kentaro scooped it up…

Only for Siena to slap his wrist down with one hand and catch the pill with the other.

The boy looked at her in confusion, but no doubt she was just playing around like usual. Ryu beckoned to her.

Pill in her outstretched palm, she backed away.

“What are you doing?” Ryu demanded. “I need that to close the portals.”

“I’m sorry, Ryusuke.” Tears now