“What was that?” asked Boris. “I’ve never seen a core do that before.” There were a few minor skirmishes over the last year in which Core cultivators were killed, so it’s possible he had seen several cores that were removed from the bodies of fallen soldiers.
“Blood attempted to escape as a soul, and I stopped him.” replied the Monk nonchalantly.
“You mean like as a ghost? Did you exorcise him?”
“Essentially a ghost, yes. Though I purified him instead of exorcising him. I didn’t want to risk him possessing a nearby person or becoming a vengeful spirit, so I pacified him and returned him to the cycle of reincarnation.”
“Huh.” said Boris, a bit confused. He didn’t believe in reincarnation, but if the Monk could put souls into such a cycle, it must be true.
“So, there’s no chance of interrogating him, now?” asked Lindstrom. As usual, he was concerned with gathering intelligence.
“Speaking with the dead isn’t really my specialty, so I doubt he would say much, even if I did keep him around. There’s also the fact that ghosts can’t access most of their memories from when they were alive, mostly only keeping the ones tied to strong emotion, so unless you want to know about his past lovers or bitter rivals, I doubt his ghost would know what you wanted to learn.”
“Which means that if this happens again, we need to keep the prisoner alive.”
The Monk nodded. “I always prefer to spare a life if possible, but in this case it makes both moral and tactical sense to do so.”
There was a pause as the five of them thought about all of the ramifications of what just occurred. “The portal isn’t closing.” said Adams, walking up to the others and pointing as the swirling mass of qi that Blood had come through.
They looked at it, and Lindstrom spoke up. “I assumed Blood was keeping it open for some reason, but if that were the case, it should have started dissipating as soon as he died. The fact that it is just as strong now, and may have even grown stronger, likely means that someone else created it and stayed on the other side.”
“There are two other possibilities.” corrected The Monk. “It could have been created by a formation that is still active, or it could be permanent or semi-permanent once opened.”
“How can a technique effect remain without the user?” asked the Scottish RAF general.
“A tunnel in a mountain remains after one uses Geokinesis to create one, because the laws of the universe don’t allow for it to fill itself back in. This is essentially a tunnel between worlds.”
The others nodded. “In that case,” said Lindstrom, “we need to figure out how to collapse it so that more people like him don’t come through.”
The Monk nodded. “Then, I have a suggestion for the Blood Red Scorpion’s Core.” He held up his right arm. “Once my hand is regrown in a few days or a week, I will return to construct a Formation on this site, which can seal anyone that enters our world inside a barrier until they can be interviewed to see if they should be allowed free travel, or even refugee status. The core will be used as a supplemental energy source to power the barrier, in case someone hostile comes through and they need to be trapped there.”
“I doubt we’ll be getting any immigrants through the portal,” said Lindstrom, “But creating a barrier to help protect us is a good idea.” He nodded. “In that case, I’ll have the National Guard come in and clean up the wreckage so that you have enough room to function. I doubt anyone survived down there, but we’ll need at least a few days to verify the civilian casualties.” The other Nascent cultivators nodded and Lindstrom looked at Adams. “I’ll be staying in the city at least until the barrier is up. Can I use your office?”
Adams nodded and floated off the ground. “In that case, follow me. I’ll introduce you to my assistant, then, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going to the hospital.” Lindstrom nodded and Adams activated the Core Slipstream technique, which moved air around the user to allow supersonic flight without creating a sonic boom. As the situation was over, the others promised to have a conference call later to coordinate their response to this situation and debrief each other, then, as soon as they had gathered enough qi to do so, opened up portals to their home cities.
In less than a minute Adams arrived at the military base on the other side of the city and landed outside his office. Lindstrom landed a second later and Adams lead him inside. The Admiral was introduced to Adams’ aide and lead to an office where he could start coordinating the relief mission and the military response to today’s events, and Adams excused himself before flying over to the base’s clinic, this time only using a Gathering level Flight technique, as it was only fifty meters away.
---
I ended up staying in the same location for the last sixty hours. A few hours after we got trapped inside the collapsed building people had started complaining about needing to use the bathroom, and the few people that had the raw strength, like Marcus, or a suitable technique, started going to the non-collapsed areas just outside the barrier and digging latrines. After that, male and female latrines were designated and everyone started taking turns going there to do their business in groups of five, with four people blocking the view for a fifth, giving them some privacy. Of course we had to use what napkins, wet wipes, or tissues people had on them instead of toilet paper.
I, of course, couldn’t go to the bathroom. As the leader, the barrier was centered on me, and would move if I moved. That meant that if I tried to leave, the peak of the barrier, which was still supporting a few tons of rubble, would shift, and the rubble would no longer be supported, and would collapse. The rubble that fell would, of course, hit the barrier instead of the people, but the total area in which the people could move around would shrink as the rubble settled.
So when I started needing to go really badly, Liza had to hold a jacket in front of me so that I could urinate in an empty sports drink bottle. I somewhat needed to do more than that, but as I would have to dig a latrine and use it in the middle of the group, I decided to try holding it in, meditating to focus on my body reabsorbing as much of it as possible.
The next issue was food and water. “You don’t happen to bring any snacks, did you?” I asked Liza after hearing several stomachs growl.
“Didn’t think I’d need them. Hungry?”
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I shrugged. “Not really, but we’ll all get that way before the rescue.”
One of her coworkers pulled something out of their pocket and handed it to me. It was a round object about the size of the end of my thumb and wrapped in foil. “Chocolate?” I asked.
“Satiation pill.” they responded, “Vitamins, minerals, protein, and complex carbs, plus an organic appetite suppressant. Basically, the bare minimum you need to to eat in a meal to live, plus something to keep you from getting hungry from how small it is. Still, you should probably use some sort of diet meditation to maximize its effect. I only have seven of those pills, though, so that’s all I can spare.”
I thanked him and put it into my pocket. And for the next several days I sat in place, only getting up or laying down instead when the pain started building up in my back from sitting on the concrete. Thankfully, enough air was leaking into and out of the rubble that we could breath well enough. If it wasn’t for the fact that we still had cell phone service the boredom of staying in one place for so long would have been a problem as well. As it was, almost everyone but me spent their days watching videos.
I mostly meditated while letting my mind wander. Eventually I noticed a dead cat that was trapped under some rubble nearby and bled to death. That cat might have had as much qi when it died as some of the people inside the barrier, but because it wasn’t intelligent we didn’t try to rescue any animals in the area.
People had started putting qi gathering bracelets on the necks of their pets shortly after the Sansoong Qi had come out, but it took several years for companies to start selling actual cat or dog collars which gathered qi. Even before that, people had been feeding them food that was rich in qi and watering them with enhanced qi liquids, and now there were multiple specialized foods of that type on the market.
Because the animals weren’t intelligent, though, they couldn’t grow meridians to advance, nor could the learn proper techniques, but sometimes they would instinctively learn to use it to enhance themselves or perform minor tricks.
Liza started laughing at something beside me and I brought myself out of my ‘meditation’. “Something funny?” I asked.
“Oh, just watched a new ‘Telekinetic Cat’ video on YourTube that I got an alert for. In this one he’s trying to fish by floating the fish out of the river, but every time he puts one on the shore it flops back into the water. Did you get the alert too?” I knew that ‘Telekinetic Cat’ was one of the top 100 YourTube channels, and got around five million views on each of its videos. I had even seen a few of them, since animals developing powers other than basic enhancements was interesting.
“Not subscribed.” I said. “I’ll go watch the video later, though, if you think it’s funny.”
“It’s hilarious. What kind of channels do you subscribe to then, if not funny cat videos?”
“I don’t subscribe. I don’t like getting alerts, and don’t watch many videos on there anymore, so if I want to watch one, I just visit the channels to check them.”
“I guess that’s one way to do it.” She watched her phone for a few more seconds before I hear sounds of scraping coming from above.
We started looking up and a minute later light started coming through the top of the barrier. We saw people up there and a few minutes later enough debris was moved off of the barrier that they could start helping people crawl out.
After everyone climbed out and down onto the cleared street I let the barrier collapse and flew up, letting the rubble collapse as well. I landed on the ground as I saw Adams walk over, recognizing him from the times he was on the news. He started instructing his men, though they were National Guard and not Air Force, to hand us food and water. I had eaten the Satiation Pill a day ago, so I wasn’t doing the worst out of the people, but I there was something important I needed to do. When the soldier handed me my protein bar and water, I hurried and asked him. “Is their a toilet around here I can use?” He laughed and pointed to a spot thirty meters away where they had set up a port-a-potty. I thanked him and ran over.
Once I was out and others had started to line up to use it, I noticed that Gabriel was approaching Adams. When he got beside the man and the man looked at him he saluted. “Good to see you again, sir.” Gabriel said.
Adams looked at him with a bit of confusion. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Former Staff Sergeant Gabriel Angelique.” he answered crisply. “I was part of the crew when you were on the USS Barrack Obama. Even helped fix up your E-7 a few times.” I had assumed Gabriel was in his 20s, but to have served in the Air Force with Adams probably a decade ago would mean that he was at least in his mid thirties. Maybe he was one of those people who looked younger than someone their age normally would. Though, with cultivation roughly doubling a person’s lifespan just from the bracelet, and again with every stage, he could be in his seventies and still look like that, I suppose, as being in the Condensation level would make him age at an eight of the rate of a person from BQ times, it normally would start showing in his late twenties or early thirties.
Adams smiled and nodded. “Ah, yes, the Obama. I love the Presidential line of Aircraft Carriers. Especially when they launched those old space planes. The launch always seemed to go better from one of those than any of the other models.”
Gabriel smiled. “Yes, sir. The launch gear on the Presidentials wore out a lot faster than on other ships, but lead to a much smoother launch.”
They continued to discuss the E-7 space plane, but I ignored them. I already knew the basics, how it used liquid qi for power and was efficient enough to get you into low Earth Orbit with half a tank left, allowing them to be used to intercept vehicles in orbit and fight with the built in chi blasters. Other than that, I didn’t have much interest in them.
---
I got home at roughly 16:00, Liza coming home with me because my apartment was closer. “Hey,” said Dave from where he and Maria were sitting on the couch. At least they were mostly clothed and just talking this time. “Kev, where you been, man? You stay gone for days, then bring a woman home? You finally found one willing to put up with you, huh?” He started to chuckle and Maria smiled.
“We’ve been buried under rubble for about two and a half days and only survived by keeping a barrier up.” I said dryly. Dave stopped laughing and he and Maria looked like they thought they were going to get yelled at. I sighed. “I’m far too tired to joke around right now.” I said sternly. “Yes, I brought my girlfriend over, because this is closer than her place. We are going to sleep, and nothing more.” With that I lead her back to my room, where we both pulled off the clothes we had been wearing for the last three days and climbed into bed.
Just before I dozed off I heard Dave speak from outside my door. “Hey, I’m going to stay at Maria’s place tonight so we don’t wake you guys up, okay?” I grunted, and he seemed to take it as a yes, as he went next door to get his stuff.
Some time later I got up and stretched. I had managed to get used to how uncomfortable that cheap Chinese vest was over the last three days, but I still felt like it had restricted my movement. I also didn’t want to lay around after I had stayed in one place for that entire time.
I was going through my set of movements for the fourth time when Liza woke up. “You get enough sleep already?” she asked.
“Not really.” I responded with a yawn. “I’m just too stiff to lay there. I needed to get up and stretch.”
“I know what you mean.” she said, sitting up, showing me her bare upper body. Both of us were so dirty from the last few days that we made sure to climb into bed naked just to keep the dirt out of it. “All of my muscles are super tense, like they are about to cramp up on me. Especially my shoulders, for some reason.”
I sat down on the bed beside her and grabbed the muscles at the based of her neck, starting to massage the knots out. “How does that feel?” I asked. She moaned in pleasure, so I kept going. An hour later, I had finished every inch of her and she started on me. While she didn’t do as thorough of a job as I had done with her, I was more than satisfied with the attempt. After that, one thing lead to another and we ended up using another destressing method that humans have been using since they first evolved, then collapsed from exhaustion once more.
I ended up waking up before her again, and heard someone in the living room. Had someone broken in? It was rare, but it did happen occasionally. Qi based locks weren’t perfect, after all, and could be bypassed if you knew what you were doing, it was just harder than picking an older style lock.
I readied a qi bolt and stealthily opened my door, before making my way to the living room. Someone was behind the couch looking for something. “Stop.” I said, and the man popped up.
“Relax, Kev, it’s just me.” Dave said, before pointing at me. “Also, didn’t you tell me not to walk around the house naked? I think you should have to follow your own rules.”
I looked down and realized that I hadn’t bothered getting dressed. “I thought someone was breaking in, so I came to check.” I said. “Besides, didn’t you say you were going to spend the night at Maria’s? What are you doing back here?”
Dave gave me a puzzled look. “It’s after 14:00, Kev. I just left my textbook here and came back to look for it. I saw it under the couch, but can’t reach it.”
I sighed, reabsorbed my qi bolt, then went over to the side of the couch and lifted it so that he could get his book. All of the text books were now available as PDF files, but for some reason he always bought the hardcover version of the text.
Liza walked out of the bedroom, apparently woken up by our noise, and came over with a sheet wrapped around her. “What happened?” she asked, seeing Dave and I.
“Dave left his textbook here.” I said, then introduced them to each other. “Liza, this is Dave, my roommate. Dave, this is Liza, my girlfriend. The woman you saw with Dave when you got here was Maria, Dave’s girlfriend, if you remember her.”
“Kind of.” Liza said. “Too tired at the time to be sure.” She held out her hand, carefully holding up the sheet with the other, and shook his hand.
“Well, I’ve got to go.” said said Dave. “I’ve got to be at class by 14:30. Maybe I’ll see you tonight.” With that he left.
I sighed and started back towards the bedroom. “How about we both get a shower, then go get something to eat.” I said. “I’m pretty hungry.”
“Problem with that.” Liza said, throwing the sheet back on the bed. “I don’t have any clean clothes.”
She ended up wearing her dirty clothes back to her apartment, then changing. We didn’t arrive anywhere to eat until 15:30, but by that point I didn’t care where we went or what we ate, as all I had for the last three days was a satiation pill and a protein bar.
We decided to go to the Chinese place where we had our first date. It was near her apartment and all-you-can-eat, after all, and we were both really hungry.
