A few days later, Dr. Gerald Shmidt approached the gate, waving some kind of handheld device attached to a cord at it.
“Doctor?” asked Lindstrom from behind him. He had been in town since the attack and, while the rubble had been cleaned up and all of the missing people accounted for, the military had cordoned off this area so that the public wouldn’t get involved with it should another hostile person come through. “Anything interesting to report?”
“Ah, Admiral, yes indeed.” Shmidt said, noticing the man behind him. “These readings are fascinating. Here, let me show you.” He pulled a tablet out and opened a program on it. The program showed an overhead view of the gate, likely from a satellite, and was shaded in red, with the darker colors nearer the gate. “According to my scans, the qi density near the gate is about six times what it normally is. I would guess that wherever this connects, they have at least ten time the amount of qi in their atmosphere as us.”
“Mana.” said the Admiral, looking at the map.
“Sir?”
“Mana. The official US Government term for bio-active radiation is mana, and that is the term you have to use in all official documents submitted to the government. Since this is a military project, that’s the term you’ll need to put in your reports.”
“Oh,” he said, a bit confused. “I’ve been mostly working with the international community for the last several years, and the standard term there is qi. But I’ll try to remember that.”
The Admiral nodded. “So, the attacker said something about our world undergoing an ‘Awakening’. Do you think that might have had something to do with these different mana levels?”
“Yes, sir, I think he was referring to the arrival of qi in our world.”
“Mana.” the Admiral corrected.
“Right, mana. You see, assuming he was from another world in this universe and not another universe altogether, we have a good idea why the ‘mana’ levels are rising on Earth.” When he stopped the Admiral motioned for him to continue. “You see, space probes were sent out all across the solar system to map out the background level of qi, er, I mean Mana. In one direction there is more of it than another, and the denser area is moving towards the solar system, while the less dense area is moving away from us. The gravitational pull of Earth and its magnetosphere trap that ‘mana’, and then we can use it.”
“Which is why the Moon and Mars have elevated levels as well.” observed the Admiral.
“Right, they don’t have magnetospheres, but they do have enough gravity to help trap it.”
“So, we have mana because of an interstellar wind, and if it left we wouldn’t have it anymore. What does that have to do with the Awakening?”
“Well, technically, we would probably continue to have mana for a few hundred or a thousand years, as quartz likes to trap it inside and balance out the background levels by storing a multiple of those levels, which would slowly be released by the quartz deposoits to slow the loss, but yes, it would eventually go away. In fact, interesting fact, the Sansoong Qi and many other early gathering bracelets, as well as the early generators built here in the USA actually used quartz crystals to gather qi for them, then channeled it into the wearer or conversion circuit, as the technology to do it a different way was too expensive at the time, and…”
“The Awakening, Doctor.” said Lindstrom, annoyed.
“Right. Well, if our world only started passing through the part of the galaxy with qi, or mana twenty five or thirty years ago, and his has had it for hundreds or thousands of years, and has been developing cultivation for that entire time, we would appear to be a world just Awakening to this new, better, energy source. At least, that’s my opinion on what he meant.”
Lindstrom nodded. “I’ll have to think about that. Continue your tests, then.”
Shmidt nodded. “Yes, Admiral.”
---
I went back to work that Wednesday. When I had reported to my boss that I had missed my Sunday shift due to being trapped under rubble due to a terrorist attack, and Monday due to oversleeping while recovering, he agreed to let me count those as paid sick days. I wasn’t scheduled for Tuesday originally, and Liza convinced Tony to give her the day off, so we spent the day hanging out together, going to a movie and an arcade, and eventually ending the night at her place.
Today, however, we both had to go back to work. I noticed that I had grown quite a bit from channeling so much qi during the emergency. All of my techniques appeared to be over twice as strong, as I had far more concentration and mental strength than before, and my dantian had grown to hold about 43 times as much qi as my body did before I advanced. Still, as my maximum with the new technique Liza had gifted me was likely over 200, I wasn’t yet technically in the Early part of the level.
I landed in front of the store and went inside. I had my Gathering vest dry cleaned yesterday, so I was wearing it as well. While it still wasn’t comfortable, I had gotten used to it over the last three days. Once I clocked in the various people that worked there started asking me about the attack or what it was like being trapped. I answered their question to the best of my ability, but it was only my manager demanding that they stop and that I go help a specific customer that got me away from the bombardment of questions. In truth, anyone could have helped that particular woman, who wanted a gift for her grandson, but I think he chose me to do it just because he knew it would get me to start working and would end the questioning for now. Or maybe he saw that I didn’t like being questioned and decided to take mercy on me by helping me out. I wasn’t really sure.
The rest of the day went fairly normally, with only a few people, mostly customers, commenting about the attack, the damage, and the loss of lives. I didn’t tell them that I was part of it, as that would have just lead to them asking me the same questions that my coworkers already had.
I learned from the customers, as I hadn’t been watching the news, that the military had taken over that part of the city and were building walls around it. There were rumors about what would happen to the portal that was still there, from the military trying to figure out how to shut it down, to them using it to invade another world for resources, to them building a barrier and trying to make the invaders pay for it. None of them were solid enough for me to think any were any more viable than the others.
Several days passed, and the next Saturday Liza and I went out to the portal area after we got off of work. There was a concrete wall around it, topped with barbed wire, and someone was applying barrier devices to the wall, though they were only Foundation level, as something more powerful was too expensive to deploy on that scale. We informed them that we had been trapped there, and wanted to see the place where that had happened, but they refused to let us in. All that they were able to tell us was that the area where we were trapped was almost cleared, and that it would likely be the site of a new barracks to temporarily house the soldiers that were stationed there.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
We decided to fly up a bit so that we could see inside. While we weren’t allowed into the area, they couldn’t really block people from seeing in, and for some reason there seemed to already be a few news crews doing the same. The area where the building collapsed had, indeed, been cleared, but was just bare dirt. Around the portal itself were dozens of guards, as well as three people I recognized. The first two were dressed in US military uniforms, Admiral Lindstrom and Colonel Adams. The third was an Asian man wearing white monk’s robes, The Monk. I didn’t know his actual name, but from what I had heard, he didn’t like using it. He didn’t want to seek fame for himself, but sought to aid and protect others, so he had given up his name when becoming China’s protector and now only went by the name of the role he played, so that any fame he gained was instead directed at the role itself.
---
“Welcome back,” said Lindstrom, holding out his hand. The portal the Monk created had just appeared beside the portal to the other world, and Lindstrom was already standing there waiting for him. When the monk extended his hand to shake Lindstrom’s, the Admiral noticed that it looked much younger than the rest of the monk’s skin.
“It will age the same in about a week.” said the Monk, noticing him looking at the hand. “The healing qi merely delayed the aging for a bit. Unfortunately, I know of no way to permanently reverse aging.”
Lindstrom nodded. “So, I assume you’ve come to follow up on your promise to help us build a barrier around the portal.”
“Yes,” replied the Monk, “in fact, I have prepared several items with which to build it, if you will allow me to go collect them.”
While items capable of being used in high end formations were quite rare and expensive, the Admiral wasn’t willing to let him help out in so obvious a way. “And what does your government get out of this generosity?”
The Monk bowed his head slightly. “I see that you are quite astute and saw through my petty deception. They wish for me to notify you that, while the cost of the materials amounts to several billion dollars, that is not their concern. They do, however, ask for permission to send at least one team through the portal every year, so that they may seek information on cultivation and rare materials on the other side.”
The Admiral thought for a minute. “As long as they share everything they learn from the other side with us, I don’t mind. What materials they can carry with them won’t be worth worrying about, but they may gain intelligence about hostiles on the other side or knowledge of cultivation which we lack, and which could be very useful to us. We will, of course, be sending our own teams through, but they will not be privy to the information those teams gather.”
“I believe I can convince them to accept this offer.” the Monk said, and returned through the portal to his base. A few minutes later he came through with several teams of people carrying massive beams of wood. “Spirit Wood,” he said. “Oak trees that were given all of the qi they could absorb for the last twenty years, half of China’s stockpile.”
When people had discovered that all multicellular life and some single cellular life could benefit from qi there were many attempts to spread it to other lifeforms. This lead to many varieties of Spirit Plants, which were fed qi throughout their lifetime and usually grew massive compared to their non-qi enriched cousins, and which carried qi inside of them. Some even started gathering qi on their own after some time, and trees were one of the best ones to duplicate this phenomenon with. The seeds of these plants were even altered to have superior traits when they grew. Which was true of the seeds that these trees came from, meaning that they were likely second generation spirit plants to have grown for twenty years already.
“My people agreed to the deal, and will send someone to formally sign the agreement tomorrow.” The Monk said, before setting down the end of the log he was carrying, not struggling despite the fact that it had to weigh several tons. “Once we move all of the wood through the gate, we will bring through the stones, then the iron. The Water and Fire will need to be cultivated here, but by drawing on the power of all five elements I can make a barrier around the gate that even Blood wouldn’t easily be able to break out of.”
Lindstrom nodded and assigned a group of soldiers to aid in moving the materials, though they would have to leave their weapons here, as they wouldn’t be able to carry them in a foreign country. Many of the men could likely launch a qi blast more powerful than any bullet they would have on them, but in this case it was more about the symbology of carrying a weapon into a foreign nation’s territory.
Over the next week the news crews watched as a single story pagoda was built where the portal to another world, what some called a Gate, still remained. Though it was made of wood with slate shingles, it also looked fairly modern with steel and glass accents, a fusion of the old and the new. Around the building were several walkways leading to four fountains, one in each cardinal direction, and small braziers along the paths, fed by natural gas and qi, to provide bright white light throughout the day and night.
Shortly after it was built, the teams from China left and only the Monk remained behind. He lead Lindstrom and Adams into the Pagoda. Under the portal they had poured concrete, then a raised area had been built around it, with a ramp leading out so that small vehicles could go through the gate. Inside the lower area, however, was a golden dome of energy which covered the gate. “The barrier can whitelist people and items you want to allow through.” The monk said, pointing to a set of computer consoles at the side of the room.
He lead them over and started operating the console to show them the various functions. “I installed a commercial formation control software, as I didn’t think you would want the one the Chinese military uses, but you’ll probably want to swap it out for whatever one is used on your military bases. For now, you can whitelist people based on their qi signatures, or items, if they put their qi into them. You can also have separate filters based on the realm of the person crossing through. For example, you might want a warning if someone above Condensing comes through from the other side, or to block people below Foundation from leaving through it if it’s too dangerous.” He pulled a book out from under the desk the console was on. “This is the hard copy of the design of the barrier. I also gave your technicians the files on the design on a flash drive. It shouldn’t be difficult to adapt your new program to this formation once I leave.”
With that he got up a bowed. “Now that I’ve completed the barrier, my government wishes to know when we can send our team through.”
Lindstrom nodded. “Give us at least a month. We will want to examine the other side to make sure it isn’t too dangerous before allowing people through. It wouldn’t do to have your first team be eaten by wild animals or killed by the locals, would it?” Of course, the US soldiers would be taking that risk, but he could send through a specialized team which included several people at the Core stage, so he wasn’t worried. What he worried about was allowing China to send through such a powerful team with the excuse that they needed the firepower to deal with possible threats. If he could assure them that a team of Condensing and Foundation troops was enough, then he wouldn’t have to risk someone at Core coming here outside of emergencies.
---
Three weeks after the attack I came home from work to find Maria passed out on the couch, Dave looking worried. “What happened?” I asked, concerned.
“She got up from meditating, said she felt exhausted and hurt all over, then laid down and went to sleep. That was two hours ago, but when I went to wake her up to take her out a few minutes ago she wouldn’t wake up. Should I call 911?”
“Let me check something.” I said, then went over and grabbed her right wrist, just below her bracelet. I extended my senses into her arm and noticed some strange activity. The flesh was almost completely out of qi, but what little amount was being fed into her by her bracelet was immediately going into her blood vessels to reinforce them. Suspecting I knew what was happening, I verified it by checking her left wrist, then her left foot, the point furthest from the bracelet.
“Well, I don’t think it’s an actual emergency.” I said, standing up. “Basically, she partially failed her breakthrough to Gathering, and it’s causing problems.” I explained that she had likely gotten all of her blood vessels to the point where they could become meridians, which caused them to start automatically draining her qi to do it. The problem with that was that one needed around ten to twenty percent of their reserves left for the process to complete itself, depending on how good the process was, and I had given her one of the better ones, which likely put that number closer to twenty. “She was probably at around 5% when she finished and they started to drain her to stabilize. The bracelet keeps feeding her qi, but they are reverting almost as fast as they are reinforcing themselves, as they aren’t getting enough qi to do the job properly.”
“Then what do we do? Will she just be stuck like this forever?”
“No, they are slowly improving. The ones in her right wrist is about 50% adapted and the ones in her left foot are about 10% adapted right down. Every time they reinforce themselves, though, they revert slightly slower, so if we left her like this she would probably wake up in a few days or a week. There are two other solutions, though. One, we remove the bracelet. That will let them completely revert and stop using her qi, which will let her wake up again. At which point we can give her her bracelet back and she can try again. She’ll probably succeed with the next breakthrough, as they are already at the right point, but just need more qi. Or we can give her more qi. That will push her qi levels high enough that the process can complete and once she finishes breaking through and she has some qi she will wake up.”
Dave nodded. “I don’t have any of that sports drink for restoring qi, or that algae. I could give her my bracelet, I guess.” He started to remove his bracelet and I nodded and stood up.
I took off my outer shirt and revealed the vest underneath. “It won’t be comfortable, but since she’s unconscious I don’t think that will matter.” I undid the velcro straps on the sides and removed the vest. “Can you lift her up?” I asked Dave. He did and I slid the back of the vest under her, then put it over her head, laying the chest piece on her large chest. I got the lower strap fastened, but couldn’t do anything about the under-arm straps. “These vests don’t work too well with women with large chests.” I told him, showing that the straps wouldn’t reach. “They make an extra large version for huge men, but I don’t have one. Even so, she should be getting another 300% or so qi, plus whatever your bracelet is giving her. With that, she should be finished in less than an hour.”
Sure enough, in about fifty minutes she opened her eyes and started complaining about the weird and uncomfortable vest she was wearing. I took my vest back and explained what had happened to her, and then congratulated her on reaching Gathering and becoming a proper cultivator.
