Hector woke slowly from his nap, his mind automatically seizing on any new information to analyze its applicability to his situation. He reached the obvious conclusion before he was fully conscious: he needed to learn how to make a filter realm. If he had a convenient source of power, maybe he could get to level five and still have enough energy to power an aura barrier in a fight.

  But how did one go about making a filter realm? He had absolutely no idea. At least not yet. He would need to go back to sleep and hope Volithur encountered the answer to that question.

  Briefly, Hector considered trying to reach out to primordial chaos. The moment passed. He remembered the experience of chaos in Volithur’s soul as if it had happened to him. It was just as unpatable as stepping in the random vomit piles Maggie had begun leaving around the house. The elderly dog didn’t seem to keep any meals down recently. He dreaded the reaction Jen would have to the loss of one of her friends. She had been studiously avoiding him for a while now, but that wouldn’t st forever. Once she stockpiled enough resentment, any emotional event could be the trigger to unleash it all.

  And though he had been careful with the timing of Evelyn’s visits, Jen was always an intuitive creature. She predicted something was bound to happen. He’d denied it at the time, but when the conversation came up again she would see right through any evasions he attempted.

  He was, in fact, sleeping with the much younger woman his wife had worried about. In his defense, the two of them never stopped being separated. A separation that she initiated and took advantage of.

  Though… the issue wasn’t so much that he ‘cheated’ on her. It was the same issue that had pgued their retionship over the years. He didn’t care as much about her as she did about him. Or at least didn’t express his care in the same way. To him, earning the money and ensuring a comfortable lifestyle was being a good husband. He hadn’t respected Jen’s need for affection, which caused her a lot of pain over the years. Then he hadn’t made any effort to stop her from leaving. He hadn’t even tried to get back at her infidelity. To outward appearances, he didn’t seem to care.

  And… maybe that was a legitimate interpretation of his actions. He certainly had never been bothered enough to try changing for her. He’d gone about his routine with or without her there, prioritizing work over all else excepting the sacred time he carved out for his fitness goals.

  Jen knowing he was with another woman would be a hard blow to her. It would signify to her that he had found someone worthy of his time. He couldn’t expin to Jen that he and Evelyn were effectively working when they spent time together. Well, maybe not all the time they spent together. Regardless, the argument wouldn’t hold any water with Jen. She would see a younger woman, an attentive Hector, and go crazy. The only reason it hadn’t happened yet was because they hadn’t been in the same room for more than a few seconds at a time.

  “I’m trying to stop monsters from tearing apart my world and I have to deal with retionship drama,” he muttered. “With a woman I’m separated from, no less.”

  The thing he dreaded most about the inevitable csh was the big question: ‘do you love her’. A negative answer would be interpreted as a lie. Saying yes would be the quickest path to ending a fight, by making his perceived defection permanent. But that wouldn’t be honest.

  He certainly liked Evelyn. She was interesting and quirky and passionate. They also had a fair degree of chemistry, he had to admit. Without the shared purpose of their mission, though, Hector didn’t think whatever was between them would st long. They were bonded until the end of the world. By their estimation, that wasn’t so far off.

  Tired of his thoughts, Hector went to the gym for a workout and then returned home to cook a meal. He didn’t react when Jen returned home, and she disappeared into the guest bedroom without attempting to interact with him.

  Hector climbed onto the rooftop to cultivate for a few hours before returning to his room. He briefly attempted to sleep before realizing that his brain was still fully rested from the earlier nap. Not sure what else to do with himself, Hector drove back to the dive bar that Goth Girl Metal Extravaganza had pyed at and ordered a beer. This time he knew better than to touch the sticky counter.

  Finding an isoted seat in the corner, Hector began to cultivate. The cosmic energy levels remained good, and he pumped his aura for a while. Then, deciding that he should tire his mind out to speed up the arrival of his next sleep session, he switched to mental cultivation.

  And discovered a treasure trove.

  The dive bar proved even richer in the mental space than the physical. Hector rapidly inhaled cosmic energy through his mental aperture. He roughly estimated it was twice as intense as what he had drawn in with his aura. With everything factored in, his current rate was about four times greater than what Volithur had done at his best.

  Unfortunately, the cosmic energy concentrations of the local mental space dropped as rapidly as he could absorb it. Within half an hour, the level had become equivalent to what he could find at his house. Hector had depleted the mental space of the dive bar.

  Which inspired him to go onto the next pce. While waiting for a seat at the rooftop bar, Hector drained the mental space there and was able to leave without ever needing to order a drink. He moved on to the casino to mine that location next.

  Though it took a little more effort, owing to the rge size of the casino, Hector managed to deplete the area in under two hours. To test the results of his efforts, he cycled his aura a few times. The physical space had not been impacted by what he did, only the mental.

  Hector began plotting his next moves. He would have to figure out how quickly mental spaces refilled with cosmic energy. If they did at all. It was possible he was exploiting a non-renewable resource and the energy levels would never return to the heights they had been. If that was the case, then the one time boost would be a minor benefit.

  However, if the energy recharged at a decent rate, he could drastically speed up his rate of cultivation by harvesting on a set schedule. Locations would be his resources instead of elixirs. Doubling his previous, already good, cultivation speed would be a huge benefit.

  Travel time between hot spots would reduce his effective energy collection rate, but that was a logistical problem he could optimize for. If he did aural cultivation once the mental space had been depleted, that might be better than a long drive. He needed more data points before he could begin plotting routes and deciding on schedules.

  Hector went to the city intersection the cops wouldn’t let him loiter at and rapidly sucked down the cosmic energy there. He left before anyone could become suspicious of him and went to a nearby Walmart, looking for some pce that was open. He discovered a gold mine there. Three hours ter, he returned back home, giddy at his discovery.

  He shot a quick message to Evelyn. ‘Look into my future and find good spots for mental cultivation.’ She responded a few minutes ter with a fire emoji. Of course she was still awake past midnight. He almost called her to share the specifics of his discovery, but held himself back so that Jen wouldn’t overhear his conversation. He might have to clear the air between them if it continued to impact his pns. Tiptoeing around drama wasn’t good for anyone long term.

  Assuming there was a long term. At the upper bound, he had doubled his cultivation speed. That meant three weeks until level three. That was a phenomenal pace, but probably not good enough. Then how long would it take to enhance his body to a level where he could stand toe-to-toe with monsters?

  Even if he managed to make himself impervious to the invaders, would that be enough to make a difference? He didn’t know how many monsters were coming, nor how widespread their emergence would be. One invulnerable warrior might not be able to make a big enough difference to even be noticed. Given a rge enough scale, his contributions would be indistinguishable from a rounding error.

  Hector added another item to the mental list of things he needed to learn from Volithur. First was ‘how to make a filter realm’, of course. But right after that came ‘how to make a chaos bolt’. He didn’t know much about the chaos bolt, only that it was the most powerful offensive technique the Xian had. That was more than enough to recommend it.

  Before the end, his father mentioned seeing Lord Annihitor throw a massive chaos bolt that caused a mushroom cloud to form. The target of that bst, a dragon, survived. Hector hoped the monsters coming to Earth weren’t the match of a dragon. And that Volithur would gain the knowledge he needed of the technique. And that a level three soul could handle throwing a chaos bolt at all.

  He hoped for a lot of things. For now, though, he needed to get back to dreaming.