LA Docks, Earth:
Eveline Wilkins pulled her golf cart up to the building and stopped. She was still a bit surprised at the performance of these golf carts sometimes. They could operate forever without needing a recharge, only slowing down a bit if the qi storage got too low. Back when she was an MP on an army base in Iraq she had to switch carts more times than she could remember because the one she was supposed to drive had a dead battery. Now, not only were they faster and lighter, but you never had to worry about a dead battery. The ones they used here at the docks even had all of the important parts sealed in water-tight compartments, so even if they drove it into the harbor they could fish it out later and immediately use it without repairs.
There was a blue, slightly shifting light coming from the windows near the top of the building in front of her, which had just caught her attention. She pulled out her radio and pushed the talk button. “Uh, Phil, I’m gonna need you to come down to warehouse seven. There’s a blue light coming out of it. Probably just kids trying to throw a secret party, but could be thieves.”
“Be right there.” Philip Grant said. This security guard job paid well, but it was extremely boring. The only thing that made it even somewhat bearable was the occasional rich kid breaking in to try and use daddy’s warehouse to throw a kegger and the occasional thief or homeless person. They, at least, broke up the monotony. Of course, they also meant more paperwork, but that’s the price he paid for wanting some excitement at work. At least it wasn’t the kind of excitement he had heard some guards had to deal with, with gangs breaking in to steal shipments, even attacking the security when they were caught. The security agency had a training module to deal with exactly that occurrence for a reason.
A minute later his own cart silently pulled up beside Eve’s. He got up and drew his flashlight and pistol. “Ok, I’m ready to back you up.” he said, and she nodded. There wasn’t any music coming from inside, so most likely it wasn’t a party.
They went over to one of the doors and Eve swiped a finger on the door lock. It unlatched and they carefully made their way inside. There were wooden crates stacked on several shelves, and they could tell that the blue glow was coming from the end of the line. They made their way forward slowly, and just as they got to the end of the shelves the source of the glow came into view. A large, swirling portal floated half a meter off of the ground, producing as much light as a five watt LED.
Eve sighed. “Damn it.” she said. “I was hoping we wouldn’t get a portal here.” San Francisco and several other nearby cities had reported portals so far, but so far LA had managed to avoid an invasion. “Call the cops while I take a look around.” she said, holstering the gun. Phillip holstered his as well.
“Strange that no one has come through yet.” Phil said, walking closer to the gate. “I assume you haven’t been to the other world?” he asked.
Eve shook her head. “I wish. But can’t afford the time off. Still, I heard there were ways of making good money there, so I might take my two weeks to go through the gate in San Fran. If nothing else, I can deposit some quartz and save up for my next trip.”
“You know.” said Phil. “We could go right now. Military hasn’t gotten here yet, so we could take a peek.” He took another step closer to the gate.
“Are you an idiot?” asked Eve. “Sure, I’m Core and you’re Foundation, but do you think either of us will last long against whatever army is gathering on the other side? Especially with only the Condensation bullets they let us carry on duty? The off-worlders make these things for a reason, and it’s seldom a friendly one.”
Phil sighed. “You’re right. Too bad, though. I even learned the Black Dragon Mountain language in case I got to go through. Maybe we’ll get some sort of reward, though.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Five minutes later, two men landed at the line of police cars that were surrounding the building, blocking every exit. Of course, an invader could just make their own exit, especially because this building was made before qi was discovered and was therefore mortal grade. But at least they could slow whoever came through to buy the national guard time to arrive.
The police chief walked up to the men that just landed. “Civilian volunteers?” he asked, feeling the first man’s powerful aura that revealed him to be at least in the Late Core stage. The second man was almost as strong and also at least Late Core. “You’re the first to arrive, but you can stand over there with the security guards.” He pointed to a marked off gathering area where two people stood. Because of a shortage of troops in the immediate area to face all of the people coming through the portals, the National Guard would let anyone that wanted to help defend the cities join the battle as mercenaries, paying them based on captures, wounds, and kills, and letting them loot fallen enemies. That last one had meant that the military no longer had a perfect record of everything coming through the gates, but it was necessary to keep enough militia members interested. Things from Ilarya were worth a lot on the open market, after all.
“Wang Liu,” said the taller man. “Ilaryan mercenary under General Adams. What’s the situation?”
The police chief looked at him again, realizing that this man was far stronger than any Core person he’d ever met, even those at the peak. “Are you a Nascent Soul?” the chief asked in surprise. “I didn’t think we had one available.”
Wang Liu nodded. “Yes, I am. With Lindstrom out of commission and Adams off world, I’m the only one currently stationed in this country. So, I need to know what the situation is in case another level five steps through the gate.”
The police chief shook his head. “Right, sorry. Didn’t realize we had any off-worlder mercs.” He took a deep breath. “So far no one has come through. I suspect that they are just gathering their forces, though.”
Wang Liu nodded. “In that case, I’ll go look at the portal. Maybe I can tell you something else about it. The police chief nodded and followed him inside along with Liu’s assistant. Once he arrived at the portal, though, Wang Liu sighed. “It’s not a gateway to Ilarya.” he said.
“Another world is connecting to Earth now?” asked the police chief, somehow even more concerned.
“Well, kind of.” said Liu, “but there won’t be any invaders coming through. This is a hidden realm.” The police chief looked confused. “It’s a level six gate that connects to a small realm where there are significant riches to be had. Spirit beasts and plants are the most common, but there’s also materials, and sometimes trials for special goods, like artifacts or techniques. This appears to be a relatively long lived one.” He looked at the portal again. “Eternal Night type, with a few artifacts. I can’t get much more accurate than that from just reading the portal. About thirteen hours before it stops letting people enter and will stay open for…” he pulled out his cell phone and did some math. “One hundred seven and a half hours after that. Sorry, but I’m not quite used to your time units.”
“Couldn’t you just go through and see what’s there?” said the police chief.
Liu shook his head. “Unfortunately this is a level one realm. No one above level one is allowed to enter. Which means that none of your people or the military people that are coming can enter either, as you require them to be at least level two to undergo combat duty.” He shook his head. “Put out the call for locals to go through. I’ll brief them on what to expect. Make sure they are aware that this isn’t going to be the safest trip, though. The fact that there are artifacts means that it’s likely a trial ground type, which means that they will be pushed to their limits. Some of them might die inside.”
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When the sun rose I stood up and put the book away. I went to the bed and shook Jiang. “Time to wake up.” I said, and she groaned, revealing her reluctance to do so.
I hadn’t slept last night, and instead spent my time training and reading over more Daoist texts from the library. One of them had some supplementary training techniques involving telepathy. Apparently it was possible to exchange information with another mind by focusing on it, even before one becomes a True Daoist, thus allowing one to train Presence. Of course, before one reaches that point the information will be vague and cloudy, but it was possible to do, especially if you had a training partner. Of course, I hadn’t found that out until Jiang was already asleep, so I hadn’t asked her to try the training with me yet. I would have to do so later.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I put on the rest of my clothes and went to the inn’s lobby. All of the other men had started to gather there, so I joined them for breakfast. Once everyone had gathered, Ji Bo addressed us. We should be able to make it to a town near the border today, and tomorrow we would leave via the winding road that went over the rim of the valley. That should let us get to Crystal summit a day later.
After we were done eating we set off for the north. I kept the rocks in my shoes in order to continue training, and spent the time talking with the Ambassador and reading, learning the Improved Flight and Antigravity techniques from him. Of course, we spoke telepathically, as the people here would grow suspicious if we openly talked about such advanced techniques.
Improved flight essentially used the higher pressures of liquid qi to compress the effects of the normal flight technique. This allowed it to exert more qi on every air molecule, thus speeding them up. It was four to five times more energy efficient than the basic technique, and had over twice the top speed, but it required high enough qi pressures that it wasn’t possible without liquid qi, making it a level three effect.
Antigravity essentially removed the effect of gravity upon you. While there was a section that caused masses to repel each other, the actual effect behind the technique, like true gravity the effect was far too weak to be energy efficient. Instead, there was an amplification effect built in which essentially faked a much larger mass very near to the person, letting the effect become millions or billions of times more efficient when done correctly, efficient enough that it could allow one to float similar to the Levitation technique, while only using a few hundred times more qi. This might seem inefficient, but Levitation and Improved flight were fundamentally incompatible, so levitation couldn’t be used to negate the pull of gravity. Antigravity, on the other hand, was compatible with Flight, Improved Flight, and Slipstream, so it could be used in combination with any of those techniques to greatly improve their energy use, removing the need for them to fight the force of gravity pulling you down.
He had just started to explain the basics of Slipstream, how it curved the wind in front of you into your exhaust stream while accelerating it, when we reached the next town and had to stop for the day. I paid for all of the group’s food, drink and rooms again that night, spending two thousand of the local currency I had left. I could use it on my way back through the valley in a week, but I decided to not hold on to it if I didn’t have to. It wouldn’t do me any good outside the valley, and I didn’t really need to buy large amounts of things on my way back, so the small amounts of change I was receiving in gemstones that could be used outside would be more than enough.
The next morning we only traveled a few li before we started up a winding mountain path. This path was barely wide enough for two wagons to pass each other, and in many locations it wasn’t even that wide. Unlike the roads in the valley, it wasn’t paved, but it was solid stone for most of the trip, so at least the animals didn’t slide around. I would have liked to see guard rails on this road, but that didn’t appear to be something that this world had invented yet.
Occasionally our path would cross over a stream or in front of a waterfall, and we would need to cross a bridge. These were sturdily built, but were all made of mundane wood, not spirit wood, so they would be far more susceptible to rot and easier to break. The people who made them most likely didn’t want to haul the wood from outside the valley and down the side of the mountain, instead preferring to haul wood up the mountain or cut down the few nearby trees and process them on the spot.
Around mid day we were looking for a place to pull over and eat lunch when the front cart called out that the road was blocked by a landslide. I sighed. This would just delay us further. I got out to look over the landslide. While it looked like the mountain face had just given way and dumped enough rubble on the road to prevent wagons from passing, this seemed suspicious. It had occurred just before a large bend and only a li after a bridge, which narrowed the road to being one wagon wide. That made this an excellent ambush location. ‘Stay alert.’ I telepathically said to Ji Bo and the Ambassador, not wanting to risk outsiders hearing us. ‘This could be an ambush.’
I pulled Xiao out of the beast bag and asked him to scout ahead. He had stayed in the bag as much as he could since entering the valley, as the outside’s lack of qi was extremely uncomfortable for him, but he was willing to scout as long as I gave him qi rich foods in return. He flew around the curve in the cliff and immediately spotted several dozen bandits. He pretended to just be a normal bird and surfed the winds at the edge of the cliff while keeping watch.
So far we hadn’t run into any bandits or wild animals while in the valley. Ji Bo had explained that most bandit groups could only send out fifty or sixty people at a time. With over one hundred people, we were too large of a group to face, so, while we had spotted some possible bandit groups while traveling, none of them had made a move on us. Similarly, the predators only sent out groups of one to two dozen, and unlike the spirit beasts outside the valley, they didn’t have their courage bolstered by their cultivation. They also didn’t have a hatred for outsiders or drive to kill that the demon beasts had. This group of bandits, however, had likely set this trap without knowledge of our size and accidentally bitten off more than they could chew.
I informed Ji Bo what Xiao had seen ahead and he had everyone ready their stun talismans. While none of these people were likely to be cultivators, and thus wouldn’t be worth much, Crystal Summit had several mines for normal gemstones as well as the spirit and essence stone mines they were known for, so they would likely be able to use the additional laborers. Many of these people likely also had spirit roots but didn’t know it, so they could be sent into the spirit stone mines anyway. They just likely wouldn’t be able to bring in as many stones as those that had already started cultivating due to having inferior strength and endurance.
Those of us with Earth or Wood roots went forward to start moving the debris off of the road, the Earth roots moving the rocks and soil and the Wood roots moving the few downed trees. I sensed a few small pieces of iron ore and black sand in the rubble and pulled them out as well. It likely would only amount to a few stones worth of iron once it was melted down, but with iron being worth several times its weight in spirit stones it was worth doing.
When we were almost finished moving the rubble the men ahead of us started moving towards us. I informed Ji Bo, and he had the men ‘take a break’ so that they would be ready when we were attacked. Less than a minute later the men started coming around the corner ahead of us. Some of our people from behind called out that some of them had repelled down the cliff and were blocking the bridge.
“So, looks like we have a trade caravan.” said the lead bandit.
“You’re observant.” said Ji Bo. “What do you want?”
“This is our road. I want you to pay a toll. Say, half the stuff in your carts? Otherwise, you might not make it off this mountain safely.”
“As if you could even carry that much.” Bo scoffed. “You aren’t thinking too much today, are you? Not only are you asking for more stuff than you and your men can possibly carry, but you attacked a group that has you outnumbered two to one.”
The bandit boss looked us over. “So you have bigger numbers. Big deal. We can easily take on double the number of weaklings.”
“Double the number of cultivators, you mean?” He asked, and most of the bandits looked concerned.
“You think we are afraid of you just because you have a few powers? We have True Daoists with us. Your power doesn’t scare us.” He motioned and two men stepped forward. The two of them held out their hands and wind started to blow around one of them while fire started to swirl around the other.
“I don’t think two magic users and a bunch of melee fighters can take us down when we have range and a numbers advantage. I’ll make you a deal, though. Surrender, and all of your men get to continue living. We’ll even take you somewhere that will hire you, and you can start to live an honest life.”
“We have no interest in becoming slaves.” the bandit leader said, the raised his hand. “Charge!” he called, and dropped it, and the men started running at us. Down such a narrow mountain pass, however, they were essentially channeling themselves into a funnel. Those of us at the front quickly stunned them faster than they could reach us. I targeted the two daoists, stunning them with quick level two spells, just in case they had managed to break through to level one. The wind user managed to get a wind blade off at me, but I stopped it with a quick barrier.
Seeing that he couldn’t win, the bandit leader turned to run, only to see a large, hawk sized sparrow standing on the road. While it was unusual, he didn’t have time to wonder about it. He was almost to the bird when it flicked its wing. A blot of lightning shot out and hit him in the chest. He collapsed on the ground and started convulsing. Several of his men had seen him try to run and followed him, but seeing this caused them to pause. How had a bird managed to take out their boss with a lightning attack? Was the bird a True Daoist too? That was rare, but there were stories of people training pets to be able to use some magic, usually talismans.
Then one of the bandits realized that there was a better explanation. “Monster!” he said, and ran the other way, preferring capture to being eaten. Occasionally spirit beasts or demon beasts would make their way into the valley. Without enough qi in the air to gather it on their own, however, they had to resort to hunting sources of qi, one of the best of which was living creatures, especially humans. While few of the people of the valley had large amounts of qi, even the small amounts that were present in the bodies of mortals was a better source of qi than the air. It was like how people on Earth would sometimes mine poor quality ores when the price of a metal got high enough, as it was worth it to do so under those circumstances.
Xiao chased the men down and shot them in the back, and any that managed to get far enough from him were shot by the rest of us. I went through another round of slave spells and distributing people, and we made them finish clearing the road before loading them all into wagons and setting off again.
I had managed to get three sets of Daoist spells from the attackers, one of them having attacked the rear of the caravan. The Air daoist had Tornado, Wind Blade, Blow, and a few other spells. The Fire guy had Whirlwind, Fire Ball, and Flame Fist spells. The man at the rear, a water user, had Ice spikes, Rain, and Drowning, which apparently just gathered water in a person’s lungs. Now that I had some spells I could start comparing them to cultivator techniques. The first one would be Fire Ball, as I was quite familiar with the technique.
