For the next three days, Isaac did nothing but eat, sleep, and cultivate.

Being confined with Reed wasn’t all that bad (outside of the fact that she talked in her sleep). The walls became his entire world; it reflected his energy inward, both literally and metaphysically. For once, he let everything else drift away. All his previous worries left him; all that mattered, right here and right now, was the chase of cultivation. Perhaps that wasn’t the right word. Cultivation wasn’t something to be chased after. Rather, Isaac ran alongside it, a hunter and his dog or pair of brothers down a dusty trail in an endless forest. Cultivation was a friend, an extension of his life, not an endless series of tiers and feats. It rushed through his bones, down his veins, into his fingertips. Energy pulsed calmly through his open meridian channels - up to the right eye, outwards down his right palm.

Sure, the country was in a tight spot, but all he could focus on were the things in front of him. One step at a time. Energy circulated around his body, drawn from his surroundings. Having Reed alongside him helped; he could feel her energy shift inside the room, too. For lack of a better word, she had a suave, calm sort of energy about her now. Not somebody putting on a show or grasping to be someone else; she was her, and she felt confident about it, and her energy reflected that.

Isaac’s energy reflected his own growth. The days passed by. The guards occasionally opened the door to slide in plates of food from the mess hall; the meals, along with getting a proper amount of sleep for once, helped catapult Isaac forward. He could feel it all coming together. His inner dantian filled up to the brim, ballooning at the edges, and when Isaac reached for the sunlight, he felt the fire rise and then he had it.

For the tiniest of moments, the entire world felt perfectly still and beautiful, down to its finest detail.

Isaac opened his eyes. With a grin, he snapped a finger - a red lightning bolt surged outwards and struck the wall. He expected the guards to bang on the door to quiet them, but no chastisement came.

Reed smiled at him. “Circuit 2?”

Isaac nodded. “Circuit 2.”

She nodded in approval. Crimson bolts ran through her sword, which laid across her lap as she cultivated cross-legged.

“How’s your training going?” Isaac asked her.

After cracking her neck, Reed stood and tossed her bag of cigarettes on the ground. She aimed the tip of her sword towards them, then pulled it back like a fishing rod. A flash of red ran through the pack, which rose into the air of its own accord. It floated towards her, just for a little bit, before falling back to the ground.

“A psychic fishing ability?”

Reed ignored the dry amusement in his voice. “My family is known for its mastery of sound arts. But the nice thing about the Domino Sword is that, now that I’m Circuit 2, I can use it to train other types of waves. Derek recommended I go for electromagnetic once I got to this stage. And besides-”

She tightened her grip on the sword. “I owe that Zhanghai bitch back for burning half of my face off. She has a magnetism power, too - wouldn’t it be nice to beat her at her own game?”

Isaac had once blown Zou Mei up, so he supposed he himself was even with her for almost killing him during the train attack. “I know you got the sword from Derek Domino when he was your tutor. If you don’t mind me asking, did he ever say why he chose you to succeed him as that sword’s wielder?”

The sparks died down as Reed sat on her bed. “It’s funny. My cultivation finally started to click while I was learning from him, so he told me I earned it. I still don’t quite believe it, but when I pressed him, he just repeated himself.” She ran a nostalgic finger up the blade and spoke softly. “Perhaps he knew there would be a time like this when I would need it.”

Her stomach rumbled. She frowned and glanced at the door. “Don’t need a clock to tell me when it’s lunch time. And rest assured, it’s certainly lunch time. Where are those lazy fucks-”

The door crashed open. Isaac expected the young faces of the guards, but instead, two new figures entered the room. He and Reed immediately stood up in shock, their mouths hanging slack jawed. The man looked just like him, down to the same color of hair. And the shorter woman next to him could’ve been a clone of Reed, carrying her usual dour look. Bandages covered the clone’s face as well, as did a red headband.

“I told you,” Dan Turner said, breaking the illusion. “I’m an expert of the thee-at-er.”

“Is that you, Lynn?” Reed asked, sizing up her doppelganger. She tapped her own chin. “Damn, I’m one hot piece of ass, aren’t I?”

“No time to ogle yourself,” Dan cut in. “To make a long story short - Stockham filled me in on the situation. We planned on swapping you out later, but the Naval Police went ahead of schedule and will be coming to collect you within the next few minutes. Fortunately, we had sympathetic guards outside who understood our plight. They’re on the lookout for the Naval Police while we trade places here.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Will that really work? How’d you make yourselves look just like us?”

Dan waved his concerns away. “Fear not, I’ve mastered your mannerisms." He lowered his voice and spoke with a raised, theatrical hand. "Hark, my dearest brother, I shall travel beyond yonder to avenge the slight upon my household.” When Isaac frowned, he placed a calming hand on his shoulder. “Just kidding. We’re friends, Isaac. I know you well enough for my acting skills to do the rest.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

That left Reed and Lynn. The doppelganger just shrugged. “I made these wigs and costumes of you two a while ago, so Dan only had to help me with a few touch-ups.”

“...what?” Reed asked.

Lynn tilted her head in confusion. “What?”

“...right,” Reed mumbled. But then she got serious and eyed the door. “Let’s get out of here then.”

“Not that way.” Dan let them to the back of the room. He pushed aside a pile of crates, revealing a ventilation duct covered with a rusty cover. “This room was chosen for a reason. If you follow the ventilation shaft, it’ll take you to a secluded part of the base. Sorry to say, we can’t help you beyond that, but if you can make it outside the base, head to the former Zhanghai railyard. The conventional marines control it now, and Lieutenant Derry will explain the rest.”

As Isaac pulled the cover off, Dan and Lynn offered them salutes.

“Go forth and conquer,” Dan said in farewell.

Lynn nodded alongside him. “Even if I must sacrifice my life for the sake of the deception, I’ll do it.”

Before she slipped inside, Reed pointed a finger at her. “Don’t die, Lynn. That’s an order.”

With that, Isaac followed Reed inside the shaft. As Dan put the cover back on and pushed the crates back over to hide it, darkness covered the pair. Nowhere to go but forward. As they crawled across the metal, angry voices ordered “Isaac” and “Reed” out for interrogation. When the voices died down, Reed lit a finger up for light, and then led the way. The vent made an uncomfortable amount of noise as they crawled on, and Isaac had to muffle his coughs from all the dust. Every second, he feared a cultivation blast or bullets would rip through the shaft. They’d be sitting ducks. Fortunately, none came, and the two just kept crawling.

“You got any ideas on how to make it out of the base?” Reed asked up ahead. "And don't stare at my ass."

“I’m working on it. And there's nothing to stare at.”

"Ha-ha."

A patch of light appeared up ahead. When Reed arrived, there was enough space for her to stand upright. Isaac poked his head into the light; the shaft turned 90 degrees upwards, towards open sky. Reed reached up a hand, but came nowhere close to gripping the edge of the shaft. This would be a two person job.

As Isaac scooched below her, Reed angled herself onto his shoulders. When they were set, he grunted and stood upwards, elevating her towards the light. Despite her small size, with her full weight on him, his shoulders immediately felt strained and he couldn’t help but frown.

“You’re effing heavy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Everybody’s a critic.”

The weight shifted off of him when she pulled herself up over the edge. Now on the roof, she extended her hand down to him; with their combined effort, Isaac clambered up the shaft and slipped onto the roof alongside her. Up above, the perpetual gray sky had started to break. Here and there, sunlight poured down through open patches. This contrasted with the chill; Isaac’s breath immediately condensed in front of his face. The country currently sat upon the hinge of autumn and winter, and the cold breeze gave revealed which side had gained the advantage.

The roof they emerged on was hidden by the shadows of the wall looming next to them. Tucked away in a corner of a base, only a few Naval Police officers patrolled below them on the ground. The pair of fugitives - since that what they certainly felt like now - hid by the exposed shaft and gauged their surroundings. A watchtower possessed a commanding view of the area, while a sea of squat buildings stretched ahead of them.

Isaac pointed to a nearby warehouse. “There. That’s how we get out of here. The entrance to a smuggling route is inside.”

“How’d you know that?”

He just chuckled. “Babs showed me it once.”

“Ah…how ironic.”

The two immediately flattened when the sentry on the watchtower directed his attention their way. With bated breath, the two kept absolutely still. The sentry made no sudden movements indicating he had spotted them; after a tense moment, he changed his position on the tower.

The coast now clear, Isaac and Reed rose and crouch-walked to the edge of the roof. They leapt down onto the adjacent roof, immediately hiding behind a chimney. The officers on the ground hadn't noticed a thing.

"People rarely look up," Reed mumbled. The sentry looked towards the interior of the base, rather than along the wall, enabling the pair to keep moving. Isaac kept control of his breathing, moving with a calm and loose body, darting from chimney to vent, vent to chimney, rooftop to the rooftop. When they arrived on the roof of the warehouse, they let out a collective sigh of relief. Nobody had spotted them. Isaac hoped Dan and Lynn were doing okay as their doppelgangers. The illusion would only hold up for so long.

There was a door on the roof that led inside the warehouse. The doorknob refused to budge when Isaac grabbed; after sharing a look with Reed, he powered up his fist with Rddhi and simply broke through the lock. The door opened with ease. No guards were waiting to pounce on them. The door led them down a staircase to a catwalk. The warehouse only had a few Cartwright construction workers sitting on a box crates at the front, far too concerned with the wages they gambled on their card game than the pair of cultivators dropping down from the catwalk elsewhere. With light steps, Isaac led the way to the dark storage room and pushed aside an old crate, revealing the hidden ladder to the outside world.

This was probably how the Mind got into the base.

Retracing his old footsteps, Isaac climbed down the ladder and headed through the subsequent tunnel. The old sights remained unchanged from a few months ago; the same trees occupied the cliff face. The one difference was the level of traffic out at sea. When he first went through the smuggling tunnel, only a few patrol boats roamed the waters, but now, the entire Arcadian navy was seemingly hard at work. Destroyers steamed across choppy waters, torpedo boats moving alongside them, resembling a pack of animals. Now that they were outside, they could again hear the sounds of distant battles.

No doubt, Zhanghai's not giving up without a fight. Their homeland was on the other side of an ocean (on the other side of the continent), meaning an actual Zhanghai-Arcadian war was unlikely. But considering how much property Zhanghai possessed here, they definitely intended on bringing it all back home, or destroying it before the military got their hands on it.

But the battles would have to wait. For right now, they traversed another tunnel and another ladder, and then Isaac poked his head into Bill's Tavern. As he crept out of the backroom, a realization flashed through his mind.

When we first got here, Babs and Bill acted like they knew each other, as if she had used his route before. But Babs only got to the base shortly before I did - there's no way he would've known her unless-

When they got into the bar, a squadron of Restorationists all lying low from the law awaited them.