*Vunt*

Cracks in the fabric of reality shot out from a central point of origin, they travelled over 10-15 meters,

“Ah, shit,” A metal exoskeleton stumbled out of the origin, falling to the ground, “Release locks, I’m going to be sick.”

*Warning, environmental atmosphere unknown, beginning scanning, Warp energy radiation detected, shunt tubes received catastrophic damage. Secondary unknown radiation detected.*

Sam rolled over to his back, stomach acid burning his mouth. “Too late, check communications connection.”

*Communications is established through warp breach, but no other communications have been detected. Detecting reality fissure mend.*

“Shit, no other communications, System, stabilize the breach.” Sam got up to look around, he saw the purple cracks that were leaking warp energy start to close up.

*Warning, Reality unity too strong, requires stabilising grids deployed.*

Sam opened a cover on his arm, revealing a touch screen device, he started typing in the search terms, bringing up a list of stock, “I have 6 of them how many do you need.”

*4 is required*

Inputting the amount, blue holographic construct lines shot out, forming a 3d rendition of the devices he needed, before mass and substance started being filled in, 4 stabilising grids came into reality, Sam started moving them into position, around the rupture origin, it was shrinking at a rapid pace, while the sprawling cracks started receding.

The stabilising grids were 4 rectangular tubes, Sam could hardly get his hands around them, something he could do before, as he planted them into the ground around the origin. They were sticking out about a meter tall.

“Have these gotten bigger.”

*Negative*

Once ready, he pressed the button on one of them, it shot beams of green light out, finding other tubes of its kind, and in doing so activated them too. They rose, detecting the space anomaly and created a prism around it. The tubes shrunk, compressing the anomaly into a 50cm sphere, this compacted the anomaly, making it stronger, and more stable. The stabilising grids shrank to match its size, then parts of it started folding out connecting to each other and creating a prison.

*Atmosphere scanning finished. Findings: breathable, capable of sustaining life.*

“I know its capable of sustaining life, were in a forest. Is it capable of sustaining my life?”

*Affirmative. Unknown energy radiation detected, danger: unknown.*

“Take a sample swab of my mouth and expose it.” Sam said, before opening his mouth, a protraction in his mask, with a cotton swab extended in and took samples before extending it through small airlocks, out into the world. After a few moments, it brought the sample back in and did a preliminary scan.

*Unknown energy radiation determined to have no effect on sample.*

“Alright, unlock suit.”

A series of locks and pressure valves could be heard running along his suit.

It revealed a pale white skinned boy, with dirty blond hair, and vivid blue eyes. The face was young, quite young, “Where the hell am I, huh?” without the mask causing sound distortions, Sam finally noticed his voice had a higher pitch. “Computer, scan body, detect anomalies.”

*No damages detected, age regression detected estimated, 235 years, no augmentation anomalies detected, stem cells detected, aggressive body improvements are advisable to not waist opportunities.*

“235 years, I’m… I’m… 12, fucking warp shit, the empires crumbling.” He said as he readjusted his hair and refitted the helmet.

*It is advised not to criticise the empire during war in front of officials, as you may be seen as a defector, or charged with lowering moral.*

“Shut up, do something useful and find out where we are.”

*As you have already observed, we are in a forest. Beginning planetary cartography scan, beginning galactic cartography scan.*

“Scan for sentient life forms. Or man-made structures.” Sam started going through his storage deck again, spending a few minutes pulling out a ration bar, and a xp-85 pulse rifle, a teralux alcaic pistol, and an ionic power blade, standard issue given to all soldiers. He had to store them in the storage deck as he travelled between transport stations.

The items were stored in their place holders, while he chewed on the ration bar. He started looking around, it wasn’t quite right to call where he was a forest, the trees were sparce, and half the ground was rocky, he also seemed to be quite elevated, maybe on the side of a mountain, probably close to the poles as he could see a lot of tundra in the distance, not quite snowy, the place seemed warm.

“Computer, can you check axis of planet poles.”

*Planetary Axis scan in process, requires 2 local planetary days to calculate. Soot detected, 5 miles south-east 138o*

“Fire? man-made?” He looked in the direction, his visor zoomed in, allowing him to see a very thin black line raising at an angle into the sky. Then another, and another.

“I guess that way then.” He pulled another device out of his storage deck, and clamped it around the stability prison. The new device had multidirectional vector thrusters on it, allowing for remote control movement. He then began walking towards the fire in the distance, only for a loud groan to sound out behind him.

*Warning, stability prison cannot travel more than 1km meters an hour.*

“1km an hour? Fuck, I’d never get a chance to move anywhere with it.”

*Warning, stabilising prison not capable of withstanding reality fissure mending indefinitely, estimate 336 days until warp anomaly collapses.*

“Any more bad news.”

*No warp presence detected, except anomaly, unable to connect to warp grid through standard means.*

“So, I lose connection if this thing collapses. Where the fuck am I then, the warp is supposed to be everywhere.” Sam got another device out of his storage deck, he fitted it onto the stability prison, all these devices could plug in to each other, sharing drives to better coordinate. The new device was fitted on top of the prison, and part of it folded out to form an antenna dish.

*Connection established, range 35 km, relay stations are required to keep in contact beyond this range.*

“Right, make it follow us, I can’t be slowed down by it.”

--

“Get out of here young miss, we’ll hold them off.”

“Hahaha, you think you can stop me, Miss Su, renounce your affiliation to the Azure lotus Sect and become my concubine.”

“I’d rather die than be your main wife, never mind a concubine, and to betray the Azure Lotus Sect for some run-down 3rd rate sect is a joke.”

 “Why you…” the guy pulled out a silver spear from a spatial bag and threw it at her. Miss Su attempted to dodge, and managed to protect her fatal organs, but the spear still managed to penetrate her abdomen.

“Arrrg,”

“Miss Su, quickly run, you need to get away.” A junior member of her sect pleaded,

“I’ll kill you,” another ran at the guy who threw a spear, but one of his lackies intercepted, pulling him off to the side into a fight.

Miss Su pulled out the spear, “I will not run, even if I did, where would I go, we’re deep in the forest.”

“We need to try,” another junior grabbed her by her arm, and started running,

“Don’t let her get away, their numbers mean nothing in the face of true strength.” The guy had five lackies, while the girl had 8, but the Black panther sect members seemed stronger.

“Let go of me, what are you doing, we need to stand and fight.” Miss Su said.

“I know that you’ll lose face from running miss, and that’s why you wish to stay, but I’m kidnapping you, you are not running away.” The boy said

“Do you know what you’re saying, the elders would kill you for kidnapping you.”

The junior turned to her and smiled. “Miss Su, you don’t have to worry about me. As long as your safe, you are the future of the Sect.”

He turned back to face where he was running and missed the blush that came over her face. The words he said to her prevented any idea of resistance. Instead, tears started welling up in her eyes, these juniors were so willing to risk their life for her.

The blush didn’t last long, in fact most of the colour on her face began to drain, she was losing too much blood from the injuries.

They had been running for a good 10 minutes, when the boy was suddenly Kicked in the back, “Nooo, Jiangshan.” The boy hit his head on a rock and started bleeding,

“Your last bodyguard now dead, what are you going to choose?”

“Death,” She drew her sword and charged at him.

“Ha, a mere 37th rank refinement realm cultivator, dares challenge me, a 14th rank Path realm expert.” For all his gloating, he easily swashed her sword to the side and stabbed her right in the shoulder blade, damaging her lung.

She buckled to the ground; her legs no longer able to support her momentum. And she ended up rolling over the dirt. Her breathing started becoming ragged, and tears started forming in her eyes. Was it the fear of death, was it the hopeless situation she found herself in, her loneliness, she started coughing up blood?

“Damn it, a heavenly defining beauty, and I can’t have it? I can’t have you? I am the genius of the black panther Sect, if I can’t have you then no one can have you.” He walked over, sword in hand.

“You defy me? Fine, then die.”

“ROAR!” Suddenly a black chunk of mass came bulldozing out of the bushes and straight at him, swatting at him and sending him flying, crashing into a tree. Once it stopped moving, Miss Su managed to see what it was, A black armoured bear, she started chuckling, the tears didn’t stop, but she laughed, even fighting the pain to do so.

After the bear checked for any movements from the boy, his head pivoted towards Miss Su, and he started walking over on all fours, saliva dripping from his mouth, Miss Su knew her end was near, the bear’s claw stabbed into her wound, causing it to be wider, “Arrrhhh”. She screamed out in pain; the bear withdrew his claw and licked it.

*Pew, Pew, pew, pew,*

4 bolts of blue light slammed into its head, causing it to explode. Miss Su felt a flash of heat wash across her body, and scorching hot fluids stared raining down on her, although she seemed to be able to withstand it. The bear fell to its side, luckily not crushing Miss Su, a few moments later, she heard the thudding of heavy steps, and a man in a dark black suit of armour came into her vision.

“Well, well, what do we have here, Asians? Ethnicity seems to be that of Han… though, you look like shit.” He knelt, and a blue light materialised a spray can in a matter of moments. “Let’s stop the bleeding first, oh, and this is going to hurt.” He held the can towards her wound and sprayed some sticky substance covering her wound.

“Arrrg,” she finally fainted from the pain.

--

“Look at her, heavenly defining beauty, thinks she’s too good to hang around with us.”

“She’s so lucky, she is definitely going to be Hon Hou’s wife in the future,”

“The Genius of the White Dragon sect, our clans have managed to stay strong allies through marriages though out the centuries, and now its Miss Su’s turn.”

‘I thought you weren’t supposed to speak in the library,’ Miss Su was getting frustrated. Everywhere she went, people would gossip about her, how she’s so lucky that she’s the number 1 beauty and how her marriage has already been pawned off to the highest bidder. ‘I’ll get a meditation manual, it’s the only time I can stop the noise.’

She quickly chose her scroll and took it to the library master to have it signed out. On her way back to her dorm, she started getting a waft of cooked meat spread over her, it smelt delicious.

--

A rack, made of wood had been set up just outside a cave entrance, it had the giant black pelt draped over it. The paws emphasized that it used to be a bear, but the head was mostly missing.

There was an orange flickering light coming from within. Evidence of a campfire. Inside, the fire had skewers of meat being cooked. A sheet separated the fire from further inside, keeping the smoke out. But the heat was unobstructed. Past the sheet was two low fold-out beds, commonly seen in tent hospitals. Their occupiers hooked up to ventilation machines and IV drips. Sheets covered their bodies, with their blood stained ‘clothes’ off to the side.

Sam was looking over the scans of the girl, she seemed to sustain the most injuries. The sealant that he sprayed on her was temporary, she would need time to recover properly. But that was the weird thing, she was recovering… rapidly… they all were. If they were augmented humans like him, then he would understand, and the scans suggested some augmentation. But the problem was, they had no evidence of technology on them, no phones, or guns, their weapons didn’t show much advancement past cold blades.

They were made of some rare earth metals, that should show high advancements in metallurgy, but if they had that, why make swords. The metal used to create the older boy’s sword is even used in his pulse rifle, and was necessary to generating the plasma pulses. But a sword, why?

The clothes were another topic, clear demonstrations of hand-crafted clothing. Nothing that the kids had on them represented factory production. The only anomaly was that they had a massive build-up of this unknown energy radiation. In fact, it was so dense that Sam was able to create maps of its flow within the body, from the scan it followed the blood streams, and accumulated in the heart. At which, darker or used up energy would flow to the lungs and then out into the air, and fresh energy flowed in.

His ventilation machines were using pure air at first, however as per the scans, this was having an adverse reaction to them. But the solution came from another oddity, the bear. The bear was massive, for a bear that was, Sam had seen and subjugated plenty of giant monsters in his life. But for a bear. And Sam had a sneaking suspicion this had something to do with the massive crystalised heart. It seemed to be a materialised solid form of said energy.

Having no way round the ventilation poisoning the two were having, he opened up the oxygen tank and placed the crystal inside it. With the constant air flow, his scans showed that the crystal started to rapidly leak energy, that was soon fed directly to the three kids.

‘Can I still call them kids; my body is technically younger than them now. Scans say the older boy is 18, making him an official adult in the eyes of the law, while the dead boy he left was about 14, and the girl about 15.’ Sam looked over to the clothes, ‘the three had matching aesthetics, while differing in colour, like traditional ancient Chinese garbs, the girl and the dead boy had matching badges showing a light turquoise lotus, while the older kid had a different badge, a big black cat, probably a panther. School uniforms? Rival schools? They had weapons, and the girl’s wounds match the boy’s weapons, even though the bear made a mess of the one… maybe I should add restraints to them, I don’t want them kicking up a fuss if they woke early.’ He materialised hand cuffs and went over to strap them in.

*Bear meat cooked to optimal standards, remove meat from fire to prevent burning.*

Sam looked to the sheet that had an orange glow seeping through it. ‘Smells delicious. These herbs are good, maybe I should start grabbing samples of the area.’ He walked over and grabbed some meat, before tapping on his phone, accessing the storage deck remotely, he spawned 6 drone dogs, “go harvest as many plants as you can,” they ran off to fulfil the task while Sam walked back, and sat on a small boulder to eat, placing the plate of skewers on the table, he grabbed one, and began feasting, while in his other hand a transparent plastic tablet, with the body scans. It was constantly getting feedback from the wireless probes left on their bodies for monitoring.

With the two stable, Sam got lost in wonder over the patterns of the energy circulating the bodies, his skewers long gone, and more had been placed on the fire. ‘That’s interesting, the energy isn’t traveling though the blood system. The energy lines in the girls right arm seems to be stuck at a bottle neck, causing flow to build up and… leak,’ “Computer, open voice log: energy inside the body seems to be in some sort of tubing; First believed to be blood vessels, but observation of the girls right elbow joint suggests otherwise; energy flow seems to be caught in a bottle neck and seems to be leaking in the elbow area, while the blood flow seems to be unobstructed… the girl seems to have a bottle neck at the right wrist as well, but the bottleneck at the elbow restricts flow enough to obscure the bottleneck at the wrist… another bottle neck is observed on right knee and right ankle. Again the bottleneck extent on the ankle is pbscured by restricted flow from bottleneck in the knee.”

‘What to do, what to do, can I fix it? If this isn’t the blood stream, do I have the tools to touch it. I have the tools to scan it.’ “Computer, identify the tubing that is controlling energy flow.”

*Task added, begin identification scanning… requires assistance for scanning.*

“Explain,”

*Suggestion for scanning, requires solid or liquid substance of energy for probing.*

“Solid or liquid energy?”

*Solid: Bear crystalised heart, Liquid: lake radiating similar energy quarter of a mile down the cave.*

“Lake?” Sam turned towards the dark inner of the tunnel. “Show mapped out cave on heads up display.

A 3d rendition of bumpy tubing opened on his display. It was the cave, ¼ of a mile away was a large green dot in an enlarged cavern.

“I can’t test this on them, human testing is illegal, at least without results.”

*Solution: energy enriched creature discovered ½ mile south.*

“Fine, fine,” Sam checked his gear, before sprinting outside, the computer displayed directions and he shot off south. It took him just over a minute in the rough terrain to reach his destination, where he saw a white rabbit… with stag horns bending backwards down its back. “That’s new, is it the target?”

*Affirmative*

The rabbit spotted Sam just as he stopped running, and in moments bolted, Sam straight on its heels. It tried running under shrubbery, only for Sam to cleave through using his energy blade. In a split moment, he managed to reach out and grab the furball by its neck. Picking it up to face him, “Why, aren’t you a fast one.”

It was frozen in place due to how Sam was holding it. He sprinted back to the cave; he didn’t want to be away from his patients for too long.

Alarms from the computer started blaring as he reached the cave, but he ran straight through it and past the sheet before paying attention. “The fuck is that?” He came screeching to a halt.

*Alert, Alert, Giant snake detected.*

“Yeah, I detected that too.” Down the tunnel, about 30 yards was a giant snake head, taking up the entire size of the hole, “How did you not detect that before?”

*Warning, interference from target is preventing detailed scan.*

Sam cuffed and dropped the rabbit, who started shaking uncontrollably in the presence of the large python. The snake was slowly crawling its way here, sussing out the environment with its flickering tongue. Sam prepped his gun, aiming for the small slits, he could just make out the eyes. Obviously, something evolution didn’t pay much attention to with this creature.

Sam shot a single pulse, testing the effect, the blue flash of plasma smashed straight into the eye, only it had closed them due to the sudden flash of light, its eyes survived, but a large streak of burn marks spread past the eye. The snake rattled in pain. But then hissed and grew angry, moving towards Sam with more determination.

“Fuck, burn marks, that’s it? And now I’ve pissed it off.” Sam then fired a burst, focusing on the same spot, the snake recoiled from pain, and a few scales fell off, revealing some burnt flesh, but most of what was visible was still raw, and pulsing with blood. Sam started walking forwards, his gun was dealing some damage, so the next step was full auto, the cave and the snakes head lit up with a constant stream of blue flashes. It wailed in pain. The snake couldn’t go backwards, so it tried to go forwards, but the heavy ionic plasma had some mass to it and kept pushing it back.

The pulse rifle fired its last charge, and the cave went dark again. Sam removed the overheated uranium fuel cell, mag locking it to his back and reached for another one. The motion was fluid and well-practiced, but the snake didn’t miss the opportunity. It rushed forwards with enough speed to catch Sam off guard and slammed into him, causing him to skid several meters back. Both the motors in his suit and his own joints screeched in protest to the strains placed on them.

“Arrrg,” Sam roared to boost his metaphysical strength. He reached for his power blade, and activated it, ramming straight into the nostril of the beast. Being its second most used sense, the snake’s nostrils were full of nerve endings, and now they were set ablaze from the electromagnetic field surrounding the sword. The snake’s perception of its surroundings shut down as it went into shock and just started flailing around. Sam was thrown up against the cave wall from this before collapsing down to the ground.

“Shit,” he opened his visor in time to cough up blood, he felt the suit had constricted a bit around his chest, signs of indenting. Well as long as it didn’t restrict his fighting, he can address it later. ‘Get back in the fight Sam, you gonna let some overgrown snake beat you like this.’ He rose for his kneeling position and scanned the area for his blade. No success, ‘where the fucks it gone, I last had it… oh’ he looked at the flailing snake and could just about see the handle sticking out of the nose.

“Fine, do it the hard way,” Sam drew his pistol, the energy pulses were weaker than the rifle, and the range was shit, but the rate of fire, well, some people claimed it was a beam weapon. He aimed and went full auto. The snake was barraged into his side. The dumb ass had flung Sam towards his right side, and so most of the shots went straight into the already exposed flesh wounds.

The pistol magazine soon overheated, but Sam was able to see a small gap between its flesh, exposing its brain. The snake had started to calm down, and Sam felt like it was weeping from the pain. “Shit man, now I’ve got the feels, I mean, I did attack first.”

“Computer, charge right glove, prepare for electrostatic glove discharge.”

*Warning, energy will be reduced to 10% for creature of this size.*

“Do it anyway, the beast has suffered too much harm.”

*Affirmative*

A buzzing sound could be heard around the glove, and it started to crackle with tiny sparks discharging into the air. He tightened his leg muscles, and the servos revved in unison. Sam shot forwards and aimed his hand straight into the opening, where the brain was. The snake went unaware, even if it relied on its vision, the right eye was destroyed from the pulse rifle earlier.

The hand went a few inches in. mainly stopped by the surrounding muscle, the gap being slightly too small for his fist, but the electrostatic field discharged around the brain, instantly shutting it down, severing all pain receptors, ending its suffering. “Sorry man, you didn’t show any signs of aggression and were merely checking out the commotion of your home.” Sam placed his palm across some of the intact scales. “I just jumped to instinct.”

*Power 10% turning off unnecessary functions, beginning recharge cycle.*

Sam could feel the servos shutting down. “Fuck, this suit is a lot heavier now my muscles are undeveloped.” He grumbled, as he started pulling his sword out of the nostril and picked up the pulse rifle. “Man, I’m going to have energy problems soon, I need to find a source of irradiated metals, I won’t be able to store this thing until my energy is recharged.”

Sam went over and picked up the rabbit, with the python dead it seemed to have calmed down. “Bath time.”

Luckily, the python’s head was just overtly fatter than the rest of the body, he was able to move down the cave with little obstruction. He reached the lake in no time, a soft blue glow released from the surface, it looked crystal clear, and Sam wasn’t sure if he was able to see the bottom or not.

“Computer, scan the pool for hostiles”

*Error, scan can only penetrate 5 meters.*

“Damn,” Sam looked at the rabbit, it seemed excited looking at the pool. He raised it in front of him and dangled it over the lake. 1 minute went by, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, “I suppose there’s no creatures, or your just not editable little buddy.”

Sam knelt down, “Prepare for scanning.” And plunged the rabbit into the lake.

*Scanning starting. Warning, suit absorbing unknown energy, unknown effect.*

“Ooh,” Sam de-clipped his other gauntlet and dropped it on the side. Removing the fabric glove underneath with his teeth, he now had an exposed hand, which he decided to dip a finger into the lake. It had a strong viscus texture.

*Scanning complete: energy tubing identified.*

Sam pulled the rabbit out, which now looked both ecstatic and terrified, breathing rapidly to catch its breath back. “Looks like you can’t breathe under it.”

*Error, no longer able to detect energy tubing. Warning, energy has been absorbed through the finger, unknown reaction.*

Sam retracted his finger and placed it in his mouth, tasting the liquid, it evaporated instantly inside, and he felt a rush go to his head, making him fell light for a second. ‘Some type of drug or something.’

“Right then, better start moving everything over.” Reattaching his glove, he started moving back to the patients.

“Now I need ideas for tools to work with.”

*Suggestion; use fragments from the snake’s crystal heart to create scalpels, tweezers, and needles.*

“That’s an idea?” getting to work, an hour went by before he finished dragging the patients over to the pool. Most of the time was spent shaving off useful pieces for the procedure. Stripping the girl almost naked, saving a few pieces of cloth to hide her dignity. He carefully lowered her into the pool. She still had the ventilator mask on and IV drips for drugs. She sunk in about a few meters but seemed to be more buoyant than the deeper part of the lake.

*Body recovery is improving; energy being absorbed from the pool.*

“Shall I just dump the other one into it. Computer scan the girl.”

*Scanning; energy tubing discovered, clamping discovered in right elbow, right wrist, right knee joint, right ankle. Leakage discovered above all clamped areas; energy pressure build up is presumed cause. Energy leakage seems to cause a slow poisoning effect in effected areas.*

“Ideally, we would want to place a tube over them, but where would we get the materials.” Sam then looked to the rabbit; didn’t it have the same tubing.

*Tubing detected on rabbit too small to be used, Suggestion; Snake.*

“The python, its dead, does it still have these tubes.” After stripping the boy down, and using a cloth to cover his private area, Sam attached the patient to a hoist, and dumped him into the lake. He then walked off to fetch the python. Dragging it back was a hassle, the thing weighed a few tons he reckoned.

“Bloody hell, ever heard of a diet.” He dropped the tail end into the lake, while setting up clamps and wiring to suspend the head above.

*Scanning complete, Energy tubing still intact, highlighting best pieces for operation*

His visor showed a map of the inner tubing of the snake. “Wait, what if these don’t seal up from end to end.”

*Suggestion; the rabbit tubing is thin enough to use as stitching,*

“Is that why you suggested the needle? I was wondering about that.”

Sam stripped his suit, and removed all but his boxers and visor, hooking it up to the ventilation shaft he dove into the lake.

*Warning, unknown energy being consumed. Effects: unknown.*

“Should be fine, record all findings.” He moved over to the girl, tools in hand, and got to work, he used normal scalpels to slice open the tough skin, a lot tougher for someone not augmented, but he had the strength to power through. With his normal vision, it didn’t seem too out of place for a regular human, the muscle tissue seemed condense, and strengthened, and bone density was enviable, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Sam switched the visor vision to see the tubing, a thick mist like coating covered the arteries and veins, “this is amazing, is it an overlapping dimension or something?” he pulled over the crystal scalpel, which seemed to be resonating a little. “Er, is this going to be a problem.” He placed it on the flesh, but it just sunk through it with no resistance, even the metal handle slid right through. He pulled it back quickly, but there was no scar or cut left. “The fuck.”

*Scalpel is absorbing surrounding energy, dimensional shift patterns recognised, evidence supports your hypothesis.*

“So, why isn’t it falling out of my hand?”

*Answer: Unknown,*

“Great, let’s get back to work.” He moved the scalpel over the energy tubing, this time he felt resistance, “Oh, that is good, I might not damage the arteries this way.” As he touched the Energy tubing, the connection started shining blue, as if he was welding the pieces, this didn’t seem to hinder his progress, so he carried on. He made a little incision across the tubing, cutting a piece out.

*Energy leakage detected; no penetration of artery detected.*

“Good, good, I better prepare the materials for fixing.” He swam over to the snake body and started dissecting. It took a while, and a power grinder to remove the scales, and flesh, but he was soon able to start harvesting the tubes.

He spent the better part of the night, and all throughout the day, working on fixing the energy tubing. Near the end he even got a welcome surprise.

*Notification: the body is accepting the new tubing, the new tubing added to the right wrist is fusing with the girl’s own tubing.*

“Nice.”

Another day went by, and the healing had been done, the wounds had all sealed up, so Sam dragged them out of the lake, he started deconstructing all of his stuff, returning them to his storage deck, the python followed suit as well. He then spawned 8 pumpjack dogs, and 6 miner dogs “4 of you start pumping this water into your containers, and the rest start exploring this cave for any other goodies.”

*Roger, Roger* the dogs scurried off to do their things.

He carried each patient back to the beds near the entrance of the cave and cuffed them to it.

He kept the ventilation masks and iv drips in, and set up their vitals on the desk computer.

“Fuck man, I haven’t rested since I got here,” he yawned and stretched his arms before sitting at the desk checking over the tubing scans of each person, they were also set up on the computer which had 5 screens, 1 for each of the energy scans, one for vitals and the final two had other medical readings. He was fascinated by the flows of energy through each of their bodies. both were set up, side by side and he was going over the difference. He noticed that the energy seemed to be denser in the older boy’s body, compared to the girl’s.

“Computer play some music, 1980s hits.”

Do-do, dodododododo, duun duun dun duun duun

“Skip”

Dun Dundun dun dundun dududu-du dudududu-du hunh un…

--

Wan Wangen suddenly woke up. He began panicking, there was something strapped to his face, and he was in an unknown place. However, being a martial cultivator all his life, he was able to remain calm and composed.

He tried raising his hands to remove his mask but found them bound with metal cufflinks. This spiked his panic as well as causing him to get angry. His hearing was coming back to him, he could hear... music, and someone singing.

Ooh-ooh-ooh

Ain’t got no cash ain’t got no style,

Ain’t got no gal to make you smile

But don’t worry be happy

‘Cause when you’re worried your face will frown

And that will bring

Everybody down

So don’t worry be happy.

‘The hell is this, where’s it coming from.’ He looked around and noticed Su Mei was also strapped down onto beds. She was strapped with a mask just like him and had some tubing entering her arms. Liquid was flowing down it. He looked down his body and saw the same thing on him as well.

He continued looking around what he was sure of, was a cave. He saw a boy slumped over a desk, asleep. ‘a mortal? What’s going on.’

“Unn” Wangen heard Su Mie stir, the waft of meat bringing her back to the living. He looked over to see her start panicking but quickly composed herself, they were trained, disciplined warriors and cultivators, trained to think and assess the situations they find themselves in. she too started looking around, and froze when her eyes locked onto Wan Wangen’s. sweat was pouring down the back of her neck, both from his presence, and the situation she found herself in.

Wangen started blinking at her, getting her attention then turned his head, she looked in the direction to see a body slumped over a desk. ‘A mortal? 12? Where are we?’ she continued looking around to scan the surroundings, they were in a cave of some sorts. The feeling of all sorts of devices on her started getting uncomfortable, so she looked down to see what they were.

She noticed that she was under a thin blanket, that only went up so far, and a pure white tunic, at her angle she could see her cleavage, and noticed she didn’t have any underwear on her chest, instead, some instruments were stuck to her bare skin, both on top of her boobs just as the cleavage was forming, and in the valley between them. Her face flushed red, then she raged in killing intent, only to have it squashed by Wangen’s.

She looked over, and saw him giving her a stern look, signalling to keep her calm. She looked back at the boy who seemed to be the only foreigner, but past him, she saw the screens mapping their meridians. ‘What the hell.’

“Wha, wha, wha, where am I? oh, I’m here.” The boy suddenly lifted his head. “What time is it.”

*8:36 am* a monotonous voice called out. Startling the two patients, they didn’t realise that there was another being here.

“Heaaaaaah,” the boy yawned and stretched his back as he got up. “Man, I miss my comfy bed.” He turned and walked over to Wangen, “you guys should have woken by now, what’s going on.” He undid the strap and pulled the mask off before he began removing the IV drip and probes.

He looked down at the boy’s face, “Man you must be one of those pretty boy’s what are you sleeping beauty, waiting for princess charming to kiss you and remove the sleeping curse,”

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Sam suddenly heard a snicker from the girl on the other side that was quickly suppressed, he pretended not to notice and moved over to her. Removing her mask and IV drip, before removing her probes, Su Mei could feel him rustling around under the neck of her tunic, she suddenly opened her eyes, face flushed red “Bastard, what are you doing.”

Sam, however, wasn’t caught off guard, “just removing my probes.”

“You knew I was awake?”

“You both are, I figured it out the moment I turned around and saw you.”

“Mortal, what is the meaning of keeping us hostage. And these things, what are you doing to us.”

“Hostage?” Sam stared at him in confusion. “These are medical tools to help with your recovery.”

“You claim we are not hostages and yet you imprison us and inject unknown substances into our bodies, mortal. Do you know who you are dealing with?” Wangen asked.

“I don’t really understand your reasoning behind calling me a mortal when I found you on the verge of death, but if you are referring to the handcuffs, that is for your own safeties, and I don’t know who you are, but I know you have a tendency for violence, so you are an unknown danger to me too.”

“Who could possibly cause me, Wan Wangen Harm.”

Sam walked over to the desk and picked up a sword, “Do you recognise this?”

“Yes, that is my sword.” Wangen answered. “How dare you take it from me.”

“And you miss, do you recognise this sword.”

“Yes, it is Wangen’s sword.”

“And do you remember what it was doing the last time you saw it.”

“It was being… stabbed into my shoulder,” Su Mei tried to stiffen a sniffle, but her wet eyes were visible. Going over the event reminded her of how close to death she had truly been.

“I do not know the reason why you were fighting, weather it was a one-sided fight or not, and that isn’t my business, however, now that you are my patients, your safety is now my business. I can’t have the first one waking up to claim the life of the other can I.” Sam looked at Wangen, who reluctantly rescinded.

Sam started dematerialising all of his equipment with his phone, before equipping the suit that was off to the side.

“Mortal, how are you able to operate a spiritual storage plaque?” Wangen asked.

“Why do you keep referring to me as a mortal?” Sam asked. “You’re a mortal too.”

“How dare you call me a mortal, I am an immortal cultivator,”

“You don’t sound very immortal to me, you almost died to that overgrown bear.” Sam walked over to the desk and dematerialised it, the only things left was the roasting meat, the two beds, and the two’s equipment’s, which he started picking up. He placed them on the two, and activated the auto release function on the handcuffs, they too were dematerialised.

Freed the duo sprung up, drawing their weapons from their rings, and got into a fighting stance, warding off against each other, 1vs1.

“I’ve just spent almost 50,000-star credits treating your injuries and bringing you back to full health, I swear to the crumbling empire.”

“Silence mortal do not interfere in the affairs of cultivators,” Wangen demanded, Su Mei on the other hand said nothing, Sam could tell she was scared of this Wangen. In a moment he struck, Su Mei Yelped, trying to dodge the blow.

Only the attack didn’t come, Sam was suddenly standing in the way, His hand firmly gripping the wrist of Wangen, whose face had turned a deathly pale. Wangen couldn’t move his arm, it was locked in place by an unsurmountable weight.

“You… Dare… interfere mortal, do… you know… who I am?” Wangen stuttered in absolute horror.

‘Damn, this bastard is strong, I couldn’t detect any strong enhancements,’ Sam barely managed to maintain the illusion of immovable. “I have just spent the last 3-4 days providing intensive medical care to allow the two of you to recover what should take you months, worth 12,000-star credits for you, and 28,200-star credits for Su Mei, pay for their medical bills and I’ll stop interfering.”

“I’ve… never heard… of such… currency.”

“100 Star credits is worth 1 troy ounce gold bar.”

“Yo… you spent… that… that… much on our… medical treatment, I… did not… ask you… to treat me.”

“I know, and so I wasn’t going to charge you, but now, you’ve pissed me off.”

“I’m not… going to pay… for her’s.”

Sam started clamping down, causing Wangen’s bones to groan from the stress.

“Then pay for yours and piss off.”

Wangen struggled for a bit, but not getting any leeway gave in, he got a pouch out of his ring with his other hand, and the pouch started filling up with something, he then chucked it to Sam, “Here, 25 medium spirit crystals, and 20 small spirit crystals.”

Sam took a glance, the pouch “what’s this, it’s not gold, nor star credits.”

“It’s our currency… 21 small spirit crystals per gold ounce… 1 medium spirit crystal is equal to 100 small crystals.”

Sam tilted his head, still keeping an eye on Wangen, but signifying a confirmation from the other.

“Yes, he’s right,” Su Mei called out.

“I see,” Sam dematerialised the crystals and a four-page document was materialised in its place, he passed it to Wangen and pushed him with the connected arm and let go, Wangen took half a dozen steps back. He hesitated, looking at Sam, then at Su Mei, then back at Sam, before deciding to turn tail and run, still holding the pages in his hands.

Tension seemed to drop quite rapidly with Wangen gone. Sam turned to Su Mei, “Are you ok?”

“Erm, Yes Brother Sam, thank you for saving me.” Su Mei said

“Brother Sam?” Sam raised an eyebrow. He started noticing the tightness of his chest again. “Damn I still need to repair the chest plate.”

“Those medical costs you mentioned?” Su Mei asked

“Relax, I wasn’t even going to bring it up, but that guy just pissed me off.” Sam finished packing up. “Want some bear meat before we leave.”

Sam started picking up the skewers and handing 2 over. “Hungry”

Su Mei accepted the skewers as Sam started digging in. Su Mei took a bite and felt an explosion of flavours pour through her mouth, then the spirit energy started seeping in from the meat, she began to panic, not realising that it had come from a spirit beast, especially with Sam’s reaction. But the energy just gently washed over her, nourishing her meridians. Su Mei’s eyes grew wide in shock.

“How are we able to eat spirit beast meat?” Su Mei asked Sam

Sam looked at her in confusion, and slowly spoke, “Spirit beast meat? This? I... Er... suppose we start... with chewing it.”

“No, we shouldn’t be able to handle the spirit energy within the beast, it should be too wild,” Su Mei jumped in excitement, the nourishing effect over her body made her ecstatic, “This is revolutionary, with a few meals like this a month we would be able to improve leaps and bounds.” Su Mei then panicked from embarrassment from the display she just put on, especially when she noticed that Sam was watching her amused. “My apologies, I didn’t know what came over me.”

“Never mind, well seeing as the method of cooking spirit meat is valuable, I’ll treat it as a trade secret.” Sam flipped out his phone and a few moments a 9-page document materialised for Su Mei. “Right, these are the documents explaining the medical procedure you underwent, well, I’ll be off now.” Sam left her as she started reading the front page, and reached the outside world, breathing in the fresh air. He started faffing with his phone, replacing his bulky pressurised armoured suit for a slimmer down version, that was a lighter power suit, designed for agility, but lacked the pressurisation ability then he got out a pair of joggers and jacket that was able to go over it.

“Wait, I…”

Sam turned his head. “What?”

“Erm, where are you going?”

“Don’t know, I’m not from around here. So, I’ll probably wander through the forest until I find something man made, like a path.” Sam shrugged, and then carried on surveying his surroundings, his warp prison caught up behind him, startling Su Mei.

“What on earth is that?”

“It’s the method from which I travelled here, however I don’t know how, or if its wise to step back through it.”

“It looks like a dimensional fissure.”

“You are quite observant.” Sam finished packing the rest of his gear before heading for the exit.

Su Mei quickly followed out “Wait… I, I, I can take you to our clan, you’ll be rewarded for bringing me there, it’s on the mountain range of Shan-Sheng, the city of Shan-Zhen is at the base, the capital of the Shan-Sheng province.”

“I don’t really need a reward, otherwise I would have asked for you to pay the medical bill.” Sam asked as he looked around the forest, soon 6 collie sized robots came out of the thicket. Su Mei hid behind Sam, whom they seemed to be moving towards, stopping at his foot.

Sam Bent down and pulled out connecter wires from each of the dogs, connecting it using USB-j ports, directly with his storage deck. He watched the screen as contents were being filtered over. At which point he had an idea and rose, turning to the scared Su Mei.

“You called that bear a spirit beast right, why is that?” Sam asked.

“Erm, because of the spirit chi energy it has accumulated.”

“And that spirit chi energy, is that what’s flowing through your body?”

“Erm, Yes, it’s the energy that’s all around us and in the earth, we are called cultivators, because we cultivate this energy within ourselves.” Su Mei explained, keeping her eyes on the metal creatures.

“Say if there was a large lake, a crystal-clear lake, that was like a liquidated form of this energy, what would you call that.”

“A Spirit Spring,” her eyes lit up, “You found something like that?”

“Erm, no, not at all.” Sam dematerialised the 6 dogs and moments afterwards 14 new ones, with different designs came from within the cave, Su Mei noticed that 8 of them had cylinders on their backs, with the glass viewing port suggesting that some of them were nearly full.

“Hey, that Wangen guy, he’s part of the black panther sect, which claims this territory, you said I am your patient, and that my safety is your business.”

“Ah, yeah, that was the case until you accepted those papers. Which states on the back that all costs are wavered, and you are no longer in my care.”

Su Mei flipped to the back page to read

“But, with a promise of payment for that, up until we reach your sect, then your safety is my concern, oh and the hourly care rate is 160 an hour.”

“You Bastard!”

“Said the girl who received expensive medical treatment for free and still expects bodyguard service on top of that for free. No matter how generous I’d like to be, I won’t be taken advantage off.”

Su Mei struggled for a moment, “Fine, I’ll accept your deal.” She handed the papers back.

“Right, as you have suggested, that guy might be coming back with stronger companions, so, let’s go. Which way was the city again, and how far.”

“Erm,” Su Mei turned with panic from Sam’s reminder. “It's south, about 250 miles away. Err, 5 days away, shit, 160 credits an hour. If I could fly on a sword, it would be two days”

Sam paused in his stride, turned, and asked sceptically, “The nearest city is 250 miles away?”

“No, the nearest city is 50 miles east, Don-Zhen, but it is ruled by the black panther sect, which is where Wangen is from, it is Don-Sheng Province, under the Wuhan states jurisdiction. They lay claim to this forest in the Pan-Sheng province, but the other sects don’t recognise it. However, an agreement has been made to only allow the younger generation to hunt here. Anyone over 30 would be considered as poachers in the Black Panther Lands.”

“I see, Lets go then,” Sam started walking south. With Su Mei following him.

“What was those... metal dogs?” Su Mei asked.

“Harvester drones, they’ve been collecting flora and fauna over the area for later research as well as minerals to research.”

The two spend a good 2 hours travelling 5 miles in the forest before finally coming out of it, it was grass lands from here for about 3-4 miles and Sam was able to see farmlands start to spring up in the distance. The group travelled an extra mile until they reached a dirt road. Sam stopped and started faffing with his phone.

“It’s dangerous to remain here, with Wangen already making an attempt on my life some of his elders will make a move to cover up the fact by finishing off the job.” Su Mei said nervously.

“Relax,” Sam activated his storage deck to start materialising. It started forming a long curving box, forming two wheels underneath, with more and more details being rendered in, before the blue light constructs started turning into physical matter.

“What is that.”

“Suzuki Hayabusa 5 gen, 1940cc motorbike.” The pristine white shine alone was something Su Mei had never seen, the front looked fierce, she felt like frozen prey looking at the headlights, “Put this on,” Sam gave her a bike helmet, its style and colour in line with the bike’s overall aesthetic.

“Huh?” she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the helmet, but looking at Sam who was already mounted on it, with a similar helmet, she copied.

“Can you hear me.” She heard his voice coming from the side of her head.

“Huh, what, where’s your voice coming from.”

“Calm down, they are speakers, they will allow us to communicate over short distances. Come on get on behind.”

“Get on? behind?” she stuttered for a bit, wasn’t this too intimate,

“Come on hurry up, they could be back by now,” Sam looked towards the east, which he then noticed a dozen black silhouettes in the sky, “What is that.”

“It’s them, quick,” Su Mei stopped hesitating, and jumped on the back.

“Wrap your arms around my waist and don’t let go.”

“What, I can’t do that,”

“Now.” The people were getting closer, and Sam was finally able to see details, they were flying on… swords.

“Fine,” She wrapped her arms around him,

“We need some music before we go,”

and he started the bike.

*ooooooooooooooooooooo, dun nun nun dun nun, dun nun nun dun nun, dun nun nun dun nun*

“This is a good one,” suddenly music was blasting through the bike speakers.

“Do we really have time for this,”

“Ah, but we need classic music to ride, and this is a good classic.” Sam started turning the key

“You think you have a chance to escape, and what is this awful racket” the middle-aged man in front, dressed in regal clothes with the black panther crest on his chest boomed out.

*Chi-chi-chi-chi-tik, Vrom, vroom Vrooom VROOOOOOOOM* the 6-cylinder hydrogen combustion engine revved to life, frightening Su Mei, and causing the Black panther sect members to halt a bit and tense up, only Xing carried on, his guard on high alert. the music came back.

Once upon a time not so long ago

Tommy used to work on the docks, union's been on strike

He's down on his luck, it's tough, so tough

“Hey, old man, if that was your fastest speed, then save yourself the embarrassment and don’t chase us.”

Breaks released, manual into first, his accelerator at max, the bike was forced into a front wheely from the power, as the rear wheel tried biting into the earth, before the front wheel slamming back down,

“Insolents, you’ll die along with that wretched whore’s daughter, get him,” Wan Xing led the charge, as the elders shot at him on their flying swords.

Su Mei’s organs felt like they were being left behind as the 3 second bike’s velocity climbed. “ahhhhhh” Su Mei let out a high-pitched scream.

Xing had a head start already at speed and was a breaths away from the bike, but its power was just too much, and its speed overtook his. Xing forced more power to keep up, as they shot off into the distance, already passing in and out of the nearby village, the people running and diving off the beaten path, still, Sam had to do some quick turns and slides to avoid some of the villages, within 10 seconds he had a 1 meter gap, within 9 a two meter gap, within 30 seconds Wan Xing started to realise the futility of his efforts, and as Sam started to shift around a shallow corner, he threw something at his head.

“Ha, you think this trinket can hurt me,” he said as he grabbed the object,

Woah, we’re half way there

Woah, livin’ on a prayer

Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear.

*Bang* a flash of bright light came out of Wan Xing’s hand, blinding and deafening him, but for a grand elder of the black panther sect, it only took over a few seconds to recover, only for him to notice the gap between them had doubled, blue flames shooting out of the bike’s rear exhaust.

“Fuck,” he threw what was left of the crumpled canister to the ground as he came to a stop, the elders only managing to catch up to him a few seconds afterwards.

“What do we do now father?” Wangen asked, he was being carried on the sword of one of the elders.

“Shut up, you couldn’t even do one simple job without being thwarted by some random bear. The only thing we can do is deny any claims they make. It’s our word against theirs.”

**

After losing sight of them over the horizon, Sam reduced his speed to roughly 130 miles per hour.

Su Mei was still breathing raggedly, frightened by the sight coming at her. Only when the trees were a second away was it obvious that they weren’t heading for a collision course.

“Hey, there’s a town up ahead, which way do I go.” Su Mei could barely hear over the radio and engine,

“Erm, what?”

“Which way?” Sam reduced the volume.

“Turn right, huh… we’re at Lou-chi town already?” Sam could see a town built at a three-way junction, there was a small, fortified castle or manner on top of the far hill from him, and the two other roads curved around it. Unlike the simple wooden huts of the three villages he drove past, this town had the luxury to care about an identity, Sam could see traditional Chinese roofing and architecture, ‘Is this ancient China, my age regressed when I entered, but did I travel through time as well. No, earth didn’t have people flying on swords. But where have I heard that before.’

Sam reminiscent, trying to sieve through over 200 years of memories. Struggling to go back to when he was a kid, he remembered reading through a lot of poorly translated foreign literature, ‘Wait, I remember this setting, wanding, no, xianding, xiandia, xianxia, Xianxia novels.’

Sam was going through his memories of the stories, as he drove down the main road, there was quite a few carriages either parked on the side, or traveling up and down, Sam had reduced his speed a bit, but was still swerving around them causing stress to the horses and people, still, was it a miracle that he didn’t hit anyone?

Su Mei was getting nervous as they tilted around the corner, her face coming quite close to the dirt, the bike veered right, but Sam seemed to be calmly driving, almost as if he wasn’t paying attention and just turning on instinct. She then saw mounted guards running out of the manor towards them, down the hill, only they were too late, Sam was past the exit of the town, and was speeding up again now it was out of the residential zone. The guards had just reached the village perimeter when the bike was already 2 miles down the road.

‘What do I know about Xianxia, its based off China’s mythology, pseudoscience maybe, but was it here, was that myth real here. What terms can I use to check, qi, qigong,”

“Qi, is that the same as chi?” Sam asked, startling Su Mei,

“Huh? What?”

“Qi, Chi, Ki, are these all the same?”

“Erm, yes, we call it Chi here, but it is also referred to as Qi, and well, I heard that the northerners calls it Ki,”

“What about Qigong, is that wat you are, a practitioner of cultivation, Qigong,”

“Qigong means the practice of cultivating Qi, we are not qigong, we perform qigong.” Su Mei explained,

‘Great, now I have some reference of this world, maybe I can use it to help me navigate.’ “So, anyone can become a cultivator?”

“No, not anyone, everyone can step into the dantain formation realm, but only 1 in 10 people will complete all nine stages and form a dantain, heading into the Foundation realm, only if you get there at the age of 10, are you even worth looking at by your family to invest in. There are 54 stages at the mortal construction realm, split into 6 main constructs, Organ, Bone, Blood, Muscle, Soul, mind. Each construct can be worked on independently, and usually needs different, but sometime overlapping, processes to refine.” Su Mei explained.

“And what realm are you?”

“Me, I was rank 37th of the cultivator realm, but I guess I should have regressed since the injury.” Su Mei closed her eyes, and Sam’s HUD informed him that energy was swirling around her. She suddenly opened her eyes in shock, turning to look at his back in awe,

“Er, what? What is it?”

“I, I, I didn’t regress, I advanced, by 2 ranks in each construct, I’m rank 49 of the Refinement realm, how?”

“Donno, Erm, which way next?” Sam asked.

She looked up over his shoulders, he was practically lying on the bike, and lifting her head a bit, she could tell why, with the battering of the wind. She noticed another town in the distance, this time it was large enough to afford a wall, they both saw the gates starting to close and dots started fleeing left and right, “Were already at Pan-nan town,”

“Directions.”

“Oh, erm, left, you want to go left, heading south through the woods,” She pointed at a sparce forest, although only trees were visible, the shrubbery removed unnaturally, Sam tilted left causing Su Mei to hug him tightly. He cut between a path in between 2 rice fields.

“HEY, I almost fell!” Su Mei screamed at him.

“I told you to hold on.”

Sam noticed more and more soldiers appearing on the wall, while others were running round to keep up, but it didn’t take long for Sam to get on the South Road, “Hey, one of those flags has the same crest as yours.”

“Yes, we are in the Lotus Sects territory, Shan-Sheng province.”

“I see,” Sam found reason behind it, based on his notices so far, he could reason that this worlds communication ability was far lacking. “Still, back to the previous topic, how do you create a dantain.”

“Err,” Su Mei was stuck from the sudden change. “You need to accumulate enough chi into you, usually through a breathing technique, until your body is filled with the gaseous energy, and keep doing it until it gets denser and denser, until a spark is formed in your centre, this will absorb all of the gas and create your dantain fire.” she explained.

“A fusion reaction? like how the sun and stars are made?”

“Fusion reaction?” Su Mei looked confused. “The first emperor created the sun back in the time when darkness ruled the land 10,000 years ago.”

“Er yeah, sure he did.”

“You doubt me, then who made it,”

“One does not simply make a star,”

“A star, we are talking about the sun,”

“Which is a star, simply the closest star, and therefore has the biggest impact on your lives, but in the stary night sky that you see, anything blue is bigger than this sun by at least a magnitude of a 1000, furthermore, you said it was created 10,000 years ago, based on this suns colour and brightness, I’d say it’s about 4.6 billion years old. This world should have been created as a result of the stars birth, and would have formed something tangible in the following 100 million years. Life on this planet probably didn’t start for another billion years, and trust me, humans are probably one of the youngest species on this planet. Not even 100,000 years old”

“That, but that, that’s impossible, that’s not what we learned at the sect.”

“No offence, but from what I’m seeing as we drive by, this world is far too primitive to even build the tools necessary to gaze at the stars properly.” Sam felt his armour squeeze a bit. “Haha,”

 “What about you, what is your world like,”

“World? Miss, it is not one world, I come from, I have lived on many worlds, conquered a few as well, while also defending some from being conquered too, we have the ability to travel the stars, discover new worlds, wage wars on scales you couldn’t even begin to imagine. In fact, I was traveling to the frontier worlds, where the fighting was the thickest, as a combat doctor, when the method I was using to travel malfunction, and found myself here.”

“That’s crazy, I don’t believe you,”

“Fair enough, I don’t believe you about some random guy creating a sun.”

“He isn’t some random guy. He was the first human emperor, who united humanity against the darkness and created the sun by sacrificing himself.”

“Right, and that’s what, supposed to be his dantain or something.”

“Yes,”

“Really, I was being sarcastic, but you really think that was this guy’s dantain.

“Absolutely, he was the first cultivator with an immortal yang body, he used his energy to locate a pure yang dimension, and consumed it during his sacrifice to create the sun.”

“Great, I’m stuck with some cult chick.”

Su Mei tried squeezing his waist even harder to hurt him, but it just felt cute, “Who are you calling a cult chick.”

“Look, up ahead, where are we going now?” the towns were getting bigger as they kept driving, and more and more traffic was on the roads.

“Jing-sing already? Straight through, we don’t have to que up, I’m a cultivator of the Azure lotus sect.”

“If you say so,” Sam revved up to the gate, past the disgruntled merchants, who were all hoping for an embarrassing send back, as they leaned over to watch.

But to their disappointment the duo was let through, the guards even bowed a few times in apology for stopping them.

“Hey, why are you letting some nobodies cut through, do you know who I am, and yet you make me que up here.” A disgruntled pompous merchant called out.

“Shut up, get back in line”

“Hey isn’t that Jay Feng, of the feng merchants’ commerce.” Another merchant called out.

“How dare you tell me to shut up, if you’re going to let some nobodies on some weird beast through, then you should be celebrating my entry.”

“Guards, grab this bastard and beat him, confiscate half his stuff as tax,” the captain called out.

“Hey, hey, you can’t do this to me, do you know who I am.” Jay Feng called out. “My father will hear about this.” *Puur* “Ahh,” *puur, puur* “Stop, stop punching my face,” *puur* “A merchants face makes half the money, are you leaving me with no bread to eat.” *puur* the guards dropped him and left him to lie there as they returned to their duty. The merchants looked on, entertained written on their faces.

**

“The hell,”

“What?”

“I just saw the guards back ther beat up a merchant,”

Su Mei looked back, “Jay Feng, figures, probably made a comment about us getting privilege,”

“You know him.”

“The feng family are a prominent merchant commerce in the Shan-nan province, they even have some stalls in the sect’s main mountain valley, as well as being a contracted supplier of the sect. some of their family members are also disciples of the sect, on the other hand… Jay Feng is known infamously for his mouth.” Su Mei explained.

“An arrogant bastard with connections then, saying that, I did just use our connection to skip the que.”

“Well, his father is the heir to the commerce, and Jay Feng is the oldest non cultivator out of his siblings, hence he stands to inherit a small fortune. His father is also backed by my 3rd uncle.”

“Friend or foe, this uncle.”

“A friend to the clan, but a foe to my father.”

“I see, and why does not being a cultivator matter for the commerce inheritance.”

“It is too wasteful for a cultivator to run the commerce, and as a middling family, only 1 in 4 members will become cultivators. If they ran the commerce, it will not only waste the talents of the non-cultivators, but also the cultivators themselves.”

“I see.”

“Still, it’s always good to see Jay Feng beaten.”

“Just watch out for a sucker punch from your uncle.”

“Huh? My uncle won’t punch me.”

In a matter of seconds, they were out the other side of the town and on the highway again.

“Finally, a gravel road, even that town was the first to have worn away gravel roads.”

“Why would we waste our time and resources, this is already good for carriages. What need is there to improve, furthermore there isn’t much traffic this way. We are still West of Shan-nan, which is one of the two western most provinces of the wushu state, which again, is the west most state of the Wu Empire”

“Ah, my bad for trying to suggest ideas that made my home worlds filthy rich and powerful. I take it you don’t have rail road’s either.”

“Rail roads?”

“Never mind. Anyway, how far are we away from your sect?”

“Umm, 30 miles if that. This thing is really fast.”

“It’s a bike,”

“Right, bike.”

The pair was drive up around a mountain road trying to get past it. The road travelled parallel with the mountain valley, creating a natural border to the east of the province, the towns they travelled through was dotted along a main river in the centre of the valley, the end they entered was the boarder with the Dou Shu Province, if the mountain side they were on wasn’t there, then the two provinces would boarder all the way down the east side. Well, if the mountains weren’t there, the provinces wouldn’t have the shape it is now as conflict would be too easy to initiate between the two capitals, that were only 50 miles apart. Sam drove over a hilltop the horizon suddenly expanded drastically, revealing a long stretched out set of planes, filled to the brim with golden wheat crop broken up by rice paddies and a few cow ranches. In the distance, a rolling expanse of wall, hiding an ever-expanding city, just poking its head out over the top. The walls however hadn’t kept the same pace as the growth of the city, as satellite villages clustered outside the town gates, almost forming towns in their own right. The salty smell confirmed what that blue glistening crystals behind the city was.

Sam’s bike came to a crawl, maybe 10-15 miles an hour. You could never see a sight like this back in his world, even if the industrial chimneys weren’t fighting your visibility, all that you would see is mass produced steel grey skyscrapers and regulated residential blocks. It had just turned 1pm, and the sun was shining straight down on it, like a theatre spotlight. The little villages were too small to demonstrate the contrast, a village couldn’t demonstrate the wealth of a nation like a city could, a city represented proper investment of money, resources, and culture.

And what was more noticeable was the valley next to it, across the river, a jade palace stood at the highest summit, while each peak surrounding it held marble and oak pagodas, while the walls were littered with complex infrastructure of wood and stone works. Stairs carved out evenly ran up and down the mountains, while the walled off entrance not only connected to the city, but also held its own gatehouse. Mist flew down the mountains giving off a Mystical feel.

“I take it that’s your Azure Lotus Sect.”

“Yes, indeed. Impressive isn’t it.”

“It’s beautiful, untouched by the blemishes of industrialisation, or scorched by the weapons of war.”

“We have had our fair share of wars here over the years. And we will proudly wage war on whoever stands in our way.”

“Trust me, you are lucky, for you have not been born in an era that can sponsor a world war. 4 had already passed before my people even headed for the stars.” Sam sped up towards the city, there was a wooden bridge going across the river, and a stone bridge was still in construction. Sam didn’t want to take the chances with his bike, even if it could support the weight, it might not support the torque of the rear wheel. “We can get in through the city right.”

“Yes, head to the main square, straight down the main avenue, and turn left which a second avenue leads directly to the sect gate.”

“Cool,” Sam revved his bike, pulling a wheely from the added speed. Scaring the passers-by. and headed straight to the gate. Where they were promptly stopped by the guards.

“Shit, this is bad, they are gonna see me with you.”

“I’m just giving you a lift. Stop acting like such a prune.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” the bike had gathered quite a crowd, and even cultivators wearing the same sect uniform as Su Mei was there looking.

A guard came over to them, “Remove your helmets and state your business.”

Sam was the first to remove his, “MEI-MEI, MEI-MEI, MY LOVE, SHOW THIS DASHINGLY GOODLOOKING GENTLEMEN YOU’VE BEEN EYEING UP HUNGRILY, THE TRUE POWER OF OUR FORBIDDEN LOVE.”

Su Mei was just letting these words calculate as she took of her helmet before growing bright red, “Bastard, bastard, what are you saying your foul-mouthed beast,” she started hitting him on his back, but seeing no budge, started infusing chi into it.

The guard was beat red, while the crowd burst into laughter.

“See, what I say, nobody cares,” Sam turned to the guard. “Miss Su, self-declared princess of the Azura Lotus sect, and Sam Lanster, engineer and combat medic… and bachelor,” he winked at some of the female cultivators, “may we please enter?”

“Bastard, I saw that.”

“Why are you getting jealous, I though you didn’t want people to presume we are a thing,” he said quietly, only the guard and Su Mei hear.

“Er, yes, yes right away, Miss Su, young master Sam,”

“Ooh, I like this guy, sure you don’t want to invite him with us.”

“Bastard,” she punched him right in the back, cracking an armour plating. While the guard’s face lit up again.

“Fuck man, that’s an expensive repair.” Sam put on his helmet, which Su Mei following suit and hugging him again, before he revved the engine and sped off.

“My Ancestor, was that Su Mei, hugging another man,”

“You stupid clown, do you know how fast that strange carriage is going, its already turned the corner at the end. If she didn’t, she’d be sitting her arse on the floor right here.”

“Then what of his proclamations?”

“A play to defuse rumours, do you really think a man would invite another man to partake in his woman, or flirt with other women in her presence. Even if they were going out, she’d lose too much face to stay with him over that.”

“Shut up man, you’ve had a crush on lady Su for years, you’d twist anything to claim she is still available.”

“Fuck you man,” another spoke up in the explainer’s defence, “What he said was the truth,”

“Great, another fan.”

“Yeah, I agree with his explanation,” and soon fans all around the city worked tirelessly for 40 days and nights dispelling all rumours. Working far better than Sam had expected.

~

Later that night.

“Haha, little junior has been spotted by princess Su.”

“Shut up idiot, it was just a ruse.”

“Then why’s your face so flustered.”

“Haha.”

“Captain on deck,” the guards all stood up in the pub when he entered. It was a closed off pub for soldiers after a shift, rumours spread in pubs, so soldier only pubs helped keep military secrets, secrets.

“Well, well, well, your armour hasn’t been cleaned in a while soldiers, this is terrible, especially you cadet.”

“Me sir,”

“YES!” he bellowed. “We can’t have our princess Su eyeing up some unkept slacker now can we.”

“Ahhahahahahah,” the pub burst into jeers and laughter at the expense of the kid.

**

Sam reached the Sect gate and got through without much trouble, seeing that Su Mei was in uniform and already in the city, the guards seemed more laxed.

“Your security is shocking.”

“It’s the guard’s duty to guard the gates, both the city one, and the sects outer one, this gate only has cultivators who are only doing it for credits. It’s a systemic problem, but something that hasn’t failed yet. Sam sped past onlooking cultivators walking up and down the side of the paths, the main road was for carriages to ferry goods to and from the inner sect. A path that Sam was taking advantage off, so he didn’t have to weave through people.

However, his mode of transport was constantly getting attention from the passer-by’s, they couldn’t even ignore the sound.

“I live in the dorms just off the main mountain, but I have to see my mother and father, they are grand elders of the sect, and reside in the administrative palace.” Su Mei called out to him.

“Right.”

The road led up to a shallow path of stairs right up to the top, whereas the carriages veered off to the path on the left, which was a winding passage through the mountain complex. Eventually leading up to the top.

“Fuck it.”, Sam revved the engine, pushing more power out, and sped up towards the steps.

“Sam, you can’t be serious.” But he ignored her, and pulled a wheely, bringing the bike parallel to the steepness of the steps.

The bike was sturdy and powerful, its wheels and suspension, capable of ignoring the stepped road, combined with the shallowness of the steps, they began climbing rapidly.

“Sa’A’a’A’m SlOoW dO’oW’w’N.”

“ReLaX,”

This time Cultivators had to scurry out of the way of the charging mad beast. It took them over a few minutes to reach the top, which was a giant paved patio square, surrounded by a series of buildings on three sides, all interconnected with tiny buildings and tall buildings.

“Someone tried to play Tetris with this place.”

“Urge, I think I’m going to throw up.” Up here was a crowd as well, all full of pretty princes and handsome princesses. It was truly the cream of the crop up here in terms of looks. Sam let the bike free wheel towards the main building’s entrance, before coming to a stop. All the buildings here was also raised from the patio, a good 10 long steps running the side of the patio creating a sort of stage area, with the giant centre square where the audience would stand. Past this building, Sam saw another, much steeper set of stairs running past the cloud-line to another jade pagoda. Cultivators all around were looking at the couple in curiosity, while a young boy was walking down the stairs in front of them.

“We are here. Unless I can ride up there.”

“You weren’t supposed to ride up the previous set of stairs.” Su Mei stiffly got off. “Ow, ow, ow, I’m so stiff.”

But Sam got off swiftly and removed his helmet, “This place not bad, not bad. Very decorative, and aesthetically pleasing, something lost from my home.”

“You, mortal, this place is the Azure Lotus grand palace, not only should such a person not even be worthy to see such majesty up close, but to even describe it with such lacklustre words.”

“Who are you?” Sam asked.

“Bastard, do you not bow and show respect to your superiors’ mortal.”

“Hey, Mei-Mei, who’s this fool.”

“Bastard, you’re courting death.” the boy raised a fist to strike

“Su Tang.” Su Mei finally got her helmet off after recovering from sitting on the bike for three hours.

“Mei-Mei?” Su Tang paused and then turned back to Sam, “You dare call her by her given name mortal.” His fist swung.

“Su Tang!” but her cry was too late, Sam grabbed his wrist, pulling him through, grabbing his shoulder with the left hand, and twisting his right hand, dislocating the shoulder, before pushing him in his awkward stance, making Su Tang stumble forwards a few steps before landing on his stomach.

“Seriously,” Sam just looked at the fool, not hearing the gasps and murmurs of the crowd.

“Sam!”

“What, he attacked first, it’s just a popped shoulder, he can put it back in.”

“Bastard how dare you,” Su Tang had turned over and sat up whilst cupping his shoulder in pain.

“Right, I believe I have delivered you to safety, here are your papers. And my payment is on the last page.” Sam handed over the papers, and Su Mei skipped to the last page, her eyes nearly bulging at the price tag, but remembered that they had taken 5 hours not five days, as she originally predicted, and so handed him a pouch,

“Here, 61 medium crystals, keep the change.”

“Sweet.” Sam stored the pouch and hopped on his bike. “I’ll see you around then.” He fixed his helmet and revved his engine.

“Erm…”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going.”

“I’ll probably find a residence in the city, before I figure out what to do next.”

“Oh, ok. If you want to be a cultivator, you can join the sect.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” He gave a half salute-half wave, and was off. Taking the carriage path this time, his engine echoing across the mountain range. Su Mei ran to the edge of the stairs, along with some other cultivators. It wasn’t even a minute before he was down the long winding road and heading to the gatehouse to the city.

“Who’s that Su Mei,” another girl asked her, a few harpies giggling behind.

“What do you want Su Taiping.” Su Mei Scoffed.

“What, I am just curious, you’re already engaged to Hon Hou, and yet flirting with another man, I wonder what Hon Hou would think about that.”

“Humph, see if I care,” Su Mei turned and left to the soundtrack of teen girls giggling.

**

Sam drove down the main avenue, until he reached the main shopping district. A few chats with the locals pointed him towards an estate agent, where he’d brought his first home, it was right in the artisan district, and the building was big enough for a small clan, with workshop space. It seems the crystals he fleeced went a hell of a long way, 4 medium sized crystals were all that was needed. The Estate agent when into a lengthy laundry list of runic defences the place had, so much so that any other aspect of the building sounded like an afterthought from his mouth. Still, Sam wouldn’t just rely on this world’s technology, construction bots spang out of his deck and began working on the building. Cameras and sensors were dotted everywhere, attached to the main computer network that was under construction in the cellar, the main computer was built in tangent with the fusion reactor that was being fitted in.

While this was happening, Sam went off to explore the city, the first step he went to was the town hall.

“Erm, a book on bylaws? And Common law?”

“Yes, your books on Laws, bylaws, and what type of law governs the city, I’m new to the city and am trying not to step on anyone’s toes, if you get my drift.”

“Your drift.” The clerk looked at him sceptically, “Well, this whole shelf is our laws, but it would take you a while to go through them.” the clerk pointed at  the cabinet behind him at the massive bookshelf stuffed full of rolled up scrolls.

“Are you for… alright,” Sam sighed, before walking around the counter and picking up the first scroll.

“Erm, sir…” the clerk tried to process, but seeing the speed at which Sam was going through each scroll, he could even see flashes of light coming from his eyes, before putting it back and moving onto the next one. Sam worked like a machine, taking pictures and storing it to his digital memory banks. In the span of an hour, Sam had memorised all the scrolls pertaining the laws of the city.

“Cheers,” Sam said to the clerk before heading out. The town hall was elevated by marble, allowing Sam to have a better field of view over the town square as he stood at the top of the steps. He materialised a ration bar and started munching as he surveyed.

Many people came and went, their fashion sense was that of typical ancient chinses, or at least stereotypical of xanxia novels. The blue robes of the sect were quite visible, as well as a certain shade of grey uniform, it stood out due to both its neatness, matching tone, and matching clothed accessories, a white undergarment that evenly poked out at the edges, giving a simple while hem design, as well as white socks and black leather boots, the rest of the citizens were simple clothing. Not as neat or uniform, and with a lot more variety in tone, furthermore, they more commonly wore straw shoes. It was then that Sam saw the azure lotus clan badge, ‘outer sect disciples? If I joined the sect, would that be my uniform?’

Sam’s eyes switched visions to show the unknown radiation overlay. These grey robed disciples had more radiation build up than the normal passerby’s and some are even competing with the blue disciples, Sam swapped back to normal vision again, ‘is it age, those on the same level are showing an age gap of at least 10 years between uniform colours.’

“You, what business do you have with the town hall,” Sam turned to see two guards a few meters away addressing him, both of them held polearms.

“Erm, my business with the town hall has finished, I was just seeing where to go next… Ah, is this about section 210, regarding loitering,” the law was quickly brought up in his mind. He had been standing there for a while now.

“Erm… yes…” it seemed Sam’s answer caught the two, off guard. “What business did you have with the town hall.”

“Oh, I’m new to the city so I was just hear to read upon…” Sam’s face flatlined as he realised the end of his sentence “the town laws… Sooo… about your authority to use discretion?”

The older guard sighed. “Fine, move along then, don’t let me catch you again, you’re not exactly easy to forget.”

“Thank you, officer, it won’t happen again.” Sam nodded and walked down the steps. The gist of law was basically; all complaints about guards roughing you up for loitering goes in the bin. And you might be charged an admin fee for them putting it in the bin.

He walked down the south street that was littered with stalls, he picked up some fruit, veg, and meat, to take home, but there wasn’t much spice, at best some chilli, ginger and salt. Very expensive salt. ‘Dude, you have an entire ocean over there… Hehe he, shall I crash the salt industry.’ Sam kept a stoic face as he purchased some.

*Section 138 of salt production…*

‘Fuck, I’d be messing with the tax system, I better not do that.’ Sam stored his shopping after coming back up the other side and headed for the northern street, this street was more upscale, with actual shops instead of stalls, furthermore, it was all the artisan wares; sword shops, armour shops, clothes, furniture stores. Sam stepped into one such furniture store, he could litter his house with his own furniture, but they were distinctly different to the local culture, it would be nice to have one or two of the rooms decked out for guests, ‘I could get a bamboo water clock, no wait, that’s a Japanese thing? Other than the detail work, it was just normal chairs, corner sofas and coffee tables, no, wait, is it called tea tables in China… Oh, no… do they not have coffee?’

“Excuse me sir, may I help you with anything.” An older gentleman came over and asked.

“Coffee!”

“Coffee?” the old man asked.

“Oh, erm… never mind that, I’ve just brought a house up the road, and well, it currently echoes.”

“Oh, well, you’ve definitely come to the right place, young master.” Sam could have sworn he saw dollar signs in the guy’s eyes for a moment. “And what type of rooms are you imagining.”

“I’m working on two rooms at the moment, one a lounge room for private use. And another much bigger room to entertain guests…”

Sam and the old man, who he later learned was old man lee spent a good hour discussing and purchasing. Sam felt like he ended up with a lot more furniture than he needed, but the old man was awfully nice.

The last few shops, that were quite close to the sect finally cemented the real value of spirit stones. Two rooms worth of furniture summed up to 5 spirit stones whereas some sort of grass bundle costed 1.

“Ah, good sir, you’ve been staring at the spirit root grass, are you interested in it?” Sam looked up to the middle-aged lady at the counter.

“Spirit root grass?” Sam took a double take at the blades of grass. “Where are the roots?” he asked the clerk… or owner?

“No, no, no,” the lady chuckled. “Spirit root is referring to your spirit root, this is a base catalyst for many spirit medicine, as it opens up your spirit roots and allows the other medicinal effects more leverage to do its work.”

“I see,” I could have sworn I seen large patches of these grass back in the Pan-sheng Forest. “Hey, aren’t these quite common, I saw large patches of these grass in Pan-sheng Forest.”

“Young sir, to travel over 10 days, these stalks of grass will simply wither, you are more than welcome to go there for your own, but most of the cost of these stalks is eaten up by both transport, handling and tariffs.”

“Tariffs?”

“Yes, the fields you saw were under the jurisdiction of the black panther sect, and they do not get along that well with our Asure Lotus sect.”

“Just to clarify, spirit roots, is that from the skin to the dantain and is synced up with breathing, or the one tha travels all around one’s body and overlaps with the blood vessels.

“The first one, meridians are how we refer to the latter one.”

“So, you take the medicine, inside your stomach, the medicine opens the spirit roots from the dantain to the skin, and then what, the medicinal properties come out your mouth and back in through your skin?” Sam felt perplexed.

“Hahaha, no darling, spirit roots also attach to all organs of your digestive system as well as your lungs, otherwise breathing exercises wouldn’t do anything.” The lady seemed amused.

“Excellent, tell you what, I’ll buy 5 lots,” ‘maybe I can turn it into a spliff’ Sam thought. The lady wrapped them up and Sam stored them in his deck. The day was getting late, and he wanted to return home.

When he got to his home a crowd had appeared, a man was dangling from his wall, just laying there limply, his hand holding the top railing. But he wasn’t letting go. The crowd was giving him a wide berth. The man was dressed all in black.

Realising what was going on, Sam walked up to him and kicked him off. He fell limply to the ground, before looking up at Sam. “Tell me you’re shady without telling me you’re shady.” Sam asked the masked man.

Three masked men came out of the crowd, all dressed the same, while holding nun-chucks. The crowd started stepping back, realising something bad was going to happen. “Hey, weren’t you the guy who was recommended for the outstanding citizen award last week?” Sam asked the biggest of the trio.

“Do you know how long my brother was dangling up there, what sort of witchcraft is this?”

“Right, because when you are wearing a mask, the first thing you want to do is give out identifiable information. How about we ask what he was doing with his hand on top of my 8-foot wall.”

“That’s not for the likes of you to know.”

“Right…” Sam turned around to the crowd. “Is this guy famous, what’s the ramifications for me unaliving him.”

“Una, you mean kill.”

“Hey, hey, hey, there’s kids here, don’t go scaring the kids.” The area went silent. “What, is wrapping your kids in bubble wrap and cotton not a thing around here?”

“Enough” the bug dude charged at Sam, swinging his nun-chucks down at him. Sam’s eyes flashed over to the spirit vision, and finding negligible spirit energy nor a formed dantain, tilted his head to the side. the nun-chuck end smashed down on his armoured shoulder and… bounced off.

“You do know a stick gives you more power than that rice thresher, right?”

“Ho… how… you’re not even a level 1 dantain formation realm cultivator. I’m a level 8 dantain formation realm cultivator.”

“For your sanity, I’ll pretend that means something.” Sam said, before punching his shoulder, *Crack* the guy flew back with a bit of force, landing on his back a few feet away.

“Ahh, ahh, ahh,” the guy rolled across the ground before fainting in pain.

 “Oh, shit… that was only supposed to dislocate your shoulder, not shatter the bone completely.” Sam stared with fascination, before turning to the next guy, “Round two, electric boogaloo.”

“What’s going on,” two familiar looking guards parted through the crowd. “You.”

Sam’s face contorted in annoyance. “Urge, the paperwork.”

“Well, would someone like to explain.”

“Sir, this man assaulted our brother first.”

“Yes, hence why I needed to wear a mask to get away with such an action.”

It finally daunt on the two thugs that their get up didn’t paint them in a pretty picture. The two looked at each other, before bolting in the other direction.

“Hey, come back here.” The guard shouted at them before starting to give chase.

“Ahem, excuse me officer.” Sam called out causing the guards to stop.

“What is it,” the guard snapped. “Can’t you see I’m trying to catch criminals,”

“The only crime them two committed was running away from you, you can waste your time and effort chasing them or you can beat their two brothers here and properly emphasis to them that they are getting it because the other two ran away.” Sam then pointed to the large man. “That one seems to be the leader, and what leader wants to take a beating on behalf of his subordinates.”

“Our leader is a noble and courageous man; he has protected us through thick and thin.” The younger one zealously bit back.

“In what dimension are you relating this thug to your leader.” Sam continued to point at the downed man.

“Err, erm,”

“I find your methods intriguing, these thugs have become emboldened by their numbers.” ‘Does having more flamboyant armour pieces denote seniority?’ Sam thought as he watched the newcomer and his entourage of 5 armoured guards step into the stage.

“Captain,” the two guards saluted. It was clear the captain was mulling over the ramifications of such methods, as denoted by the rubbing of his well-groomed hairy beard.

“Stand down and restrain these two.” The captain nodded before turning to Sam “Sir Sam Lanster, I presume.”

“Yes, sir.” Sam gave a courteous nod.

“Good, the Su clan has asked me to find your address so they can send a representative.”

“Oh, I see, well, this is my new humble abode. Please inform them that this place is newly brought, and it would take me a day to make it properly presentable.”

“I will, Honshu, Langan, let’s go. Disperse, all of you, otherwise ill treat it as loitering.” Sam didn’t hear a peep of discontent from the crowd as they turned and left. Sam noticed that there was an hour of daylight left and headed inside.

After filling the two rooms with the furniture he brought, he moved onto the kitchen and handed over the ingredients to a robot, before moving off to the workshop. He pulled out a bundle of grass and began, ‘lets try the tobacco curing process first.’ He lined a baking tray with paper towels before spreading out the bundle of grass and placed it in his electric furnace on a low setting for overnight.

With that done, he went off to bed.