Jasmine’s snuffling brought Hector awake. She stood above him on the bed, of course. For some reason, she seemed interested in the scent of his hair. Since Jen had moved back in, the bar of soap in the shower he used for every cleaning purpose had been displaced by bottles of body lotions, shampoos, and conditions. He used whatever was handy, as he always had, and consequently smelled like fruits and flowers and spices.

Hector pushed the dog away as he sat up, and she responded by ducking under his arm and laying across his lap. “I don’t care what you do, your brother is still my favorite. He is polite. He asks for attention instead of demanding it.”

The dog smiled up at him in jovial denial of his claims.

For a few minutes, he tried to decide what he wanted to do that morning. He had to be at the funeral home after lunch to prepare for the viewing. He didn’t think there was much preparing to do. Other than the colorful obituary, his dad had gone for very standard choices. Terry Thoreaux may have been a bit of a joker, but he had understood the importance of the rituals surrounding death.

Going to the gym still didn’t seem appealing. “I guess I cultivate again,” he said to the dog. Jasmine had no objections to his plan, either.

It made sense to have an early focus on his soul. The first three levels were easy compared to what came after and he would need the increased soul capacity to enhance himself in body and mind. After level three, he would start working on improving his body. Hector thought he understood enough of the process to get started. Hopefully Volithur would receive further instruction at some point. And if not… well, Hector would have to figure it out himself.

He continued his self-improvement efforts until just before lunch, when he had a quick protein shake and an apple before heading over to the funeral.

Jen accompanied him. The presence of his wife proved a worrisome comfort throughout the entire afternoon. She made everything easier; a partner for when a distracting conversation would be helpful, someone to answer the invasive questions of visitors when Hector tired of the repetition, and occasionally an assistant when an elderly friend of his father struggled with the long line.

The crowded room, as trying as it could be at times, heartened Hector. His father had made many friends over the years, and many of them came to pay their final respects. He wondered who would show up for his own funeral. He was not a warm person or a fun time. He was a reliable coworker. More accurately, he had been a reliable coworker. Now he was a cultivator. A career as lacking in social interaction as it was in paychecks.

Towards the end of the evening, he was approached by a group of executives from work. They waited in line, shook his hand, offered appropriate condolences, and then asked to meet with him for lunch the following Monday.

Because of the late hour and the dwindling crowd, Hector chose to bring them to an empty side room instead. “Gentlemen, I don’t want to waste your time over a lunch. I’m done working.”

The chief operating officer patted his back. “It’s understandable that you need some time off due to the stress of life events. That is a perfectly natural and right thing for you to do. But I think that once you have some time to settle in, you’ll find that you miss the job. You are an important person in our company, Hector. A critical person.”

“It’s funny you say that, because I was treated like the least of my peers.” Hector held up his hands to stop the protests they had begun. “I never made a big deal about it, because it was the challenge of the job that I liked, not the status or the politics.”

The company president leaped on that. “Where are you going to get that challenge in retirement?”

“Cultivation,” Hector said.

The president’s disdain grew on his face like a cancer. “Cultivation? Like a Xian? Hector, there isn’t enough cosmic energy on Earth for you to achieve anything as a Xian.”

“Then it sounds like I found my challenge,” he said.

The chief operating officer folded his arms. “Tell you what, Hector. Let’s give it a full week. We can do lunch the Monday after next. Give you a chance to reset your expectations.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Jerry…” Hector began.

“You were a hell of an employee, Hector. I want to get you lunch on my dime.”

“Maybe,” Hector said, more out of politeness than agreement.

“Good man. We’ll get out of your hair for now. I’ll call in a week to set something up.”

With another round of hand-shaking, the suits were gone. Hector breathed a sigh of relief as Jen appeared to sit beside him. Very few people in his orbit knew that he had separated from Jen in the first place, so there hadn’t been any awkward questions about her return. They had largely slipped back into old behavioral patterns.

As much as he needed a stable presence in his life at that time, Hector felt discomforted by their situation. She might want to pretend everything was fine and take another shot at their relationship, but Hector did not. The resentment sat below the surface most of the time, all but invisible, but his affection for her had been irrevocably poisoned. It didn’t matter if he had been responsible for a lot of their marital issues. She had taken steps he considered unforgivable.

The united front they showed the world was an intentional fraud in his mind. What complicated the issue was that he had asked Jen not to become a dog kin. And she had agreed. Granting him that kind of claim on her life trajectory implied too much.

At some point, he would need to have an honest conversation with her. Not at that moment, obviously. Nor the next day when the memorial service would be held. But some day soon, before things became more of a mess then they already were.

“Did they talk you into going back to work?”

“They tried.”

“Did you tell them what you are doing instead?”

Hector smiled. “They weren’t impressed with my plans.”

“It doesn’t really fit with the image of the ambitious Hector Thoreaux. Well, it does, but it also doesn’t. Xian are powerful in the dreams. But they are tied to their home world.”

“Are you sure that is true?” Hector frowned as he recalled the dream where Volithur had been transported across worlds in a massive transit sphere. That thing had been large enough to transport what he estimated was half a million soldiers, their equipment, and their captives. That was after transporting everyone there and fighting a battle.

“Do your research. There is a YouTube channel where a historian has been explaining the worlds we dream about. He says the Xian on Earth are not a cause for concern and we might actually pity them once everyone else gets their full powers.”

Hector shook his head. There was some disconnect between the things he had seen through Volithur’s eyes and what everyone said. Even Volithur’s experience cultivating didn’t quite match up. If he reconstructed an itinerary for the Lord General’s travels, the man had left Tian with his personal guards, picked up an army on New Mart, traveled to Volithur’s home world, presumably did some fighting, traveled everyone back to New Mart, then brought his guards back to Tian.

That was four movements between worlds and a battle. Even if the Lord General sat out the entire battle, he had surely been prepared to fight. So the question became: how expensive was it to zip between worlds? If it was cheap, then maybe the Lord General filled up his metaphorical fuel tank on Tian and could afford to hop around several times before returning. If it was expensive to do on the scale that Volithur had witnessed – which seemed a safe bet to Hector – then something else had to be going on.

Were there high grade elixirs that could be brought on trips to replenish their reserves? Did some of the Lord General’s retinue donate their cosmic energy to him like was done in a cosmic chamber? Hector frowned in thought. Any method of extending their attack range using resources brought from Tian would be an expensive exercise of logistics.

Judging by how strict the fifth household of the Shaocheth family was with resource distribution, Hector had to assume that the limiting factor was transportation costs. If salt from Tian was considered a resource valuable enough to award in a prestigious competition, then moving between worlds probably was not cheap. Hell, they had given Volithur a pebble from Tian. Transportation costs must be prohibitive if a common river rock was considered valuable.

So moving armies between worlds was definitely expensive in terms of cosmic energy expenditure. The Lord General did it anyway. Part of that could be attributed to the fact that the Amaratti Xian had a martial culture and honor demanded battle or some such nonsense. But money always came into play in human affairs. No one would play at war for long if it cost more than could be afforded.

Thus he consciously arrived at the same conclusion his gut had: Lord General Thrakkar Shaocheth used ridiculous amounts of cosmic energy to beat up people from unempowered worlds and didn’t have to haul around vast amounts of Tian resources to refuel himself or his soldiers.

The Lord General had some cost-effective method of refilling his soul with cosmic energy during excursions to unempowered worlds. That was the only thing that fit the facts he knew.

“I’ll overcome the resource deficit on Earth,” Hector said aloud.

Jen leaned into him. “If anyone can, it’s you.”