“Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, hold it for ten seconds, breathe out.”

Nadia’s gentle voice echoed through James’s mind. He was once again sitting in the gazebo hovering over the Mirror Lake Valley, his legs in the lotus position Nadia had shown him. His eyes were closed, mostly to stay focused. For the past day, Nadia had been training James in meditation.

“I believe you are finally starting to memorize the pattern,” Nadia said after a time. “Good. Remember this breathing method. Once you feel comfortable with it we shall start with the exercises required to reach a metastate. But for now we shall prepare for an outing. There is much we must acquire and little time to do it.”

James jumped up, all this sitting was getting to him. “Where are we going?" He asked.

“To one of my family’s many locations in Cyber Crane Megacity,” Nadia said. “On top of your meditations you must also learn how to train your body.”

“I think I’m already healthy,” James said. “I spent a lot of time in Tower Ten running.”

“Which places you equal to an aspiring cultivator in the outer school,” Nadia said. “No, you will need a more intense and focused set of tools. A healthy mind dwells in a healthy body. Not to mention the physical strain a core causes when in use.”

“Lead the way then, master,” James said.

“First, do you have your computer on you?” she asked.

James nodded and pulled the portable device from his pocket.

“Good. Open it and find the application that reads banking.”

James did. A prompt appeared on screen asking for James to bring the computer level with his face. He did so, blinking in surprise as it flashed.

“You are now able to access your personal bank account from this handheld,” Nadia said. “I have taken the liberty of sending you credits. Some of it is pay from when you guided us through your home and some is a stipend that you should have received when you became my disciple.”

James balked at the number of zeros on the screen. “Are you sure this is right?”

“Yes, disciple,” Nadia said. “Though, while a thousand credits will feed a mortal for the rest of their life, a cultivator will find the amount to last less than a month. Unlike mortals, who often buy and sell in small percentages of a credit, cultivators tend to spend credits in whole.”

“Sounds like a waste,” James said.

“Perhaps,” Nadia admitted. “It is possible the market for cultivation goods is somewhat inflated due to the inherent wealth of cultivators, but I find the prices fair for the dangers often faced when acquiring the materials.”

“Dangers?” James asked.

“Indeed,” Nadia said as she walked to the elevator. “Cores can be manufactured by master artisans, or passed down through families, but most cores form in the wilderness. Even the master craftsmen require special materials from the wilds. Hides of spirit beasts or the roots of spiritual plans for example.”

Nadia continued to explain as they moved down the elevator. “The dangers of collecting these materials, coupled with the need from artisans, makes it lucrative for a cultivator who can collect these materials. One spirit beast could easily supply the cultivator who hunted it with enough credits for two months.”

“How dangerous is it?” James asked as he watched floors of segregated terrain pass by.

“For every five cultivators that go on a hunt, one never returns,” Nadia said solemnly. “Despite this, hunting beasts is the main way a sect makes money. Unless you are a part of the major families.”

“Like Archimedes?” James asked.

“Indeed. The Archimedes family, along with the Aryabhata family, stay in power through loans. Others sell cybernetic enhancements, such as the golden skin on Sect Master Robert. Even more sell spellgrams.”

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“Spellgrams?” James asked.

“What we call the result of programming software in the metastate,” Nadia explained. “Our sect often uses them sparingly, but the empire spends vasts amounts of credits each year for spellgrams that repel beasts from the megacities.”

James nodded along as Nadia continued to explain the intricacies involving the world of cultivators. He was starting to realize the bits and pieces of story that meandered into Tower Ten’s image of cultivators was horribly wrong. The stories of great heroes and stalwart defenders fell to the onslaught of cutthroat politics, obscene advertising, and plain greed. And yet, somehow it was better to die as a cultivator than live as a mortal.

James couldn’t wrap his head around it, but his thoughts stopped as the elevator did.

“Are you alright?” Nadia asked.

“There’s so much… space,” James said softly.

Before him stood an open, expansive patchwork sprawl of buildings and streets. It was nothing like Tower Ten, where crimped houses loomed over thin streets. The alley in front of James could fit an entire side street from the Tower.

It wasn’t nearly as surprising to see the landings of houseplants after the expansive greenery in the sect building, but the frequency of them still battered James’s senses. Not to mention the people. They stood in small groups around the various parks, some watching small children run around while others just talked. Even more groups were walking on the wide streets, making their way toward one place or another. Above them were more winding streets, and James glimpsed the reflective windows of vehicles moving atop them. And around the streets hovered even more vehicles that darted from building to building under a grand, silvery sky.

“This is the megacity?” James asked.

“This is only the thirteenth floor,” Nadia said. She pointed to a tall outcropping in the distance. “The grand elevator you see there allows for travel between the floors. Few use it often, as most goods can be found on the floor one resides. The only times it is crowded is during tournament season. Today, we are one of the few to use it.”

“Wow,” James said. More words wouldn’t come to him.

“Come, disciple,” Nadia said.

She led James to a sleek chrome blue vehicle, the doors hissing open as they stepped close. Nadia directed James to sit on the softest cushions in the world as she moved to the other door.

Once they were both inside, the car picked itself up off the ground without even a shudder. It darted forward, something inside the vehicle preventing the inertia from pushing James into his seat. Soon, James was looking down at the sprawling city, still engrossed in its wideness.

“It will only take a few minutes to reach the lift,” Nadia said. “Try to practice your breathing. Every second will count.”

Reluctantly, James tore himself away. He knew as well as Nadia that every second counted. The sounds of steady breathing filled the car.

“We’re here,” Nadia said.

James opened his eyes. It hadn’t felt like minutes had passed. He looked out the vehicle’s window, his eyes trailing upward as he gaped at the monumental structure before him.

The lift dwarfed every other building around it, a steel-colored monolith that could easily fit Tower Ten inside it. As James’s eyes trailed upward, he caught wisps of clouds that shaped into puffs of cotton.

“It’s partly the size and partly the amount of energy running through the structure,” Nadia said as she saw James’s questioning gaze. “I believe the cloud formations are an unintentional but joyous coincidence. Without the structure, the air on this floor would grow stale. Of course, there are large fans that play a part, but they do not have to work nearly as hard.”

The vehicle descended past the smaller buildings around the lift and into its gaping maw. Past the maw were rows upon rows of differently sized cubicles. Each box moved independently, ferrying groups of people, machines, or a mix of both toward a central tube. The tube, like the sect elevator, was transparent, giving James a clear view of the inside. The cubes moved together in unison, tricking James’s eyes into thinking the cubicles were somehow connected.

The coiling snake of cubicles shifted up and down, sometimes twisting in place to let boxes pass. They fed into and out of the floors, mostly depositing goods. Often, the goods in one cubicle were collected and replaced with other goods that were quickly sent back the way they came.

Their vehicle landed in one of the many cubicles, the box instantly moving toward the tube. Shifting squares whizzed past James as they descended.

“How many floors are in the city?” James asked.

“Sixteen functional floors,” Nadia said. “With four more that are overrun by beasts.”

James looked at Nadia in alarm. “I thought the beasts were outside the city!”

Nadia made a face. “If it was up to me, they would be. But the sects and families find the convenience of close monsters too attractive an offer.”

“The more you talk about cultivators, the more I hate it,” James sulked.

Nadia wilted. “I did not wish to bore you with the details, but I agree with you. There was a time when the sects looked out for others, a time when the stories you see on the screens were truth. At some point, that truth faltered.”

She sighed. “The long view of ethics that cultivators take is a recent trend, if you could call three mortal lifetimes recent. The base idea is sound. Attempting to maximize the good you do in the world is a laudable idea. However, the thought has been taken to the extreme. The argument is thus, if a cultivator lives longer than a mortal, then the cultivator has a larger chance of performing good. This means that in order to maximize what is good, the cultivator should maximize what is good for them.”

“Okay, even I can see the fault in that logic,” James said.

“Indeed,” Nadia said. “But the sentiment is strong. It is surprisingly hard to convince someone with power to use it for selfless means. However, we shall have the discussion another time.”

The world around James became a blur at Nadia’s words, the grand lift of the megacity whisking him away.