James caught the twitch from the cultivator’s leg, the first indication of movement. He ignored it, focusing on the whole instead. The other cultivator had committed, their twitch following through as it pushed against the ground. James saw the forces interacting, caught the moment friction propelled the cultivator forward.

He saw the moment Curt moved as well, and the moment when the other cultivator moved to block the teenager. There was a chance there. Both cultivators were locked into a movement, giving James free reign.

Time had slowed for the man as his brain interpreted the various signals around him. He shifted his weight slightly, using his Stochastic Simian Arts to push with every muscle he could toward the cultivator.

To those around James, it seemed as if the man had somehow shot forward while barely pushing against the ground. The young cultivator moved in surprise, changing tactics to try and tackle Curt before James reached.

James was still faster. He grabbed Curt by the arm and guided the teenager around the tackle, spinning him around before whipping him forward toward the ball. Again he used his arts, flexing his muscles and bending his body to keep Curt steady.

The teenager whooped in surprise as his momentum suddenly put him right in front of the ball. With skill honed through years of experience, Curt turned and scooped the ball up before the other cultivator could reach it. He skated backwards for a moment before turning, taking the ball straight into Yusuf’s hands.

The dark-skinned man shot forward, taking the ball to Ayda and Haru in seconds. The young cultivators cut their losses, leaving the relay box to intercept the Midstep players. James sunk deeper into his trance, instinctively using the breathing technique his teacher had shown him.

The lines and pools of energy continued to feed into James. His years as a courier combined with his new training showed him pathways. The directions led him in multiple directions, each one a response to the young cultivators ahead.

However, they had changed their tactics on seeing something awaken in James. The energy that came from them had stopped. Somehow the two had halted their movement, become like air in this world of lines. The others around them still moved, unconscious shifting of muscle revealing thoughts.

Curt wanted to charge forward and steal the ball, as he always did. Ayda was desperately racing to catch up, but her haste would trip her. Haru stood meekly to the side, half-heartedly making attempts to stop the ball.

The ball moved forward in the cultivators hands. The two acted, their movement instant and untelegraphed. James saw the lines, saw how he could respond, and saw Curt eagerly waiting for them to enter the relay box.

James knew he didn’t have the same skill as the cultivators, that he hadn’t practiced enough in this new state to mask his movements. So James did the opposite, he acted out every possible motion, every answer he had to the two cultivators. They saw the feints and acted in turn, sending an answer out each way. Imaginary clashes happened between the two even as they skated toward each other.

The two young cultivators were skilled, but James had age on them. With age came a larger body, which he could use to overpower these young teenagers. The advantage had not gone unnoticed, and James saw the two skating closer together in order to stop him from stealing the ball.

Variations of movement passed by James even as he arrived next to the cultivators. He reached out a hand, sending feints as he moved. The feints were answered, then countered even as his hand reached for the ball. Another hand blocked his, shoving it to the side quickly.

James reached with his other hand, and then punched upward with his knee. He used everything he knew, every movement trained into him over the short weeks. His knee turned as the defender pushed into him, sending his punch off course. He used the push, spinning around to push the defending cultivator away.

The defender bent low to dodge the push, helped along by the cultivator with the ball. James reached out to take it, forcing the cultivator to move his hands to the side.

James sent the cultivator a triumphant smile. Curt skated by, snatching the ball right out of the cultivators hands and skating toward Yusuf. With the ball gone, James used his outstretched hand to grab the cultivator and pull him into his teammate.

He laughed as the two crashed to the ground in a heap. They looked up at him in anger. James smiled back at them.

“Good try,” He said.

Curt skated back to high-five James, the man gleefully accepting. The cultivators stood and skated back to Ayda and Haru, taking the ball once more. They turned to stare daggers at James.

James smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He was doing it! He knew this was the Metastate Nadia talked about.

It was a heady feeling. James hadn’t understood what Nadia said about a melding of conscious and unconscious until now. He could see his mind at work in the background, collecting the various pieces of information that it always did. The only difference was that James could consciously interpret that information.

The cultivators skated into the Linchpin relay box, and the game continued. It went much the same as the last time, but James had to work harder to distract the young teens. They tried their best, but the two cultivators were too young, too emotional. Their frustration at losing to James made openings, and the man took advantage.

But the more James fought, the more he felt points on his back heating up. The heat was bearable, at first, but by the end of the fight had grown to be uncomfortable. The points of heat moved up his body even as he rested, until five hotspots from his skull to his back bothered him.

By the time the cultivators were back, the pain was starting to distract James. He winced as the lowest point seemed to poke at his heart. It almost made him miss the strike that came from his left.

James dodged by a hair and lashed out with his own punch. The haphazard strike missed and James felt a pinch in his lungs. A knee came toward him. James deflected it to the side and got a spike of pain in his lungs for the trouble.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He saw Nadia out of the corner of his eye, shouting at Osman as water flowed from her hands. Osman stood against her, plants growing from his body and absorbing Nadia’s power. A punch almost clocked James in the jaw.

He jerked back at the last second and cried out as a lance of pain pushed into his brain. He kicked wildly, sending whoever came at him stepping back. James’s vision narrowed, the edges growing black as the pain escalated, the heat now a burning inferno.

Then, a blast of water struck him, and James felt cool relief. His vision went black as gentle hands stopped him from falling.

—

James was back in Resplendent Jade City, Chandra’s ashes—or the imitation of ashes—in front of him. The other him stood in front of them, his head buried in his hands.

“They took her from me,” the bereaved man said. “Took her and called it an accident!”

The man turned to James, much to the man’s surprise. “They took her and I can do nothing!”

The man rushed at James, new hands sprouting from underneath his armpits to keep his head in sorrow. James leaped back in surprise.

“Give me your body!” The man shouted. “Give it to me so I can have revenge!”

“No!” James argued.

“Why!” The man cried. He stopped chasing to wallow on the ground. “Why, why, why why why?”

“Because I have someone waiting for me too,” James said. He thought of Tsukiko.

A picture of her appeared before him, staring daggers at him. Playful daggers, stage daggers, but daggers all the same.

“She’d kill me if I leave first,” James said. “She still might kill me. I did leave the tower first now that I think about it.”

“I’d give your body back,” the sorrowful man said. “It would only be a moment, just long enough to kill those that killed her!”

“Yeah, not believing that,” James said. He crouched down to sit next to the man. “What’s your name, by the way? The memories of you don’t give me one.”

“You don’t care,” the man said. “No one does.”

“To be fair, you don’t care either,” James said. “You only want revenge, and not even a just revenge. This is that ugly kind from the shows. The ones that kill whole countries to get one guy.”

“They were complicit!” the man spat. “They know its all corrupted but they do nothing!”

James sighed. He wasn’t going to get through to this guy anytime soon. He leaned back. “You know why I’m here?”

“To give me your body!” the man hissed.

“No, that ain’t it,” James said. “Last I remember I was in a Skateball match. The world was made of lines. Energy, really, but I saw it all as lines. Lines and arrows. Then everything got hot.”

And James had passed out, now he remembered.

“Then, how did I get here?” James asked himself.

He looked around. There was nothing except the run-down hovel with a chipped urn of ashes.

“This better not be my inner mind,” James said. “The shows all talk about that, how a cultivator creates an inner world or something.”

“This is her grave! Respect it!” the man screamed.

James leaned back. “Alright, I’m sorry.”

Sobs echoed across the hovel, rivers of tears falling from the man. “She’s gone,” he wailed. “Gone gone gone gone gone.”

Drafty air swirled around the hovel, bringing with it the smell of grease and metal. The wind brought groaning, the man below rolling in the dirt.

“I never did catch your name,” James said. He was trying to care. For some reason. Perhaps it was because James could see himself in this grief stricken man. He could see how easy it would be to give up and blame the world.

“You don’t care,” the man said again.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t,” James tried.

“Barish,” the man said after a while.

“Nice to meet you, Barish. I’m sorry about what happened to Chandra,” James said.

The world stretched, a point of light sucking the hovel away. No, James realized, he was the one getting pulled away.

“I can’t stay longer,” he said to Barish. “But I promise to look into Chandra’s death if I can.”

Barish was back on the floor, sobbing, and James couldn’t tell if the man had heard him.

He opened his eyes to see Nadia sitting next to him, water flowing from her arms and around his body.

“Thank the forces,” she whispered. “I had thought we lost you.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“You succeeded,” Nadia said with a pained smile. “Congratulations.”

“Why doesn’t it feel like you’re happy about this?” James asked.

“A mix of panic and guilt,” she said truthfully. “I feared I had acted too late. When you entered the Metastate I felt it acceptable to wait despite knowing the risks.”

“Risks?” James asked.

“The state takes a toll on the mind and body. Both work harder when you’re in the state, and those who do not know their limits will end up breaking their bodies. You would have felt your back heating up.”

James remembered the heat. “That’s right. It was like five hot coals burning into me.”

“The extra work your body does releases heat, which is shunted to your nodes to prevent the rest of your body from destroying itself. You worked too hard and almost overheated your nodes, which would have broken them permanently and prevented you from becoming a cultivator. When I realized you were overheating too fast I attempted to stop the match.”

James remembered Osman and Nadia fighting. “Let me guess, Osman stopped you.”

“He said it was unjust of me to interfere with the match, and it was only when one of his students made the mistake of hitting your back did he relent.”

“What?” James asked.

“Your nodes were running hot enough to give the child burns,” Nadia said. “The momentary lapse was enough for me to reach you.”

“Just in time?” James asked.

“Just in time,” Nadia answered. “However, I should have attempted to stop the match immediately. It was foolish of me to wait.”

“Why did you?” James asked.

“Pride,” Nadia answered plainly. “James, you have achieved in less than one month what most take years. It is not something unheard of, there are many Megacities and each hold millions of citizens, but it is an impressive feat. I did not want to halt you on such a momentous occasion. And it almost cost you.”

She bowed to him. “Forgive me.”

“No, stop that,” James said. “If it wasn’t for you I’d be dead. This isn’t anywhere close to your fault. If Osman was more like you I would have never overheated.”

“Perhaps you are correct,” Nadia said. “But I would be remiss if I did not feel some guilt.”

“Then buy me a present as an apology or something,” James said. “It’s what I do whenever Tsukiko is angry with me.”

She laughed. “Very well.”

James stood from Nadia’s makeshift water bed. “So is this it? I reached the Metastate. We’re all good now?”

“If only I could say yes,” Nadia sighed. “As you have succeeded, the Sect leaders will want to inspect you. Now that you can access the Metastate, it should be possible for us to examine what makes your mind so special. I am afraid there is still a long time until you are done.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” James said. “But it won’t take long, right?”

“In cultivator terms, not long at all,” Nadia said. “In mortal terms, I’m afraid it might take decades.”

“What! I don’t have decades,” James said. He looked at Nadia accusingly. “You made it sound like everything would go back to normal once I succeeded!”

Nadia lowered her head. “I have no argument.”

“Do you at least have an excuse for hiding things?” James asked.

“I believed that if I had told you everything you would have tried to run, which would have made you a criminal throughout the Empire.”

“Why would you think that?” James asked.

“In my time as hunter for the Empire I have been given many tasks that involve tracking criminals. More than a few have been in similar situations to yours.” Pain filled Nadia’s voice. “I do my best to assist, but there is only so much I can affect.”

James deflated, the anger leaving him on hearing how distressed his master sounded. “I’m still upset,” he told her, “but I think I understand.” James sighed. “Tsukiko is not going to like this. I mean, what am I even going to say?”

“Do not worry,” Nadia said. “I made sure to contact her to update her on your situation.”

James looked at his master warily. “You didn’t tell her about me passing out, right?”

Nadia looked at him strangely. “Should I not have?”

“Oh junk,” James said.