Waves lapped gently on the rocky shore of the island, dimly lit by the sun rising behind him. An enormous moon, shining brilliantly in the morning sun, was setting over the horizon. Hudson gazed at the alien moon, and wondered if it could really be called a moon, it was so large. Sister planet, perhaps? Maybe there was life up on that moon. Its brownish color was streaked with rivers of blue. He could even see gray clouds floating across its surface.

They had arrived on this new world through Ix’s rift a little over two days ago. The portal anchor they had connected to was located on a tiny island surrounded by ocean in all directions. There were almost no signs of any life, anywhere – not even any algae or moss covering any rocks.

Hudson had explored every nook and cranny, and while there wasn’t much in the way of living things, there were signs that life and living beings had once used this small island.

A short mountain rose in the middle of the island. The top had been carved off into a flat dais. The transportation through the cold, inky rift had been by far the worst experience of any of Ix’s portals, leaving both Cor and Hudson shivering with cold and extremely nauseous.

A broken silencing formation laced through the stone outcropping, remnants of when this platform had been used to send natives to Ix’s former trial facility for testing and training.

They had also found a few caves scattered about the island. Cor was sleeping in one of them right now, one that had been empty and relatively dry. Many of the caves had detailed paintings and carvings, depicting fantastical sea creatures and humanoid figures with gills fighting them with spears and nets.

Hudson had spent an embarrassing amount of his time on the deserted island exploring every nook and cranny. Even now, when Cor was asleep and he was by himself, he felt a bit self-conscious staring up at the moon like a little kid who had never seen one before. He couldn’t help it, though; he reveled in a sense of wonder at a new and alien world. It had been the same in the trial world, although that sense of exploring new things, of uncovering sights unseen, had been overshadowed by the difficulties of the trial.

Another reason to grow stronger: to travel the galaxy without fear for his safety.

He thumbed the jade ring in his hand. Ix’s crystalline core had been carved into the form of a ring and inscribed with tiny, precise figures across its entire surface. Hudson had tried to read the tiny sigils and formations on the ring, but had not been able to make any headway. They were too small and obscured, even for his enhanced perception.

“Still no sign of any kind of life?” Hudson asked.

Negative, Ix replied, speaking directly into Hudson’s mind. Our range of detection is only several hundred meters, and we have not sensed any life forms. There is a high probability that this location has been thoroughly stripped of all life by the silicates.

Those silicates were also completely missing in action, as well.

“Even in the water? No fish?” Hudson asked, his stomach growling. Cor’s sigil – granting him an insight into the dao of Fishing – had been a disappointment so far.

Negative, Ix replied. The native biology of silicate lifeforms make them naturally adverse to water, but they appear to have adapted to this world in some fashion.

Ix had assured them that his form was also protected by one of the tiny formations scribed onto its surface. No need to worry about diving in the water with Ix’s ring on.

The biggest problem they had right now was the lack of food. They had arrived with a bit of dried fruit and a few candy bars squirreled away in the tactical vest Cor had stolen. They had decisions to make today – to try to look elsewhere on this planet for people or food, or to use up more of the qi within the queen silverine core to portal to yet another world.

The resource cost for opening rifts scaled roughly with distance traveled, but beyond a short distance, Ix needed a portal anchor to stabilize the rifts for living things to jump through. They only had the one core, and it only had enough qi stored within for one or two more big jumps. The initial evidence of a silicate presence made them wary of exploring this world, however; just because the silicates had moved on from this particular deserted island didn’t mean they were gone completely from the planet or system.

Despite being hungry, the last two days had been good to rest and recover from the sigil challenge, then the fight with George, their flight from the silicate horde, and the final fight with the queen silverine. And despite the fact that they had cleared all of those challenges and survived – or perhaps because of it – the imperative to grow stronger was only greater.

There was no such thing as a day off for a cultivator intent on challenging the heavens… or even a cultivator with more modest intentions.

“Ix, can you bring up what you were showing me earlier?” Hudson asked. Yesterday, he had brought up the sigil of Liminality, and Ix’s promise to teach him how to teleport short distances like the jackalope could.

Before diving into the details of a new sigil, however, Ix had advised Hudson to review his cultivation progress as a whole, including the new sigils he had. In his vision, Ix overlayed a simple text graphic, showing Hudson an evaluation similar to what he’d seen in the trial, but with a few additional elements.

He was at the peak of Qi Gathering stage, and even a half-step into Foundation Building. Ix had some interesting ideas about his cultivation technique, but no specific knowledge.

“I have so many questions for Chiang-sensei,” Hudson muttered under his breath. What kind of weird technique had she managed to impart to him? During the sigil challenge, both the Sage and Sal had recognized his technique, but not provided any hints or guidance about it. The only advice he’d ever gotten about what he had termed his “Engine Breath” technique was from Chiang-sensei, and it was to perform it all the time, and don’t ever stop.

Easier said than done.

He thought briefly about the pill he’d received from Suzume, before everything had gotten crazy at the end of the trial. It was supposed to help fix the meridians he had forcefully opened on his right and left hand. He’d considered taking the pill after arriving on their deserted island, but Ix had informed him that it could possibly take days of meditation to fully absorb the pill and its effects. Better to wait.

While his cultivation was a mess, at least he was in good shape, according to Ix’s evaluation. Peak physical fitness for his cultivation level, except for his ability to lift heavy weights. If only he’d had more time in the personalized gym back in the trial… His daily efforts mining maseki had done wonders for his level of endurance, though.

We remind Cultivator Hudson that while we can provide an evaluation of your cultivation, Ix said telepathically, we are unable to fully advise you. Our experience is limited to the participants that have passed through our trials, but your cultivation path is unique among our experiences. Despite a singular failure to condense reserves of qi within your dantian, you have managed to unlock and advance aspects of mental cultivation reserved for the peak of Foundation Building.

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We believe your cultivation path may differ significantly from the primary path which the Disciples propagate.

“Am I different because I ate those two natural treasures in the sigil challenge?” Hudson asked.

They are not the basis for the deviation in your path, Ix replied. The cause is clearly your breathing technique.

He sighed and looked at Ix’s assessment of his mental cultivation again.

Overall Mental Fitness:

Will: 4 (Low)

Perception: 7 (Peak)

Proprioception: 3 (Low)

Memory: 7 (Peak)

His perception was naturally high and had been boosted by the fruit of the Ten Thousand Year Oak that he had eaten. But his Memory – that explanation was more perplexing.

What we label ‘Memory’ does impact the depth, speed, and clarity of your recall, but it is most easily measured by the functional size and complexity of your mindspace, Ix had told him. The next part was he got lost. We hypothesize that your mindspace is so large because your breathing technique results in the direct conversion of natural qi – the energy of life, air, movement – into the energy of the spirit and mind: shen.

He had needed Ix to explain the whole concept to him several times. Each individual had three types of energy within their body, also known as the three treasures. They were jing, qi, and shen. Jing was the essence of the soul; qi was the vigor of life, and shen was the energy of the spirit, or the mind.

Everyone was born with a certain amount of jing, and lost it gradually over the course of their lives. There were ways to replace lost jing, but according to Ix, it was not important or critical to cultivators below Core Formation level.

Qi was the energy of life, of air and movement, and the most critical element in advancing one’s cultivation. Without qi, there was no cultivation, there was no advancement at all.

And then shen… Qi could be converted to shen, the energy of the mind, through techniques using the meridians around the dantian. Ix hypothesized that Hudson was not condensing any qi within his dantian because any that made it to his dantian was automatically being converted into shen, advancing the expansion of his mindspace instead.

If what Ix hypothesized was true, then Hudson needed a different technique to build qi within his dantian.

Finally, if new types of mystical energies weren’t enough to worry about, he was most concerned about Ix’s evaluation of his sigils. Hudson had forcefully adopted the sigil of the Eternal Flame during his fight with George. He didn’t regret doing so, since it had saved his life, but it had led to unintended consequences. Without a defined place to anchor or incorporate, it had used his mind and body for its fuel, even going so far as to latch onto and corrupt the sigil of Rooted Strength.

In short, it was a mess. And that was before Ix had tried to evaluate the detached piece of Sal’s mind still hanging on to his mindscape. They had never seen anything like that before, and could only tell him that it was, well, broken off of some other cultivator’s foundation.

The solution? From Ix’s perspective, Hudson needed to: first, develop or find a new technique to condense qi within his dantian. This would unlock significant advancements in both his physical and mental fitness. Second, further improve his mental fitness, especially his “Proprioception” (the mental equivalent of dexterity, and functionally the ability of his mind to perceive the changes in his body); and third, finally use his much more advanced mental abilities to unravel the crossed paths he was on.

In short: advance his cultivation. Just get stronger, and problems would solve themselves… Again, easier said than done. For the time being, however, he could at least practice mastering qi techniques to enter and exit his mindscape.

Ix had knowledge of an impressive array of qi techniques suitable for human physiology. They had imparted that knowledge to trial participants in exchange for trial merits for many years, but now they were free from the constraints that limited what they could share. If Hudson wanted to learn about a technique – any technique – he was free to do so.

It was too bad he couldn’t really use many of the awesome techniques that Ix could teach him. A significantly greater control over qi was a hallmark of the Foundation Building stage, and he wasn’t there yet. Some of the techniques also required the use of qi from the dantian, and Hudson’s technique actively purged any qi from his dantian. It’s as if the technique wasn’t designed for cultivating qi at all.

Hudson steadied his thoughts and looked inwards, seeking out the qi flows within his body. He kept his breathing technique at a slow tempo, and drifted down into his qi sense. Once he could sense the qi flowing through his body, following circular paths from his lungs to his meridians and out through his muscles, he exerted his will on the stubborn flows.

The qi ran through his channels like water through a thirsty desert, and refused to bend to his will. He slowed his breathing down even further, until it was barely a trickle. He’d stumbled on this trick yesterday when practicing – the less qi was flowing through his body’s channels, the easier it was to actually manipulate.

With the barest minimum of qi flowing, he gathered the qi flowing past a meridian at the top of his spine and carefully looped it into a specific, complex pattern that Ix had taught him. It took a few tries, but he had practiced quite a bit yesterday, and as the pattern took hold, he successfully executed the technique and a white mist softly replaced his vision.

The drawback (or benefit, depending on perspective) of the Mind Gate technique was that it did not last very long. He could have at most a few minutes of relative time within his mindscape before the qi patterns within his brain dissolved from his lack of active concentration.

With practice and further advancement in his cultivation, he was told he could improve the stability of the technique, or learn better, more stable techniques. But Hudson had chosen this one specifically because he thought that having a built-in timer on the technique could be a benefit.

Hudson spent a few minutes in his mindscape putzing about, puzzling over the strangely charred-yet growing roots creeping up the side of his house, before being pulled back out when the qi pattern unraveled.

He then practiced the reverse of the technique, an inversion of the pattern that pulled him into his mindscape. That was the other reason he had wanted to learn this specific technique, as it could function as both a gate flowing inwards, and a gate keeping things out.

After multiple successful attempts, he decided to stop for the time being. He tried not to think about how much he needed to improve before he could use the technique – or any technique, for that matter – in the middle of a fight.

The sun was up in the cerulean blue sky, and Hudson paused to take in the sights before going to find Cor.

As he gazed out over the alien ocean, he thought he saw something on the horizon. It looked like a brown and gray smudge; he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think it had been there before. Everything in all directions was either the blue of the sky or the deeper blue of the ocean.

“I think I see something,” Hudson said to Ix. “I’ll go wake Cor – maybe we’re lucky and there are still survivors in this world.”