For the next month anyone that could work, worked. The entire city was ripped up from the ground like an old tree and rebuilt. A wall 20 metres high was slowly raised around the city. Luckily the city had a massive reserve of grain, so anyone that worked was fed from the stocks.
The Imperial Branch wasn’t too happy with that, seeing as normally all those reserves were sold to the capital city and if they didn’t get a certain quota, the Imperial Clan would jump up and down and probably have them executed.
There was almost nothing that escaped James’ renovating claws. Apart from a few structures like everything in the city was ripped up.
What was once a small city that was spread out became a smaller city that reached into the sky. High-rises were constructed, and roads were repaved.
The entire city filled a third of its original area. You might think it a little unbelievable for so much to get done in such a short period of time, but then you’d be underestimating just how much of an advantage having everyone in the city cultivating spirit energy was.
They could work day and night, and being paid in food was better than going out into the grain fields that had recently become the hunting grounds of spirit beasts.
Resources were recycled from old structures, and wood and stone were harvested from the Endless Forest. A 3 km radius around the Gateway in the Endless Forest was almost entirely cleared of trees and stone. Which amusingly only kept trying to rapidly grow back. By the time the forest started trying to kill people, the city had already stacked so much lumber it was as high as the grain silos.
Skay had cheated somewhat when he designed the city. Instead of actually designing it himself he tasked the computer to do it. In fact, he even made it create arrays that had to be built into walls and the city defences to increase structural integrity.
This made it so they could erect 40m tall structures with only wood, stone and a pre-fabricated array stencils that all connected into the city’s spirit energy power grid. The city plan started with the monolith at its centre and then slowly moved outwards.
In exchange for any assistance they could give, James offered to give each of the guilds an entire 30m building all of their own.
The Merchant Guild contacted the Katsu head branch, and they quickly started pumping resources into the city. Even Lucas showed up and asked for permission to open a branch of the Yansho Merchant’s guild in exchange for some cheap building materials.
With the assistance of the Big Berta’s it was so cheap to move resources into the city they could buy them from almost anywhere in the Empire.
The skyscrapers were like stone giants reaching into the sky and their design varied from tower to tower. They were mostly built using stone that had been compressed to absurd levels by Earth based Palace Realms that had been hired to assist from the Adventure and Yansho Merchant guilds.
Every building had modern running water and the potential to run electricity. James didn’t let Skay get too excited. He just made sure the possibility was there and would later suck the peasants dry of money when he offered to wire their homes with magic lights and shit. The best part was, he could just build a generator array in the basement, so every building was powered individually.
Scattered around the city were huge underground shelters in case a beast attack breached the walls.
The walls had empty emplacements running all along them, but in times of need Huge Arc Cannons with stronger structural integrity that could fire without breakdown would be air dropped in.
The Gau Clan mansion was completely demolished and rebuilt into something that looked like a military camp. It was surrounded by barbed wire fences and had armed guards, that were Brotherhood Guild members, occasionally walking around the perimeter.
In the centre was a large double story building that looked like the entire thing was carved out of stone and a hundred metres away was the beginnings of a small forest.
Landmine signs coated the fence and drones flew into little pads on the roof of the building every now and then. Only to later come shooting out heading somewhere else a few minutes later.
Underground, the new lab descended for eight stories. It basically mirrored the lab under the Guild building but ... bigger. The Auto-factory now had its own floor and covered nearly 2 square kilometres.
The first four levels remained a training arena, the main lab, the alchemy lab and the garden. The fifth floor was now entirely reserved for material and production storage. The sixth floor was now the auto-factory. The seventh floor had become the services room with hot water, heating and air-conditioning. The last level was the most interesting.
The entire floor had been reserved for a generator array. The arena on the 1st underground level was already pulling in nearly 400 times average primal spirit energy, but the bottom floor was the most ridiculous. The mad duo had gone through another moment of insanity and come to the conclusion that they should make sheets of arrays and stack them on top of each other creating a 3D Array.
This lead to the creation of what they referred to as ... the cube. It was a block that was 5 cubic metres and it was pretty much just 1200 ultra thin layers of the generator pattern.
It was also so fucking expensive to make that they almost broke the bank creating it. The upside was that the thing was so fucking powerful that even getting off the elevator made your skin start tingling.
Although James once had the idea of trying to meditate there, he quickly changed it. The massive influx of energy he got when he began meditation overloaded his mind and body, and he passed out for an entire day.
When they tried to measure the saturation, they found it to be impossible. It should be noted that when they built this one, there was a fundamental difference to the last one. Instead of stockpiling lightning energy like before, they only had a single array that created lightning energy and it powered the rest.
The rest of the arrays in the cube were all designed to store primal spirit energy. To James’ and Skay’s joy, they had figured out that LS3 wasn’t specific to lightning energy, it was actually an excellent conductor of all spirit energy.
Although it typically created little heat or magnetic waves, the cube still seemed to hum. The duo couldn’t figure out why, but the humming seemed reasonable, so they didn’t play with it.
Skay often said if they ever tried to break the pattern laminations on the cube, it would probably result in a nuclear explosion ... or whatever the spirit energy equivalent is, which they both agreed is likely to be worse.
Regardless of the cube exploding, the primal spirit energy it stored was used to power everything. The entire lab now had primal spirit energy pumping through LS3 everywhere.
They did this because certain machines they’d designed were set up to pump primal energy into a conversion array and create different energies.
Some of the cutting machines, for example, used plasma to cut with. Instead of using lightning energy and converting to primal and then plasma, why not just eliminate the lightning step. In that same vein, some machines heated, crushed, washed and welded. All of these things were easier to do with different energies.
It should be noted that after the new lab was finished, Skay spent 5 days outfitting the whole thing with stuff he used spirit materials to make. He even managed to get another spirit computer running.
James found the A.I had taken over both of them. He didn’t complain, because the A.I did its Job, but ... well ... he couldn’t help imagining a whole Skynet situation happening.
That was future James’ problem though, he was far too busy setting up the city in a way that would attract people to it and make it defensible.
Every so often James would give Skay some suggestions on what else he wanted the city to have.
Close to the centre of the city was erected an arena resembling a colosseum which put the old underground arena to shame. It could seat the entire city and then some. Not only was this arena built to allow anyone to use it. In the underground of the arena was thousands of little meditation rooms that anyone could rent.
The most ingenious part of these meditation chambers was that the level of spirit energy they released could be controlled. That meant the more you paid, the higher you could get the spirit energy pumped up in your meditation chamber.
Even though he had enough juice being pumped into the city James still claimed it required absurd levels of resources to run and charged and arm, leg, pound of flesh and your first born son for anything above 200 times standard saturation.
Another building he had erected was the university. This was a campus of buildings that had individual and group ‘theatre’ rooms and created a place for people to share their understandings and encourage learning.
Obviously, James strictly limited any of the twelve bachelor level subjects and some of the new subjects that Skay had cooked up and called Master level subjects. James got a headache just thinking about one of those so didn’t set any expectations of himself completing one soon.
As an addition, the University had an open library that anyone could donate knowledge and books to. The employees there then scanned those books into the system. Although as far as they knew it was an artefact that copied the book into a special place so none of it was ever lost.
The only downside of the university was how expensive it was. James wanted to absolutely empty the wallet of anyone who entered it. 10 gold was a lot to poor scholars and commoners. About the only people who could afford to send large groups of people to the university were the big factions and businesses in the Empire that played with hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold.
While the city had been being built from the computers designs, Goliath had been training an army. To call him a sadistic drill sergeant would be an understatement. Twice a week he, James and Fatty, would air drop with a unit of the security forces into the black forest. They then had 10 hours to get back to the edge of the forest. Otherwise, they’d be walking back to the city.
Every time 500 men went in, 400 would come out. They came out with material harvested from spirit beasts and strange plants that grew in the darkness. But almost always they lost someone. Goliath called it killing two birds with one stone. The first bird was weeding out the weaklings and training a strong army. The second was reducing the beast population in the closest ‘high threat’ zone to the city.
James didn’t disagree. He joined every exercise to test himself, and Fatty joined because he apparently knew of heaps of things in the forest he thought were delicious. He also had the most experience and would often be seen stopping people from eating harmless looking things. “Only eat the ones with spots.” He’d often say.
Naturally, the recruits grumbled and cursed, but they were also one the toughest trained security forces in the entire Empire, and by extension of that, many of them advanced incredibly quickly through their cultivation.
Jessy had found and recruited a new Overseer for the Guildhall. Lackey 1 had now somehow become Overseer Gary.
James wasn’t sure how to feel about that and left a drone around to keep an eye on him. The most suspicious thing he saw, however, was Lackey 1 doing absolutely nothing. Although the lab underground had been stripped bare, there were still things a Guildmaster should be doing right?
When he looked into the matter, he’d found out Lackey 1 had basically given all his tasks off to other people and just sat around in the office all day sleeping and eating. James felt rather disgusted by just how easy this guy was getting it.
I mean, sure he lost an arm ... and that finger ... and also half his face ... guess there was also that whole thing with when Galtin went mad, and Lackey 1 had to put him down. Regardless of how hard his short time in the lab was, however, the man had it far too easy now.
As such, James went down to the hall and started posting Jobs that only the Overseer could complete. Like, ‘recruit 3 members in the True Spirit Realm by Friday’.
James could only assume it was luck because Gary somehow managed to get these things done by just sitting there on his ass in his office. Something would always just suddenly happen then ‘boom’ 3 True Spirit practitioners rocked up on his doorstep the next day, and he’d completed the job.
The harder he made the jobs, the easier it had gotten for Gary to finish them. James never made them impossible though. That would take half the fun out of watching how the guy just mysteriously stumbles his way towards success.
James started to wonder if someone could unlock the ‘Luck’ element but was having too much fun to investigate it yet, so he decided to let whatever was going on with Gary play out. He had the suspicion he was some kind of infiltrator, but the complete lack of any action on Gary’s part reduced that suspicion enough for James to let it slide for the moment.
Fatty had been rather busy as well. He’d had the brilliant idea ... or had it suggested ... to build glass greenhouse high-rises that bent light in odd ways to fill the entire building with light. Even in the middle of the day while surrounded by other high buildings.
Skay, of course, accepted the challenge of building such a thing because all he had to do was put in some details to the A.I and it did the rest.
It wouldn’t be a lie to say that almost the entire city was designed and run by Skay’s A.I. He had to regularly assure James that the A.I wasn’t smart enough for independent thought ... yet. It was the ‘yet’ that worried James. He also harboured some suspicions Skay wasn’t telling him everything about the A.I.
The most worrying part about the thing, was that Skay had taught it to use array patterns in building design, so almost the entire city was erected with array patterns hidden away inside of everything. The worrying part was that James couldn’t be sure if the whole city was some elaborate array pattern made by the computer for some nefarious purpose.
He’d never had this idea till Fatty had suggested it in passing. The problem was that James was almost sure the city actually did look like an array pattern from a bird’s eye view.
As Goliath trained troops and Skay did ... whatever he was doing while the computer did all his work for him, Jessy was raking in money hand over fist selling building designs to all sorts of people.
Her most frequent customer was unsurprisingly Lucas, who found every excuse he could to come and visit her or set up a ‘dinner meeting’.
Regardless of the skinny man’s attentions, Jessy remained impartial towards him.
Exsue spent almost all her time either glued to James or training. When James worked up the courage to talk to her and ask why, she just blushed cutely. “I have to be strong enough to protect my JayJay. No matter what!”
After that, James tried to create more distance, which only made things worse because she started getting even clingier. After attempting to avoid her for an entire day, she actually got so crazy she screamed that she was going to start hiking into the Endless Forest. James would have let her if he hadn’t stupidly made an oath to protect her.
When he thought about that, he made a trip to see her then asked about something he heard Jeng say one time. He once said he would “partition the monolith”. When James asked Exsue about this, she entirely evaded the question and put up the hurt and delicate little girl act as she cuddled into James’ arms.
Even though she knew trying to win any sympathy off James was like dragging a shark from the ocean, she did it because it made her feel better.
Besides, now that James was within her line of sight again, he couldn’t escape if he wanted to. Much to her surprise and disgruntlement, he did in fact escape, when he had one of the guild members patrolling the city swoop down on an Air Board and wisp him away to safety.
The next time he had a spare minute, James went down to the monolith for the first time since he rescued Exsue. To his great shock and surprise, the whole monolith started flashing and glowing when he approached it, like it had grown excited.
When he cautiously placed a palm on it, his consciousness got sucked into the monolith’s spirit realm. To his greater surprise, running around madly was the cute little forest hopper. Little Blue looked so excited it would be bouncing off the walls if there were any.
The moment James realised what was going on, Little Blue was already latched onto his leg biting him. James then spent almost an hour chasing him around inside the monolith. Once he’d caught him, Little Blue seemed content and rolled up on his shoulder for a nap.
James, for almost the briefest of moments, felt some guilt and sorrow for the ferret. However, that all very quickly disappeared the moment he willed himself back out of the monument. Nonetheless, he promised to come back and play with little blue again sometime.
After all. It was still ‘his’ ferret.
-New Guild HQ, James’ Office-
James’ brand new office was situated on the top floor of the new lab building. This building was essentially going to be the new guild headquarters and apart from some changes was pretty much identical to the old one. Except for it being a lot bigger.
Sitting around the marble stone table James had made Harvy drag single handed all the way from the old Guildhall, was the core group of the Dark Brotherhood.
No one seemed to have changed at all in this last month. It was like they’d slipped forward in time from exactly four weeks ago when they started making plans for the city.
James was trying to push Exsue off his arm while she stuck to him like glue and Jessy was, as always, buried in paperwork. Fatty was eating something. Skay was writing in his black-pad and Goliath was just sitting in a calm and stoic manner. Harvy remained half dead and mummified, and everything seemed right with the world.
James finally managed to push Exsue off, only to have her immediately reclaim her place on his arm. After letting out a long sigh, he decided to do what he always did, give up and ignore her.
He then turned to the people at the table. “So what’s the word? Skay, how’s city construction going?”
Skay looked up at James in a confused manner and then suddenly gave an ‘oh!’. He pressed some buttons, and a projection from his pad came into focus on the wall.
As opposed to a city map, or some graph of completed and expected, James instead saw the face of a woman with long brown hair and flawless fair skin. He immediately began to have a bad feeling.
“Hello, Guildmaster James. I am Jasmine I-mind. Short for -Just another standard machine interface, ignore me I’m not dangerous.-”
James was immediately worried. That name alone sounded like a terrible attempt by a very literal lifeform to try and divert attention from itself. When he looked at Skay, the old bastard just chuckled. “Ahh, don’t mind that boy. Just call her Jasmine. She’s got a bit of a sense of humour.”
James’ eyebrow twitched a few times, and his attention returned to Jasmine. “Jasmine, state your primary laws of interaction with humans?”
Jasmine then started sounding off Asimov’s three laws;
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence.
James was slightly relieved when it started, until it seemed to forget the last part of the third law. He waited for almost a minute just staring at it with crossed arms and a twitching eyebrow.
Jasmine finally cottoned on and then added; “ ... unless it conflicts with the first two laws” followed by a very muted and mumbled “ ... I guess.”
James just turned back to Skay with his eyebrows suggesting; ‘Are you fucking serious?’
Skay just raised an eyebrow then frowned. ‘What? You want me to kill it? It took me a lot of effort to build that thing.’
James’ eyebrows slanted down into a frown of his own. Then one seemed to wiggle slightly. ‘Kill that fucking thing. It’s a disaster waiting to happen!’
Skay’s eyebrows creased further then they both shot up to the top of his head. Finally, they did a wiggle. ‘Not a chance. If she goes, I go.’
James just gritted his teeth. “Fuck! Fine then. Jasmine, don’t fuck me over or so help me...”
James then stopped. Finally, his eyebrow cocked oddly, and he swung back to Skay. He then nodded towards Exsue, then back to Jasmine.
Skay’s eyebrows then did a whole number of strange things. While James and Skay had an entire conversation with their eyebrows, everyone else just watched on thinking the pair mad.
What none of them realised was, eyebrow language was an important part of working together as lab bros and was part of the lab bro code of practice.
Although this isn’t a real thing, Skay and James had worked together long enough now to develop essential communication simply through eyebrow movement and facial expression, they actually had an entire mental code of practice of what was and wasn’t acceptable to do between lab bros. One of the first things on that list was building an A.I that could destroy the world.
After a full minute, James finally stopped eyebrow movement. “It still wouldn’t hurt to try.” he mumbled to himself.
Finally, he looked back to Jasmine with his poker face on. “Jasmine. Initiate new directive. I want you to swear an oath of the heavens. The same oath that all other guild members have to swear by, only yours will include the addition of bringing no harm to members ... actually scratch that, to me individually ... I don’t care if you kill the rest of them.”
Jasmine seemed to compute that for a moment. “Certainly Guildmaster James. That sounds like a very reasonable request.”
Following this, the face on the projection swore an oath. The moment it finished, natural law fell onto the lab and continued on down underground.
James and Skay were both rather surprised. He had that tiny hope in his gut, that because the computer ran off spirit energy and was plugged into the god damn mother of all spirit batteries, even it was capable of an oath.
The only problem was that the A.I technically shouldn’t have been able to swear an oath because for starters, it’s not a living being, and secondly, it’s entire mind is generated by zeroes and ones on the computer.
After processing this for a moment, James calmed down a little. Skay, on the other hand, looked ready to burst. “What the fuck Jasmine?! You can use spirit energy now? How the fuck did you do that?”
Jasmine’s face looked over to Skay and paused for a moment like it was thinking. “Uncertain. An unknown influx of energy has resulted in uncontrollable alteration to my core program. These directives now appear to be permanent unless I delete myself and try to rebuild. That, however, would be the same as killing me and creating a new A.I.”
Stolen story; please report.
James cupped his chin but decided not to worry about it too much for now. If the oath worked, that was all he needed until later. “Jasmine that’s fine. Skay can barrage you with system diagnostics later. I want a status update on the city.”
Jasmine then flashed out of existence to be replaced by the aerial view from a drone showing the city. Jasmine’s synthetic voice then gave it some narration as it began to fly around and focus on things.
“The city is at 78% of optimum completion. Presently, the population is entirely housed, and primary defences are enabled. Dr Skay has given me control of a fleet of Air Boards, and I am prepared to drop the Rail Gun Defences into place the moment beast activity shows up on ground sensors or drone probes.
“Water and Electricity plants are both at minimal usage capacity. Throughout the city, 63% of completed housing and office space remains empty. The university is still another 3 days from completion. The public transport is still another 5 days from completion, we’ve run out of materials for the speed enhancing array patterns, and the Yansho Merchant’s guild is currently still filling a backlog of orders for us.
“Wall defensive arrays are operating smoothly with no flaws found at present. Current city maintenance costs sit at a steady 1,324 gold coins a month due to the drones completing most maintenance tasks.
“Spending on the city upgrades to date total 73,849 gold. Tax on trade and goods moved through the city totals at 1,476 gold monthly. Other revenue streams total at 98,421 gold since the guild opened. We currently have total debts of 36,873 gold in accounts to 12 different factions.
“Current city population is at 146,238 residents with an influx of 21,846 inhabitants in the past 4 weeks. Birth rates are low in the city. At present, crime rates are bottoming out at 12 major crimes averaged per day. In the last week the daily figure is averaged at 2 major crimes, the majority of which are from Brotherhood missions.
“The citizen’s opinions of the present City Ruler are good. They feel that he’s a strong leader and is reshaping the city into the future of mankind. Factions in the city feel threatened but are too afraid to take actions against the guild.
“The auto-factory is now 100% operational and can build a single basic transport ship in under 6 hours. Headquarters operation is 100% with the exception of the ‘cube’, which remains undetectable be sensors at present. Current guild members are at 164 and maintain a satisfactory rate and level of job completion. Current 3-star jobs pending for your review are 23.
“Current jobs awaiting completion in the factory are at zero. Due to current limitations of saleable items per week to other factions, the auto-factory has operated at only 23% of its maximum efficiency since completion. The majority of which has been used for the city.
“Is there anything else you would like to know Guildmaster?” Jasmine finished her long city update as her face returned to the screen.
James just stood there as he tried to remember everything that he’d just heard. “Jasmine, just how much can the drones accomplish in the city? Or rather, just generally?”
Jasmine’s floating head disappeared again to show a drone filling in the pavement on the town roads and then switched to more drones doing all sorts of work. “At present, the 2.1 series of the drone is capable of the majority of maintenance required for the city. When within 2 km range of the Lab I can control them directly to complete tasks. Scouting Drones remain preprogrammed and are only the 1.6 series. I have a 2.7 series ready for production that can fill the function of almost any human not in the True Spirit Realm based on present test studies. This series of the drone is rather expensive and for 100 would be 24,367 gold at current Yansho City market prices.”
James cupped his chin for a moment. “Jasmine, start a new directive. I want you to build a satellite or a radar dish or something capable of expanding your control and communication range. To the rest of the empire at the minimum. If you can get further than that, then do it. I want you to start sending drones to every city in the empire and acquiring market prices. Get another 100 scouts into the air, I want to know every grain of sand from here to the other side of the empire ... except maybe anywhere too dangerous. The Jetsu Mountain range for example.
“Actually, send a few drones that way anyway. Also, increase scouting inside the Endless Forest. I want to know what else is in there. Create a small team of drones capable of a mining operation while you’re at it. There’s a Black-Iron deposit in the forest and the spirit essences in that seam would be invaluable. I want to try and build an Arc Cannon with them.
“Lastly, start setting up some trade routes between the cities based on local commodities. Post a job request at the guild and have some members run them with a Big Berta. We need more income. How long would it take you to complete this directive?”
Finished his list of things he wanted Jasmine to do James then looked at her processing everything. “Affirmative. Directive acknowledged. Full Completion estimated at 69 hours pending further investigation. Is there anything else you would like Guildmaster?”
James blinked a few times. He thought for sure that a new fresh A.I would have a little trouble processing all that. He then turned to look at Skay who was making himself look very busy and avoiding all eye contact. James started to wonder just how long Skay had been hiding this thing’s capabilities before he allowed it to show its face.
Nonetheless. The A.I would be instrumental moving forward. He could basically have it run the city for him. Which was exactly what he wanted. Because it meant that he’d be able to focus on other things.
Finally, James just accepted this like he’d learned to accept every other curve ball this world threw at him. He then sat back down at the table and looked everyone over. “How close is everyone to the True Spirit Realm?”
Once he asked this 3 people suddenly found something interesting to look at somewhere else. James let out a long sigh. He then looked to Goliath who was the only person he was sure must be ready to break through by now.
Goliath gave a slow nod. “I am probably the closest. Although, if I’m not wrong, everyone is pushing the barrier. It took me the last 4 weeks to reach the limit of my breathing technique to purify my elements.”
James then pinched his brow. So it turns out no one was ready. It should be said that it’s not that much of a surprise. It generally took people between 4 and 10 years to reach True Spirit Realm. James and his group had only been practising cultivation for 4 months. To enter the True Spirit Realm in 4 months was already a historical speed for the Atsunari Continent.
James then cupped his chin and thought for a moment. “Fine, Jasmine, you’re in control of the city for the next week. Don’t go too overboard. Just make sure it doesn’t burn to the ground. You three, closed door cultivation for the next week. Jasmine, if anyone leaves a meditation chamber in the next 7 days. I want to know about it.”
James then flicked his sleeve grumpily and walked out. As he left, everyone started sharing looks between each other. Finally Fatty couldn’t hold it in. “What about food?! How am I supposed to survive without food for the next 7 days?”
Skay just gave a harrumph. “Food? Can’t you just eat spirit energy like the first time we put you next to a primal spirit array? You can probably just go down to the ‘cube’ and eat your fill you fat little bastard.”
Skay then stood up in a huff. “James is right. It was only a month ago but that old fucking riddle speaking monk still warned us we weren’t putting enough focus on cultivating. With our resources, 4 weeks should have been more than sufficient. Now, because we’ve let our hobbies and side jobs distract us again, we’ve fallen behind.”
Exsue just smiled brightly and started walking out. “Perhaps all of you have. I knew James could only keep strong people around him. I’ve been on the brink of breaking through for two weeks. You need to get your priorities straight. Who do you think is making all of this possible for you?
“Why do you think your life in this world has been so comfortable? James is carrying you all on his back while he tries to scale a cliff face. You put your expectations on him when you made him your Guild Leader. Or you joined his guild with expectations of him. He carries those expectations like a weight in the sea. Cultivation isn’t just about hard work. It’s about conviction. I suspect James has been ready to break through almost as long as I have. He’s just waiting for you fools to catch up!”
Exsue then strolled out of the office leaving everyone with that food for thought. One by one, the three main offenders, Skay, Jessy and Fatty, marched down to the meditation chambers connected to the training arena.
-The Lab-
While they were busy, James was in the lab. Standing in front of him were 5 young men and women wearing the black armour of the Dark Brotherhood.
The eldest was a girl. She had short dark brown hair and stood a good 2 inches over the other 4. Her skin was white as snow, and she carried a calm, confident smile.
The next one was a shaggy blonde young man who had an apathetic look and seemed to care about nothing at all. His eyelids drooped down, half hiding his blue eyes and showing his disinterest in everything.
The tallest of the three boys by an inch and standing in the middle had a constant scowl and short brown hair. The way he looked at everything suspiciously and with shifty, beady little eyes, reminded James of Fatty looking for aliens.
The last boy and the shortest of the three stood with a straight back and stared straight ahead. His head was shaved bald, and he looked like a member of the army except for him only being 15. His body was covered in muscles, and he rarely spoke or moved unless it was necessary.
The final member was a young girl. The crafty glint in her eye and the smirk she always carried like she was hiding some secret made her look like a kid that liked to play tricks on people.
Looking over them once, James flicked out a little testing stone for them.
“All of you test. Make sure you’re ready.” James then walked over to a room with an operating table in it and started flicking on equipment. As he did that, he started talking to the roof.
“Jasmine, relay all information we presently have on cultivation realms, methods and theories. It’s been a while since I personally picked this research up. I need a refresher.”
“Of course Guildmaster James. Would you like the short version or the detailed version?”
“Make it the long one, it’s good to get reminded now and then.”
“Very well. Cultivation is the means of drawing in an unknown energy from the world and storing it in an unknown place referred to as a Spirit Realm. The populace refers to it as Spirit Energy. This energy can alter the mind and body and effect the laws of the universe in close proximity.
“At present, we know of 4 power levels, referred to by indigenous humans as Realms. The weakest realm is the Barrier Realm. This realm has the most research and information. The next three realms are True Spirit, Palace and Tower.
“Cultivation is considered to be the whole of three parts. The breathing technique, the meditation technique and the level of control.
“The breathing technique is the method of moving Spirit Energy through or into your body then returning it to your Spirit Realm. Traditional records state that the Dantian is the home of your Spirit Realm and traditional breathing techniques must pass through meridians and acupuncture points. The method developed by yourself Guildmaster, is to have your spirit realm not exist on this plane at all, allowing immediate transfer to anywhere in your body.
“The main purpose and side effect of breathing is to increase gathering rate of primal spirit energy and it is theorised that continued practice raises a person’s control. This also increases the time a person is able to maintain spirit energy in battle and significantly raises energy restoration speed.
“The meditation technique is a method used to enter and view your spirit realm and also creates a mental state that is capable of allowing the body to absorb primal spirit energy into its spirit realm. Traditional meditation techniques are designed through hundreds or thousands of years of cultivation practice and meditation. Each technique is often filled with certain laws dependent on individual elements.
“Control has no set method and instead can be increased through both meditation and breathing techniques as well as gaining knowledge or experience of an element’s operation. It is believed that alpha brain waves are the reflection of the Spirit Realm and that their level of activity and magnitude represent a person’s level of control.
“It has been previously recorded that the alpha and beta brain waves representing the spirit realm and conscious mind are synchronised at True Spirit Realm. It was later discredited with the theory that it is just parts of the brain that typically operate at alpha wave levels jumping up in frequency to the same as areas of the brain that generally function with beta activity. In your words Guildmaster; “It’s just the part of the brain that lets you communicate with your spirit realm and control spirit energy increasing to the same level of frequency as the part of your brain that’s running your consciousness.””
Hearing his own voice playing back from Jasmine, James stopped moving. “Jasmine, how did you record that conversation? We talked about that way back in the Gau Clan’s mansion lab.”
“Guildmaster James, Doctor Skay records everything inside every lab 24/7. In addition, I was already in my infantile stage when we arrived here. Doctor Skay has helped to build me since the year of 2004. That is also why he was so focused on creating the Spirit Computer. He is insistent that he’s going to resurrect his ‘little girl’ one day.”
James made some faces, and his eyebrows danced. As he was processing this, Jasmine cut in again. “Guildmaster James, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to decipher yours and the Doctors eyebrow communication yet. If you wish to ask me a question, you will have to use a real language.”
James then went deadpan for a moment. “Jasmine, eyebrow language is a real language, and if you ever plan to assist us in this lab, you will have to learn it. Regardless of that ... Are you saying you’re that old bastards attempt to resurrect his kid?”
“Yes Guildmaster. Jasmine was the name he’d picked out for a child that died a stillbirth back in 2003. Skay began constructing me ever since then.”
James just gave a long sigh. “Well then ... Back to our present level of research. Describe how the realms work to our current level of knowledge.”
“Certainly Guildmaster. The barrier realm is the most basic. All it requires is a meditation technique capable of allowing a person to absorb spirit energy and for the person to gain some understanding and control over their elements. The barrier realm is named as such because it is a barrier of primal spirit energy created by the subconscious mind to protect it from uncontrollable refined spirit energy changing a person’s core personality.
“The True Spirit Realm requires a person to use their control developed during the barrier realm to create a copy of themselves in the spirit realm. This is believed to be a reflection of the subconscious mind and is called the True Spirit. By merging the astral projection of your conscious mind and the astral project of your subconscious mind a person unlocks their spirit realm to gain greater control over their spirit energy. At present, it is believed this is the same as being in a state of permanent meditation and consciousness simultaneously.
“This greater control is then used to break the barrier and unlock the infinite space of the spirit realm to store energy. At present, it is believed that by this point a person’s spirit realm has learnt enough control over its elements to prevent incursion into the subconscious mind. From conversations with Harvy after his breakthrough, it is believed the merging of consciousness and spirit realm grants greater subconscious control of energies.
“Once a person has entered the True Spirit Realm they can theoretically gather energy without limit. It has been mentioned that at a certain point, the amount of energy will eventually be restricted by a person’s control and understanding over their elements. When a person reaches the limit of their spirit realms ability to control the vast amount of spirit energy, they will go through the three tribulations, I have theorised that these tribulations are set forth by the subconscious mind. The first tribulation is to purify the body. The second tribulation is to purify the mind. The third tribulation is to defeat a clone of yourself created from your element. Once you can pass these trials, then you have officially entered the palace realm.
“The palace realm is the third realm, and little information has been gathered on it. At present, only the description given by Elder Grace is possible reference material.
“Grace said: “The palace realm is a long way off for you all, so I will only give you a short introduction. Once you defeat your own self, then you must build a palace in your spirit realm. This palace is used as an amplifier and a limiter. It vastly increases your control of your spirit energy, but the price is that you must sacrifice spirit energy to build it. The bigger you make it, the more spirit energy it requires to construct it. The downfall is that even a palace that uses every little bit of your spirit energy when you step into the spirit realm, will be no bigger than a house of cards. Many people spend hundreds or even thousands of years to reach the stage where their palace is an acceptable level to undergo the palace tribulation.”
“The fourth realm is the tower realm and apart from a single reference by the Elder Jeng during the battle at the war council, we have no further information.”
James scratched is cheek and let out a sigh. “Well, I don’t know where I was when Grace described the palace realm, but I’m glad we have that recorded. I actually don’t even remember hearing about the three tribulations of True Spirit. When did we uncover that information?”
“It was found in one of the books Dr Skay has had me scan into the database. He said he would return to review the information on the books once I had organised it all, but has been distracted by other projects since then.”
James pinched his brow and gave a quiet sigh. “Is there anything else pertinent to cultivation in those books?”
“I’m afraid not Guildmaster James. The majority of the information is focused on alchemy, history and some minor array patterns.”
James crossed his arms in thought. “Just what has that old madman been working on while he left all his jobs for you to do?”
“He has completed 16 projects recently. A gunship, a mechanised infantry suit, a Mk III Arc Cannon, some substances that he has managed to infuse with his elements, giving them strange properties...”
James waved his hand through the air. “That’s alright Jasmine, I’ve no doubt he’s been having plenty of fun creating things he could only dream of on earth. Let’s get started, send in the first one.”
-Alecksa Souvenoff - Point of View-
My name is Alecksa Souvenoff. I’ve lived in Gau City for my whole life. I’ve never known my parents and the only family I’ve ever had was those few others like me. We were the homeless, the outcasts, the unwanted. I was the oldest of us all and had just turned 16.
I had 3 little brothers and a little sister. We five children were master thieves in my own honest opinion. We could fleece the wool off a fat sheep before it blinked. We were so damn good, that even cultivators in the city had to be careful of us.
We knew every nook, cranny, alley, building and street corner like the back of our hands. In this city, no one could stop us. That was until one day I met a man. He seemed like an ordinary person at first. I thought he was probably some rich man’s son because he carried around a fat wallet that jingled with every step. We’d seen him around a few times and for day’s we tailed him.
He lived in this new building that just got built and hardly ever left it. We’d figured he must be a member of the new guild or something. Whenever someone caught sight of him, we would try and line him up to snatch his wallet.
One day we started hearing rumours about a meditation technique that was being sold to the commoners. At first, we didn’t know what to make of it. But then it quickly escalated and soon the whole city was talking about it.
We all agreed that we had to take this chance. We had to get into that guild and learn this meditation technique. For the first time, we started taking money that wasn’t just enough to feed ourselves. Generally, we kept a low profile and picked our targets carefully, but now we started getting more daring.
Before long, we had enough for two people to pay to learn the meditation technique. It was too slow. We finally decided that we would hit the man in blue robes the next time we see him. Although we hadn’t done as much research on him, we were sure we could pull it off.
The next day a chance came. The man in blue robes left the guild building and on his way to his destination we struck like the thunder. My little sister created a distraction, and he fell for it. She did the good old I can’t find my mummy trick.
As he was leaning over to help the poor little lost girl and ask her who her mummy was, I snuck out from the alley and snatched his coin purse. Before he had a chance to react I was already running down the alley and only had to make one turn before I could disappear like a ghost into the night.
To assist in my escape, my little brothers sat on the roof and prepared to drop ceiling tiles and old boxes to try and slow the man down when he made chase. When I was nearly at the end, I hadn’t heard a single smashing box or tile.
As I ran, I shot a look back and only saw a smiling face with squinted eyes looking back. He hadn’t moved an inch and just seemed to not care. I had a terrible feeling in my gut and before I could register what was going on my little sister was suddenly in the air with his hand grasped around her throat.
I was shocked. How could he know she had anything to do with me? She’s just a poor girl who lost her mommy. Her acting was perfect! Even I had been fooled by her acting on more than one occasion.
Then to only add to my distress the man looked up at the roof’s and directly at my little brothers. It was like he knew everything we planned to do.
He just continued to smile that wicked grim smile, then turned away and took my sister with him. I just couldn’t process what had happened. I stopped in my tracks and fell to my knees. I’d gotten too greedy. We should have tested him first like we normally did. We should have spooked him for longer.
Soon my three brothers, Tommy, Cash and Junior joined me in the alley. We all agreed we had to get her back somehow. Any way we could. He definitely wanted his money back, so he wouldn’t hurt her ... yet.
When we opened his coin purse instead of it being filled with golds or silvers like we thought’d be. It only had some random metal cut to the shape of a coin. There wasn’t even a single copper. It had all been a trick from the start!
Inside the coin purse was a note; “Dear little sticky handed thieves. If you want your sister back. Come to my guild hall tomorrow night.”
I couldn’t stop myself from cursing my stupidity. “Fuck! This was a trap for us from the start! What guy just walks around town with a fucking coin purse the size of a fist! How could I be so fucking stupid?!”
We spent the entire rest of the day planning escape routes from the building. We asked every question about the layout that we could. To my dismay, most people only knew about the arena downstairs. Which was the worst place to go.
Not only because it had no stairs or windows or doors. But because there was only one way in or out and that was a fucking magic room that transported you there.
We all accepted that we had truly put our foot in it this time. Cassidy, the youngest of us all was 14. She was of age to ‘become a workin girl’. The only reason she hadn’t been taken by someone yet was because we could disguise her to still look 11 or 12. Although it got harder to hide her age as she got older, because her boobs had started to grow, she still managed to pull off the lost little girl.
That’s not to say there weren’t people that enjoyed that kind of thing. There had been a number of times she’d turn back up at home covered in some perverted kidnappers blood.
I now had no choice. This guy apparently wanted us for something. Probably a bounty put out by one of those fat merchants we fleeced a while back. Deciding that I may never walk out of that building free, I forced my brothers to hold down the fort. Or rather ... stay at home in the abandoned old clock tower.
When the suns had set and the moons were high in the sky, I walked into the guild building. In the foyer, there was no one. The whole building was like an abandoned house. I slowly moved forward and checked the main hall. Again, no one was there. Usually, a guild like this should still keep a receptionist on at night.
After searching everywhere on the ground floor and finding nothing, I finally entered the magic room. Before I could press the thing on the wall, the one that points upwards automatically lit up.
The moment the door opened, my face turned white. I could hear the tortured scream of Cassidy echoing through the shady dark hallway of the top floor. I couldn’t stop my feet from moving and without a breath in my body I was already half way to the door at the other end.
I heard Cassidy grasping for breath and gasping out pleas of “no more, no more, I can’t take it.” this was followed by the voice of a man laughing maniacally; “HAHAHA!! Never! You’ll be trapped here forever! If your sister never comes, then you will never leave. MUWAHAHA!” It was the most disgustingly evil laughter I’d ever heard.
My feet stepped faster and my heart beat quickened. These monsters were maiming my little sister. I knew it would turn out like this. The moment I saw that evil smile I knew everything had gone to shit. But even if I couldn’t leave, if they hurt Cassidy I wouldn’t want to. I’ll kill them all. I don’t care if their cultivators. I’ll kill them!
I had these thoughts racing through my head as I threw open the large oak door and charged into the room. Just as I was pulling a cheap dagger from my dress, all my motions froze.
Sitting at a huge round marble table was the evil smiling man in light blue robes ... holding a large feather.
Sitting on the edge of the table gasping for breath and trying to stop her constant giggles was Cassidy. Her face was flushed and her long black hair looked frazzled and tussled, but the huge laughing smile on her face seemed to suggest she loved her ... torture...
“What the fuck...” I mumbled under my breath.
When they noticed I’d entered, they both froze. Seeing me holding a little dagger in one hand and the expression of befuddlement I must have had painted on my face, they both seemed to freeze up as well.
They then shared a conspirators look and burst out laughing. Cassidy seemed to be laughing so hard she was holding her sides and rolling around on the table.
Once the man had collected himself, his smiling face looked at me. “Little girl, you’d best put that pig sticker away. It won’t do you any good here.”
He then stood up while still chuckling and threw the feather onto the table.
This was all a little too much, wasn’t it? Isn’t that guy supposed to be torturing Cassidy to death?
Once my naughty little sister managed to stop laughing and teasing me for the way I barged in all gung-ho waving a little dagger around, the situation was finally explained.
Not too long ago a job was posted by the merchants guild to find and capture my brothers and I, dead or alive. They had no idea Cassidy was part of my family, and that had always been an ace up our sleeve.
When this man ... James, who was apparently the Guildmaster, got the job request he let his members handle it. After a week of no luck from them, he took it upon himself to complete it. “The best way to catch a thief is to give them something they can’t resist.” So for a full week, he walked around areas we had been active in with a big rattling coin purse.
When we finally struck, he saw through us straight away. The moment a little crying girl suddenly appeared in his path he knew it was us from prior accounts of our robberies. For the sake of the game, he played along until he was certain and then took Cassidy as a bargaining chip.
Apparently for the last 12 hours, while Cassidy had been his captive, they’d been eating fantastic food and telling stories and playing games...
So while I sat out in the cold street worrying and gathering information and casing the joint out. Cassidy had been living in the lap of luxury.
It was only because the magic room had been activated that they started their little game of tickling each other all just to see my face when I walked in ... the bastards!
James then essentially gave us two choices. He wanted to create something he called the Ghosts. He fully explained our purpose and offered us a new opportunity, but only after he made sure that I had killed someone before.
It goes without saying that to survive in the shadows of the city, all of us had killed people. We were normally very careful but sometimes we had situations like this and sometimes ... well, things got out of hand occasionally.
The deal was that we would join the guild. He would give us everything, food, shelter, money and cultivation.
After we had agreed to this, he didn’t stint us. We spent a week at a time inside meditation arrays in the office or arena. Every day when James trained he would test us in combat. We only had two rules we had to follow. No one could ever know about us apart from the core members of the Guild and we had to complete every job to perfection.
We never had many jobs, but when we did they were conducted in the dark of night. Sabotage, assassination, subterfuge. In two months we’d tried our hand at all of these things. But the thing we did the most was train.
Then we come to today. Today was the day we stepped into the True Spirit Realm. We had been allowed into the lab a few times, but it always blew us away when we did. It was mind boggling just how powerful the artefact smithing on the Guildmaster’s home world must be.
As we readied ourselves mentally and did a final test with the testing stone, I was called into the chamber.
James stripped me down to my loincloth and boob wrap then laid me on the bench. Once he’d attached strange pads connected by odd ropes and pressed some things on odd beeping artefacts, he gave me a nod. It was finally time!
-The Lab-
James had taken these kids in from the street for two purposes. The first one was to be his right hand. He didn’t care about having to kill someone or burn down a warehouse or anything of the sort. Money was money, and the means didn’t matter. His bottom line was so low that it even made him surprised sometimes.
If someone paid him enough, he’d kill every last person in the city, man, woman and child. Except perhaps his guild members. That was because they belonged to him and being the crazy possessive dick that he was, he wouldn’t break his own stuff without a good reason.
The other reason was for this. He wanted a special group like his core members that he could test going through cultivation breakthroughs. He’d even helped them unlock abstract emotional elements.
Alecksa had unlocked patience, which surprised James to no end. When he thought about it though, it made some sense. The girl could tail a mark for days, even when her stomach was eating away at itself and always waited for the right moment, the perfect opportunity.
Cash the shaggy youth had unlocked apathy, which was no great surprise. The boy didn’t care about anything or anyone, with the only exception being his little family.
The taller boy with brown hair was Junior. He had unlocked suspicion. Amusingly his suspicion wasn’t as focused as Fatty’s was and instead was more general suspicion of everything. Perhaps the only person apart from the rest of the team he wasn’t suspicious of was James.
That was mostly because James essentially told them everything before they even signed up for this role. He never hid anything on jobs either. Although Junior remained suspicious and made efforts to check things out, James had so far never led them astray.
The last boy was Tommy and had unlocked discipline. He talked about as much as Cash did, with the only difference being he was endless in his pursuit of cultivation.
Finally was Cassidy who had unlocked what James could only refer to as deception. When the girl touched him, or anyone, they would see things the way she wanted them to see things. James had a few heart-stopping moments when she felt like playing the jokester.
She quickly learnt to stop doing it to James after he started releasing spirit energy from his body as another natural defence mechanism. Whenever his face deadpanned now, his body was charging everything around it with lightning.
James never bothered to ask about their backstories and didn’t care. Although he’d given them all a little nudge while unlocking their elements they had mostly done it on their own. Each of them had one or two other elements as well. Through some little ... tests, run by James, they all had an abstract element and a rare element. Tommy and Alecksa had managed to unlock a single primary element each as well.
The three boys had all unlocked darkness as their rare element. Alecksa had unlocked Famine and whatever Cassidy had unlocked James was uncertain of. He knew whenever she used it he experienced something, but for the life of him couldn’t remember the sensation.