Kate had been...shocked, to say the least, when she had realized that her power wasn’t broken or permanently gone, simply modified.

When I thought that her power was nearly identical to mine, apparently that was because of the energy-swapping that was going on. It was a lot like saying that two people with super-strength were very similar and ignoring the fact that one of them used mass manipulation and the other one used point-blank telekinesis to do the same thing. In function, the powers were nearly identical, but the reality of how their powers worked, the way it tied into their brains and their use, was very very different.

Katie was an instinctive kinetic redirector, and I was a microkinetic momentum manipulator with eidetic positional memory, a real mouthful. Our end results and Dao were somewhat similar, but we got there using a very different route.

That included our favored environment for absorbing energy. Once I explained to her the basics of absorbing energy, she was able to restore her rather ridiculously small and dense energy pool by absorbing ambient or directed energy, despite no longer being connected to the ether.

I was almost envious, but I locked it down, because it was as stupid as comparing my microkinesis to a full-blown telekinetic.

We were working out in a hot room. And by hot, I wasn’t kidding. I gained a lot more energy from radiation, but it was a constant effort. Kate absorbed energy as naturally as breathing, once the basic concepts were in place, and did it almost instinctively. As a result, despite her near-fatal attempt to turn herself into a screaming inferno, she was damned near immune to a ton of molecular energy effects like heat, electricity, and even lasers. I was pretty good at dispersing harmful energy effects aimed at me, but she did it as naturally as breathing.

“No!” she said, stomping her foot irritably. “It doesn’t work like that!”

“How does it work, then?” I tried to ask her reasonably.

She shook her head, “The motion thing inside works perfectly, but I can’t just… stop some things and move others like that. I have tried like a hundred times, but I just don’t SEE stuff like you do. I feel the energy, and I can soak it up, and I can use it, but that’s why I have to keep absorbing the heat while I move, or I slow down. You can see the particles or whatever, all I can detect is the flow of energy.”

“Does the targeted absorption work?”

She nodded and created a wall of freezing mist with a slight motion of her hand. Not a bad accomplishment inside the oven’s two-hundred-degree heat. After a few moments, she held out her other hand and shot off a jet of superheated air that would have left a trail of fire if we were in a normal environment. She shook her head and shifted her now incredibly long hair around the air mask we were both wearing.

“For every action, there’s a reaction. I fill up fast, but then I have to get rid of the excess. I either have to kick in super speed, or fire off a flame burst to get rid of it.”

I sighed, She was hanging onto the energy longer, and that seemed to be stretching her pool’s limits, but it was a slow process. I was hoping that she could figure out how to yank apart molecular bonds to gain energy or solidify them to blow off the excess, but as she said, her power didn’t work the way mine did. It still felt horribly inefficient, but I wasn’t a teacher, and it showed.

Sabrina’s static-laden voice cut in through the still-experimental communicator. “Jacob, your own start was not a good gauge of how quickly people can push through lower levels. Kate’s advancement is very fast, and her body refinement and essence cultivation are keeping pace with her energy levels. She can’t cheat like you did because she doesn’t have innate dao sensing like you do. Almost no one develops full spirit sensing until they are damned close to immortality.”

“So what kind of time frame are we talking about?”

“Well, normal humans might take thirty years to progress through body refinement and into essence cultivation, and then another fifty or so to push into core formation. Because of Earth’s overloaded essence from the chaos gates, Alphas are immediately catapulted into forming one or two cores, skipping both body refinement and essence cultivation stages.”

“You both are catching up incredibly quickly, but you have an incredible advantage she doesn’t… because of your spirit sense, you are able to expel impurities easily. Her body refinement is literally holding back her essence cultivation because she has almost no foundation, like most Alphas, to support her advancement rather than just using her cores.”

“So how do we fix it?”

“In this environment? Time and training. There are pills that can help, but like I said, I have no ingredients. No spirit grass, no natural treasures, unless you want to go around executing Alphas and stripping their organs and cores out for potion ingredients.”

Katie almost gagged. Yes, it was an open circuit. “No, no fucking way. That’s beyond disgusting. Have you really done that?”

“Katie,” Sabrina said, “I was a slave. I have done lots of disgusting things much worse than that.”

Katie’s eyes looked sympathetic even through the face mask as she sat down and started absorbing the two-hundred-degree heat, “I knew the farmer families were bad, but that bad?”

Sabrina’s voice distorted a little as she replied. As I said, I was no programmer, and my hardware adaptations for quantum distortion were not great without some kind of decent software squelching to back them up. “No… they were very practical, though. They probably would have if I told them about it, but my family had a life before we transmigrated here, and where I came from was even more horrible. The purity sects made sure that we had no resources other than what we could create ourselves, and survival can be rough.”

“So Jersey Shore is still on the table?” I asked.

“Yes,” was Sabrina’s reply, “But it might be too dangerous. You said the Serenoids had a spontaneous world portal, and they were clearly cultivators. That means that the entire area had to have been soaked in incredibly strong essence, and there’s not a cultivator born that could resist planting a few spirit herbs in an environment like that unless they had no alchemy culture at all.”

“Of course, that level of natural essence also means spirit beasts, extremely powerful ones, which is probably why so many Kaiju and beasts attack from the north. There might even be natural treasures, but that place likely spawns Kaiju like maggots from a corpse.”

I chuckled, “You have such wonderful and sensual turns of phrase. I want you, now.”

“What?”

“Joking, sorry. I still don’t know who to talk to about getting permission, but at this point, I am wondering if forgiveness might be easier than permission.”

Sabrina sighed, and her voice sounded almost reproachful despite the static and distortion. “It might be better to simply wait for the semester break and have a little patience. We don’t have a lot of time, but we do have time.”

“Are you telling me you think I am too weak to keep us protected during Kaiju attacks if we go hunt spirit herbs?”

Sabrina stammered, “Umm… n… no?”

I chuckled, “Relax. I agree. I am just trying to be proactive since I am sick of being reactive. Do that, go here, get kidnapped, go to school, I feel like my life is being lived by other people.”

Katie looked at me slyly, “Well, you COULD work on my team’s suits, like you promised.”

I glared at her, “I didn’t promise anything. The judges said that the match was a draw, which meant the bet was void unless we had another match. And I am working on them, I just keep hitting a brick wall between what I want to do with them and what I can do with them. Speaking of which, did Quietcode say anything?”

She shook her head, “Not yet. She’s super shy, and I think that man of mystery thing you seem to cultivate is working against you. She doesn’t trust anyone, but she caught that video of you walking around in your birthday suit, and she thinks you are a dog.”

“I don’t want to date her! I just need a real coder to help with the suits. The hardware is incredibly custom, and her gift is absolutely perfect! You said she doesn’t even know how to code, and her power just makes computers want to help her, and they program themselves… it’s perfect! Especially since she won’t leave any backdoors for other hackers to get in.”

Katie shrugged, “Well, you could try being a little social, you know, just as an experiment. You seem like a nice guy, and maybe getting out a little instead of getting locked into your workroom constantly might help people be a little more comfortable.”

I groaned and slapped my hand against my face mask trying to facepalm. “Not you too!”

Katie looked at me oddly, “What do you mean?”

I sighed and started to cycle the room’s cooldown. We both had classes soon and while neither of us was particularly sweaty, a shower would be comfortable after the training session. “Oh, Frostweaver, Terracotta, and Chinook keep saying the same thing. Get out! Go on a date! Hit a few parties! Hell, the only ones that leave me alone are Network and Sabrina.”

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Sabrina’s voice crackled. “Oh, Network wants you to be social too, she wants to date you, but she’s enough of an introvert despite that gregarious act she puts on that she’s not going to ask. And I happen to agree with them, but I owe you too much to pester you about it. Where I come from, many cultivators are extremely solitary. There’s a saying that you can only challenge the heavens on your own.”

“So they get it? I am here to learn, not to party.”

Her voice crackled again. Damned quantum interference. “No, I think they are insane. They are so focused on the solo task of growing their power, expanding their influence, and stepping on anyone who dares to get in their way that they quickly lose touch with any semblance of humanity and turn into monsters, albeit utterly pure and sanctimonious ones. The same person who said that the path to the heavens could only be challenged on your own was also well known for tearing apart an entire city and killing tens of thousands of mortals in a fit of pique because a blacksmith wouldn’t give him a custom piece he ordered for free.”

Ugh. “Fine. But I still don’t like the idea of dating alphas.”

“Why?” Katie asked curiously.

I shrugged, “Look, I am overrated. I know it, most people know it. I am only high-rated because I figured out a lot of different uses for my otherwise-crappy power. Call me a chauvinist, macho idiot, or whatever, I don’t really care, but the idea of dating a girl that could rip out my spine and beat me to death with it is just not my idea of a fun date.”

“Are you gay?”

I shook my head, “No, I simply have a fragile ego that cannot handle the idea of powerful women.”

“Huh,” Katie said. “That’s unusual. I mean, that kinda stuff is bantered around by women all the time, but I have never heard a man just flat-out admit it.”

I laughed, “Oh, I have been called much worse. My ex-fiancee called me that, and I decided to own it.”

“So why not date someone like Network? She’s not a physical alpha at all.”

I grinned, “That would be even worse. Look. I am an opinionated, overbearing asshole. I know it, I own it… do you know what Network could do to me if I offended her? She could literally erase my existence, link me to dozens of crimes, delete my bank accounts, and put a bounty out in seconds. Too dangerous.”

Katie nodded, “So basically, it’s not that you are scared of powerful women, it’s that you have absolutely no trust in their ability to restrain themselves. You are convinced that they are all evil bitches that will destroy your life at the slightest provocation, and have zero restraint or common sense. You kind of hate them.”

I sighed, “Probably. Maybe. I mean, I don’t actually hate them, and it’s probably idiotic, but if I were gay, I wouldn’t date alpha men for exactly the same reason. I don’t trust anyone.”

Katie nodded, “You would make a terrible hero. And you want to be a team coordinator? How are you supposed to help an alpha team if you don’t trust them to do their jobs competently? If you think they are all aiming to stab you in the back?”

I shrugged and opened the door now that the temperature was below one-fifty. “I don’t know. It’s a problem I have been working on, but as I learn more about how the system works and more about alphas in general, it’s getting even worse, not better.”

Katie looked thoughtful. “Tell you what. I am already working hard on Quietcode. How about this? You already know how to shut my powers down hard. Hell, you have practically been inside my body and my head, and even after the accident I will freely admit that was almost better than sex. If I can get her to agree to give your armor systems a shot, how about you reward me by taking me on a date?”

I laughed, “Compelling offer, but there’s one problem.”

“What would that be?”

I started peeling off my mask, “I am completely broke. As in, full-ride scholarship and meals in the cafeteria every single day broke. Right now, I could barely afford to take you out for a hot dog in the park, let alone a date.”

Katie looked shocked, “What? How’s that possible? I have SEEN your suits. Anyone would pay millions for them! And your other toys, too. Haven’t you gotten any incentives from the BSA or corporate interests? Those aren’t illegal, since we aren’t exactly college athletes.”

I shook my head, “I am sort of a ghost in the machine. I don’t even know about any corporate offers although I was thinking of creating a low-end suit and selling it as a cheaper alternative to Atlas Threading. That’s why I need Quietcode’s help… I want to patent a version with built-in communications and a heads-up display, and maybe even database linking if she can figure out how to send digital signals through the quantum link. I figured I could turn out about five suits a day, and hook up city emergency workers with them for a modest fee.”

“And you call yourself an asshole?”

I laughed, “Opinionated, overbearing asshole. Part of it was how I was raised, and part of it was just experience. I could give away the suits for free, I mean, they need them, but I need money and they would get a shitty alpha version that they could reverse-engineer easily.”

“I probably will make a budget version for the hunters. Like emergency workers, hunters are worthy of respect, but for ordinary superheroes? Fuck ‘em. I will happily support their popularity, but I will also charge every single penny the market will bear. If I can charge MORE than Atlas Threading because my suits have advantages Morita’s doesn’t, I will do that too… but as of this moment, I am an arrogant starving artist convinced that the world doesn’t appreciate his genius,” I grinned, “Without enough juju to take a girl on a date.”

Katie was looking very thoughtful. “I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Sell me some masks.”

“Huh?”

She looked at the two masks. “We have already tested these, and they have a decent comm link in them, I was breathing nice cool air the whole time, and they never heated up. It’s not your armor, but it’s a hell of a proof of concept. Also, have you checked with your student advisor?”

“No?”

She sighed, “When you were first entered into the school system, did you request anonymity?”

I nodded. “I figured it was best. It didn’t work out very well, though, since apparently Adrian Maxwell figured out some of my power and decided that owning me was a lot easier than buying a suit. I don’t exactly have a student advisor, though. Frostweaver is my sponsor, and Subvector’s my liaison.”

She nodded, “So, talk to Frostweaver about selling me a couple of linked masks, and I could take one to Quietcode, that might reassure her a little. If it works out, you might be able to go into a collaboration with her and let her agent pass them on to emergency services, or we might use them ourselves.”

I sighed. “Or I could just sell your team suits instead of doing the bet again. I just didn’t want to do that without getting some basic software installed, especially if any of you want to use the muscular or targeting systems.”

“So your suits… they aren’t tinker tech? I mean, they are real, and won’t stop working if you get overloaded or something?”

I shook my head and we started walking back towards the dorms to get cleaned up. “Nope, I don’t have any tinker powers. It’s all real, but until I figure out a way to make a manufacturing chain without worrying about Skynet or gray ooze, I have to make everything personally.”

“Skynet? Gray Oooze?”

I chuckled, “Science fiction. Fears of a rogue AI that gains sapience and tries to take over the world, or self-replicating microscopic robots that consume everything.”

Katie looked thoughtful, “I am not sure those are possible.”

I shrugged, “With magic anything is possible, but traditionally? Nope. Skynet is certainly possible, but someone would have to actually program a worldwide computer system to try to take over the world or goof up their programming badly with a stupid loophole. Digital sapience like scifi people assume is impossible because digital memory by its very nature is unforgiving of being associative instead of direct. With magic, I mean, it’s possible, but Some of the weirder magical types can make a toaster sapient.”

Katie nodded, “And gray ooze?”

I chuckled, “You would have to craft some kind of microscopic robots that had the ability to move and process on a microscopic scale. I could try, but I’d have to build a processing center to control them via individual and custom-coded digital entanglement for each and every single one.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That means, for me at least, I’d need to create a big friggin’ machine to craft them, and then another big friggin’ machine to control them, and it would be a strictly limited number… and I’d need someone capable of simultaneously coding trillions of hefty if small processors JUST for the fabrication step. Then I would need to find a way to allow each of the processors to manipulate a single element the same way that my power does. At the end of that process you’d be left with a giant machine that you could dump trash into one end, and out of the other end comes a full set of armor.”

I thought about it. “Or, to be fair, just about anything you want, but it would take a lot longer than it would take me. Probably.”

“Can you do that?”

I shook my head at her, “No. Number one, I cannot handle the programming, and number two, I have zero idea of how to allow a single microscopic machine to exert quantum telekinesis, let alone tens of trillions of them.”

“Observation,” Sabrina said quietly, breaking her silence since the training.

“Huh?”

“Observation. That’s how your power works. When you observe things on a quantum scale, your own brain applies pressure to them. That is true of everything that’s mentally capable of observing. In your case, when you observe trillions of molecules at the exact same time, the combined force is enough to alter those atoms along the lines of your affinity, which is momentum.”

I nodded slowly, “Which is why I have to use essence to alter them. So the more essence I can bring to bear, the more objects are being personally observed, and the greater the scale I can make changes.”

She nodded, “I don’t understand the science outside of alchemy, but it sounds a bit like creating a homunculus.”

We were back at the block, riding up to our room, while Katie waved goodbye. “Explain?”

Sabrina nodded, “Alchemy isn’t just mixing chemicals together to create an effect. That’s chemistry. Alchemy involves mixing your essence into the concoction to unlock potential essence effects based on a huge number of factors.”

“Homunculi are a bit like golems, except that golems are firmly within the realm of the spellcasters. They use magical runes attached to a frame, each of which gathers or channels essence, all tied to a sort of core called a golem core, which receives and interprets programming a bit like a computer.”

I nodded, “I have heard of golems. The Red Rabbi used to use them a lot to stop crimes, and then eventually to commit them after exposure to the elders drove him nuts.”

She nodded, “Well, homunculi are sort of like those, except a chemical version. We don’t use them to fight people, we mostly use them to observe chemical reactions on a very small scale. They are able to do that innately, and generally have just enough sentience to transfer essence, make observations, and use commands that help moderate or control chemical and alchemical reactions.”

“How? Can you make one of those?”

She laughed, “If I could do that, I wouldn’t still be at the body purification stage. Creating your homunculus is pretty much the step where an alchemist has proved that they have entered the first core stage because it requires a core to create an artificial observer.”

I smiled as she walked into her own room, “But I already have a core.”

She shook her head, “No, none of you have true cores. You have monster cores. That’s probably why the Serenoids freaked and attacked when the alphas showed up… the pure cultivators were suddenly confronted with dozen or hundreds of spirit beast monsters wearing human shapes.”