“Brother Chang” called out a man from across the field, motioning for me to come over. This was Yu Bang. He had entered the sect the same time I had and, while he was a year younger than me, he had focused on his martial arts skills, while I had focused on chi magic techniques, spending all of my time reading about every technique I could in the library. This had allowed him to reach the Foundation stage over a year ago, while I, who spent twice as much time in meditation, only reached it one week ago.
Our sect taught that there were six known stages of cultivation. The Base stage, or Cleansing stage, required that one remove all of the impurities from the body so that nothing restricted the flow of chi. The Gathering phased required that you bring in enough chi or develop enough internal chi to expand your dantian and chi channels to the point where chi can reach every cell in your body. The Foundation stage requires that you expand those pathways to the point where the flow of chi can flow quickly enough that you never deplete it it any area of the body, allowing you to use it at any rate you choose. The Nascent stage is where you start gaining control over not just your chi, but your soul. The Chi that you have built up allows you to control your soul like it is another self, allowing one to independently animate objects which have incorporated part of your soul and chi. There is the Awakening Stage, also known as the Immortal stage, where one learns that the body is only an extension of the will of the soul. This is where one achieves immortality, as they gain absolute control of everything that occurs within their body, including aging. Then there is the Ascension stage, in which you no longer require a body to function. Little is know about this last stage, as those that manage to ascend rarely return to speak with mortals.
“Brother Yu.” I greeted him.
“So, you finally finished gathering enough Wood Chi to break through? Congratulations.” In the Five Elements Cultivation Technique which our sect uses, going through a stage required one to gather all five elements of chi, but no one gathered all five types in balance. To break through, however, you needed to have a perfect balance of the five, or your body would reject the advancement. Once you have broken through, however, your body would naturally draw it in to the minimum level established when breaking through, insuring that it never becomes too imbalanced and that you always had the proper type of chi for your spell. I was naturally weak with wood chi, so it was quite difficult to just bring in the proper type when I neared the end of a stage. I had practiced the magic techniques for all five elements, of course, but only the basic level spells for everything except Lighting, a metal chi power. That one I had practiced the second stage for, The Five Finger Lightning technique, which shot a lighting bolt from the end of each finger and combined them into a much more powerful blast. When I first used it the spell was only three times as powerful as its first stage version, even though it used five times the chi. With enough practice, however, I now have it at five times the strength, making it as efficient as shooting five lightning bolts, but with the combined damage letting it break through defenses.
As we stood there chatting, master Xing walked onto the stage, and everyone became quiet. “As you may have heard,” he began in a deep, steady voice which belied his age, “four days ago a sect of Demon Cultivators attacked a group of elders and inner sect disciples who were escorting the next batch of recruits here.” Once per year, on the first day of spring the most trusted members of the sect would be sent out to gather children who showed promise, then return here on the first day of summer for them to be officially accepted into the sect as outer disciples, being given the opportunity to move into the inner sect once they become adults and have reached the Foundation stage. That is what I did one month ago shortly after my nineteenth birthday. The age limitation is because the techniques in the outer sect are meant for maximum cultivation speed, and until one enters puberty they have extremely flexible chi, body, and soul. After that, the body settles in, but the chi and soul maintain their flexibility until one loses their purity to another soul. I assure you, that is the true reason I have not yet been with any of the beauties of the sect, and not that I can’t attract one, like Bang says.
“During our investigation,” continued the master, “we have uncovered the location of one of their bases. We believe that the captured children were taken there, and will be going there to rescue them from whatever vile purpose they were taken for.” I knew what they were taken for, however it wasn’t openly known within the sect. Ten years ago they attacked another group of children that were being brought here, a group that included Bang and myself. After they defeated the evil cultivators Bang and I overheard several elders talking. When they ‘interrogated’ one of the evil cultivators he refused to save himself by breaking his cultivation, but did reveal important information. The demon cultivators intended on consuming the flesh, blood, life essence, and souls of the children they captured in order to improve their own cultivation speed, and they chose talented children because consuming them would increase their own talent. I had no doubt that they were trying the same thing this time.
Because of that, when volunteers were called for, Bang and I were the first to step forward. We couldn’t allow children to go through what we had been saved from. We were promised contribution points in exchange for taking the mission, and would earn more based on performance, but we would have volunteered even without that.
After signing up I noticed that Bang was looking nervous, so I went over to speak with him. “I don’t know if I can handle it.” he said to me. “Some of the ones that attacked the elders were late Nascents or early Immortals. I’ve only been in sparring matches before. I’ve never fought a real battle. How can I possibly defeat them?”
“You don’t.” I told him. “You either do like I do when fighting monster, and stand back and throw spells at the enemy, or you choose your battles. Only fight those that you know you have a chance of beating.”
“You know I can’t use magic like that.” he responded. “I only know self enhancements. Water to heal faster, Wood to increase my strength, Fire for endurance, Metal for defense, and Earth to anchor myself so that I can’t be tripped or knocked back. Unlike you I didn’t learn to use the elements offensively. And only fighting the battles I know I can win sounds cowardly.”
“It sounds smart. If an Immortal insulted you and called into question your honor, would you challenge them to a duel? Of course not. That would result in serious injuries if you lived through it. If a late Foundation did the same, though, you might challenge them just to defend yourself, and if a late Collection did so, you wouldn’t hesitate to fight them. That is because you know you can beat the Collection, and have a chance against the Foundation, but no chance against the Immortal.”
“So, I already do that, but just haven’t thought about it? That makes a lot of sense.” He cupped his hands and bowed. “Thank you shifu.”
“Oh, don’t start calling me that, even if I am smarter than you. Call me Older Brother if you want, but not that.”
“Very well then, thank you Older Brother Chang.” He bowed again. I knew he was doing it to mock me, but I didn’t care. When we got back I would make him learn an external form of magic, the same way he drug me to martial arts training when he won an argument. We had been doing it for almost ten years.
Once all of the recruits were ready, we set out for the Demon Cultivator Sect Base. As one couldn’t learn to fly on their own without specific spells or being at least in the Nascent stage, I pulled my sword out of my storage ring. The ring was a gift one received upon joining the inner sect, though the basic one I had received could only hold one cubic meter of material. I rarely used a sword, as I wasn’t a combat specialist, but this sword was specially designed to be used for flying. Other than a few materials I had gathered while fighting monsters, a few pills and elixirs I had left over from studying alchemy, and a few things I had gotten as rewards, such as a nicer set of robes, my ring was empty.
Climbing on our swords, Bang and I followed the others. An hour later we arrived at their mountain base. They saw us and raised the alarm, but, as there was over one hundred of us, they couldn’t hold us off for long. Soon their outer forces were destroyed and we made our way inside. Unlike our sect’s base, which was built like a walled city, theirs was built like a castle. We fought our way through over a hundred lower ranked members, with me contributing mainly by throwing blasts of lightning at the enemy with my new technique. I did throw in a few fire bolts or stone throws to keep them from predicting my attacks and to save a bit of the chi I preferred using. I did not, however, use any water or wood magic, as I wasn’t very good with those.
Soon we were in the inner room of their castle. The remaining members had gathered around an obsidian circle in the wall and many children were tied up at key points in a massive array that had been carved into the floor. As soon as we entered the room, however, we were spotted and they began rushing to slit the children’s throats, causing their blood to spill onto the array.
As there was no time to wait any further, I unleashed all of the metal chi I had in the form of lightning, striking down several of the cultists before they could kill their assigned children. Once my metal chi was almost depleted, I switched to Fire, then Earth magic. Those were quickly depleted as well, so I started throwing ice magic with my water chi, as it was all that I could reasonably use, my talent in Wood Chi being almost insignificant.
The leader of the Demon Cultivators, an Immortal man in a snake mask, ordered the other members of his sect to come to him and they stopped slaying children and ran to where he was. As the last of the evil cultivators got to him a strange energy started swirling in the obsidian circle behind them. “Pathetic Taoists.” the man in the mask growled in a voice like a beast. It was possible that he was a monster that had simply reached that stage of cultivation and took on a human form. “We will now leave for a realm where none of you may follow, but remember my words and remember them well. One day we shall return, and when we do we shall have our revenge.” With that he stepped through the portal and his few remaining followers followed him.
I couldn’t let them escape, lest they repeat this tragedy in another realm. One of the masters called out to me, but as the portal was already closing I couldn’t stop and listen. I dove into the middle of the portal and it closed behind me.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
–
The stage had been set for the revealing of a major scientific breakthrough. Something was on it, a circular object covered in a cloth, and though Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent already knew what it was thanks to his special abilities, he waited to tell anyone so that he wouldn’t risk his identity.
Many famous and rich people were here, but the most notable ones were sat in the front row on opposite sides of the auditorium. Alexander Luthor sat on the far left and Bruce Wayne sat on the far right, with a beautiful black haired middle eastern woman beside him. Any that knew about high level criminal activity may recognize her as Talia Al Ghul, leader of the League of Assassins, but as far as the general public knew she was Talia Al Ghul, CEO of the second largest oil company in the middle east. Bruce knew she had some agenda, some reason for insisting that she wanted to come to this presentation, but all he could do was invite her to go with him and keep an eye on her. For that reason they had left their sons, nine year old Tim and eight year old Damian, at the manor, having Alfred act as baby sitter.
There were two more people of note, representatives of the US government who had funded the research of the device along with the two tech companies that were represented here, Amanda Waller and General Wade Eiling.
Jimmy Olson had gotten the Planet’s camera set up to film the event and Clark went over to double check that Lois was ready. After all, she would be taking the lead on the reporting, with him mostly taking notes so that he could break down the science behind the discovery later. Lois wasn’t the best at the science.
After a few minutes the crowd started to quiet down as the lighting was lowered a bit and a darker skinned man walked onto the stage. “Greetings.” he said once every had quieted down. “I am Doctor Garrison Slate, Founder of Star Labs. I have called this press conference to announce the result of a five year long research project primarily funded by the US Military, Lexcorp, and Wayne Enterprises. You see, for years scientists have believed that there were only fifty two universes which could be contacted. STAR Labs, however, has found that there is, in fact, a near infinite number, only they are far more difficult to contact due to having different physical laws than our universe, at least in some areas. We, however, have found a way to stabilize a portal between universes with slightly different physical laws. It is with great pride that I unveil the prototype of the Interdimensional Portal.” He pulled the sheet off of the round object on the stage to reveal a circular metallic device with lights and several other technical bits sticking out of it.
Bruce knew why the three sponsors had said they were helping to finance the project. Wayne Enterprises valued the mineral resources it could bring, possibly even minerals not found in this universe. The military saw it as another possible attack vector, and wanted to be able to defend against the Alien Invasions that it could no doubt lead to. Lexcorp claimed that it wished to open up new markets to the people of these other universes. Bruce highly suspected that the actual reason was that Lexcorp had hit several snags in its metahuman research and that another set of universes might hold the secret to creating a new wave of supervillains. There was even the possibility in the early research into the subject that connecting to another universe could bring in a large amount of dark matter and energy, awakening metahuman abilities directly in those that were exposed to it.
After the sounds of shock had ended, the doctor started answering questions. Several news agencies asked how it worked, but Bruce suspected that only he, Luthor, and Kent could actually understand what was being said, and knew that all three of them had read the scientific papers published on the subject, as he had provided the papers to Kent.
One of the reporters then stood and pointed, asking the most important question of the night. “Uh, Doctor, is it supposed to be turned on?” The doctor looked over to where the cord was laying, verifying that it was, in fact, unplugged, then looked at the portal. A dark circle of smoke started to swirl in its middle, slowly getting larger. Once the Doctor verified that this wasn’t, in fact, part of the demonstration, most of the people cleared out. The only news crew to remain behind was from the Daily Planet, and only the financiers of the project and a few other curious people remained behind to watch the results.
When the portal opened enough to let a man in a snake mask and black robes come through, followed by several others dressed in black robes, the audience noticed what was going on and fled. They had enough experience with supervillains to recognize one when they saw them.
The man in the snake mask called out something in a language none of them had heard and several of his minions ran or flew to catch those trying to flee. Two of the villains even rode on flying swords. Eiling and Waller quickly called for military support as they fled and Lex and his Assistant, Mercy, drew energy pistols and started firing at the attackers as they backed out of the room. The event was supposed to be gun free, but the few police that entered had more to worry about than a few illegally concealed weapons.
“Mister Wayne.” said Clark Kent, grabbing the man’s arm. “I think we need to get you out of here.”
“Right.” said Bruce. He needed to get in costume as quickly as possible. “Talia, come on, we’re leaving.” He had expected to find her fighting one of the attackers, but instead he didn’t see her anywhere. He hoped that didn’t mean this was some sort of plot by the League of Assassins.
“She can take care of herself, sir. We need to leave.” Bruce nodded and they ran outside. Once Mr. Wayne was safely in his Lamborghini and had left, Kent ran for an alley just far enough away to not be seen.
As he and a man in a black bat costume reentered the room, however, they saw one more man jump through the closing portal. He wore blue robes and immediately threw out his hand at one of the villains who had caught a civilian, launching a blast of ice that froze the man’s back and caused him to collapse in pain. Apparently, a super hero had managed to follow them through the portal.
–
When I came through the portal I was in some sort of lecture hall. Most of the people had fled the attack, but several of them had been caught by the Demon Cultivators. As I launched a blast of Ice, formed of water chi, at one of those that was holding a prisoner two others entered, presumably Taoists from a local sect here to defend the people. One of them, a man in blue undergarments and a red cape had the Chi of an Immortal and flew. The other, in a black suit with some sort of horns or ears on top of it, appeared to have cultivated no chi, but had the martial arts skills to rival master Xing, skills which he used to quickly subdue the evil cultivators. I suspected he was in the late Cleansing stage but had focused all of his time on refining his body instead of cultivating chi.
One of the demons saw me and ran at me. As I was running low on water chi, I had to rely on my martial arts training. Thanking Bang in my head for making me practice, I leapt off the stage, flipping forward and landing on the back of the demon’s head with my heel. He hit the false stone floor with a crunching sound and soon blood flowed from under his head. Not caring if he was alive or not, I drew my sword from my ring and ran at the next enemy.
There were several minutes of fighting before I looked around and noticed that there were no more enemies in the room. Many bodies lay on the ground, killed by my sword, feet, or magic, and only two that were still conscious lay on the ground, moaning from the pain of their wounds. I knew that the Snake Leader and several others had managed to flee, but I didn’t have the Chi or stamina to go after them.
Now that the battle was over, I immediately sat down in the lotus position and began gathering Chi from the environment. The Chi here was strange. It was too weak in many ways, but too strong in others. And all of those ways felt wrong to me, like eating over-spiced or bland food. The false stone beneath me contained no Earth Chi as it should, and the only wood chi was tiny specks in the furniture and the wood of the stage. Conflicting with that, everything appeared to have metal chi, even the fake stone in lines running through it. Water and Fire were here, but they appeared distant, like I would have to stretch to gather them.
I felt the presence of someone standing over me and heard someone speak in a strange language. I knew that in the myriad realms there were many languages, but had never heard this one. I opened my eyes and walked over to one of the men in black clothes laying on the ground, moaning in pain. He had several bits of metal on him and had been firing some sort of metal weapon at the evil cultivators, but had gotten lucky and only had several ribs broken when one of them reached him. The rest of his group had died. Still, he held out better than I would expect for a non-cultivator. That weapon must be powerful. I pulled a vial of green liquid out of my ring then knelt down to pluck a hair from his head, adding it to the elixir. It fizzed for a bit as I focused on what I wanted, then, when it stopped, I downed the potion. There was an uncomfortable feeling in my brain as the memories were transferred, and my head glowed with a slight golden aura for a minute before it was finished.
“I apologize.” I said, facing the man in the black mask. “You should be able to understand my speech now.”
“What was that?” he asked, pointing to the empty vial in my hand.
“Elixir of Memories. It allows one to copy a fraction of the memories of another person. I am not a great Alchemist, so it is too weak to let me copy many of his memories, but it was enough for me to learn his language. Also, part of another. Interesante.”
“Convenient. So, I assume you recognize these villains?”
“Yes, they are demon cultivators of the Black Serpent Sect. They kidnapped several of the children we had recruited and killed many of my sect’s best members, so when we learned where their base was, I volunteered to help take them down. When we were near defeating them, however, they activated some sort of blood powered array by sacrificing many of the children and opened a portal to this Realm. I followed them through.”
“So you are from another universe?” asked the man in blue, landing beside me.
I nodded. “Yes. That is what you would call it. Another Universe. I do not know if I can return there, though. Perhaps your Sect can study how the magic worked and reopen the portal.”
“It wasn’t magic, though.” said the man in blue. “At least not on our end. It was technology.”
I was familiar with the difference, but technology was only so powerful. Surely one couldn’t build a portal to another realm with technology? It was limited to simple metal devices and poor explosives like Fireworks, wasn’t it? Still, he seemed to think you could, so maybe it was one of the strange laws of this realm.
–
“Master Tim, Master Damian, please cease this roughhousing at once. You are damaging the equipment.” Alfred said while watching the two swing at each other with metal staffs.
“He started it.” said Tim, bending backwards to dodge Damian’s swing.
“I merely said that you aren’t Father’s real son. Only a fool would get mad about a true statement.”
“I don’t know about where you’re from,” he said, dodging out of the way as a downward swing took the side mirror off of the batmobile, “but here adoption is a thing. Like it or not we’re brothers. And I’m pretty sure our dad is going to be mad about that.” Tim pointed towards the car’s broken mirror. Tim’s parents had been killed in an alien invasion a year ago and, as they were good friends with Bruce Wayne, Bruce had decided to adopt him following their deaths.
Before they realized what had happened, both of them found that they were no longer holding staffs. Instead, Alfred stood there with two staffs in his hand. “If you are going to use your toys to break Master Bruce’s toys, then I have no choice but to take them away.”
“Hey, give that back.” said Damian, lunging at Alfred. Alfred merely sidestepped his feeble attempt. Seeing this as an opportunity to test himself, Tim jumped at Alfred as well and soon the two boys were coordinating their attacks to keep Alfred off balance. On anyone else but he and Bruce it might have worked, but Alfred was almost as good as his master and could easily handle a fight with two children, at least until they got serious with their training.
“Alfred” said his earpiece.
He reached up and tapped it. “Yes, Master Bruce?” he said, not breaking his stride in the fight.
“I need you to track something for me. What is that sound?”
“Just sparring with the boys. Sometimes I miss Master Dick. He, at least, would open a book occasionally.” Alfred ran over to the bat-computer and blocked several more blows from the boys with their own staffs.
“Right. Some super villains just showed up at the function. I need you to send the Bat-plane and track them for me.”
“Yes, sir.” Alfred said, holding up his hand to signal the boys. They both knew not to disturb Bruce when he was on a mission, so they stopped and caught their breaths. A few seconds later, Alfred continued. “I am detecting five individuals with a strange mystical energy inside them. One is in the room with you, one is almost dead, and the other three are flying away at high speed in three different directions.” He sent the tracking data to the bat plane and watched their dots move on the computer’s map as Bruce ran outside and hopped into the plane.
“I’m sending Superman after the fastest one, and will handle the other two myself.”
“Does he need backup?” asked the boys. Both were hoping for a real fight.
“It appears he already has some.” Alfred said, pointing to a familiar signal. Nightwing had arrived.