An hour later, I went with people who called themselves Batman, Nightwing, Superman to the hospital of something called the Watchtower. Superman was the most injured. Apparently, he had hadn’t accounted for the fact that his enemy’s powers were magic based, not ‘metahuman abilities’, and had been shot out of the sky and ran through with a sword. It confused him that the man managed to do that last part, but I explained that the Snake Leader had most likely imbued part of his soul into his weapon, greatly improving its strength and power.

Once everyone was patched up, we moved to the main conference room. Over two dozen members of the Justice League Sect were there, as they wanted to hear about the new threat. I introduced myself as Lo Chang, bowed to them, and began to explain what had happened. I had managed to gather a bit of chi while the medical team was bandaging my wounds, but I was still running low. There appeared to be no stone chi in this place, and far too much metal chi. The Wood chi was limited to some sort of meditation garden, and the water chi was contained within pipes, with the fire chi being contained in something called a ‘reactor room’. Some of the people here appeared to be putting off large amounts of fairly pure elemental chi, though, so they must have a source. Had they just cultivated their internal chi to be elemental? I had heard of no one below Immortal managing to do that, as too large of an imbalance could kill you, but it may be possible with the right cultivation technique.

I told them of the Demon Cultivator Sect, how they had killed our people and kidnapped the children, and how they had almost captured me ten years ago. I also told them how the demons sacrificed at least seven children to open a portal here. When I was done, I knew that they were trying to come up with ways to defend themselves against this threat.

“With this new form of magic appearing, it is possible that they will possess abilities that we can’t defend against.” said Batman. “What can you tell me about their magic?”

“I don’t know much about their form of cultivation, other than that it can use the blood, life force, chi, or souls of others to enhance a user or power a spell. If you wish for me to learn this information I could interrogate one of the prisoners.” I knew that other members of the Jade Dragon Sect I belonged to had done so, so I should be able to get some information out of them.

“We’ll interrogate them ourselves.” said Batman. “What can you tell us of your Cultivation Method?”

I nodded. That I did know a bit about. I explained the basics to them, about the five types of elemental chi and the different levels and what it took to advance through them.

“And what level do you suspect the prisoners are at?” asked a woman in armor. I think I had heard someone call her ‘Wonder Woman’.

“The one that fought Superman was an Immortal. Early to mid tier, probably, judging by the strength of his magic. The two others that flew away were Nascent, as they could fly on their own. The one that we recovered from inside that I almost killed is probably Foundation, as I found a flying sword within his storage ring. At least, in my Sect you aren’t given a flying sword until late Gathering or early Foundation, and I doubt someone in Gathering wound have survived my attack. Most of the ones the civilian security and military killed were Gathering, with a few Foundations mixed in.”

“Once they regain consciousness, we can interrogate them.” said Batman. “For now, however, I think we should think it over. The situation was contained thanks to our friend here, so for now we have nothing to worry about.” The others nodded and the meeting was officially closed.

After the meeting Batman came over to me. “Come on. You look like you could use some rest.”

“I could, just not here. I need to recover my chi and this place has no Earth chi.”

“In that case, I have just the place.” He lead me to the teleportation array we had used to enter the Watchtower and activated it, and we appeared in a cave. There were plenty of metal objects around and several bits of technology providing metal chi, but the cave was filled with Earth chi, with enough Water chi from a stream flowing through it that the balance was far better than in that other place. At least here there was enough of each type of chi that my body would partially restore its own supply of chi, even with there being little Fire chi. Nightwing lead me to some sort of training room with straw mats he called tatami and I started meditating again.

A few hours later, as I gathered enough to not suffer any side effects from the lack of chi, two boys entered the room. “What are you doing?” asked one of them. From his attitude I guess he was Batman’s son. I had learned while we were being treated that Batman was also a rich merchant named Bruce Wayne in his home city, and that his identity as Batman was to be kept strictly secret. Nightwing was his first adopted son named Dick Grayson. These two were likely also his sons, but the more demanding one seemed more like a noble scion and the other more like a properly behaved child.

“I am gathering chi. Has your father not taught you how yet?” I asked.

“I’m not sure he knows how.” said the older boy. Strange, I thought that he must be a cultivator. If he had managed to develop that level of skill and power without being one he must have seriously trained for decades.

“What is ‘chi’?” asked the younger boy. “Some sort of magic?”

“Have you never learned about Eastern martial arts?” asked the older one. “It’s a kind of spiritual energy that can be used to enhance the body and martial arts.”

I nodded. At least one of them had a basic knowledge. “It can also be used to cast spells, though you must learn to properly manipulate it to do that.”

“Then I will allow you to teach it to me.” said the younger one.

Before I could respond the older one spoke up. “I think he meant ‘will you please teach me?’. Damian can be pretty demanding sometimes.”

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“My mother is the head of the League of Assassins, and my father is Batman. Why shouldn’t I expect the servants to do as I say?”

“Maybe because this man isn’t a servant and Alfred won’t put up with it?” Damian crossed his arms and sulked in anger.

“Very well.” I said, slightly cheering them up. “I shall teach you to cleanse the toxins from your body and open up your chi pathways. It is extremely safe. And if you manage to complete that step I can teach you to gather chi, with your father’s permission, of course.” That seemed to be enough for now, so they sat down and I started instructing them.

Thirty minutes later we had to leave the room due to the smell as they developed a stench that would repel even a Nascent monster. They ran up the stairs to the house and each ran into a different bathroom. Bruce’s only servant, Alfred, followed so that he could get them a change of clothing and a towel. The process could cause extreme nausea and diarrhea in the beginning, and, while they had held out longer than I had when I was starting off, their bodies still had too many toxins for them to avoid it.

As Alfred was upstairs, I grabbed a bucket from a closet, filled it halfway in the bathroom that was down here, and grabbed a rag to start cleaning up the oily black liquid that they had sweated out. It should only be another six or seven times before the other symptoms cleared up and they only sweated this stuff out. I didn’t know how long they would continue to sweat this out.

Strangely, I had also sweated a bit out while demonstrating the technique, though only enough to lightly coat my skin. I suspected that the food I ate while on the Watchtower was contaminated with some sort of chemical toxin which was safe to eat but which interfered with the flow of chi. I would have to watch what I ate in this realm if I didn’t want to risk closing off my chi pathways.

When I was done I went upstairs. Dick had left, needing to return home to his pregnant wife. Alfred showed me to a guest room and I removed my clothes before taking a bath, then laying down. I had the set of dress robes in my ring, but would need to wash my other clothes when I got up so that I could have something to change into.

The next morning after eating some sort of meat and bread with eggs, which Alfred had prepared, I went down into the Bat Cave, as Bruce called it. Bruce was there, looking at some kind of moving picture on a giant piece of glass, so I went to the training room and started meditating again.

Within an hour I had refilled all of the Metal and Earth chi I had used above the base Foundation level, that level having restored itself over night, and was gathering water chi when I sensed Bruce entering the room. “So, what do you plan on doing now that you are on Earth?” he asked.

I let the last wisps of water chi that I had collected settle in and opened my eyes. “I will continue to defend the weak and fight evil, where ever it may appear. If your sect does not wish to work with me, then I shall do so on my own.” That was, after all, as master Xing taught, the duty of every good cultivator.

“In that case, we need to talk. You killed several of those Demon Cultivators yesterday.”

“It was a fight to the death and they would not hesitate to do the same.” I responded. How could it be wrong to kill a murderer who would do so again, given the chance?

“You could have spared them. Knocked them out, or tied them up.”

“What would be the point of that? Only one captive from that sect has ever been willing to break his cultivation so that he could step away from the path of Demon Cultivation. It is unlikely they would do so.”

“If you kill, then you are just as bad as they are.”

“I do not agree. They kill for self interest and greed. If I kill, it is to stop one who has done worse. It is Justice. Is that not what your sect, the ‘Justice League’ seeks?”

“You shouldn’t act as judge, jury, and executioner. You should arrest, not eliminate.”

“But wasn’t that what the civilian security in black did, I believe you called them ‘police’? They killed at least four of them.”

“That’s different.”

“How?” I asked.

Bruce thought for a minute. “It’s difficult to explain. For now, just know that I don’t kill, and that I don’t allow those that work with me to do so either.”

I nodded. “Very well, then. For your sake, I will do my best not to kill the villains I stop.”

Bruce nodded. “In that case, you’ll need a costume and a hero name.”

“What’s wrong with my Name and the outfit?”

“If your enemies know who you are, they can target you and those you care about.”

I thought about it for a minute. In my original realm the sect was my home. Everyone I cared about was there, a part of that family. And we wanted to advertise who we were in order to give people hope. Here it seemed to be different. Here the sect members didn’t live together, and many people had friends and family among the civilians. If the criminals and demonic sect members of this world found out about, for example, Alfred or Bruce’s business, they would no doubt target them in order to hurt him. “Very well. What do you suggest?”

“Well, your robes work well enough for an outfit for now, but you can’t refer to yourself as Lo Chang. You’ll need a code name. Colors and animals are common themes.”

“Like the Bat?” I asked, and he nodded. “In that case, what about Jade Dragon? It was the name of my sect in my realm, and I would like to honor them.”

He nodded. “That is a suitable name.” He paused for a few seconds. “I here you’re teaching my sons your cultivation.”

“Well, I am teaching them the Cleansing stage. It is pretty much universal among cultivators, even Demon Cultivators, with only minor changes in some traditions to make certain Gathering Phase techniques work better. Demon Cultivators, for example, learn to tolerate low levels of toxins in their body, as their methods introduce more. I won’t teach a proper cultivation technique until they complete that stage.”

He nodded. “Can you teach me?”

I bowed my head slightly. “I would be honored.”

I lead him through the first steps of the process. It took him over an hour to first learn to touch the chi within his body and learn to move it. His mind seemed too attached to science and logic, to the point that he seemed to instinctively reject the spiritual side of himself. Eventually, however, he grabbed those first few wisps of chi and moved them with his will.

The first thing I noticed when he started cultivating was that he didn’t have the same level of toxins as the others. His body was so healthy that he skipped past the easy toxins which caused the boys digestive issues and he was immediately able to start on the middle stage, clearing toxins which only impeded chi flow but which were easy to remove. After three hours of meditation I got up to go bathe, but he was still there, deep in meditation. While I had a slight sheen of something on my skin, like a light bit of mud, he appeared to be sweating a black, oily substance. His toxin levels were obviously much higher than mine, as mine were low enough that the natural influx of chi into my body could cleanse what small amount of toxins my body collected from this environment.

When I got back to the cave he was still sitting there, toxins still leaking from him, the substance soaking into the tatami underneath him. More than that, I could sense a slight bit of chi within him. He had managed to clear enough of the toxins that his body had automatically gathered one point of chi. Normally one wouldn’t quantify how much chi they had, instead rating it my stages, like ‘early Foundation’, but in this case it was important. Once someone had gathered their first point of chi the body’s spiritual and mental abilities would be unlocked. I had no idea what form that would take for him in the beginning, before he could learn other techniques, but he was now officially a cultivator.

The boys were there watching him. “Come on.” I said, sitting down. “You shouldn’t disrupt other people’s cultivation. Now, let us work on yours.”

“Does it have to cause those issues?” the younger one, Damian, said. “I’m willing to put in hard work, but those symptoms are just...embarrassing.”

“Those symptoms are necessary. The toxins you will clear in the first stage go to your stomach and intestines, causing those organs to try and get rid of them as quickly as possible. I can make a secondary cleansing pill for you, which will ease your symptoms so that you can endure longer, but you will still need to remove the toxins from your body by excreting or vomiting.”

“Fine.” said Damian. “In that case, I’ll go meditate while on the toilet.” With that he walked to the bathroom.

Tim looked at him and shrugged. “That actually sounds like a good idea.” He headed for the stairs so that he could use the restroom in the house.

That might actually be a good idea, given their level of technology. In my old sect many early trainees soiled themselves while meditating in groups. I had even done it twice. The toilets we had were holes in the floor that one dumped a bucket of water down to clean it after use. Here, however, one could sit on the toilet as if it were a seat, making meditating there much easier. As long as they came back to learn the middle stage when they were finished with that one it would be fine.

I managed to top up my water chi and went back upstairs. The house had many trees around it, and the sun was shining in the sky, so there should be plenty of Fire and Wood chi to gather there.