I summoned my pair of glowing wiffle balls to orbit us and illuminate the space again, and we made our way deeper into the store.

Upfront it was a total mess. We meandered around collapsed shelves and tipped-over displays. The first object I spotted that I recognized as a piece of valid merchandise—a package of AA batteries—I bent to pick up and place gingerly in my cart. I watched my energy pools in my HUD like a hawk, expecting to see a number tick down, but nothing happened. Maybe one pack of batteries wasn’t enough? I bent down and picked up another and tossed it in.

Still nothing.

The batteries had, however, disappeared from the cart, moving, I assumed, to my inner realm.

“Let me check something,” I said.

Bryan looked impatient and continued moving forward, casing the place. I stood still a moment and activated Inner Realm.

Once more I found myself transported to the large, cold warehouse. My nondescript neon lights continued to shine overhead. The only change was that two small objects were now at my feet. I bent to pick one up.

They were the packages of batteries.

“Alright,” I said aloud, “so that works. Only, how much energy is this costing me? Uh… system?”

There was no response.

“Hmm. Realm?”

A dialogue box appeared, narrated aloud in the space in a warm, pleasant voice.

Welcome, Realm Lord, to your Inner Realm. Would you like to give this Realm a name?

“Oh. Just like a new laptop, huh? Sure. Let’s call it… uh… how about Realmy McRealmface?”

Welcome, Realm Lord, to Realmy McRealmface. Let’s gather some information to get started.

This Realm can adjust dynamically to your requirements, but will operate most efficiently with a build preset. Please select from the following geographical and climate list:

Aquatic complex

Arctic subglacial base

Temperate Continent

Tropical Continent

Moonbase

Planetoid

Space station

No Preset

“Everything on this list looks amazing and I want to try it all,” I immediately said.

Would you like to demo each preset at this time?

I sighed. “No. Bryan’s probably already wondering why I’m not back out yet. Better pick the pragmatic option. Let’s go with Temperate Continent.”

Preset confirmed.

Please select a starting location from the following list:

Realm Lord Chalet, North Forest

Realm Lord Palace, West Capital

Realm Lord Palace, Central Capital

Realm Lord Palace, East Capital

Cosmic Qi Node, North Temple

Cosmic Qi Node, South Temple

Cosmic Qi Node, Mount McMountface

Cosmic Qi Node, Canyon McCanyonface

Spirit Well, North Forest

Spirit Well, South Desert

Spirit Springs, West Archipelago

Spirit Springs, East Capital

“Uhhh… the fuck.” This was… amazing. The same vibe you got the first time you unlocked the full map playing Link to the Past? Yeah. This was that vibe. Had I just isekai’d myself into an entire-ass fantasy world? I perused the list, wishing I had more time. Four Realm Lord locations, four Cosmic Qi nodes, four Spirit structures. Twelve locations in all. That seemed important but I didn’t have the mental bandwidth just then to try to pin down which specific numerology it might refer to. Instead I picked what seemed like a good logical starting point and got ready to move on.

“Realm Lord Palace, Central Capital.”

The floor beneath my feet dropped away to reveal a cloud-speckled blue summer sky. Beneath that, a continent rose up to meet me. It rushed at me like a bull, slowing only at the last moment, but although the experience was thrilling I was unafraid. I had an innate sense that nothing could hurt me here; I was the Lord of this Realm, land, sea, and sky.

White shining marble met my feet as I touched down on an open balcony that protruded from the structure I assumed to be the palace. It overlooked a small but attractive garden, beyond which stood a richly ornamented wall, and beyond that, the streets of the Central City. Which was, so far as hearing indicated, completely devoid of life.

That made sense, I supposed, since I was the only person to have entered the Realm.

I turned around and moved forward to take a peek at the palace itself, but was distracted as my feet brushed against a couple of small objects. I looked down to see both packages of batteries had come with me.

“Oh, that is excellent,” I said. “Now, ah, McRealmface? Can you tell me the energy cost of storing items here? Things from outside, I mean. Like these AA batteries.” I nudged them with my foot as I spoke, indicating them to whatever intelligence I was communicating with. In response, another list of selections populated.

Realm Menu:

Energy Management

Living Entities

Realm and Climate Presets

Settlement Management

Structure Management

Upgrades and Add-ons

I selected “Energy Management.”

Energy Management:

Cosmic Qi Reserves

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Cosmic Qi Expenditures

Spirit Reserves

Spirit Expenditures

Cultivation Channel Management

Feeling I was getting somewhere, I selected “Cosmic Qi Expenditures.” The information that populated next threw me for a bit a of a loop.

Cosmic Qi Expenditures:

Log:

2,000 quanta spent upgrading from Inner Space to Inner Realm: applied;

10,000 quanta spent cycling to Realm cultivation channels: applied;

.002 quanta spent per week storing AA battery package, 2: ongoing.

My heart raced and I shook my head, licking my lips. This shit was completely out of hand now. I couldn’t keep up. Was I reading this right?

“Hey, uh, Realmy?” I called. “Am I understanding this correctly? Do I have 10,000 quanta of Raw Cosmic Qi cycling through me right now inside of this realm, even though the max on my actual body’s cultivation channels is 200?”

That is incorrect, Realm Lord. You spent 10,000 quanta of Raw Cosmic Qi by cycling it through your realm channels. That Qi has now been refined into Spirit, of which you currently house 10,000 quanta within your realm channels. Furthermore, the body that houses this Realm does not have a maximum limit of 200 Raw Cosmic Qi, but rather 200 Spirit. Like the Raw Cosmic Qi that is cycled in your realm channels, however, the Raw Cosmic Qi that is cycled in the body’s channels is refined into Spirit. Once this has taken place, no more Cosmic Qi can be cycled and no more Spirit can be cultivated until expenditure of refined Spirit has taken place.

“Huh.” Wow. I guess I had known I’d had that much Cosmic Qi stored in Storm Globe—more, even—but the thought of having processed and cycled that much was mind-boggling. No wonder I’d passed out and seized. Again. “Is this normal?” I wondered aloud.

Realmy McRealmface declined to answer.

“Well, anyway, better get back to it. Thanks Realmy.”

I deactivated Inner Realm and found myself back in the dark, grimy K-Mart. A row of shopping carts stood before me, each one full to the brim with items. Bryan wheeled a sixth cart in my direction, this one also full.

“About bloody time,” he muttered. “While you’ve been off masturbating with a mind spirit or exploring your feelings through the sieve of interdimensional super-magic or whatever you were doing this time, I’ve loaded up some things for you. Can you make use of any of it?” He didn’t sound actually upset. If anything, maybe a bit envious.

I reached out and touched the nearest cart, infusing it with a pulse of Spirit as I did so. Gods knew I had plenty to spend. I willed its contents to transfer to my Realm, and they did. Bryan blinked at the empty cart.

“Hungry, then?” he said. “Christ, you didn’t even look.”

“I can fix that. I think.” Without entering my Realm, I sent a probing thread of Spirit to it, willing access to the Realm Management menu. To my satisfaction it appeared, scrolling across my HUD, and I read the updated Cosmic Qi Expenditures tab.

Cosmic Qi Expenditures:

Log:

2,000 quanta spent upgrading from Inner Space to Inner Realm: applied;

10,000 quanta spent cycling to Realm cultivation channels: applied;

.002 quanta spent per week storing AA battery package, 2: ongoing;

.001 quanta spent per week storing Yoga Mat: ongoing;

.001 quanta spent per week storing Giant Yoga Ball: ongoing;

.001 quanta spent per week storing Hand Air Pump: ongoing;

The log went on in this fashion to list a set of hand weights, a Shake Weight, half a dozen reusable water bottles, a pair of resistance bands, a pair of boxing gloves (who knew they sold boxing gloves at K-Mart? Seriously, why did that store go under?), and a few other assorted sundries obviously from the exercise equipment aisle. It looked like Bryan had scooped one or two of anything in decent shape from the aisle and shoved it in the cart. Which, on a moment of reflection, I couldn’t fault him for; as object after object passed my eyes in the list, the wheels began turning and I started seeing how useful some of these items could be if I was able to maintain my frightening pace of turning everything I touched into some sort of magical device.

It was clear that there was a standard energy cost to store things, and that it was low. I wasn’t sure what it depended on but it didn’t seem to be size or mass, since every single item cost .001 quanta per week.

“Hang on,” I said aloud. “That spends Qi, not Spirit. How much Cosmic Qi do I have now, anyway?”

My HUD flashed as the Cosmic Qi Expenditures tab closed and another took its place.

Cosmic Qi Reserves

3,823

Deposit? Y/N

Withdraw? Y/N

A little sloppy almost-math told me that even a few hundred items spending one one-thousandth of a quanta per week each wouldn’t hurt me for a long time, and that was assuming my reserves were static. But it seemed I’d effected all these changes and created a reserve pool of Qi here by chaining the skill to Storm Globe and sending Qi from that skill in the first place. Could I just do that again? Because, well… I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to that thing, but as far as I knew it was still gathering and storing ambient Cosmic Qi from the crazy-rich Qi saturated invasion atmosphere. Even though I’d clearly spent most of what it had accumulated in this latest wild experiment, it was entirely possible the stored quanta was already back in four figures.

I popped back out of my Realm and grinned at Bryan.

“Load me up, motherfucker.”

He wheeled another cart to me and with a touch and a thought I willed its content into my Realm.

“That is too freakish,” he mumbled.

“Oh I’m sorry, jealous British man says what?”

“Huh?”

I made a sour face. So like him to not fall for that.

I gobbled up cart after cart of whatever Bryan had been collecting. I spotted electronics, dishware, bedding, stationary. “Jesus, Bryan, did you collect the whole store?”

“Just about,” he answered. “Hang on. I have a request.” He pulled a set of altheisure clothing from a cart. Just a simple tracksuit. In his other hand he lifted a pair of sneakers. “Can you magic these up for me?”

“Oh? Probably. Let me see.”

I deactivated Ballers Be Balling and, having emptied all the carts, Cart Collection, then activated Storm Globe. It’s glowing, swirling inner energies lit up the space and I smiled as if seeing an old friend. “I’m really glad there was a Spencer’s in that mall,” I said.

“Has there ever been a mall without a Spencer’s Gifts? Cornerstone of American Capitalism, that shop. I would never have missed it.”

“I never doubted you for a second. Hand me the clothes.”

I took them in hand and closed my eyes, willing Qi from Storm Globe into them.

Nothing happened.

“You’re frowning,” Bryan said. “I don’t like that. Why are you frowning? Where are my magic clothes?”

“Give me a minute, geez. I’m not a magic gumball machine. You can’t just stick a coin in me, twist a knob, and get the good stuff. Actually, that is… sort of what’s been happening. Aside from… oh, haha! That’s funny. That’s a British way of saying something a bit naughty, isn’t it? Twisting the old knob?”

He made a face like he’d encountered an offensive smell. “Please never say that again.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Prude.” I closed my eyes again and tried to send Cosmic Qi into the clothes once more.

Still nothing.

“Oh,” I said, my eyes popping open. “It’s not a skill.”

His eyebrows rose. “Oh, right. You’ve been sort of stacking your skills together, yeah? That’s how you got the magic sweater?”

“Chaining them. Right. Only skills. I’d have to be, I don’t know, probably wearing these and then jump into another invasion beam to make them into a skill first, then suborn them to Storm Globe to pump them full of Qi. It’s a bit convoluted, to be honest, for plot armor. Heh. Maybe I’m a little more interesting that I thought.”

I turned to slowly look at Bryan. “Or maybe… you could wear them into a beam. Then you’d definitely get the skill.”

“No, I wouldn’t!” His voice leaped an octave and he stepped back, waving his hands defensively. “What I’d definitely be is fried to a cosmic crisp. Are you off your head? People don’t survive getting trapped in those things, Quart.”

“I mean, I do.”

“You are a freak. A one-off. You don’t—you don’t know yet? He didn’t tell you what happened to you?”

I scratched my head and gazed off to the side, feeling a little foolish for not being in the know. “Well… there wasn’t much time, really. I spent most of it in the shower. I think maybe I’ve pieced some things together from context, but admittedly, shit has been moving pretty quickly. Hasn’t been a lot of time for organic recaps.”

“What is it you think you understand about your, ah, unique condition?”

“Which one?” I asked, raising a brow.

Bryan chuckled mirthlessly. “Isn’t that the truth. Monster.”

“You can’t call me that. You’re not a horny demon with a shadow monster inside of you.”

“I’m not… what? No, nevermind, don’t answer that. Stick with my first question.”

“Fine,” I nodded. “Ok. So this dream—maybe top three of my weirdest dreams so far, by the way—started with me waking up as my bed, and subsequently house, caught fire, courtesy of one of those rainbow-hued invasion beams. I grabbed the bare minimum of what I could find to fight my way down the street, ran, and proceeded to fail forward through a handful of goblette kills, until finally one of the fuckers got ahold of me and decided a particularly excellent way to watch me die would be fried by cosmic magic. So it threw me into another beam. Beam number two, for anyone who’s counting. Yet somehow, much like the first time, it didn’t kill me. And you know what they say about whatever doesn’t kill you. Turns out, it’s the truth.

“I’m assuming all this exposure to Cosmic Qi is what broke my initial build and allowed me to both level through combat XP and cultivate Cosmic Qi, which seemed to surprise elf-man-in-the-sky. Sounds like this is the first time on this merry-go-round I’ve been a cultivator, yeah? But not the first time, I gather, I’ve been able to do this Qi Magician thing with the Qi Skills.

“Anyhow, elf-deity cleaned me up, gave me a bag skill, and sent me to the mall where we met. And, it being not your first time, you knew a few tricks of the trade and helped me leverage Qi Magic to build an insultingly long list of as-yet mostly unused skills. Which we then used to get out and try to find someone to help us with… something. Only instead of meeting her, we met Sam, who I thought might teach me cultivation. Only oh, and by the way, you didn’t know this yet so hold onto your hat, it turns out I don’t need to learn how to cultivate because apparently any raw Cosmic Qi I take in just immediately and perfectly cycles through my channels and becomes Spirit near-instantaneously, so… there’s that.”

Bryan’s eyes went very, very wide, but I plowed on.

“But anyway, she did give us that base-building node, which I’ve also now integrated into my broken-ass build—we should talk about that soon but I think it’s going to be a longer conversation—and now we’re in a K-Mart because it turns out whatever we stick in my magical Target carts gets interdimensionally teleported to my inner realm, and the more crap we grab, I’m assuming based on how our last Skill-building blitz went, the better.

“So far, so good?”

Bryan’s jaw hung slack. He blinked a few times in confusion. “That is… there is just… there is so much you just said that I…” he trailed off a moment, then shook his head briskly. “Time to talk more later. Look. All I was trying to say was that no one but you can survive a beam. Because you were in your bed when the very first beam hit you—”

“OHH!” I snapped my fingers and pointed at Bryan. “That’s right! He did mention that part! That’s right. Sorry, Bry-man. It’s all coming back to me now.”

Bryan slowly ran a hand over his face.

“But you know,” I said, pointing overhead, “I bet you can survive a much smaller Qi beam.”

Bryan and I both looked up to where my crackling, spinning Storm Globe hovered just below the ceiling.

Full of raw Cosmic Qi.