According to the news, the base on the other side was under siege. Apparently the losses they had suffered when they attacked last time weren’t enough to make them call off their troops, and they had decided to attack again.
The base on this side had been rebuilt stronger than before, with an external shield generator which prevented them from making it into the city with a peak Nascent level barrier powered by four core generators. This had meant that the military needed to purchase far more land in the city, but with all of the destroyed property near the gate they didn’t have much trouble in doing so.
Very few people were allowed to go through the gate, as there was no possibility of trade, so only an occasional truck was allowed to go through with supplies for the base.
Every day I got more worried about the people on the other side, especially Randy. The guy might consider himself a survivalist, but I knew that if it came down to it he would only last as long as his supplies. And that was assuming that he wasn’t attacked by high ranked people on the other side, a distinct possibility given their hostility towards everything from Earth, including several attempts to kill innocent villagers that worked for the base, as they might have been exposed to the ‘demonic’ idea that everyone can cultivate. People from Earth were treated like a disease, and with people from Earth spread out in the area the people from the sects would no doubt hunt them down.
No one from Earth was able to call anyone from any of the trade caravans. Adams said that it was because the dual barriers which surrounded the base corrupted the signal too much, but they couldn’t risk opening the barrier enough to get a signal through, as it would allow the enemy to get attacks through. The base here on Earth had a similar issue, but they were able to build towers outside the barrier, near every Core generator, and relay the signals inside via cables. You couldn’t do that on the other world, as anything the USA put outside the barrier was destroyed when the enemy arrived and would no doubt be destroyed again if they attempted to place something outside after pushing the enemy back.
All of this meant that no one had any idea what had happened to the people on the other side of the Gate. Many people sent requests for the information, but all of them were sent a form letter in return, saying that the military knew nothing so far. I, however, tried something different. I went to the section of the website for signing up a trade caravan, which had been mostly quiet but was kept open in case anyone new wanted to try and supply the base and small city on the other side.
Sponsoring company? That was easy. Good and Taylor Cultivation. List of personnel? Me. List of vehicles? None. Trade goods? Books of my techniques and maybe a few devices Liza had made. Target location? High River. It was the only location I could remember Randy mentioning other than that one sect which I couldn’t be sure was on our side or at least neutral to us. At the end there was a place for notes. So I added a few.
I wasn’t going for trade. While I was bringing trade goods with me, that was mainly so that I could meet my living expenses. My purpose in going would be to find the trade caravans which were cut off, especially the one lead by Greg Talmidge, in order to make sure that everyone was safe. I could then relay that information back to Earth or the base if they had a way for me to do so. I would be doing so while disguised as a native, so that no one suspected me and I could move about freely. Most people from that world looked Asian, after all, so my Caucasian appearance would reveal that I wasn’t from around there.
Liza doubted that anyone would even take my request seriously, but I submitted it anyway. Maybe they would see it and think that he could make a good spy or something similar. He’d be willing to spy for them against the sects if it meant giving the people back here peace of mind, including himself.
Of course, if I was going to go to the other world disguised as a local I would need to improve my cultivation and have the knowledge of that world that a local would have. So I started learning the local language and customs while cultivating my mental abilities. This was called the Mental path on the other world and consisted of improving my Memory, Wisdom, Willpower, Creativity, Touch, Taste/Smell, Sight, Hearing, and Reflexes to near their limits. While this technically wasn’t needed, as I was already at level 2, it would make it easier to use techniques which used those abilities, as well as just be good for my general improvement. It would also help when trying to break through to the third level, making it far easier to do so.
From what I had learned of that world’s cultivation, one’s physical and mental abilities generally doubled or tripled when advancing to the next level, and doubled or tripled again as one built up their cultivation. The improvements to the body’s general construction from each level of advancement also roughly increased what could be done without qi by 50%. So even without qi, I got 50% more strength from advancing to Gathering, then 50% again from advancing to Condensation. With qi use, what I could do increased greatly, doubling it for getting to peak Cleansing, again at the breakthrough to Gathering, again at the peak of Gathering, again after breaking through to Condensation, and again at the peak of Condensation. Without any qi in my body I could probably lift and carry 20 kilograms with this amount of muscle, but with all of the upgrades I could lift 45 kilos, and by using it I could lift and carry 720 kilograms.
The same went for mental stats, though they were more difficult to quantify. The easiest to do so with would be my senses, which could detect things 36 times as well compared to my before qi self if I used qi.
The issue with this was that one needed their base stats to be roughly double the previous level to advance to the next level. This resulted in most people plateauing after Gathering or Condensation and was something that was difficult to do with just the natural improvements brought on by cultivation. So I would need to do what the people of the other world did and train those stats, using qi to recover and maximize my training. This was easy with the body section, as exercise covered most of those areas, but much harder to do with the mind.
I did, however, soon find a way to train most of them through mobile phone games. While it sounds unlikely, I was able to find a program a London based game studio produced which included over 1000 “Where’s Wally” puzzles, and thus work on my sight. There were apps for studying music which let me work on my pitch recognition and taught me to listen for minor variations in the music, thus improving my Hearing. My Reflexes could be trained by playing fast paced games and attempting speed runs. Memory games were easy to find and Wisdom, which was about seeing things from various other angles and finding the best solution for the situation, was trained through, surprisingly, listening to and participating in internet debates. I even got some training in Willpower when people with stupid opinions or who seemed to want to start fights tried to join in and I had to restrain myself from yelling at them. Creativity was mostly about creating new, useful combinations of things, and my work developing techniques trained that.
The hardest to train were the Taste/smell ability and my sense of touch. But I had an idea for training both. I bought braille cookbooks. At first glance that doesn’t sound like it would help, but my reasoning was sound enough. To train my sense of touch I would learn braille. Once I could read by feeling the words, I could follow the instructions to make dishes, then train my senses of taste and smell by become a chef and food connoisseur.
Every day, after I did some work and trained another stat, I would study braille. First I memorized all of the characters, then I went over the pages of the book one at a time, transcribing them into normal letters. Once I could read all of them, I started flipping to random pages to make sure that I could read them quickly.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
The normal versions of the recipes were also used to learn cooking. It was tough learning about the different food descriptors from the internet, but eventually I got to a point where I was a competent cook, if not a good one. According to Liza, the things I cooked weren’t bad, but few of them were good enough to charge money for them.
All of this mental training greatly improved the speed at which I could learn the language and customs, so within a month I was fluent enough in the local language that I was reading books from that world in the original language. Some of the ones Randy brought back were interesting historical accounts, and I couldn’t tell if the supernatural events in them were made up or true accounts of cultivation techniques. The most interesting ones, though, were the diary and the False roots book.
The diary detailed the life of a man who was born with only Metal roots but, due to the extreme cost of metal, he was always poor, unable to raise enough to practice properly, and therefore always behind the other cultivators. He sought a way for people to use qi abilities from outside their roots, and eventually discovered how, writing it down in the book titled ‘False Roots’.
That book talked about how there were several situations in that world where people without roots would break through to level one, and even occasionally to level two according to the rumors. The most common reason were the people becoming demons, followed by mortals consuming breakthrough pills and forcibly advancing, but there were also accounts of Buddhist monks who learned to use talismans and relics, and used them so many times that either their nerves and brain or their blood vessels would be converted to meridians. And very rarely, if the relic or talisman in question had an elemental affinity, the person would be able to affect that element to some small degree even without the use of the item.
He sought to reproduce this effect and bought several cheap relics of various elements, using them repeatedly. He also gave them to his slaves and made the man and woman use them. Eventually both of them could slightly affect the element of their relic. He then made two important discoveries. The first was that it didn’t have to be a relic specifically. Anything that contained elemental qi could be used, including spirit water and spirit stones. The second was the development of a technique for using the relics which allowed one to take control of the elemental qi and cycle it thorough their meridians or body in order to rapidly advance the root all of the way from lacking one to Average in a matter of weeks. While these roots would slowly go away over time if one didn’t use them, as they weren’t a natural part of the cultivator the way that true spirit roots were, they would act as true spirit roots for most purposes, including automatically resisting if someone tried to suppress you.
Based on what I had read, I now knew why the bandits Randy and Mike sold only had those three roots. The mine was a spirit stone mine, so one had more than enough Earth elemental qi around them if they were in the mine. To get spirit water all one would need to do is leave normal water in the mine and it would slowly absorb qi, becoming spirit water. And there was an entire forest of spirit wood around them. All they would need to do is practice with one of those enough and they would gain Earth, Water, or Wood false spirit roots, and therefore be able to use orthodox techniques of those elements.
While this wasn’t useful to me, as I had two spirit roots to train already, it could be quite useful to people who didn’t have roots. I made a mental note to break down the technique and reconstruct it, adding my method to the end of the book before publishing it. I just couldn’t spare the tiem to do so at the moment.
One day, when I was cooking supper for us, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it and found two people from the USAF standing there. “Kevin Taylor?” one of them asked, and I nodded.
“I’m Kevin. How can I help you?”
“General Adams would like to speak with you. Can you please come with us to the base in Junction City?” I had no idea why Adams would want to speak with me. Of, more accurately, I had one hope of an idea.
“Is this about the request I sent to the base about going through the gate?”
The USAF officer shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I was just told to come and get you.”
I nodded. “Do I have time for a shower? Can I at least change first?”
The officer sniffed and nodded. “Yes sir, I think that is a suitable reason for a slight delay.” I had been working out a bit today, trying to push my sword skills to the next level, and it was pretty hot both outside and in the kitchen, so I had no doubt that I didn’t smell very good.
I called for Liza to tell her that I was going to go speak with Adams, and that she would need to watch the food I had just put in the oven. She was in her office trying to work out some of the flaws in a new device she wanted to sell on the website, though it looked too complicated for me to recognize what it did.
After she agreed to watch it, I got a shower and changed into a dress shirt and khakis, the nicest outfit I owned, before leaving with the two men. They had a flying sedan, and we were in the city in about ten minutes, setting down just outside the base and driving the rest of the way inside. They drive up to the main office and park, then one of them comes over to open the door for me. The other one, who I assume is the higher ranked one, puts on his hat and straightened his uniform. “Come on.” he said, “The General is waiting.”
I was lead to an office with solid wooden doors covered in complex metal lines. I assumed they weren’t just decorative, as they seemed similar to things I saw Liza working on. Most likely they were a defensive barrier formation. The officer nodded and Adams said that we could enter, so the man opened the door and I was allowed inside. “Kevin Taylor.” the man said and the General nodded and told him he could go. In the room with him was another man in a suit.
As soon as the officer left the General spoke up. “This is Ambassador Frank Johnson.” said the General, motioning towards the other man. “He is going to go to the other world to try and negotiate with the other sects in the area, to try and put pressure on the three that are attacking us.”
I nodded and introduced myself to the ambassador who was allowing enough qi to leak that I could tell he was early Foundation. “Should you be telling me all of this, sir? Shouldn’t I at least sign an NDA first?”
Adams shook his head. “I’ve scheduled a press conference for tomorrow night, at which point I’ll be informing the press about the ambassador and his mission. I trust you can keep it a secret from the press until then.”
“I’ll probably tell my girlfriend, but neither of us has anything to do with the press, so I can keep it a secret for one day.” I responded.
The General nodded. “You are probably wondering why I asked you to come here, and what the Ambassador’s trip has to do with you. It’s quite simple. I want you to provide body guard services for the Ambassador.”
I was surprised at this. “Sir? I admit that I’ve been training, but shouldn’t a diplomat have more and better guards?”
Adams nodded. “Normally, yes, but the people of that world heavily respect personal strength. If the Ambassador showed up with a large number of body guards, or ones that were stronger than him, they would think he was revealing weakness, which could negatively affect his mission. As for why we went with you rather than a Marine…” He paused for a second to gather his thoughts. “This mission will recover undercover work. The Ambassador has received such training, and based on your request I assume you have studied it as well. We attempted to train over thirty different members of the armed force, from army to marines to Air Force, but as soon as we sent them out to interact with the locals they were discovered as one of us. I was considering asking the CIA to send someone, as their people are trained in espionage, which requires under cover work, then my assistant mentioned your request.
I looked into who you were, to see if you might be an undercover police officer or even actor, but was surprised to find out that I remembered you. You were the one who kept the barrier up for those thirty seven people the day Blood attacked. From the reports, your quick reaction and determination, as well as the fact that you insisted that a member of your group named Marcos Vereli gather civilians saved the lives of the 29 people who weren’t part of your group. According to an analysis my people put together, that decision put you under tremendous strain, but you were willing to risk your life for the sake of people you didn’t even know.”
“Well, the others helped, but you are right.” I responded. “It probably would have been easier if I let them die, at least as far as keeping the barrier up is concerned. But mentally, I don’t think I could live with myself knowing that I let people die when I could help them just so that I can take it easy.”
The Ambassador nodded, then spoke. “And that’s exactly why I wanted to bring you in to take the test for the position.”
“I’ll do my best.” I responded. “So, is it a written test, or….”
Adams smiled. “Actually, step one is protecting your target. You will take on three High Condensation fighters that are trying to assassinate the Ambassador and win.”
I nodded, thinking. “Two questions. First, can I use qi techniques, and second, do you have a practice sword I can use?”
