She takes a seat in a chair across from me and waves her hand, creating a barrier of ki that completely cuts off all sound from around us. Trinity’s fur bristles, and I can feel her tense up, but she stays still.
“An oum core in a single night,” she says.
“All thanks to you,” I say, nodding slightly.
“I’d call it impressive if it wasn’t so foolish. Do you even understand the state your body is in?”
Better than you.
“Enlighten me.”
“Your entire body is a mess. If you hadn’t succeeded in forming your core, you would be dead right now. Even then, you still have one foot in the grave, and you’re one mishap away from permanent damage to your oum pathways.”
“I see. Good thing I succeeded then.”
“Do you think this is a game, child?” she says.
I’m older than you.
“Do you?” I counter. “You said it yourself. I could have died. Why did you put that thing inside of me?”
“‘That thing’ was an oum seed,” she says angrily. “Had you not destroyed it, it would have begun to gradually dissolve once you formed your ki center, adding to your own foundation and accelerating your growth.”
“...Oh.”
I’ve never heard of anything like that. They certainly didn’t exist back on Earth. If she’s telling the truth, then I screwed up pretty badly. Her “gift” actually was a gift. To be fair to myself though, she snuck it in there, and it was really suspicious. If she had just told me about it, I wouldn’t have done what I did. Maybe I was a bit hasty, but she’s still in the wrong here.
“You probably got less than a tenth of what you could have gotten from it, and you nearly killed yourself doing it. You’re lucky I’m still here, or you’d have to spend your first month in bed recovering. You would barely be able to do the Starter Quest.”
She leans over and puts a hand on my leg, infusing her ki into my body. Almost immediately, I feel my muscles knitting themselves back together, my organs being repaired, and even my weak meridians being strengthened. And of course, with it, she inserts another “oum seed” that settles in my core and starts dissolving. Unlike the last one, the release of ki is slow and steady, and it actually feels quite nice.
“You seem to have a solid grasp on oum already,” says Organa. “But you are ignorant of the ways of the Tower. Please refrain from doing something so foolish in the future.”
“You know, you could have told me what you were doing,” I say. “If you had mentioned it at all, I wouldn’t have touched it. You just snuck it into my body without a word. It could have been anything.”
“I frankly didn’t expect you to notice,” says Organa shamelessly. “If I had known you knew about it, I would have said something.”
“Are you not going to apologize?”
She narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to get on my nerves, child? I’ve been directly helping you, and I’ve been polite enough not to pry into your secrets. Are you determined to lose my goodwill?”
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
“What?”
“It’s a saying from my world,” I continue. “It means that ‘free’ things are never truly free. Your assistance comes with a price; I just don’t know it yet. So, what do you want from me?”
“I see you’re not one for games,” she says after a few seconds.
“I prefer straightforward negotiations.”
“As do I,” she says. “Very well then. I saw what you did in the labyrinth and I was impressed. I am an official representative of the Hatep family. We would like to recruit you. I’m sure you already feel the effects of the oum seed now. They will become less effective as you increase your own cultivation, but we can provide other kinds of support. Treasures, pills, teammates… We are one of the largest organizations in the Tower and have people stationed on every Floor. You will never want for anything.”
“And what do you want from me?”
“Represent the Hatep family during your Climb. We will not require much beyond that. You will occasionally be asked to attend events and perhaps help other Climbers, but as long as you are actively progressing through the Tower, we will keep our requests to a bare minimum. You will not be bothered much.”
I open my mouth to ask more questions, but she cuts me off.
“I don’t expect you to come to a decision right now. You’ve only just entered the Tower, and you know nothing of any of the factions. You will learn about the major ones in Ganyu’s lessons, which is why I originally planned on waiting to bring it up until after you had spent some more time here. I think that as you learn more though, you’ll realize that the Hatep family is the best among the major factions.”
“...I’ll think about it.”
Like hell I will.
Regardless of her intentions, she snuck something into my body that almost killed me with the intent of bribing me to join her faction. And then she goes on about preferring straightforward negotiations? Sure, I can see why she did what she did. It makes sense. Against anyone else, it would probably have worked. But my first impression of the Hateps is one of a group that uses bribery and guilt-tripping to get people on their side. No thanks. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
I don’t have anything against accepting support, but she never even apologized for almost getting me killed. She just made excuses and insulted me. If that’s how the rest of her group is, I’m not interested.
“That’s enough for now,” she says, with a satisfied nod. “I’d also ask that if you get offers from other factions–which you will–let me know, because if they offer you anything specific, I’m confident that we can match it.”
“Alright,” I say dismissively.
“I’ll leave you to your meal now.” She stands up. “Good luck in your Climb. May you reach your goals.”
The ki barrier disappears, and the sounds of the room return as she walks away. All around, I hear mutters and whispers and I can feel the stares. I am glad that I decided not to care about drawing too much attention, because it looks like I am really terrible at laying low.
A few seconds later, Vanessa arrives, rushing over with Jacob at her heels. She is carrying two plates, both loaded with copious amounts of bacon, some of the miniature quiches, and a jelly-filled pastry.
“Bella, are you alright?” she asks, setting the plates down.
“Much better, actually,” I say, leaning forward to grab one of the plates.
“What were you talking about?” asked Jacob.
“She scolded me a bit,” I say nonchalantly. “I did something stupid last night. She healed me up and told me not to do it again. That’s all.”
Vanessa clearly doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t say anything.
“What did you do?” asks Jacob.
“Something stupid,” I say. “It’s a long story. Everything’s fine now though.”
I inspect my body to double check my condition. My physical body is completely healed, and now that I have a ki center, I actually feel better than I’ve felt in millennia. My meridians are still slightly damaged, but they’re at the point where they’ll heal on their own within a week, and I only need to be a little bit gentle on them until then. I’ll need to avoid heavy combat, but general cultivation and practice should be fine.
The problem of my oversized ki center remains, but with the “oum seed” constantly emitting ki, the pressure within is actually rather good right now. I still need to compress my ki center down to a normal size, but as with the damaged meridians, it shouldn’t affect everyday ki practice much.
“Well, I’m glad you’re healed now,” says Vanessa. “You were… really bad earlier.”
“I was worse than I looked,” I agreed. “But everything’s fine now.”
My stomach growls again, and I immediately start shoving bacon in my mouth. Vanessa follows suit, though with a bit more decorum, and Jacob is already half-done with his food, but he starts eating as well. We eat in silence for a few minutes until my plate is clean and my stomach feels less hollow. I definitely want seconds, but Jacob has been looking at me like he wants to say something, and I’m sated enough to at least hear him out right now. I raise an eyebrow at him and nod, and he thankfully understands the gesture and starts to speak.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“This oum stuff. You know how to use it right?”
Vanessa is still eating, but her eyes are glued to me, waiting for a response.
“I do,” I confirm.
“Can you teach me?” he asks.
“No.”
“Okay.”
I wait for a few seconds, but he doesn’t say anything more. Is that it? Is he just giving up? Even Vanessa looks surprised at how he didn’t press any further.
“So, where are you guys from?” asks Jacob.
The conversation turns mundane from there, and I learn a few things about Jacob. First, though he’s not from our city, he is from one in the same state. I had suspected that our Batch all came from the same pillar, but it’s interesting to know that we seem to have been mixed around a bit. The whole Batch seems to be from the same general region still, but I find it odd that it felt the need to gather us from different places. In our city at least, the population should have been high enough to fill a full Batch on its own.
Perhaps we were separated by talent? I noted earlier that the number of ki-sensitive people in the group was abnormal, but it’s possible that it was entirely intentional. If the others felt the same call that I did, it would make sense that they’re all special in some way.
Anyway, as the conversation continues, I learn that Jacob, like us, was a college student when he entered the Tower. Actually, he was a student athlete, though he claims that he wasn’t a real athlete, since his school was small, and he had mostly joined the team for the scholarship. His major was sports medicine, which is close enough to our major that he and Vanessa are able to get into a lively conversation about it.
I occasionally nod or agree with something they say, but mostly I let them take the lead and let my mind wander. The Tower seems to be quite the incredible place. Just what I’ve personally witnessed is already well beyond what I witnessed on Earth. Either of Ganyu or Organa could have single-handedly taken over the planet, and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop them.
And yet, if Jinlan’s words are to be believed, they aren’t even among the strongest. They’re the failures. The ones who couldn’t reach the top, and had to retire to teach newbies, hoping for a spark of enlightenment that would let them ascend to the next floor. I can only imagine what those who actually reached the top are like.
That also puts my own knowledge and experience into perspective. I may have thousands of years of experience with ki, but my knowledge only extends to the Life and Death realm, which Ganyu and Organa have certainly long since surpassed. I may not need their help to get stronger at the moment, but just their casual insights could be monumental for my own development. If nothing else, then just witnessing the way they use ki should be enlightening. The way they use ki–or “oum” as they call it here– is clearly very different from how I used it on Earth. The oum seeds alone are proof of that.
There’s also the matter of these “void beasts.” I look down at Trinity, who is eyeing the scraps that Vanessa left on her plate. Of all the odd species I’ve seen living in the Tower so far, Trinity is still easily the strangest. She’s so familiar, yet so foreign. She looks mostly like a cat, but I somehow feel absolutely certain that she’s not actually a cat at all. I definitely need to go talk to that one instructor Organa mentioned to learn more. I think her name was Nadia? Hopefully that name alone will be enough to find her.
At some point during the conversation, I excuse myself to grab another plate of food. Vanessa and Jacob don’t seem to mind, as they’re in the middle of a conversation about books or something. I wasn’t really paying attention, but they seem to be hitting it off pretty well. Good for them.
When I get back, the conversation is still going, so I just sit quietly in my seat, eating more food, and occasionally tossing pieces to Trinity. As the time for Ganyu’s lesson to begin draws near, I find myself getting excited. I haven’t felt like this in… a really long time. Nothing like the prospect of permanent death to add a bit of motivation. And I guess learning how to use ki more effectively sounds interesting too.
Finally, after another half hour passes and both mine and Trinity’s stomachs are full, the man himself arrives. The entire lobby goes silent as the gaunt, bluish-gray-skinned man walks by, his bare feet making almost no noise against the tiled ground while his wooden staff makes hollow tapping sounds. I feel his gaze linger on me for a bit longer than a passing glance, but his pace remains steady until he reaches a door at the beginning of the far hallway.
“The lesson begins in five minutes,” he says. “Anyone who is absent will regret it.”