I spent the day with Rahman and headed to Vaclav’s in the evening. Novak had messaged me around midday, telling me not to make any plans and to drop by later.
At the platform, Lina met me again, and we went up to Vaclav’s apartment together. In the lift, she handed me a memory card.
"Here’s your porn," she said.
"Sorry — what?" I blinked.
"A friend of mine cracked the password," Lina replied. "There’s a solid stash of pirated porn. Mostly lesbian, with a bit of BDSM. Why do heterosexual men like lesbian porn so much?" she asked, tilting her head. "I can kind of understand the BDSM. I can understand threesomes. But why lesbian?"
"Are you serious?" I asked, feeling my face heat up.
"Completely. What’s so special about lesbian porn?"
I don’t know what I’d been expecting. But it definitely wasn’t this.
Then again — Jake is eighteen. It tracks.
"Wait," I said. "Was there only porn on it?"
"There was some music and a photo album too."
I just about scorched her with a glare.
"What?!" she huffed. "I didn’t put the adult films on there!"
Thankfully, we arrived — the lift doors slid open and I shot out like a cork from a champagne bottle. I practically stormed into Vaclav’s apartment. But Lina stayed right on my heels.
"So are you going to answer my question?"
"What question?" Vaclav asked, frowning at our rather unceremonious entry.
"Why do heterosexual men like lesbian porn?"
Yeah… That must’ve been the exact look I’d had when she first asked me.
"Lina!" Novak snapped. And his tone promised nothing good.
"It wasn’t me! He had a memory card full of porn!" she protested. And clearly she felt the danger in the air, because she actually raised her hands in a universal gesture of surrender.
"You can ask Adam about that!" Vaclav barked. "Out!"
Lina vanished like a gust of wind had blown her away.
Novak rubbed his forehead, clearly exhausted, and muttered—
"One day she’s going to push me over the edge…" he muttered. "Sit down," he said, pointing to my usual chair, then disappeared into the room where he kept his drinks, tea, and other fine things.
Vaclav returned with two full glasses. The scent of pine, alcohol and caramel spread through the room.
Had he poured one for me?
Nope. The liquid in my glass was darker, smelled like pine, and tasted like Sprite. Well, never look a gift horse in the mouth…
Vaclav sat back in his own chair, took a sip and asked:
"What do you think of Kate?"
"Unbearable!" I admitted. "She keeps trolling me with that tiny hand."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Did she seem… off to you?"
"She was too cheerful, considering she’d just been chewed on by Iron Ants."
"Metal Ants," Novak corrected automatically. From the look on his face, he dove straight into his thoughts after that, only resurfacing after downing half his bourbon.
"Could’ve been worse," he finally declared. "Trauma’s still experience. But keep an eye on her. If you see any signs of PTSD — message me."
"Right…" I raised my hands in a vague gesture.
"Apart from the forced cheerfulness," Novak clarified.
"I’ve got to watch over Rahman too," I reminded him.
"Which you’re not doing," Novak added, lifting a finger off his glass to point accusingly at me.
"I’ve got cultivation to keep up with!" I tried to defend myself.
"Relax," he waved it off. "The demon in her head is showing less and less activity. It’s dying, Jake."
"No!" I shook my head.
"That’s Farukh’s diagnosis. He’s got nearly a century of neurosurgical experience. Do you know something we don’t?"
"Yeah! Genre logic! If there’s a demon in a xianxia, it’s definitely coming back to bite someone’s arse." I didn’t care if Farukh had two hundred or three hundred years of experience. How many brain hitchhikers had he observed?
Though, maybe he had observed them. And buried them too…
"Then thank God we live in the real world," Novak laughed. "Spend as much time with Nur as you can — just not at the expense of your own development."If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
"And my shifts at the block? Does she need to be close by?"
"No. Let her do what she wants. Just make sure you’re together for a few hours a day. Just in case."
Apparently, my gut feeling that the demon wasn’t done yet resonated with some instinct of his too.
I nodded.
"Right, and pass that box on to Robinson," Novak added casually, gesturing toward a grey plastic container by the wall.
"First batch of the bloom?"
"Actually, I’ve decided not to mess around with batches. That’s everything. Four kilos. A bit more than we agreed on, so he’ll have room to experiment with boosting the quality."
My mental calculator glitched again. Ten grams — thirty thousand… four thousand grams — twelve… Twelve bloody million!
And that’s just the raw resource cost. What’s the final product going to be worth?
"It’s not that much money," Novak said, as if reading my mind. "What really matters are the connections that let me get that many blooms this quickly."
Was that… a hint? But at what?
"When you’re ready to break through to the second stage, remember that. Normally, you can use up to three breakthrough materials during the process. I’ll give you one."
"Which one?"
"Whichever you choose."
"Could you… recommend something? You talked Robinson out of using that larva, didn’t you?"
Vaclav swirled the last of his bourbon in his glass, then drained it in one go. I had a feeling what he’d say next would end the conversation.
I hurried to finish my 'Sprite'. Maybe it was some sort of special cultivator drink — I just couldn’t feel it yet.
"The Ice Spider Larva," Novak explained, "would’ve been great for someone cultivating frost blade or frost sword techniques. Robinson does use those, but his water root isn’t particularly developed. That leaves the sword — which is point and blade. Silver Obsidian strengthens both those types of qi. When I gave Robinson my advice, I knew his foundation. Yours, so far, doesn’t exist." He stood up — clearly signalling the end of the conversation. "We’ll revisit this when you’re ready to break through to Foundation."
That was definitely goodbye. I grabbed the box and headed off to Robinson.
He reacted more or less the same way I had — stared at it for a long time in stunned silence.
"You owe me an elixir," I reminded him. “The red one.”
"Yeah…" Doc muttered, still on autopilot.
Perfect! If I got lucky — and Vaclav didn’t slap my hands for this little side-deal, or count the elixir as his promised gift — I’d already have two of the three materials I’d need for a breakthrough!
Still, thinking about a breakthrough was a bit premature. First, I needed to actually master a technique.
Just the other day, I’d seen Dubois shut down a couple of troublemakers in the block. He threw a plastic spike from one end of the corridor to the other — nailed one guy in the forehead with the blunt end, knocked him out cold, and the spike bounced right back into his hand.
Across the entire corridor!
Doc had pulled something similar with his scanner and Omar’s skull — but that had been at point-blank range.
In short — it looked awesome! I wanted to do something equally cool with my fists. So, before bed, I ran through the training cycle again in the hologram — even though Kate had specifically warned me against doing it in my room.
That morning in the hall, I matched my previous records: Shoulders – 3, Elbows – 6… but Fists popped out of the hologram one time more than yesterday.
Over the next thirty minutes, though, I beat all my numbers: 1, 5 and 9!
Only nine errors on Fist felt like real progress. But from that point on, things went downhill fast — the number of misses started climbing again. I got frustrated, and Rene noticed.
"Take a break and calm down," he said. "You’re not getting anywhere like this."
"Time’s still ticking," I hinted.
"If you stay an extra half hour today — and this doesn’t become a habit — I won’t say a word. And once you’re rested, try the Fists again. Super slow. Not turtle-slow — snail slow."
Turned out, that was way harder than I’d expected.
Even though Rene kept saying the hologram moved at my speed, I couldn’t keep up! The red holographic fist kept pulling ahead — just a fraction of a second faster, just a few millimetres farther — and it sparked this burning need to catch up with the damned thing.
I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when Rene saved me again.
He literally took my left hand and placed it inside the hologram, then moved it for me, guiding it to stay within the correct zone.
The projection still glowed mostly red — my right arm wasn’t matching. Then Rene switched to my right hand — the left started drifting off. Finally, he grabbed me by both fists… and things started to improve. At some point, he let go and gave a quiet command:
"Continue."
I ran through four full cycles with each arm, only falling out of the hologram once — with my left elbow.
"Good," said Rene.
"Good, but the technique’s still garbage, right?" I asked — I knew his style by now.
"Correct," the instructor confirmed. "You’re still far from ideal, but this level of control is enough to start working with projections."
Rene raised his fists in a classic boxer’s stance, and they shimmered with something like silver mist, which dissolved closer to the middle of his forearms.
"Don’t even try to copy that," he warned seriously. "You risk detonating your fists. And trust me — you don’t want to lose any fingers. I’ve seen it happen."
If he was just trying to scare me — it worked. I really didn’t want a hand like Kate’s.
"Then why show me?"
"So you can feel it."
"If there’s one thing I’ve got down, it’s the feeling of Fist Qi," I assured him. "My mentor made sure of it. I basically lived in the Fist Garden for two weeks."
I decided to not mention the formation.
"Good. Then you’ll catch on to what I’m showing you quicker."
He extended his left arm to the side, and a projection burst from it — flying a good ten metres before exploding. Then, using his right hand as a visual guide, Rene pointed with the left to just below his navel and then to his solar plexus.
"Dantian or plexus?" he asked.
"Plexus," I replied. That’s where my energy centre was.
"Feel it… don’t do anything yet! You’ll go through the full process together with the technique." Rene tapped his solar plexus with his index finger.
"Once you feel it — guide the energy sideways, toward the ribs," he pointed to his sides. "Don’t push it all the way — just let it bud, like roots. Then up — to the shoulder." He traced a line up and over. "Through the tricep, into the forearm muscles. Pay close attention here," he warned, wagging a finger. "Pass the energy through the fist and release it through the knuckles. Feel it harden just before the fist — feel it take on mass, like a solid brick. And then — push it."
A projection shot from Rene’s right hand.
"Just remember — this has to be Fist Qi. Do it fast! Your goal is to push something, not to build a wall in front of your hand."
I nodded and dropped into stance.
"Turn off the hologram," Rene advised. "It’ll only get in the way right now."
My solar plexus was already pulsing in sync with my breathing. It wasn’t quite the same blazing sun I’d felt during and right after the minor breakthrough — but it was a solid knot of energy.
I gave it a small tug — right, then left — pulling out thick tendrils and drawing them up towards my shoulders.
The energy moved on its own — as if it already knew the way and had just been waiting for the signal. My triceps swelled, my forearms went rigid, and my fists went numb. I really felt them pushing into something — and, to my surprise, saw the same silver mist beginning to gather around them.
I quickly threw out my arm before the energy in front of my fist could solidify into a wall.
Left first, then right.
What flew off my fists could hardly be called a full projection — but those silver projectiles carried Fist Qi!
Yes!
Punch-one-two-three-four—
Before I even realised it, I’d done a full cycle and fallen into the rhythm. That was the whole point of Chain Punch — one flowed into the next. Qi poured into my fists on its own, and I had no trouble pushing it out again.
The problem was stopping the flow.
"Rene!" I called out. "How do I stop this?!"