She nodded, conceding the point. “Okay, to simplify things, chaos cultivators can tap into the chaos realms directly. You call them alphas. Their cultivation occurs naturally, although over time it can slowly increase, and their gifts, the way they use them, are innate. Basically, they gain essence the same way that monsters do.”

  “Like Kaiju do?”

  She nodded. “Exactly. There are three types of energy-using beasts. What you call Kaiju, which are basically chaos beasts, spirit beasts that absorb energy through the environment and eating other spirit beasts, and magical monsters who gain energy through instinctive demonic cultivation.”

  She sighed, the weight of her knowledge seeming to press down on her. “The problem is, in this world, the chaos essence is so strong that some people become chaos cultivators, or alphas. Every time they grow in strength or use their powers, they slightly increase the ambient raw energy. It’s not pure, it’s chaotic. Usually, chaos energy winds up becoming defined as soon as it enters an ordered structure, but on this world, it isn’t happening… every single alpha that uses superpowers is increasing the ambient chaos.”

  Her words painted a terrifying picture. “That’s why this is a death world. Even the most heroic alpha is adding to the energy problem, and sooner or later, one of the monsters on the other side are going to notice that on this world, they can comfortably exist in their natural form instead of being forced into an ordered form. That normally only happens when a world has been overtaken by chaos monsters and destroyed.”

  “The Q-Bombs,” I whispered, the ultimate weapon making a horrible new kind of sense.

  She nodded, her face grim. “I think so. A few insane cultivators have tried using an infusion of raw chaos as a weapon, but here, the humans have learned how to create chaos engines for mass destruction. It has ripped weak spots to a number of different Earths, and tends to attract power-hungry monsters, failed gods, immigrants from chaos-infested worlds, and the occasional sect trying to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it, like the Serenoids. They come here and promptly get their asses kicked, usually because chaos cultivators are insanely strong compared to the other sorts.”

  Her story turned personal, her gaze distant. “My people were being murdered wholesale by righteous sects, and we found a portal. We had no idea where it led, except that it was to a world that wasn’t dominated by those who suck dry all the atmospheric essence and hoard all the resources for themselves. When we got here, a few bad apples made sure our immigration was called an invasion, and now there are few of us left.”

  She sighed, the sound full of a weary grief I recognized. “Unfortunately, weak chaos cultivators are VERY good food for strong and unethical demonic cultivators. Some idiot drains a few class three or four alphas, and all of a sudden, your entire clan is declared monsters, and everyone is happy to label outsiders as monsters. That’s why I have an important question for you.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, curiously. I was working on a half-learned stance that meshed well but required a lot more strength to accomplish. Before I cleaned out my enhancements, it was easy, but right now, balancing on your hands was a lot more challenging. And more revealing.

  “Were your ancestors settlers, aliens, or cultivators from another world?”

  I coughed a little, collapsing my balance to my knees. “What? Am I an alien? I have no idea, but I don’t think so… I can trace my ancestors back to the Mayflower.” The idea was ludicrous. My family tree was full of farmers and accountants, not interdimensional travelers.

  She nodded, not dissuaded. “But you aren’t a chaos cultivator. And I know you aren’t part of my sect, so it has to be someone else. I mean, it’s possible you are just a natural cultivator, but that’s… insanely rare. I guess it has to happen occasionally, since someone had to start the whole cultivation thing in the first place, but I have never heard of anyone who started cultivating without being taught.”

  I smiled and stood back up, dusting off my knees. “So I might be one of the giants that other people stand on the shoulders of? I mean, intellectually that’s cool, but I hate thrashing around in the dark.” My entire life felt like one long, poorly lit stumble.

  She nodded. “Fair enough. Hopefully I can help you find a light. So what do you use to gain energy?”

  “You are kidding.” She had just offered a way to help me quickly regain my energy and help open my energy pathways, and while the idea made sense, sort of, it was... creepy as hell.

  She shook her head, her expression utterly serious. “Nope. Tried and true. The more channels you have opened, the stronger your base is. Your spiritual base is extremely powerful, a mythical physique, and probably a bloodline, which would explain why you aren’t dead already. Most people with a special physique wind up dying before they ever reach adulthood, but that would explain why you were able to use your essence gifts without any training.”

  “But...ugh, needles?” I whined, my voice climbing an octave. I’d faced down pyrokinetics, been kidnapped, and stared into the existential abyss of my own power. But this? This was different.

  She nodded, a hint of sadistic amusement in her eyes. “Yep. One hundred and forty three nerve clusters. You have fourteen spiritual roots. I have four. Serenoids have eight. Hell, even dragons only have twelve… I don’t know what your bloodline is, but fourteen roots is insane. It would be a shame to waste it. You won’t get a huge effect right away, but you could have an incredibly strong foundation, and I have no idea how high you could soar.”

  “But… one hundred and forty-three needles?” I repeated, hoping I’d misheard.

  She snickered, the sound light and musical. “Are you afraid of a little pain? If you hadn’t wrecked my alchemy kit, I could have probably made you an awakening pill instead, but you wanted to lie low for a few days.” She gestured around our new surroundings.

  It had been several hours since it was obvious that Baelfire had called the search off, and we had moved to one of my secondary hideouts, thankfully one where I had stashed some emergency pants.

  Yes, don’t laugh, emergency pants are a thing when your clothes can be destroyed by some asshole elemental with a grudge. It wasn’t the first time I’d been forced to discard my clothes, and it probably wouldn’t be the last… most denim and cotton were not designed to deal with a class four fireball, and I wouldn’t always have the energy to reset and repair my clothing, if there was anything left to reset. A man’s gotta have principles, and mine involved not being pantsed by fate.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  We were in an abandoned high school’s steam tunnels. Yes, I tended to prefer janitor closets, although in this case, it was an entire janitor suite. Someone long ago had set up a cot and mattress, some lockers, and even a bookcase full of old Flint, Vinge, and Heinlein books. A regular post-apocalyptic bed and breakfast.

  The two of us were enjoying a gourmet meal of Minute Rice, Spam, and canned green beans, and there was even an old tube TV and VCR with a box full of old tapes, from turn-of-the-millennium porn to classics like Ghostbusters. I’d never been hard up enough for entertainment to restore the TV and VCR, and the tapes would take a lot of energy to repair. Not that there was any television reception, even if I got it working. Don’t make me laugh.

  “So how small do the needles have to be?” I asked, resigning myself to my acupuncture fate.

  She smiled a little, all business now. “If I had my pack, I would have been able to show you. But to break open the channels, they don’t need to be very thick. About two inches long for comfortable handling, but super-thin thirty-two gauge needles at the end should work fine. Mostly, I need to be able to handle them. My own were twenty-eight gauge, but that’s because they had to be able to stand up even if I had to pierce someone with improved fitness or durability up to class three.”

  “Materials?”

  She shrugged. “Not copper, it would interfere with your energy channels. Gold is too weak. Silver is weak, but still usable. Stainless steel is fine, and so is aluminum. I mean, you wouldn’t want aluminum for a long-term piercing, like jewelry, but for temporary use it should be fine.”

  I nodded and held up something I had quickly crafted from a locker hinge. “Four-forty stainless?” I said.

  She looked at the needle I had made, holding it up to the dim light. “Yes. If you could blunt one end or attach a piece of fabric, that should be perfect. Do you have any alcohol?”

  I nodded, retrieving my fairly decent medical kit from its hiding place. I didn’t always need a full reset, and when I first discovered this place, I might have had to hang out here for a day or two before I even had the energy for a partial one. Being prepared for mundane injuries was just good sense.

  I attached a thin strand of cotton from the kit at one end, so it resembled an elongated sewing needle with a flag. “Like this?”

  She nodded. “Yes, just one hundred and fifty of them.”

  “I thought you said one forty-three.”

  She nodded, her expression that of a seasoned professional who knew better than to trust the client’s math. “Sure, but sometimes they break or are misplaced. If you are standing there with over a hundred needles poking out of your skin, do you really want me scrabbling around looking for missing needles, or asking you to make more on the fly?”

  She had a point. It was the principle of the thing. Always have spare needles.

  Fortunately, the needles were TINY, and I had manufactured them in a shimmering cloud of metallic dust before she even finished talking. A quick alcohol bath later, and a shower using the jury-rigged system I’d installed, and I was back in my birthday suit, terrified as she approached my scalp and forehead with the first of the needles.

  Look, I had been hurt really badly a ton of times. I’d been burned, battered, and had my own molecular structure turned inside out. Needles should have been nothing, but humans often had an atavistic fear of needles. I mean, no matter what happened, I had enough energy to reset, but it was still scary as hell to have someone approaching your eyes with pointy objects, even with your eyes closed.

  I know you are probably thinking, "Wait, this guy is going to let a nearly complete stranger, one who was sent with a team that potentially wanted to KILL him, stick hundreds of needles into his skin?"

  The answer is yep. I knew, I actually understood what she was doing, I could see the energy patterns and the blockages she was going to hit, and honestly, if I had enough control, I could probably do it myself... and if she tried to play games, well, this basement had a really big sink.

  Mostly, it didn’t even hurt. I could tell she was hitting nerves; that was the intent, obviously, but I’d never had tattoos or even serious hospital visits. It was a bizarre, tingling sensation. After a while, especially when she moved down from my face to my neck, chest, and arms, it got a lot easier, settling into a weird rhythm.

  In the end, she only got 137 needles in. The last six were on the bottoms of my feet, and there was simply no way to get to them while I was standing, and I had no way to lie down without looking like a pincushion exhibit. I figured I probably looked like a porcupine that had lost a fight with a sewing factory, but if it helped…

  “Okay, now, the second energy structure you showed me from that book,” she instructed, her voice calm and focused. “Don’t try to force it down the lines for the extra limbs; that won’t work, but while standing still, start circulating your energy as quickly as possible. I am not sure what this method is, but it doesn’t look particularly hazardous for a beginning technique. Once it’s moving as fast as it can, start extending the channels through your body.”

  ***

  Pain. Yep, it hurt as badly as the fiction said it would. It was like I had lava pouring through my body… Lava that was moving as fast as a cyclotron. I was nearly completely full from my earlier kata work, but the damned energy was ripping its way through my newly opened channels like the Sanford Dam had burst. It was a cleansing, scouring, agonizing fire.

  I’d felt worse pain… Hot Shot had almost turned me into a charcoal briquette, but this just kept going on and on, a relentless tide of agony. I didn’t dare collapse or lie down, and based on the sharp gasps that Deacon made, it had some physical effects as well.

  I slightly opened my eyes and could see dozens of tiny electrical discharges, like miniature St. Elmo’s fire, working their way down the needles protruding from my body like a bad science fiction Jacob’s ladder. I was a human Tesla coil having a very bad day.

  “This is just the base,” she said, her voice a steady anchor in the storm of pain. “Your body will not always be as important as you gain power, but for right now, it’s the scaffolding and infrastructure for the rest of your growth. A strong foundation means a strong power base, and a strong power base means…”

  “Do you always talk this much?” I choked out through gritted teeth. The pain was making me irritable. Who knew?

  She shook her head, unfazed. “No, but this part tends to be very stressful for the simple farm boys and city girls just starting on their path. Talking them through it tends to help, although this is far more than I am used to. You are a mystery on so many levels… You not only have a Dao, but you even have a concept to match it. I have never seen anyone bounce between levels so much.”

  “Momentum?” I grunted, forcing the energy to flow faster, embracing the concept. The pain seemed to lessen marginally, becoming a side effect of immense motion rather than the main event.

  She nodded, her eyes wide with something like awe. “Exactly. You seem to apply it to your life as much as to your power, and that kind of focus makes for a powerful and, in your case, inexorable path.”

  I could feel the energy flooding into my limbs and every part of my body, a torrent of pure power, and I was embarrassed to notice it also caused other, more primal reactions, but Deacon seemed willing to ignore it, so I did too. After a bit, the energy rushed back into my soul space, filling it to almost overflowing, and I started to try and force the energy to flow both ways at the same time, the way that the Serenoid diagram appeared to describe. In and out, a perfect cycle.

  Smooth flow. It’s not a heartbeat; a heartbeat will tear you apart if it has too much energy. I could actually feel the field of energy around me, my aura? Within which I was able to use my abilities… as the flows evened out and the pain started to reduce to a dull, powerful thrum, I could feel the aura expanding out again, until it was over a foot away from my body, and then soon to two or even three feet before retracting. It was like breathing with a new lung.

  Even flow. After a while, I could see the way my field pulsed and realized that once the flow smoothed out, I could extend the aura simply by flowing more energy through the area that the aura extended. After the flow stabilized, I realized that I was almost critically low in energy… expanding the energy to fill my entire newly-opened body had attenuated it badly, like filling up a stock pot from a drinking glass, only my original soul container was the drinking glass. I’d built the infrastructure, but now I needed to fill it.

  I really needed to get back to the tunnel. The thought was a desperate prayer. I needed a nuclear fix, and I needed it bad.