Wormhole Cultivation [Book 2] - Chapter 5: What Others See (Patreon)

I got lucky. There were plenty of open slots for premium chambers in the Meditation Hall, right there in the priority queue, no months-long wait required. The nearest one was literally the next day, but that turned out to be a bit too soon.

A breakthrough doesn't happen every day, and you need to go into one with a clear head and a firm intent, knowing exactly what you're going to do no matter how things unfold.

I already had an intent, but I hadn't quite managed to make it firm. For that, I needed the traditional talk with Novak.

That's exactly why I invited myself over for evening tea with him, clearly stating the subject beforehand.

Novak confirmed my request and said Aoran would be present at the talk, too — he enjoyed watching Novak handle his students, and his input might not go amiss.

The xeltar's presence wasn't exactly traditional, though there were more of them at Black Hole than at the Federation's science base. There'd been several teachers and several students, so the yellow-skinned had long since lost their aura of mystery for me, though that third eye still put me on edge.

Not a single sentient race known to the Federation had an odd number of eyes. And certainly none of their eyes possessed abilities like that.

Aoran arrived to the minute, without a moment's delay — a trait I'd long since filed away as ‘xeltar punctuality’ back at college. I'd arrived about four minutes early, and the master and I had already managed to brew the tea, while Aoran turned up at exactly seventeen hundred hours. This time in a brown robe with shining blue stitching, though it still hung off him just as loosely.

His murky third eye slid over me once and lingered, for a moment, not on my face but on my chest, where my core sat.

At the tea table, ignoring the usual seating hierarchy, Aoran sat directly opposite Novak, in the worst spot, facing away from the panoramic window. Normally, if there were free seats, people took the one to Novak's left or right, but that would have put Aoran across from me.

He clearly didn't want that.

"So," Novak said, skipping any introductory pleasantries. "Breakthrough to the Stage Four."

"Yes, Master," I answered.

"My current cultivation level had reached the cap at twelve thousand and ninety-six.

"Ten per cent of that as reserve, one thousand two hundred and ten. I'm planning to build it up in a combined approach, alternating sessions under the Flow with internal cultivation techniques. Plus a larger of me large crystals," I said. "Eight hundred and seventy-six qi. That should be enough for the final push. But I'll bring a smaller one too, just in case."

I told him about the preparations, and we moved on to discussing materials.

Novak rarely asked questions, mostly just listened. Then he simply approved my plan.

"That should work," he said. "A few pieces of guidance.

"As Master Aoran teaches me," Novak gave the xeltar the faintest nod, "you should prepare the transition to the next stage during the previous breakthrough.

"You'll have plenty of free qi there. Try to form your proto-aura."

I bowed my head in acknowledgement.

The concept wasn't foreign to either of us or to the Federation. Johansson, back at the fourth stage, had pressed down on me with his presence too. Not quite a fifth-stage aura, but something close.

"I thought a proto-aura formed nearer the end of a stage," I said.

"It does," Aoran confirmed. "The understanding and the practical skill of projecting your will onto the outside world comes then. But you'll have a significant surplus of raw energy after the breakthrough, and physically you'll be capable of it. The whole question is how well you understand yourself. You'll have to set the tone for your own aura. If the tone is wrong, nothing will come of it."

Now that was a different kind of insight, more precise than anything publicly available.

"And what does that risk me?" I asked. "I'd rather not cripple my own cultivation."

Novak and Aoran laughed in perfect, unsettling unison.

"There's no risk," Aoran said. "The breakthrough will already be complete by then. If something goes wrong, it simply won't get as far as forming the proto-aura. You just won't form it now."

"But you'll lose the chance," Novak said, joining in. "Not now, later. At the end of the stage, when you'll have to shape the aura not out of a surplus of raw energy, but by deliberately draining your own reserves, and it'll take longer and be harder."

"A proto-aura formed now, out of surplus," Aoran added, "is a light attempt. One that'll give you the feel and taste of your own aura, or at least point you towards the right direction to work in.

"Later, you'll have to squeeze it out of yourself by force. And if you still don't know what you're squeezing out, you'll waste your reserves for nothing.

"And that," Aoran tilted his head, "the absence of a clear proto-aura, will slightly raise the odds of failure when you eventually break through to the fifth stage."

"Why make your own path harder, when there's a chance to walk it more easily?" Novak asked.

I turned the empty cup over in my hands in silence, mulling over what I'd heard.

So, it wasn't a matter of life and death. Just a matter of how hard I wanted to make my own future.

If there was going to be one, after the invasion.

Either way, it seemed no one but myself could give me a deeper understanding of who I was.

Or could, but wouldn't.

I glanced at Aoran, at his third eye, and caught a smile that irritated me somewhat.

"Thank you," I said, bowing as much as was possible from a seated position.

That was more or less the end of the guidance and advice. Novak handed me a tablet and told me to book the nearest open slot, since dwelling on it too long would get me nothing but confused.

The option to take the chamber that was free in a day's time had already vanished, and the next slot, a different chamber, the one recommended for a breakthrough to the fourth stage, was freeing up in three days.

Three days to get to know myself.

Not exactly generous.

Then again, it was something I was supposed to be doing every single day, throughout the whole cultivation process.

I said goodbye to Aoran and Novak, left them to discuss his cultivation, and went down to the underground, sifting through my memory for every fifth-stage cultivator I'd been close enough to, whose aura I'd actually felt on my own skin.

Kaluya — Earth, Mace, possibly Gravity. A crude, heavy combination that suited both his cultivation and his character perfectly. Only his hobby of glassblowing stood out from that picture. Though he shaped his glass using nothing but Earth Qi.

Or maybe it didn't stand out at all. Maybe it balanced his character, adding stability to the weight.

Lawrence — Control, composure, an admiral's restraint honed over years, and diplomacy. And yet his aura, whenever it slipped past his control, was fierce and sharp.

Did that mean control and composure were nothing but a mask, and the aura showed what the man was actually trying to hide?

That evening when I killed Chen's disciple, and Mendoza hinted that she'd been a demon, Chen's aura had cut through me like a blade, straight from my chest to my very heart, while his voice stayed level, almost indifferent.

Both Lawrence and Chen had sharp auras, but with Chen it had been the cold sharpness of a Blade, and with Lawrence, a hot Point.

Mendoza, now, hers should have been the hot one, and yet I could barely recall her ever letting it out, for all her emotionality, for longer than a split second. Yes, there'd been fire there, but I never managed to taste it properly.

And of course, Novak.

His aura was hard to explain with qi alone. When he let it loose, you felt like a mouse under the gaze of a tiger. A breath of death without a single move on his part. Under that gaze, you wanted to snap to attention like a soldier on a parade ground, while a thousand icy sparks tore down your spine.

Neither Chen nor Novak used Water, or ice as its manifestation, and yet their auras were cold.

I wondered what a Water cultivator's aura would feel like, in comparison.

No, stop.

Going by that data, I could probably expect my own aura to be cold, too.

Fist and Blade.

Sharp, presumably?

How critical was that sharpness going to be for me? After all, I also had Fist, Space and Air in the mix.

Or maybe it was something else, something drawn from character, not just from qi?

Sounded like I needed another one-on-one session with Rene. He had a knack for setting my head straight.

Though, why just Rene?

There weren't that many people at the academy who actually knew me, but there were some. The very same people I'd brought tea for as a gift, and who had some opinion of me. The main thing was getting them to be honest about it.

I didn't start with Rene. I went in the same order as before. Kate was first.

Marco's was a bit out of my price range at the moment. No, I wasn't broke, whatever Zola claimed, I just needed time to sell off the Federation goods, or a hired middleman who'd take a cut. I could do without that, and Kate could just as easily meet me at the cheap Tangerine instead.

She spent a long time asking why I wanted this, and a long time looking flustered, before finally, blushing sweetly, she said: "You... always exceed what's expected of you," she said at last, choosing her words slowly, as if afraid of saying too much. "I keep waiting for you to break under the pressure, and instead you just... hold. And keep going."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

That wasn't the answer I'd expected from my strict, sadistic mentor.

"What? Don't you even like that?" she said, offended.

Now that was more her style.

"I didn't expect such deep praise from you," I admitted. "Thought there'd be more criticism."

"Oh, there'll be criticism. You just don't know when to stop!" she said, tongue loosened. "You're a good person, Jake. Insufferable, sometimes, but good. No brakes whatsoever."

Well, there she was exaggerating. I didn't just stop sometimes. Sometimes I bolted so fast I barely made sense of the road.

Zola was next.

"You're an arsehole," she said the moment I put the question to her. "But that's not the answer you're after, is it?"

"Go on," I said, hoping my compliance would let her get to the point faster and skip the usual verbal diarrhoea.

"You're the luckiest bastard I know," she said. "Seriously, you're constantly landing in the middle of some pile of crap, and then you come out of it smelling of roses. It's infuriating. Genuinely, unnaturally infuriating."

I tried to take her words seriously.

Couldn't manage it.

Luck is a fickle mistress. Turn her back on you once, and that's it.

"Is that it?" I sighed.

She fell silent for a few seconds, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone quieter, without its usual bite.

"No," she said finally, almost reluctantly. "You can be relied on."

She did manage to surprise me, but how was I supposed to translate that into an aura? How was that even supposed to manifest?

Bao answered in a single word.

"Honest," he said, simply.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

I thought to myself that Bao didn't know shit about me, but I nodded and thanked him anyway.

Rene, unlike him, took the question more seriously than I'd expected.

"A clever fighter," he said finally. "Not the strongest, not the fastest, not even the most talented of everyone I've trained. But you've got a good habit of thinking several steps ahead, you analyse your opponents, plan your fights, and improvise when things stop going to plan."

That was nice to hear.

All in all, I had something to be proud of.

But, in the end, most of those answers didn't really describe me — they described the bloody people giving them.