Wormhole Cultivation [Book 2] - Chapter 8: Masters and Disciples (Patreon)

I stood on the balcony in front of my own chamber, still in my regulation kimono with droplets of blood on it, while a girl who refused to leave was being forcibly dragged out of the neighbouring chamber. The medic who'd been scanning me had been forced to abandon me and go help his colleague.

For now, the girl's fury was aimed squarely at the medic, but it was only a matter of time before she found out who was actually responsible for the surge…

I opened the interface and called Novak.

"Can I offer congratulations?" Novak asked calmly.

"The breakthrough itself went fine," I said, trying to keep my voice level.

"But you couldn't manage to form a proto-aura," Novak finished for me. "Don't worry about it, it happens. Remember, or better yet write down, exactly what you did and how, so you don't have to repeat the process from scratch when the time comes."

"Master, I think I formed a full aura," I said, with no small amount of satisfaction. It's rare to catch Novak off guard. And I was more than certain he hadn't seen this one coming.

"Jake, that's simply not possible," he said, after a few seconds.

"Tell that to my neighbours. The medics are pulling them out of their chambers right now. About five nearby ones got hit. At least one breakthrough was completely wrecked, the medic said the cadet's cultivation might be crippled."

"I'll be there in a few minutes," Novak said.

I could hear from his voice that he was already moving somewhere.

"I don't think your presence is strictly necessary," I said. "I called so you'd be ready for some unpleasant news, that's all."

"My presence can cancel out any unpleasant news whatsoever," Novak said. "Don't be shy about throwing my name around if anyone starts leaning on you."

"They'll probably just run me through a pile of tests.

"My aura seems to have fried all my sensors."

"Don't refuse the tests, but don't do anything that could put you at risk either. You only just broke through. Be careful."

I ended the call with Novak and decided to wait right there, on the balcony. Given the incident, the staff in the Hall were stretched thin, and I didn't feel like creating extra problems by making them hunt me down whenever they finally got around to it.

I didn't have to wait long.

About seven minutes later, my medic showed up, accompanied by a woman with a four on her collar.

Technically, all of us here were fourth-stagers now; she and my medic both wore black jumpsuits under their white coats, but the woman was clearly some kind of superior around here.

"Cadet Sullivan," she greeted me, making a point of displaying the gap between our statuses.

I smiled. That sort of display had stopped working on me a long time ago.

"Did I say something funny?" she asked sharply.

"Seems like you're feeling rather insecure, if you're already leading with a demonstration of the difference between our social standing."

"I am currently the senior medic on duty for this wing," she snapped. "You're overstepping, cadet!"

"Happens," I admitted. "Sorry, but after outrunning a praxi's sixth, after negotiatings with sixth- and seventh-stage Federation diplomats, neither your position nor your stage impresses me much any more."

She flushed with anger, and her colleague, the one who'd spoken to me earlier, turned away, hiding a smile. Seemed like the lady was one of those people who loved giving orders and couldn't quite grasp why anyone would fail to obey.

It took her a good half a minute to settle on a new conversational strategy. For a fourth-stage medic, that's an eternity. She really should have had a decent mental technique that would've let her do that a lot faster.

"Five cultivators were affected: all forced to halt their breakthrough attempts, and one of them has had his cultivation destroyed!

"Does that sound like a joke to you?"

"No, it sounds like you're about to pin all the blame on me. Let's just…"

She cut me off, pointing at the chambers on either side of mine.

"You're right at the centre of all this. And you're the only one who wasn't affected!"

"Would it make things easier for you if I had been?" I asked, smiling. "Don’t make a conflict. Let's just get on with the tests already."

"What tests?" the chief medic asked.

"You're the medic, you'd know better than me," I said. "I've already given you my version of events, I broke through, tried to form a proto-aura, missed slightly, corrected, and got a full match on the second attempt.

"I think that's what caused all this chaos.

"I thought these chambers were shielded."

"Not from auras," the male medic said, giving me a small smile.

"We don't know what this was!" she snapped, waving a hand sharply.

"So how about we run some tests, then?" I suggested.

The chief medic gave her colleague a short, angry nod, and the two of them led me closer to the entrance of the wing, where, behind the thinhorn's reception desk, a separate area hid a dozen small rooms, sealed off from the chamber section.

On the way, I checked their interfaces. Both were late Four. The woman: L. D. M. Velazquez. The man: O. Norton.

They brought me into one of the offices, stripped off the dead sensors, sat me down in a soft chair, and scanned me thoroughly.

The boss and her subordinate then hunched over their tablets, cross-checking the data and arguing quietly.

"Try activating the aura," Velazquez finally said, with obvious scepticism.

"Activate it how?" I asked. "Last time it drained all my energy and wiped out the entire background field in the chamber. Right now my reserve's nearly at zero. I'm running on sheer willpower here.

"Do whatever you need to do and let me go eat."

"Not before we determine what happened!" she said.

"Then at least give me a protein bar. My stomach's already glued to my spine."

"A cultivator at your stage can go without food for a lot longer than this," Velazquez said.

She'd just started that sentence when the door behind her opened; she began turning around mid-word, so she ended up finishing the phrase looking straight into Novak's face instead of mine.

"Though that clearly won't do my disciple any good," Novak said, letting himself into the cramped office.

Behind him followed a bald man in a white coat, wearing a permanently displeased expression.

"Dr. Bulsara will finish the examination," Novak said.

"The data," the man said, holding out a hand for Norton's tablet.

Norton handed it over.

"Thank you, you're dismissed."

Norton gave a short bow and left.

"But…" Velazquez started to object.

Bulsara, who was already glued to the data, looked up, as though noticing her for the first time.

"Both of you," he said.

Velazquez flushed again and stormed out.

Bulsara scrolled through the data, nodded a few times, walked over to me, and held out a protein bar that had appeared in his hand on a faint breath of Space Qi.

That was the nicest thing he'd ever done for me.

Though, in fairness, he never once looked at me, entirely absorbed in the data, while I tore open the wrapper and got my jaw working.

"We'll need follow-up scans later," he said. "For now I've got enough. You're free to go."

"Thanks, doc!" I said, sincerely.

We went back to the same changing room where I'd put on the kimono; I stripped it off there too, swapped it for my jumpsuit, collected the ring of materials from the storage locker, and a few minutes later Novak and I were already heading down into the metro.

"Still hungry?" he asked.

"Like a wolf!" I confirmed.

"Come to mine, I'll feed you steak."

"Oh!" was all I said, nodding vigorously. At the mention of his steaks, my mouth flooded with saliva, and opening it any further would have been a genuine risk to my dignity. Drooling would've killed it on the spot.

Novak pulled two thick cuts of dark, glistening meat straight out of the fridge, damp and rimmed with a thin silvery film of fat.

"This was meant for me and Aoran, but it looks like I'll have to make do without."

"If it's mine, then…"

The master waved me off.

"You need it more."

I hadn't even had time to wonder why he couldn't just pull out another cut when Aoran himself walked into the kitchen, wearing a robe as yellow as his own face.

"Congratulations on the breakthrough, Jake!" he said, looking not at my face but at my chest.

His third eye scanned me no worse than any medical scanner. Possibly better.

"Well, well, well!" he nodded. "Almost perfect balance, almost harmony!

"Excellent work, young man!

"Though I hear you caused a bit of a stir in the Meditation Hall?"

I shook my head.

"One cadet's cultivation was crippled, four more were affected."

"I'll take a look at the unluckiest one myself, but that does mean the proto-aura formation was a success."

"I thought I'd finished it, actually."

"You thought," Aoran said, smiling, his next words nearly drowned out by the sizzle of meat hitting the pan. "It's very rare, but a full match does happen sometimes. When a cultivator manages to fit every single piece of the puzzle called an aura together at once, the overall synergy raises its power exponentially. But it's still a proto-aura. Still separate pieces, held together by sheer will.

"A true aura is something you shape once, permanently, during the breakthrough to the Stage Five.

"After that, it never changes again, it only grows in strength."

I nodded politely.

"Thank you for the wisdom. None of this would have happened without you."

"Don't mention it. Always a pleasure to help the younger generation," Aoran smiled.

And that smile seemed genuine to me. Which only confused me more.

The younger generation in question belonged to an entirely different race, and an entirely different state to boot, and in the brutal world of cultivation, there was very little that was purely altruistic. Even friendship had to be mutually beneficial.

I had nothing against that in principle, everyone should put in effort and not become a burden on their friends, but Aoran's help still unsettled me, and I kept sensing hidden motives behind it.

While I was still hunting for them, Novak set a plate with a steak down in front of me.

My stomach overrode my brain, demanding I attack it right now, this instant! Literally grab it with my hands and sink my teeth into the tender, hot, juicy meat.

I still managed to wait until Novak put down the cutlery.

"Don't hold back," he said.

I didn't wait for a second invitation.

The first bite of meat melted on my tongue before I'd even managed to chew it properly, and for a few seconds the whole world narrowed down to the taste of garlic, pepper, and something deep, almost caramelised, in the meat itself. I think I actually groaned out loud, because Novak and Aoran exchanged a look that I decided to ignore.

"Try this with it," Aoran said, pulling an elegant bottle out of his spatial pocket, filled with a dark purple, almost black liquid.

Novak produced three shot glasses, as if on cue.

"Alcohol?" I asked.

"A mild drug… well, maybe not so mild for you, but definitely not addictive."

Aoran poured three small glasses, less than half full, and we drank.

I took a sip. Skipping right past the taste stage on my tongue, a familiar warmth spread through my chest, washing away the last of a tension I hadn't even realised I was still carrying.

"Like Evening Sun!" I said.

"Stronger," Novak disagreed, and turned back to the pan, where a second cut of meat was already sizzling.

"Master, do you want yours well done, like last time?"

"Is that the last cut? Don't bother. It'll do you more good than me. Grab me those patties from the day before yesterday instead. And fry them until they're good and crispy."

By the time Novak finished with the second steak, I'd already swallowed mine, so he graciously handed me the second plate too, tossing a couple of frozen patties onto the pan for himself and Aoran instead.

Only, he cooked his own less, and Aoran's, he practically burned to a crisp.

No human would've touched them, but the xeltar crunched through the coal-black patties with evident relish.

"How are you planning to handle the political fallout?" he asked. "Your student seems to be following in your footsteps."

"I doubt it'll cause anywhere near the stir my breakthrough to the sixth stage did," Novak said.

Then again, maybe that was exactly the point for Aoran, to stir up talk around Novak, my achievements…

If a single master from the Federation could change an Earthling's fate this much, what could dozens, hundreds, of them do? It certainly made a case for staying on good terms with the Federation.

Maybe that was exactly what Aoran had been doing all along, handing out advice left and right? Building a favourable image of the Ka Federation in the eyes of the masses, without spending without spending lots of credit on it.