Wormhole Cultivation [Book 2] - Chapter 25: Friends' Business (Patreon)

Zola was surprised by my proposal, but didn't refuse.

"You've strayed from the righteous path right onto the path of demonic cultivation?" she wondered. "When?"

"Tomorrow, during morning training, when he's got a full hall. The whole thing needs to be filmed and put up on the forum."

"Oh, that's not just a joke any more! I could get into trouble."

"Even if he agrees to it himself?" I asked with a grin.

The perfect revenge was already spinning in my head. For every one of those promotions he'd dragged me into.

"And how are you going to warm him up to it?" Zola asked.

I raised a finger, waved it for her to wait, and used it to pull up Rene's contact on the interface.

"Hey," I said, keeping my voice strictly businesslike. "They still doubt your achievement on the forum?"

"You've got a solution?" Rene picked up on it from my tone alone.

"Yes, and it won't cost you much."

"Let's start with what your idea actually is," Rene began cautiously.

"Unfortunately, that's the sort of information that, once you have it, you could organise the whole thing yourself. So let's agree on the price first."

"Don't be so greedy, Jake."

"You're the one who taught me that!" I said, which finally convinced Rene the whole catch was in the price.

"Fine, what do you want?" he took the bait.

"I need an obedient sparring partner for two months. Starting from the day I can use Space normally again. Fourteen hours a week, following my orders exactly, no freelancing."

"Eight times fourteen — a hundred and twelve hours of individual training. Do you know how much money I could make in that time?"

"I know something else you don't," I pointed out, reasonably.

"Five hours a week."

"Eight!"

"Five! And I won't go asking around whether there's some other way to clear the suspicions. You know I could stumble onto this information myself."

"You won't have time," I said. "The only window for this promotion is tomorrow. You could burst trying and still wouldn't be ready for it."

"Six hours," Rene grumbled.

"You're so greedy," I sighed. "Tomorrow Zola's coming by your place — to collect genetic material, seeing as you're one of the most talented fourth-stage cultivators around. She'll hand you a jar to spit in. Get your camera ready, keep it on standby."

"I don't even need to prepare anything for that! I've got cameras in the hall already."

"Except Zola's coming to you herself, not calling you into the Hall of Medicine. If you ask why you specifically, she'll say it's because of the proto-aura."

"Hm... Well, that actually is worth something."

That's where the conversation ended, we said our goodbyes, I cut the connection, and Zola clapped her hands.

"Pure evil!" she said. "You made him pay for his own humiliation."

"Well," I shrugged, "however humiliating it is, it'll solve his problem, so the payment's earned."

The next day, a few hours before lunch, I left my workstation to personally film Rene's reaction and that of his students. I even gathered up a trio of small drones for it, to catch different angles.

The hall was packed with students to the rafters. Zola walked in first, in a white medical coat over a black jumpsuit. Her appearance alone didn't put the cadets on edge much, but three ball-shaped drones hovering over her head, and the grin I couldn't hold back...

The noise, the sound of strikes and detonations in the hall, died down fast.

Rene caught my eye, saw the grin, swore under his breath, then plastered a smile onto his face and went out to meet Zola.

“Rene Richard?" Zola asked loudly.

"Yes." Rene answered, somewhat resignedly.

“Due to your confirmed proto-aura formation, you've been added to the candidate list for the genetic security programme."

Zola held out the jar.

"Please provide a sample for long-term cryopreservation."

Rene frowned and glanced back at my grin once more, then opened the lid and raised the jar to his mouth, about to spit into it.

"Wrong material!" Zola stopped him.

Rene frowned again, and Zola flicked her eyes down to his crotch.

Rene's eyes went wide. "Oh!" he understood, and shot me a furious look.

"And, since you've opened it, the preservative's now active, so you've got four hours to hand in the sample," Zola added.

Whispers started up around the hall. The cadets had caught on too, to what kind of sample was meant. A snicker came from the back rows, and Rene turned his furious glare on its source.

I did my best to catch as many grins as I could with the drones, too.

Besides my own, of course.

"And what are you smirking at?" Rene barked at me. "Have you handed yours in already?" he said, twirling the jar.

"He refused to give one," Zola said. "His reasoning was that he doesn't want his descendants to have as rotten a life as the Praxi."

"That's a solid argument," Rene said, waving the jar. "I'll think about it."

"Four hours," Zola reminded him.

"Expect the video on the forum in a few hours!" I said.

I titled it Official Recognition of Rene's Achievement (Confirmed by the Hall of Medicine).

I cut out our own exchange, of course, but put together a lovely montage of Rene's and his students' reactions.

Rene added footage from the hall's security cameras of the whole exchange, but people ended up talking less about us and more about the Praxi Plan.

Opinions were split. Most of the cadets weren't against preserving themselves, their genes, at least this way. A smaller share backed my position, though I honestly didn't know what mine would be if this body had actually been my own by birth.

I did my best to push that out of my head. The decision was made, and I wasn't going to revisit it. The rest of the day I spent making up for time lost to entertainment. First my praxi, then Pascal, who'd also caught wind of the forum news.

"You're an actual monster," he said. "Remind me never to piss you off."

"You're overstating it. Rene's name is on everyone's lips now, his achievement's confirmed, so along with a bit of humiliation he got a solid payoff," I said. "How's our comms coming along?"

Pascal sighed, unfolding the schematic.

"Installing the comms doesn't solve the load problem on the main batteries. It makes it worse. Though it's only a one-second loss to active time per each minute from deployment to activation. What have you got?"

"Forty-seven seconds," I said.

Pascal looked at me, disappointed. I had to justify myself.

"I'm working on it! And that's seventeen per cent more than before I got involved!"

"Seventeen per cent you can happily write off to your zero-comm."

I don't know why Pascal was so fixated on extending the active time. Cultivators were fast. Forty seconds was an eternity for most of us. I didn't drop the task, but I did convince Pascal we needed field trials, and I'd already started assembling the first pair of prototypes for exactly that testing.

Later on, that pair could be written off as damaged, or as failing to meet spec, but right now I wanted to talk to people who actively went on raids. Needed to look at group composition and the gear they hauled along.

But first, prototypes.

By evening I'd only managed to print the frame and the battery housing. Then Novak called and asked me to come by for a cup of tea.

I headed straight over.

This time tea was without Aoran, and Novak didn't beat around the bush.

"Your friend's great-grandfather wants to meet you," he said.

Great-grandfather? My friend's?

"Bao's great-grandfather?" I asked. That was the only great-grandfather I knew existed.

Novak nodded.

Another Five who just wouldn't die. An analogue of the late Chen, but less of an adventurer.

Old Bao preferred Earth and comfort. In his family, intrigue over the position of heir had already been brewing back when I was still a first-year.

Bao, with his idiotic, greedy little stunt, had badly damaged his father's chances in that struggle.

"And why does he want me?"

"Most likely, he's looking at your friend as the primary heir," Novak said. "Word is all his grandchildren have failed to form an aura. None of them will rise above Stage Four."

"And here's Bao, the black sheep, raised by his father's enemy, guaranteeing himself a breakthrough to Five," I snorted.

Novak shrugged and took a sip. "Looks that way. This is a discreet request, so if you refuse, you'll need to keep your mouth shut. Including with Bao."

"That's not an order?" I checked.

"The order is to keep your mouth shut. I gave my word," he clarified. "But I won't force you to meet the old man. If you refuse, there'll be no consequences from my end. But think it over before deciding. Bao isn't a family whose invitations you ignore without good reason. Especially when it's the patriarch himself.

"Still, I currently have enough clout to shield you from any pressure. And you've built up some weight and reputation of your own by now. The Jonson incident played in your favour there."

"Well, at least something good came out of that," I said, masking my thoughts behind a long sip of tea. "Is the old man as much of a prick as the rest of them?" I asked.

"He's definitely a prick," Novak nodded. "Reputation-wise, the crown of chief prick belongs to his eldest granddaughter, Bao Xue. But I couldn't say for certain which of them is worse."

"Can you say which of you two is older?" I asked.

I wouldn't have dared ask that before.

"I'm older," Novak said. "By nearly eighty years."

"Hm..."

"He looks worse," Novak added. "And won't last much longer."

"What does that matter right now, with the demons on our doorstep?"

"He genuinely might not make it to the invasion," the master said. "Bao Zhui's love of pointless posturing has led him into several duels, which took a serious toll on his health and shortened his life."

I raised my eyebrows.

The invasion could happen tomorrow. So this old man was dying differently than Chen had.

"Can he still fight?"

"That's a secret not even I know," Novak shook his head.

"If I agree... No, not like that. Tell them I agree, but I reserve the right to pass our conversation on to Bao Feng. If they don't want Bao Feng to know, then there's no meeting."

"Alright," Novak nodded. "Then take tomorrow off."

"You think they'll agree?"

"I anticipated your reaction, and we discussed that option in advance. They've already agreed."

"But why free up a whole day?"

"The meeting will take place on Earth, at the Bao estate. Portals cut down travel time between Earth and Verdis, sure, but you'll need two portals, then a flier on top of that — one way. Plus, the empty ceremonies alone will eat up a few hours."

A portal to Earth?

For some reason that news hit me harder than the report about the demon probe they'd tried to push through the wormhole. As if the demons had somehow become a more familiar factor to me than Earth itself.

I was finally going to see this Earth with my own eyes.

That stirred up some fairly mixed feelings.

"...Jake!" Novak raised his voice.

"Yes?"

"Are you with me here?"

"Yes, sir. My apologies."

"You know what," Novak said. "Take a week. And spend it on Earth."

"But what am I supposed to do there?"