Sci-fi Cultivator Thing

A little preface. I hadn't planned on writing anything like this. But someone at my publisher planted the notion of a sci-fi/cultivator crossover story in my head and it got lodged. So, I decided to see if I could make it work. These are the two very rough first draft chapters I wrote of something that I'm pretty sure will only ever be novella length. I thought I'd share it with you guys and see how you feel about it. Please do let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks! ~Eric

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1.

With another deep breath, he felt qi enter his body. With careful control, he guided it to his dantian. Once there, it was added to the pool of qi he would, the gods willing, one day condense into his cultivator core. Another breath, and he drew in more from the qi-rich environment. I need to take full advantage of this, he reminded himself. Who knows how long it will be until I get another chance. Shaking his head, he refocused. Strict discipline and control represented the only path forward for him. Other cultivators might benefit from divine favor, leaping forward courtesy of insights and divine qi, but he had always needed to take the slow road. He’d built his strength incrementally. Another breath, and—

A voice that held more than a little nasty glee cut through the silence.

“Disciple Yang.”

The cultivation trance shattered, and there was a perilous moment when Jason’s qi roiled out of control. Anger flared inside him and his killing intent swelled to fill the room. He forced himself, his qi, and his killing intent to calm before he slowly stood and turned to face the interloper. The man had a startled, frightened expression on his oddly rat-like face, as though he’d never considered the possibility that interrupting someone in a cultivation trance might lead to violence.

“Disciple Chu,” said Jason. “Are you aware of the punishment for interrupting someone in a cultivation pod?”

“The Patriarch—”

Jason cut him off.

“I asked if you are aware of the punishment for interrupting someone in a cultivation pod?”

It wasn’t an idle question. Interrupting a cultivation trance could lead to qi deviation. In the best-case scenario, that could set a cultivator back for years. In the worst-case scenario, it could lead to their death. That was why it was forbidden. Chu hadn’t simply cost him time; he’d knowingly endangered Jason’s life.

“The Patriarch,” said Disciple Chu again, a triumphant smirk on his face, “sent me—”

That was as far as the man got. Jason activated his qinggong technique, shamelessly drawing on the environmental qi in the cultivation pod to boost his speed. Chu eyes widened. He’d clearly assumed that invoking the Patriarch would protect him. He had miscalculated. Before the man could gather his wits, Jason’s foot crashed into the man’s thigh, snapping the femur beneath. Chu screamed in agony. The man’s other femur followed a moment later. Jason allowed the man to fall to the ground.

Chu, still screaming and unable to focus enough to gather his own qi, tried to crawl toward the sealed entrance. Jason planted a foot in the middle of the man’s back to pin him in place. He seized Chu’s right arm and pulled it up. The other man understood what was about to happen.

“No! Don’t! Please!”

Jason didn’t hesitate. He snapped the man’s humerus in the right arm, and then repeated the process with the left. Seizing a fistful of Chu’s hair, Jason jerked the man’s head up.

“Deliver your message, lackey,” he commanded.

“The Patriarch—” sobbed Chu. “The Patriarch commands your presence.”

Bitterness rolled through Jason. Patriarch. Always the Patriarch. Never father. No, that honor had been reserved for Alex. The cherished elder brother and young master. The genius and future of the sect, at least that was how it sounded when people talked. Not that any of them actually knew Alex. Jason forced those old hurts and his anger down.

“You have delivered your message. If I were you, though, I’d find someone else’s boots to lick. Alex won’t care at all that I’ve done this to you. He’ll just find another dog.”

He slammed the man’s face into the ground hard enough to shatter teeth and crush the man’s nose. He took a moment to roll Chu over. The man was unconscious. Jason broke his collarbones, which was seemingly painful enough to bring the man back out of unconsciousness. Looming over his brother’s probably-former lackey, Jason fixed the man with a pitiless expression.

“Do not test me again, fool.”

“I won’t,” slurred Chu.

“I hope not. You won’t survive a second time.”

Walking toward the entrance, Jason had to work hard to keep his face calm. In truth, he felt sick. He’d basically tortured that man by inflicting some of the most agonizing injuries he could think of. Even with the aid of healing pills, it would be weeks, if not months before Chu could resume training. Depending on how their seniors chose to look at the matter, Chu might be cast out of the sect entirely. Jason’s hand drifted almost unconsciously to a spot on his belt before he realized what he was doing. This wasn’t the time for that particular measure. He was saving that for the moment when Alex, forever a slave to his nature, tried to kill him.

As he approached the entrance, the door slid open. It was jarring. The interior of the cultivation pod looked, felt, and acted like a lush tropical location. On the other side of that door was a hallway. The floor looked like stone, and the walls were covered with something that mimicked polished wood, but he knew that there was very little natural about either substance. Not in a building like the spatially-expanded sect compound. Ignoring the whimpering and quiet pleas for help coming from behind him, Jason stepped into the hallway. The doors slid shut behind him, cutting off Chu’s increasingly desperate cries for assistance.

Looking back at the door for a moment, Jason was once again struck by how difficult creating such cultivation pods inside a building, itself located inside a sprawling city, had to have been. Just the challenges in replicating the density of qi in an untouched environment were enough to stagger him. Yet, if he hadn’t known for a fact that he was inside a building, he would have thought he’d been transported to some other world. If only, he thought. Not for the first time, he considered simply gathering his belongings and leaving the sect forever. He could start over somewhere else.

There were frontier worlds where even a foundation formation cultivator could carve out a very nice life for themselves. Life would be harder…No, he decided. It probably wouldn’t be harder. It would just be hard in different ways. But that choice came with costs he wasn’t sure he could stomach. He wouldn’t just be abandoning the sect, which he was confident he could do with zero regrets. It would also mean abandoning his mother and sister. If he simply walked away, Jason was certain that his father, the “honorable” and “venerable’ Patriarch of the Pristine Sky Sect, would forbid any contact between them.

Caught by indecision, he walked to the end of the hallway and looked out the window. The sect compound wasn’t the tallest building in the city, but it was one of the tallest buildings. He’d lost track of time in his cultivation trance, so he was surprised to discover it was night. The twin moons hung low in the sky. They cast an ethereal, lavender light over the island city that served as the capital. He’d been told that purple moonlight had served as the inspiration for naming this world Plum Blossom. He thought they should have just named the place Lavender, but maybe that name hadn’t been poetic enough or had sounded too feminine to the original settlers.

Like all of his kin, he’d been taught that their family’s sect had helped to settle this world centuries before and taken an active hand in guiding its development. It was supposed to be a point of pride. Jason privately held doubts that their guidance had been an entirely good thing. If they’d done a better job, he suspected that there would be some nature left on this island, instead of the sprawling, densely packed metropolis he saw below. His eyes drifted across the city, looking for familiar landmarks. The Imperial Library. The Temple of the Blind God. And, of course, his gaze sought out the spaceport. It had been positioned at a harbor for no reason he could understand.

“Maybe the original city planners lacked imagination,” he muttered.

“Talking to yourself is considered a sign of concern, even among cultivators, Disciple Yang,” said a sweet voice from behind him.

Not turning away from the window, mostly to hide his half-smile, he replied, “And I’m told that eavesdropping is a vice for those of poor character and weak will, Disciple Stone.”

“Clearly an accurate description of me, since only someone of weak will and poor character could put up with you for any length of time.”

“Fair,” he said, glancing at the woman as she took a spot next to him at the window.

While the Yang clan comprised much of the Pristine Sky Sect, they were not above recruiting talented cultivators from outside. Mina Stone had been one of those recruits. Her dark eyes roamed over the cityscape briefly before she shook her head.

“It’s such an ugly city.”

“It is,” Jason agreed.

“I was given to understand that you’d finally earned some time in a cultivation pod. Yet, here I find you.”

Jason grimaced and said, “I was summoned by the Patriarch.”

“Yet, here I find you,” she said again, a twinkle in her eyes.

“I’m deciding if I care enough to go.”

The humor in her expression evaporated and was replaced with something painfully close to alarm.

“You’re thinking of leaving?”

“I’ve been thinking of leaving for years. Now, I’m deciding.”

“Will they let you?”

“The Patriarch doesn’t care what I do. He’d probably be relieved if I was gone. Then, he could pretend I never lived and that only his genius son exists.”

“He would care,” insisted Mina.

“He really wouldn’t.”

“Where would you go?” she asked in a hushed whisper.

“I believe the traditional term for it is away.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant.”

Jason shrugged and said, “A frontier world, probably.”

“You haven’t even picked one out? If that’s the case, you need to go see what your father wants and put a lot more thought into this leaving plan.”

Sighing, Jason nodded. He did need to make an actual plan if he intended to leave. If nothing else, he needed to research the frontier worlds and find one that might suit his cultivation. He’d only been procrastinating now because there was no happiness to be found with any meeting with his father. The Patriarch would order him to go perform one unpleasant task or another. Then, when it was complete, Jason would be ignored again. No reward. No acknowledgment. Just silence. The same silence that had hung over him ever since Alex was revealed as a cultivation genius.

“Very well,” he said, turning and walking toward the transit pod.

“Jason,” she called after him.

“Yes?” he said, looking back.

“Watch out for Alex.”

Looking her in the eyes and thinking about what he had hidden in his belt, he said, “I always watch out for Alex.

2.

The transit pod shot upward in total silence. The only evidence that it was moving was an indicator that showed the rapidly changing floors. The pod itself was carried on an energy field that Jason only vaguely understood to be partially technological in origin. His education had been a sect education designed for one who might one day ascend to a leadership role. That meant that subjects like the fusion of mortal technology and qi was a low priority. He understood what it did, in general terms, but the specifics of how it did it was as mysterious to him as cycling patterns were to mortals. That gap in his knowledge bothered him, especially since it had been bottlenecked cultivators who developed it in the first place.

Yet, his every attempt to remedy that glaring bit of ignorance had been ruthlessly blocked by his father. Even after Alex had become the focus of the sect’s attention, those roadblocks had never been lifted. Jason suspected that it had been some manner of oblique punishment for failing to prove himself a genius. His mother had called that both unkind and paranoid, but he’d never understood her rose-colored perception of his father. If his father had been mortal, he might have attributed it to his father simply forgetting to lift those restrictions. His father, however, never forgot anything. Ever. That could mean he’d left those restrictions in place intentionally, which felt petty and unnecessary.

The transit pod announced his arrival on the top floor of the compound with a gentle chime, and the doors slid soundlessly open. He stepped out and walked toward the double doors at the end of the hallway with measured steps. The guards who stood to either side of the doors were the only obvious security, but even they seemed like overkill. After all, only a madman would try to attack a cultivator who had risen to lead the Pristine Sky Sect. The Patriarch was a man of such immense personal power and martial prowess that Jason doubted if there were more than three or four other people on the planet who could realistically match him in a duel. Not defeat him, simply match him and hope to escape with their lives.

The guards, both core cultivators, did nothing to hide their sneers as he approached. He’d long since grown used to those looks. He was the failure, after all. The Patriarch’s son who had not risen like a sun. His sister received some of the same treatment, but sects were steeped in traditions that predated spaceflight. That made them conservative in ways that worked both for and against women in the sect.

Women who rose were treated as a surprise, in large part because they often received lesser support. After proving themselves, though, they enjoyed a relatively even hand from the sect. But the women who weren’t as talented weren’t seen with the kind of disdain that Jason received. Greatness wasn’t expected from them, so a failure to achieve greatness was simply normal. Greatness had been expected from him, and he had manifestly failed to deliver on that expectation. He’d had the gall to be of only ordinary talent, and they loathed him for that. It used to bother him, but he’d long since grown numb to it. After all, talent wasn’t something he could change.

The guards traded sly looks and did not usher him into the room. Jason simply clasped his hands behind his back and waited. It wasn’t as if he was eager to enter, and he had cultivated patience as much as he had ever cultivated qi. The Patriarch would have known the moment he arrived, so Jason wouldn’t be chastised for the delay. The guards had no doubt expected him to make demands for entry, which they would have gleefully denied for some fabricated reason. His calm indifference left them uncertain about what to do. He wasn’t causing a scene. He wasn’t being unreasonable. He was just politely waiting.

As the seconds ticked away into minutes, the guards grew increasingly nervous and miserable. Jason remained calm and had his AI access his messages. He had been in seclusion for several days, after all. The message subject lines scrolled by at his preferred speed. The AI the sect allowed was primitive compared to pretty much all of the ones that were available to mortals. This kind was allowed because it been proven not to interfere with cultivation. Jason wondered what kind of testing process could had been used to prove that, but no one seemed to know. Or care. It helped cultivators take care of things that might otherwise eat into their cultivation time and training. That was all most people in the sect cared about.

Given that these things were implanted in their bodies, Jason thought everyone should show more interest. Then again, the sects had been using them for centuries without a problem, so he was willing to concede that concern might actually be overblown. He just found primitive nature of the AIs frustrating. Adjusting some basic settings was easy, but most of the advanced information gathering tools that came standard on mortal AIs remained forever out of his reach. It was only in spare moments like that he devoted any real thought to it. Well, times like these and on every occasion when he would have liked to use his AI to circumvent his father’s restrictions.

The guards finally seemed to realize that he had no intention of giving them what they wanted and would likely keep standing there like a flesh statue until the Patriarch grew enraged. One of them took a step forward like he intended to make Jason misbehave, but a wordless hiss from the other guard aborted that ill-concieved plan.

“The Patriarch is expecting you,” snarled the hot-headed guard as he jerked open the door.

“Thank you,” said Jason, as though he’d only been standing there for moments instead of minutes.

He stepped into what served as his father’s throne room. It couldn’t be described as anything else. Everything in this room, from the marble tiles to the massive wooden chair where his father sat, had been imported from Earth at one time or another at hideous expense. There were priceless vases standing in recessed nooks and wall hangings that he knew had been made for the sect by masters over the centuries. He ignored all of it, cupping hand over fist and bowing to where his father sat.

“You summoned me, Patriarch.”

“You took your time getting here,” snapped Alex from where he stood next to the throne.

Jason didn’t even glance at his brother, let alone acknowledge his comment. He maintained his bow.

“I did,” said the Patriarch.

Jason straightened and looked at his father, Oliver Yang, for the first time in ten years. He looked precisely the same as the man in Jason’s memories. For that matter, Oliver Yang looked the same as he had in every image taken of him, including the ones taken from before Plum Bossom had even been settled. The man who looked back at Jason didn’t betray any emotion at seeing his less-favored son. He could just as easily have been looking at a blank spot on the wall.  

“Do you know why you have been summoned?” asked the Patriarch.

“I do not.”

Jason had to suppress a smile at the look of anger contorting his brother’s face. Alex couldn’t stand it when people ignored him, so Jason took every opportunity to do just that. It was as petty as revenge got, but you took your victories where you could when you didn’t hold the high ground.

“You need to retrieve someone,” snapped Alex.

Jason kept his gaze resolutely fixed on the patriarch and said nothing. From the purple color Alex turned, Jason wondered if a blood vessel would burst in his brother’s brain. That would be a relief, but the gods aren’t that kind, he thought. That bit of cynicism proved correct when Alex seemed to regain control of himself, and his face returned to an almost normal color. The patriarch watched all of this with cool disinterest.

“You need to retrieve someone,” said the Patriarch, echoing Alex’s words.

“Who?” asked Jason.

“Her name is Lily Edmundson.”

Jason frowned. He knew the names of every major cultivator clan and family. Edmundson was not one of them. Even so, the name felt familiar. Like it was a name he ought to know and had somehow misplaced.

“Who is she?” asked Jason.

The patriarch expression shifted for the first time. He slightly lifted an eyebrow. It might have been to express surprise, but it was more likely meant to convey disapproval. Yeah, I should know who she is, thought Jason. Or, I should know who her family is. Try as he might, though, he could not summon any specific knowledge.

“She’s the third daughter of the Imperial Governor,” said the patriarch.

“This is mortal business. I will not involve myself in it,” said Jason automatically.

It was an excuse as old as cultivation itself. Everyone knew it was an excuse, as cultivators involved themselves in mortal affairs all the time. However, the excuse had the weight of ironclad tradition behind it. More important for the discussion at hand, Jason had very intentionally avoided any entanglements with mortals. While others could be forced to act by virtue of their own hypocrisy, he could not.  

“You will do as you’re told!” bellowed Alex, his dark eyes lit with fury.

Once again, Jason didn’t acknowledge the words or Alex’s existence. That was apparently the last straw for Alex. Qi surging, he stormed toward Jason.

“Alex,” said the Patriarch.

There was no heat or anger in the word, just a command. Alex froze, then slowly turned to look at the Patriarch.

“Father, I—”

“Leave us,” commanded the Patriarch.

“Yes, Father,” said Alex through clenched teeth.

Jason kept his neutral expression as his brother stalked out of the room. Jason and his father studied each other in silence for most of a minute.

“You shouldn’t bait him that way.”

“I said nothing to him, Patriarch.”

“Indeed.”

“Has it occurred to you that he might be Patriarch one day?”

“It has.”

“And?”

Jason shrugged as though that eventuality wasn’t of interest to him.

“On a wholly unrelated note, every sect must fall eventually. History suggests poor leadership is almost always one of the causes,” observed Jason, doing his best to match his father’s detached tone.

There was another protracted silence before the Patriarch spoke.

“You will undertake this task.”

“As I said—” Jason started only to be silenced by a raised hand.

“You will. Even a family as powerful as ours has debts and obligations. This is one of them.”

Jason’s composure cracked, and he couldn’t keep the scorn from his voice when he said, “Our family? Since when is it our family? It was made perfectly clear that this isn’t my family and hasn’t been since you anointed that thug as your heir. You don’t get to discard me and then demand that I pay your family debts. Send your bully of a son if you want someone to fulfill those obligations.”

The patriarch’s mask of cool indifference shattered. He looked both stunned and furious. Jason was just stunned. He hadn’t meant to say any of that. He’d thought those feelings were buried deeper and under better control. Now that they were in the air, though, he couldn’t un-speak the words. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if his father ordered him executed for that insolence and disrespect. The tension in the room rose and then slowly fell as the Patriarch calmed. The man closed his eyes for several long moments before he spoke.

“I can see how you might think… Very well. What is your price to carry out this task?”

Jason’s mind reeled as he tried to figure out how to react to this. In the end, he asked for the only things he really wanted.

“I wish to leave with the sect’s official blessing. Passage to a frontier world of my choosing. And a sum sufficient to live a modestly comfortable life on a frontier world for a period of twenty years,” said Jason.

The patriarch’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s it? No cultivation resources or treasures?”

“You’d never give those to me anyway. So, why ask?” said Jason before a thought struck him. “I want what I asked for in advance and regardless of success.”

“Unacceptable. If you fail—”

“I might have already failed. She might be dead right now, through no fault on my part. Does anyone actually know her location? Do they have proof that she’s still alive?”

“They do not,” conceded the Patriarch.

“In that case, I see no reason why I should be penalized if it turns out I’ve been given a task that’s impossible to complete.”

“If she is alive, and you still fail?”

Jason thought it over. If a mortal politician was involving a sect to retrieve one girl, he doubted that this would prove simple or safe. The governor should have contacted the mortal authorities to deal with this problem.

“I imagine that I’ll be dead,” Jason finally said. “However, if I fail and somehow survive, I’ll simply leave. Then, the sect can condemn me. I’m sure that the Imperial Governor will have me killed shortly after that. I’ll be nothing but outcast wandering cultivator, so there won’t be any repercussions.”

The patriarch considered all of that before he nodded. Jason turned to leave, but then looked back.

“One last thing.”

“Bargaining for more?” asked the Patriarch with a lifted eyebrow.

“Nothing tangible,” said Jason. “Alex is not to be informed of my activities or rewards. Not a word of it.”

“Why?” asked the Patriarch.

“Because I think there’s an even chance that he’d kill the girl just to spite me.”

The Patriarch’s jaw tightened, but all he said was, “Speak to Elder Li. She will provide you with your compensation and provide you with the necessary information. She despises Alex, so there is little chance that she will reveal anything to him.”

Jason nodded and left the throne room, feeling a glimmer of hope for the first time in a very long time.