Quantum Cultivation, Jace Kang [heaven official's blessing novel english .TXT] 📗

Had he rooted, she would’ve felt as if she’d run into a stone wall; instead, he staggered back as a little Tofu-Kozo would.

“Very good,” he said. “Now faster.”

“Faste—?”

He surged in with a quick combination of the same technique, this time at three-quarter speed. She successfully countered the Forking Fists, but was too slow with the Six Sealing, Four Closing technique. Instead of catching and redirecting his momentum, she would’ve taken three Whirlwind Punches to the head had he not held back.

“Again!” He rushed in again, speeding up the first and then second attack until she got it right at full speed, then adding a third motion.

After a few minutes she doubled over, hands on her knees, heaving for breath.

Just like he had when he’d first started training. Letting her rest, he looked over at Siena and Kentaro.

The Elestrae was overwhelming the boy’s Xingyi with her superior speed, even if her Thunder Fist techniques were sloppy. Still, his form looked good and he was doing well enough to fight against a Tofu-Kozo. He would’ve landed a punch, had she not abandoned the Thunder Fist style and pirouetted out of the way in what looked like a Sun-Moon Sect form.

With the spin, she ended behind him and swept him to the ground. As he fell, he grabbed hold of her and brought her down on top of him. Not missing a beat, she straddled him and seized both of his wrists out to the side. Her head loomed above his, her hair curtaining their faces.

They paused there, transfixed.

Ryu scratched his chin. If he could convince Siena to sleep with Kentaro, it might help the boy advance to First Rank.

With a puff of breath, Siena blew the hair out of her face. Below her, Kentaro’s face flushed red as if he’d gulped down a bottle of sake.

Right. A virgin boy concentrating enough not spill his seed inside an ethereally beautiful woman was just too much to ask.

Aya, though… Ryu looked over his shoulder. She was so frail; but if she could integrate male vitality into her Core, it could help strengthen her. Of course, his seed would be the prime candidate, given how concentrated it was…but then there was that pesky Code of Rivers and Lakes that prohibited sexual relations between master and student.  Was there some way around it?

He shook the idea out of his head. For now, they had to prepare for the fight with the Tofu-Kozo.

Aya looked up. “I think I know when and where the next attack will be.”

Chapter 18:

The Hacker

T he way Ryusuke looked at her made Aya’s insides heat up in the most delicious way.

“You know where the next attack will be?” he asked.

Looking at the map Ai had projected into her vision, she nodded. “Based on the attacks at Higashi Honganji, Tofukuji, and Kinkakuji temples, I see a pattern.  I—”

“Wait,” Kentaro interrupted. “Why aren’t you including the one at Kiyomizudera?”

She frowned at the Purebred. “I’m not counting it because of the differences.”

“Which differences?” he pressed.

Did she have to spell things out? She glared at him. “The three others occurred at 23:00. All the victims were male, and they had their Cores bitten out. Michiko Zhang, on the other hand, is female. She was ripped apart at a different time.”

Kentaro’s head rose and fell in slow bobs.

She continued: “I ran an algorithm on the locations and triangulated the next temple in the sequence.”

“And?” Ryusuke’s smile made her insides squirm in a delicious way.

“Here.” Fighting off her smile, she ordered Ai to project the map of Kyoto, along with the various lines that went into the algorithm.

Ryusuke and Ken both stared at it, foreheads scrunched.

Siena, however, nodded. “Brilliant. I see your reasoning. Ginkakuji.” She pointed at the Silver Pavilion’s location on the map.

“We have to walk, though,” Aya said, looking up through her lashes at Ryusuke. “We can’t take the space folders, because Kentaro’s chip is burned out, and you don’t have one…and the government would be able to log your movements.”

“How long will it take?” he asked.

“An hour and a half, probably more if we want to avoid Peacekeepers.”

Ryusuke nodded. “Then we will set off at 20:00. That will give us three hours. In the meantime, rest and circulate your Qi while I come up with a plan.”

Doing as she was told, Aya sat in the lotus position and envisioned the energy coursing through her. As had been the case from the start of this journey, the circuitry from her neural jack felt like a tangible blockage in the flow. Still, the vitality seemed to course around it. She opened an eye and peeked at Kentaro, sitting across from her.

He seemed lost in his meditation at the moment. Earlier, he’d performed well against Siena in their sparring matches, even if he lost every time. He was far ahead in his training, even though he’d only started a day earlier.

Well, with the combat AI she’d stolen from the Peacekeepers, she’d get ahead now. Jacking into the EtherCloud, she gathered footage of all the exchanges she’d recorded—from Ryusuke’s fight with the shocktroopers, to the Tofu-Kozo’s attack on its first victim, to Siena’s fighting style.

“Ai, structure these fights into my neural engrams.”

The fox spirit bowed. Coding. Will take two hours to integrate into your motor neurons.

Satisfied, Aya jacked out and returned to meditation.

Ryusuke and Siena were having sex yet again, the Elestrae creating a noisy distraction with her moans. She’d picked up the Thunder Fist style, but didn’t seem to be learning anything about Cultivation at all.

Aya peeked out to see Kentaro casting glances at the couple.

“Let’s go to the other side of the tree,”