Thundersky looked at the hero who spoke. Bumnet, the information hero. His specialty lies in information gathering and the internet. He was a regular attendee at the weekly meeting, but he almost never spoke. The Champion was almost afraid to ask why that has changed.

“What’s the problem?”

“There is chatter on the dark web that the Sweet Fist is going to train his people. Rumor has it he is able to train martial artist to become mystic warriors. Every villain support in the region is looking to enter his organization on the off-chance this is true.”

“What is a mystic warrior anyway?” The rest of the heroes stared at WingHawk who quickly defended herself. “They never covered it in the Academy. If I am going to take questions on this from the media, I want to know what mystic warriors are. And if they can be trained.”

“Yes, they can.” Bumnet replied. The heroes turned back to him, some with their mouth opened. “It’s rare, but possible. Two warriors who followed Blood Rider became mystic warriors, though neither were as powerful or well-known as him.”

“He’s just a legend, isn’t he?”

“The legend is based on a real person. A warrior named Changtai who can connect to his horse on a mystical level. Legend had it he was able to fuse his body with his horse, becoming one being. This gave him increased speed, strength, and stamina.”

“Maybe it’s just a superpower.” Quantam Maker said. “He won’t be the first to have a power involving animals.”

“Unlikely.” Bumnet immediately said. “The colonist who fought against Blood Rider kept records, and they firmly believed that Blood Rider was a mystic warrior.”

“Which bring me back to my original question,” WingHawk said. “What is a mystic warrior?”

It was Bumnet who answered.

“There are four main sources of power in our world. Superpowers, magic, technology, and the martial practitioner. Warriors, fighters, monks, martial artists, and others of the sort all falls under the umbrella of martial practitioner. They trained their bodies and create different techniques to fight against superpowers, magic-users and technologists. On rare occasions, talented martial practitioners could train so hard that they manage to tap into certain powers and become … I won’t say superhuman, but at least an enhanced human. These are the mystic warriors.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.” WingHawk complained. “What power are they tapping into? How are they trained? I need to go out there and explain these things to the public. Put it in layman terms for me.”

The rest of the heroes looked at each other, and surprisingly, it was Quantum Maker who answered.

“Nexus is a world that is connected to various other dimensions. Energies from these foreign dimensions swirled around us and it is theorized that everyone on Nexus has some form of these energies in our body. We don’t notice these energies most of the time but occasionally, these energies activate something within us and that’s how we get our superpowers. It’s random, though there are serums that could help people access these energies.”

“Are you talking about the power serums?” WingHawk asked.

“Yes.” Quantum Maker admitted. “Scientific serums that caused changes in the human body. I heard rumors that there are certain spells which do the same.”

The heroes turned to look at the magical member of the team. Dragon Knight was a huge guy. His body was fully covered by a medieval armor decorated with various dragons, and his helmet was full faced, allowing people to see only his two glowing blue eyes. The hero was one of the heroes who usually skipped these meetings and had kept quiet throughout the meeting. That didn’t change with the attention. Quantum Maker continued.

“In theory, mystic warriors are people who trained their mind and bodies to access these energies. Most of the time, this is instinctive, and no one really know if how mystic warriors are trained. There are no schools for mystics and most mystical warriors are notoriously secretive about how they became mystics in the first place. So, Sweet Fist’s claim is unusual.”

“So, he could be lying. Why are we accepting the fact that he is a mystic warrior then?” Lady Numbers asked.

“I can’t see how we can object.” Bumnet said. “There’s no real definition of what a mystic warrior is, and Sweet Fist is definitely not a normal human.”

“There’s one other living warrior, right?”

“Yes, in the Fraternity of Heroes.” Thundersky was glad for the little piece of information his son gave him. “Bumnet, send a feeler to him. See what he thinks of Sweet Fist’s claims.”

“What am I going to tell the Alliance?” Bumnet asked. “They are going to ask, and we are part of them.”

“Tell them what we know.” Thundersky said. “There is a new mystic warrior on the planet, and he is in Velocity City.”

All the heroes looked at their Champion who gave them a rare smile.

“Depending on circumstances, this could be a good thing for the city. Since the departure of Red Maddy, the criminal elements of the city are a mess and since the corporate companies refused to keep their word to rebuild the King’s, we are going to let the Sweet Fist play around for a while. I take it there is already a plan to infiltrate his organization.” Streetman gave the Champion a nod. “Good. If he really can train more mystics, we need first-hand knowledge on how he is doing it. WingHawk, play up the fact he is here to the press. If Sweet Fist want to set up shop in Velocity City, we’ll used him. Let’s make him an attraction.”

“Why?” The young hero asked.

“Because we are going to have a lot of eyes on us. If we managed to hear about Sweet Fist’s claims about training people, then others would too. The Alliance of Champions, the Fraternity of Heroes, the Captains of Justice, the State of Magic, and just about every other supergroup out there will want to know if he is telling the truth. Our best-case scenario is that all of them will be pouring people, money, and resources into the city to keep an eye on him. That means more revenue for the city. Tourism, maybe even people moving back to the city to rebuild it.” Thundersky leaned back on his chair and glanced at Lady Numbers. He always felt she was too close to the corporations, but at times like this, she was useful. “Tell your bosses that if they don’t get a move on, they might not have a chance later on.”

The hero glared at him but kept quiet. The Champion gave her a big smile.

“That’s it for today. This meeting is over. Dismissed.”