The crowd slowly filled the car, and at the other edge of the garage, a blast door rose from the floor. Behind it was a glowing hole in the world, a hazy window through which I saw something alien, even for me.

I had visited small worlds, attuned to singular elements, with seas of fire or rivers of moving ice. I’ve seen worlds of floating islands, suspended in the void.

I’d never seen anything quite like that. The world looked like it was made of candy. Poisonous candy.

Mushrooms towered in the place of trees, speckled with a dozen colors. Even the grass was a neon blue, showing in patches here or there against the red soil, below a sky of boiling purple.

“Jelly forest!” Willow said, the frown finally sliding off her face, and one last person stepped onto the truck. He remained standing in the center.

It revved to life, driving away from the other trucks on the wall and towards the portal.

“Alright, weapons safety review!” A few people groaned at this. The man was carrying a gigantic rifle, the body of the barrel triangular. “This is a magic cannon! If you attempt to fire it outside of the gate—“ he punctuated his statement by pulling the trigger, and it flashed red. A voice spoke from a speaker inside of it.

“Fire Authorization denied: Outside of gate.”

The truck moved through the portal.

“It will not fire! If you try to fire it at an inanimate object!” He shouted, aiming it at the bottom of the truck. It flashed red again, once again speaking.

“Fire Authorization denied: Inanimate object. Override?”

“It will not fire! And if you try to fire it at another person!” He spun on one leg, turning it to point directly in someones face, who flinched back.

The gun lit up red.

“Authorization denied. Human targets are not permitted. Incident recorded. Override?”

“It will not fire!” He finished, slapping the top of the truck twice. At that statement, the middle of the truck began to rise out, filled with weapons. Everyone reached out to grab one, leaning forward from their seats as the truck bumped over the uneven road.

They hadn’t even bothered to lay out concrete here.

“But if you point it at a monster…” He pivoted over the truck, aiming forward, and the gun lit up blue. A blue line crawled down the triangular barrel, slowly, until it hit the end.

Blue light lanced across the horizon, and distantly, something exploded. The truck swerved for a second, but quickly recovered.

“Can you warn me before you do that? Damn.” The driver yelled through the window.

“Now get ready. We will be driving through a monster nest in five minutes! Don’t be shy, Mr. Gold. Go ahead and grab one.”

I looked up at him, then back to Willow, then to the guns up front. Willow was leaning back, eyes closed. She might’ve been asleep for all I knew, so I reached out and grabbed one of the rifles.

“Is there a… safety?” I asked, looking at it.

“Sure! There’s a trigger.” The instructor said, crashing down next to me with a groan and a stretch, before lighting a cigarette.

Blue and yellow beams of light lanced off the side of the car, crashing into monsters. As soon as one appeared, attracted to the sound of the fighting, they would die. And the car wasn’t slowing down— we were carving through waves of monsters.

I closed one eye, staring down the scope at a distant blob of ooze. They came in all colors— this one was purple, moving along the horizon slowly using translucent limbs that stretched from the bottom of its body. It was like an insect larva.

I pulled the trigger.

There was no recoil as a laser lanced a straight line into the monster and it exploded violently, spraying purple jelly all over the distant horizon.

And then I felt a wave of fire slam into me.

Qi flooded me— from where? I staggered— not out of being overwhelmed at the Qi, but from being surprised. It wasn’t that it was a lot— it was just sudden and unrefined. Though my Qi was already at the peak of saturation. Any Qi I absorbed now rushed me closer to a breakthrough. The density on Earth wasn’t low enough to break through— I would have to fill my body with Qi until it was boiling at every inch of me. Only then could I condense my Dantian— my Sea of Qi that would enable to me to begin to attune myself and use techniques.

“Nice shot!” Willow said, leaning over the car. “There’s another one about a mile past that one…” She squinted.

“Hey, Willow, you said people rank up by killing things, right?” I asked, chasing a hunch as I cycled the Qi into my meridians. Energy chased lines down my body like a combustion engine coming to life. My body was boiling with Qi, flowing through every piece of my flesh.

I fired again.

“Yeah, its like a video game, you know? You get kills, level up. Theres no interface normally— well, for most people. Most of us have to use magic tools to see and adjust our statuses.”

More energy flooded into me when the shot landed. I tried to observe where it was coming from, but my spirit sense was rough and undefined. I could just barely begin to see the Qi swirling in my own body. Maybe at the Third or Fourth realm I would be able to see the origin of it better.

“What do you think? Fun, right? You always liked video games. This is like, a step better. Like in real life, you know?” She laughed nervously.

I smiled. “Yeah, it is fun.”

I fired again and again, and as we drove forward, we found ourselves surrounded with fields of the monsters below a boiling sky. The world was a menagerie of color. Huge crystals were embedded in the land, translucent and colorful, and they decorated the horizon under mushroom trees that dripped liquid spores onto the ground.

Any time I spotted a monster, I pulled the trigger, until the Qi inside me boiled and raged beyond what I could contain. I stopped, turned, and slid the gun back into its slot on the arms rack.

“What? You bored?” Willow asked.

“No, I just… need a second.” I sat cross legged in the car, gritting my teeth as I began to push for a break through. The Qi in my entire body boiled, circling around me, and I started forcing it to condense.

The flowing energy left my body scorched, washing over and cleansing it in Qi. It was a pre-step to the Body Tempering realm, tempering the body with Qi so that it could survive later changes.

I closed my eyes as I focused on controlling it. Qi rushed like a river through my meridians, flowing inwards until, with a clap like the sound of thunder, it collapsed.

A black hole of Qi sat inside me, a single point that contained a ocean, a singularity of power, and every last drop of Qi inside me was rushing into it in a wave.

“Oh shit, did you just rank up?” My sister asked next to me, leaning over. “I can sense it. What was that?”

I panted, sweating, and placed my hand above my navel. Due to the nature of the cultivation path I followed, the patterns I traced through my meridians began to attune the Qi in my dantian. The First Realm Third Stage— Dantian formation.

“Yeah, I ranked up.” I said, leaning back. Willow didn’t reply, and I hung my head back, closing my eyes.

“You sense that?”

“Shit. Yeah.” The instructor replied to her. I looked up at him. He was staring out over the truck, gun in hand. “Don’t suppose you’d…”

“It’ll be free just this once.” Willow said, standing. “Stop the truck. Watch this, I’ll show you something cool.” She said, her hand slapping onto my head and ruffling my hair.

“Whats going on?” I asked, gently pushing her hand away as the truck coasted to a stop. There were basically no monsters around the truck.

Willow looked back, her face quirked into a smile. “World boss.” She said, her eyes widening slightly with obvious excitement as she simply stepped off the truck, gracefully falling to the ground and landing standing up.

“Where?” I asked, standing and walking to the other side of the truck. The other people on the safari parted for me without so much as a word.

The landscape was a mess of hills and slimy earth in a jello green that coated everything. I scanned the skyline, looking for anything resembling an enemy. I found nothing. In fact, it was suspicious how little enemies there were. Just minutes ago there was a slime infestation.

Then the hills began to move.