“Unranked?” I asked, staring at the floating screen. My hand was pressed to the cold surface of a piece of crystal embedded in some alien technology. My eyebrows raised at the implications.

“Unranked? That’s… that’s not right.” The man across from me clicked through several screens and monitors, information flashing on monitors. “No, it should display something like Iron Rank or below iron… not unranked.” The man reached for a phone dialing. “Hey, yeah, I have a display thats not working. Uh huh…”

I tuned the man out. Perhaps… because my power system was different, was this system unable to quantify Qi?

“Mr. Gold, come with me. We’ll try another desk.” The attendant smiled, leading me to a second room, a second analyzer, a second screen, and a second Unranked prompt.

He frowned. “Looks like we will have to escalate this to a specialist— tell you what, today will be free of charge, and we will reach out to you by text when we’re ready to try again.” The man tapped a pen on his mouth. “Well, sorry we can’t do more for you.”

“What do you mean unranked?! I saw you rank up myself!” Willow half shouted. She was, once again, covered in blood, meeting me outside of the Awoken facility that had done my evaluation. I winced at her shouting.

“Its fine.” I said simply. “I uh, I just got back, anyway. There are some things I wanna do around the city. Favorite restaurants, see a movie. I have a whole, like, trilogy to catch up on, on comic book movies, you know?” I said as we walked through the city.

“Maybe its just broken…” Willow said.

“You know what! I’m gonna go in and—“

“Wil’. Its fine.” I said, reassuring her with a smile and patting her shoulder.

“Alright well… just don’t go into any gates. Without me, at least.”

I smiled. I was definitely going into the gates. Tomorrow, even, after Willow and Rose left for their getaway tonight.

“Sure thing. You ready for the weekend?”

“We’re all packed! Just remember to feed Hooty. Theres a few dozen pounds of raw meat in the freezer, you don’t have to cook it, just leave it out to cool before you feed it to him. And don’t water the plants, they’re fine. Ignore any of them that ask you. In fact, ignore any of them if they talk.”

I ignored the comment about talking plants. This was the fifth time I’d heard it— Willow was nervous. I wasn’t worried that her pet would eat me, though.

We waved to Rose, who had reserved us a seat outdoors. The day was still chill, cold air passing over the street under the ambient noise of a hundred little conversations and a hundred people on their own commutes throughout the city.

She pushed a drink my way without preface.

“What is this?” I asked, staring at it. It was purple, with little dots floating in the bottom.

“Taro!” Rose said, returning Willow’s hug.

“Its good!” Willow said, who had a matching drink. Rose’s was pink.

I tried it— tentatively.

“It tastes like french fries.”

“Take that back!” Willow shouted.

I tapped my phone to the elevators interface expectantly, sighing in relief as my sisters apartment lit up green. If I ended up locked out… I didn’t know what I would do. I tapped the screen, quickly rising to her private apartment. Hooty was sitting in the gigantic bed pressed against the far wall, leaning away from me.

He rose half way up, his head twisting all the way around to look at me.

He hooted, pawing his way over to where I was. I came prepared this time, opening the bag under my arm.

“Whose a good… owl… bear… thing… you are, yes you are… my little spirit beast.” I said, offering him a fish.

He stomped over to me, sliding across the floor, and tentatively extending his beak towards my hand.

His entire head flicked up and down between me and the fish, his eyes locked looking forward, before he gently grabbed it and pulled it out of my hand.

He stomped back to the bed, very carefully tearing strips of the fish and eating it.

I thought I would have to give him more than one. Hooty is easy.

I put the rest of the fish in the fridge, carrying the rest of my supplies with me to sit down in front of the window. Sliding my phone free from my pocket, I confirmed my appointment for tomorrow. Cultivation resources were never free, but it cost a few hundred dollars to enter a gate. Ridiculous— it was almost all the money my sister had gifted me for the weekend. I was used to the resources of a Patriarch.

I sighed, sliding the phone over and beginning my meditations.

Slowly, the sun fell over the city, and I saw the light behind my eyelids dim to orange as night came. I opened my eyes.

A full moon.

An auspicious omen for the beginning of my path.

I opened the potions in my bag, setting them around me. Qi boiled off of them, and I assisted it, arranging them so that my path siphoned it through the air. As the moon light filtered through it, the pure Qi changed towards my element. Silver light pooled around me like liquid, beginning to move and swirl as I absorbed it. It looked like the room was full of smoke. I looked over everything, double checking before entering meditative trance—

When did Hooty drag his whole bed to me? He was a few feet away, fast asleep in the pooling, liquid moonlight. I had to bend out of shape to pet him.

Finally, I began to draw out my breaths. Liquid moonlight crawled my skin, swirling around me, and with each breath I felt my body absorb it. The Qi that saturated my flesh previously had been collapsed to form my dantian, and to progress to the second realm I would have to fill it entirely.

Liquid silver flowed into me like a river.