“Give me your hand,” said Zhao Gang.

“Why, are you feeling lonely or something?” asked John, then laughed at his joke.

“No,” said Zhao Gang firmly. “You’re drunk and you need help standing. You can’t walk sitting down.”

“Walk,” John said dumbly, “Why are we walking? I thought you said we were going to travel the planes or something.”

“Yes, we are. But to get there you have to walk. I could carry you, but I have a feeling neither of us would enjoy the experience.” Zhao Gang’s voice was deadpan but humor glinted in his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re having fun too. This would be a lot harder to cope with if you were dead set on being all stodgy and stoic. And I got whiskey, so that’s good.” John offered his hand and was practically lifted off his feet. He didn’t say anything, the memory of that impossibly sturdy corpse lodged in his mind. Zhao Gang waved his hand and the chairs, table, bed, and, most importantly, whiskey, disappeared.

“Hey, I was still drinking that,” said John.

“We can resume drinking later. We’re traveling now, remember?” There was a long moment while they looked at each other before Zhao Gang shook his head. “You’re too drunk to do this now. Take this,” he said meaningfully, waving his hand. Another pill appeared there.

“What is it?” asked John.

“A pill that will help you sober up,” said Zhao Gang.

“Why would I want to do that?” asked John.

“Because if you don’t we won’t be going anywhere. I won’t have you claiming that you had some drunken hallucination tomorrow and don’t believe me. Or worse, not remember. I would be very displeased.” The tone came out menacing but John just laughed at it.

“Right. Don’t displease the all-powerful immortal. Got it. By the way, if you’re so powerful, why do you have to wave your hand when you use your nifty ring? Is it like, motion-activated or something?” asked John.

“I’ll tell you after you take the pill,” replied Zhao Gang. His humor was rapidly draining away.

“Ok then, I’ll take the pill,” said John affably. “Say, you got any water?” Zhao Gang dutifully summoned a glass filled with water. The pill and the water both swiftly disappeared. They stood there awkwardly for a second, looking at each other.

“What?” asked John. Zhao Gang just arched an eyebrow at him. John stared back for a moment before a look of need crossed his face. “Oh.”

“You’re mortal. It has to go somewhere,” said Zhao Gang with a smirk. John didn’t bother replying, just dashed off into the trees. A minute later he returned, obviously sober and feeling much better.

“Thanks for that,” he said, “Drank too much.”

“Obviously. Now your question,” said Zhao Gang. “The reason is quite simple. Cultivators are taught to wave their hands when accessing a storage ring to provide a visual cue to others. We’re alone so you can likely guess that it was me who picked up our things, but in a room full of cultivators if nobody gave you a visual cue you would be hard-pressed to pick out who took the items in question. It is done out of courtesy, that is all.”

“That makes a surprising amount of sense,” said John. Zhao Gang just nodded and offered his hand again.

“Ready? This will be unpleasant.”

After a moment John took his hand. “Ready then.”

A moment passed before Zhao Gang spoke again. “Step forward in time with me. Do not let go of my hand. Here we go.” John complied, stepping forward as Zhao Gang did.

The world spun then halted. Then everything went black. It wasn’t the black of a shut up room, either. It was deeper than that. Worse, his senses felt all weird. He was floating and falling at the same time. He couldn’t tell up from down. There was a strange feeling along his skin, something he’d never felt before. Every sense he had was going haywire. His breathing hitched then accelerated as he started to panic. His eyes darted wildly, searching in vain for some point of reference. Zhao Gang was nowhere to be seen, or maybe there was simply no light here and Zhao Gang was still next to him. Reflexively he squeezed his hand. The sensation he got was confusing. His hand wouldn’t close but he couldn’t feel anything in it either.

The darkness lasted long enough that John was afraid it would never end. Then it did and John stumbled forward, spew flying from his mouth. He didn’t even try to catch himself, going directly to his knees, gratefully hugging the ground. He just stayed there, letting his mind come to terms with being alive and whole for a long while. Eventually, he was cognizant enough to notice that the grass was, in fact, purple.

John lifted his head, looking around. The leaves on the weirdly straight trees were purple too, though not as vibrantly purple as the grass. The trees stood tall and gaunt, with giant leaves dotted sparsely around their nearly uniformly upward-stretching branches. There was a decent wind but they didn’t seem to flutter or wave either.

The alien scene had an odd uniformity that gave John the creeps. It took him a moment to realize why – all the leaves were facing the same direction, their flat sides facing the horizon. John looked up and, sure enough, there was more than one sun in the sky. Six, to be exact, though they all seemed small and wan as if they were weaker than the sun normally was. Their positions explained the trees, each star was strewn along the horizon the leaves were facing. They were visibly angled to catch the most possible light.

“They’re farther away,” John mumbled to himself.

“Here, have some water, rinse out your mouth.” Zhao Gang offered him a glass of water and he accepted gratefully, first rinsing and spitting and then swallowing. A minute later John handed the glass back and stood up, though he was still shaky.

“Well, here we are, on another plane of existence, just like you said. I’m going to pick a souvenir, something obvious to take back with me so in the moments I doubt my sanity I can look at it and say ‘ah, yes, I have proof I’m not crazy’.”

“Good idea,” said Zhao Gang. “I’ll get you a plant to care for, how about that?”

“Hm. Ask for a souvenir and get responsibility. That sounds like life. I guess I’ll take it.” For some reason, John was feeling rather light-headed as if things were not quite real. The tone of his answer made Zhao Gang look at him. For a long moment, nothing happened, then the feeling went away.

“Sorry about that John. I’m pretty much immune to hazardous environments. I forgot that the oxygen content here is a little higher than you’re used to.” Now that John was paying attention, Zhao Gang’s answer made a great deal of sense.

“No worries. I’ve just decided, however, that I’ll not be taking a trip like this with you a second time. I prefer my vacations to be on Earth, thank you.” Zhao Gang snorted but ignored the wry comment.

“Come. I’m going to split a mountain for you.” The two walked for some time before John noticed something… odd about how they were walking. It was subtle and being used to driving made his mind subconsciously ignore the evidence at first, but eventually the niggling at the back of his brain caught his attention. He took a moment to watch the trees as they slid past, blurring much like they did when one was driving too fast.

“There’s something weird going on here, isn’t there?” he asked, unable to put his finger on it any better than that. Thankfully, Zhao Gang didn’t dissemble.

“There is. We’re walking at a normal pace but we’re covering much more distance than our pace would imply. Space-bending again. It’s very useful.” Zhao Gang’s tone was calm and even, trying to tell John subconsciously that it wasn’t a big deal. John got the hint and let it go.

“Do you want to touch the mountain first, John? Make sure it’s not an illusion or something?” asked Zhao Gang.

“Nope. If being on another planet with too much oxygen doesn’t convince me it’s not an illusion, nothing will. Just go ahead with your demonstration,” said John.

“Look up,” said Zhao Gang. John did, only now realizing he’d been staring at all the fantastical plants and paying not the least bit of attention to where they were going.

Before the pair stood a mountain. John’s mind took a moment to process it. There wasn't anything to provide a frame of reference, but John had the feeling this mountain was a match for all but the tallest mountains on Earth. They were still several miles away from it, far enough that he could see the whole of the thing clearly as it rose above the trees. The lower third was covered in a carpet of purple, a perfect match for the world around him. Higher up the trees gave way to bare rock briefly, then to snow.

“Watch closely,” said Zhao Gang. “I don’t do this lightly and won’t be repeating it.”

John’s mouth opened before he could stop himself. “So what, I can get another demonstration of you resurrecting, but dividing a mountain is out of the question?” Zhao Gang gave him a strange look but nodded.

“Exactly. Now pay attention.” Zhao Gang waved his hand and a sword appeared. It didn’t seem particularly special to John’s eye, but considering Zhao Gang had split his corpse with a wave of a finger, using it now likely had some significance. It was long and straight, with a blade he guessed was the width of his two fingers that tapered to a single precise point. It looked wicked sharp but to John’s surprise, it only had a single edge.

Zhao Gang paused a moment, as if gathering his thoughts, then stomped his left foot forward and made a decisive swing downward with the sword. A light flashed past John’s eyes, moving too fast to register more than an impression of existence and motion, then a crash loud enough that it rattled his teeth echoed through everything. John looked up, his gaze drawn to the mountain.

The mountain was split cleanly in half. Not just the top, or a cut through the middle, but the whole mountain, from the lowest point John could see over the trees to the very top was divided from itself, no longer connected. John couldn’t guess how wide the gap was - it appeared more like a thin, perfectly straight line running from the base of the mountain to its tip - but considering he could see it from this distance it wasn’t likely to be small. It was like someone had taken a warm stick of butter and cut it in half lengthwise. John just stared for a long time before turning to Zhao Gang, who had put away his sword and was waiting patiently.

For some reason, out of all the questions he wanted to ask, such as ‘how the actual fuck?’ and ‘can you show me how to do that?’ the one that came out was less impressive. “That easy?” asked John. Zhao Gang laughed.

“Yes, John. That easy, though I studied for a very long time before I could apply even a tiny fraction of that power.” Zhao Gang’s face said he was amused but his tone was serious.

“You keep saying things like ‘a very long time’. How long is that, exactly?” asked John.

“It is tough to say,” said Zhao Gang. “Your world has a strict year, but every world is different. Some have years that last decades. Others last mere months. Some don’t have predictable cycles. Others don’t have day-night cycles at all. The closest answer I can give you is ‘hundreds of thousands of years’.” They stood and stared at the mountain for a very long time after that, only the sound of the wind and the strange trees between them.

“How long were you on Earth before the Calgary Disaster?” asked John.

“About three, four thousand years. I spent all of that time cultivating in private, so I’m not entirely sure.” John had grown numb to the outrageous by this point, simply nodding and playing along. Finally, he asked the question that had been bugging him.

“What’s happened to our students? Why did they all start falling into comas?” asked John.

“It wasn’t a coma,” said Zhao Gang. “We could wake them if it was truly necessary. They were simply very tired. The reason is complex, but I will try to explain it to you if you want to know.”

“I want to know,” said John immediately.

“Very well. Every cultivator has different affinities. Some have an affinity for water or fire. These affinities make controlling the forces associated with those affinities easier.” Zhao Gang paused to make sure John was following along before he continued. “In very rare cases, a potential cultivator may be born with extreme affinities, affinities so pure and so great that the heavens themselves recognize their birth. These are called ‘innate constitutions’. Those who possess them all have the potential to become incredibly powerful cultivators. An innate constitution is no guarantee, of course. Think of a ladder. Everyone has to climb the ladder from the bottom, correct? Except that isn’t quite true. Those who are exceptionally talented or with high potential may start a few rungs up. Well, those with innate constitutions start fifteen or twenty rungs up.”

Zhao Gang paused and John nodded. “So you’re doing, what, remolding their bodies to give them these ‘innate constitutions’?”

“Essentially,” said Zhao Gang. “The constitutions they are forging are ones associated with beast bloodlines. Rather than applying directly to a specific element, these constitutions manifest the talents of the beast their constitution is aligned with. One of the most common constitutions of this type is the ‘Sunfire Eagle’. It aligns the bearer strongly with fire, allowing them to summon it at will, as well as with the wind, an otherwise rare affinity. These, to be specific, are the types of constitutions they are forging.”

John nodded. “How?” he asked.

“That is a bit of a secret,” said Zhao Gang bluntly. “To my knowledge, it has never been done before. These children, they will have a great advantage as cultivators. A very great advantage.”

Silence descended again as John stared at the mountain. Finally, he asked “Couldn’t you just shut down the ritual or whatever? Turn it off and leave things the way they are?”

“I could,” said Zhao Gang. “Let me tell you what would happen if I did that. First, the excess energy stored in the formation would be released. It wouldn’t be violent, not like my breakthrough. It would just drift away. In fifty years the density of natural energy would be twice what it was when I first arrived on Earth. Of course, everything absorbs natural energy. Things would begin to change, slowly at first, then faster. Animals that were once docile would begin to behave erratically. Predators would likely start actively hunting humans. Not just in their natural habitats, either. Once they start absorbing significant amounts of natural energy beasts become smarter quite quickly. Your world is not prepared for that. I don’t know what the result of that would be, but that would be the least of your world’s problems.”

“The rapid spike in natural energy would draw attention. Cultivators would come to investigate. They would take one look at your world and realize, as I did, that what Earth has achieved is beyond anything anyone could have imagined. Your science explains so much about the fundamental aspects of creation, the world without natural energy - a world that is almost impossible to study anywhere else. Cultivators spend much of their lives trying to learn what you teach your children in high school. The cultivator who got a hold of that knowledge wouldn’t just want it for himself. No, they would want to make sure no one else could have it. Your world would be bathed in blood, either from a single ruthless cultivator who decided to wipe you out to avoid others gaining the knowledge they did, or, more likely when sects started converging on the world to strip it bare. Either way, the people of Earth would end up dead or enslaved to the last man, woman, and child. The only weapons you have that can truly threaten a powerful cultivator are the nuclear ones. If they sent an immortal even those would be useless. They’ll just build themselves a new body as I did.”

Zhao Gang paused to let that sink in before continuing, his tone grim. “But I doubt a single missile would ever be fired. It’s more likely that a sect would put together a raid and simply wipe out anyone who had the slightest chance of resisting. It would be over in an hour, every leader of any note dead, every missile disabled or destroyed. They may even kill the families of leaders to avoid the possibility that their children would seek revenge. It’s not uncommon.”

Zhao Gang took a deep breath, letting the grim spectacle his words conjured up fade. “I’m going to help Earth avoid that fate. I’ve already set up formations to make a casual inspection of the planet impossible. Cultivators can’t come to Earth at the moment without my permission. But I can’t spend the rest of eternity babysitting your planet. The solution is for Earth to have a sect of its own. It starts with those children. We’re going to teach them as much as we possibly can. They’ll be the ones responsible for protecting Earth in the future, them and those they teach. I’ll guide them, give them advice, make sure they’re prepared. The best I can do is make it possible for Earth to take care of itself.”