After a long, long talk Jack’s mother finally calmed down. But not without forcing him to promise to never come back that late again. He had to agree or she would probably make him stop training altogether.

The next day he stayed at home after he returned from school. From what he had learned yesterday the gym was closed today, so he couldn’t go there to train. Not that he wanted either way, his body felt as if every muscle in it had been ripped apart. Every time he moved it hurt.

His mother and father were both working. Bored Jack sat inside his room. He had no idea what he could do. He had already read all books inside his room. Reading them again was useless. The only thing that came to his mind was playing around with Magic, but that became boring quickly, too.

In the end he decided to go once more back to his studies about this world. Or like most people would call it, he went down into the living room and watched news on TV. Jack had done this a lot of times in the past years to learn more about the world he lived now. He still remembered how he had nearly died of laughing after he noticed that they somehow had managed to abolish the aristocracy in most countries. Nobles, that useless plague from his old life were almost extinct here.

For Jack this world was a true miracle. Its people were completely different from those of his old life, the technology they had created made work ridiculous easy and, most of all, it was safe. Sure, there were some areas where wars were waged, but all in all there wasn’t much danger. Back in his old life you could never be sure if you would survive the next day as a single crazy cultivator was enough to destroy an entire city.

So far Jack hadn’t seen much of this world. In fact except for a few trips in elementary school he had almost never left his hometown. The only exception was one time when his parents had taken him along on a vacation to Japan. It was an interesting place as the appearance of the people there reminded him a lot of those in his old life. Moreover their language resembled the one he had used, though it was quite distant. Maybe another remnant of the time as there was still cultivators around.

Both the cultivation stories as well as the similarities in culture pointed him towards Asia. Maybe that place had some old ruins back from when this world had still been connected to the outside. That would be worth a trip. Jack grinned. Graverobb- *Ahem* Archaeology was one of his favourite hobbies in his past life. So why not continue it here? Maybe he could even find out more about the Sphere itself. He refused to belief that such an amazing thing simply appeared out of nowhere.

After a while Jack got bored again and turned off the TV looked around for something to do. The house his family lived in was quite small and there wasn’t much to do. He could try to read his parents books, but those were mostly his mother’s romantic fictions. Not really what he considered as worthy to spend his time with. But the thought of his mother and her hobbies gave him another idea. Quickly he put on his shoes before he walked out of the house.

The house of Jack’s family was placed in the outskirts of the city. He just had to cross the road and he had reached the forest. However compared to the forest of his old life this one was quite tame. No monsters, no plants that hunted for human flesh, not even dangerous animals lived inside of it. Instead the forest was brightly lit by daylight and the calm song of birds could be heard.

Quickly Jack left the treaded parts and walked deeper into the forest. A few minutes later he had found what he had searched for.

‘Ah, starlight moos’ Jack sat next to the small plant. It was just a patch of normal moos with slightly star formed petals. Carefully Jack began to dig the Earth around it. Normally this plant could only be harvested under the light of stars, else they would lose their potent medical effects, but without Qi those limitations were not as important. It didn’t take long and Jack had the fist sized patch of moos and earth in his hand.

‘Let’s see. If I exchange the Sun dew grass with the Starlight moos it would make for a good basis for the body tempering fluid. But stars huh~’

Instinctively Jack raised his view to the sky. Up there, hidden by the bright daylight, countless stars were burning in their cold fire. He still couldn’t get used to it. The worlds he had visited in the past had one or two stars normally, not entire galaxies of it. While Earth itself was only a tiny planet compared to the giants he had seen before, the world around it was far bigger than anything he had ever seen.

The next ingredient was a small Tranquil Flow flower, a simple looking white flower that Jack could easily identify because of the tear shaped petals it possessed. Jack found it near the small river that flew deep inside the forest. And after that came Fog sprout, Live Vine and a ten year old Silver Leaf flower.

One by one he gathered the ingredients for the body tempering fluid he planned to create. Finally after a few hours he had finally gathered all of them and returned to his home. He borrowed a few of the pots his mother wasn’t using and planted the ingredients in them before he placed them in his room. Without Qi all the ingredients would be normal, useless plants, so he had to give them some time in the Qi filled air to absorb it. Jack guessed it would take at least a few weeks to see the first results and then he could try his hand at alchemy again.

Now that he had gathered his ingredients he had again nothing to do. But before he could get too bored he heard the doorbell ringing. Curious Jack walked down to the front door and opened it.

To his surprise Sam stood outside. Today he wasn’t in training clothes, but instead in jeans and t-shirt.

“Hey, I heard from my grandfather that you have to stay at home. Mind if I come in?”

‘How the hell did the old man know about that?’ “Sure”

Jack opened the door further and let Sam inside. Maybe having house arrest wasn’t that bad after all.

With interest Sam looked around in the house. His view fell on the masses of flowers that crowded the place before the windows.

“Wow, there are a lot of flowers here”

“Yeah, my mother grows them. But you have to be careful near them. If you damage them your life will be turned into hell”

Sam laughed. Jack didn’t. While it might have been a bit exaggerated, his mother truly was quite protective of her flowers. If someone even dared to touch them – Jack shuddered. Sometimes his mother really scared him.

“Anyway”, he tried to turn the talk away from the flowers, “why don’t we go to my room?”

“Sure”

Sam stayed for a few hours, then he had to leave. Jack accompanied him down to the door, but then he suddenly frowned. There was a small cloud of Qi around Sam. That in itself wasn’t strange, it was just a small remnant of the Qi in Jack’s room that had been become attached to Sam’s skin. But there was something different about it.

Looking closer he could see that inside Sam’s skin small openings had started to appear, the most obvious signs for Spiritual Veins. They were still small, but were greedily sucking in the last wisps of Qi inside, causing them to grow a small bit.

But that was supposed to be impossible. Spiritual Veins did form during birth. Not years afterwards. In Jack’s case, it was a bit different because he had been born in a Qi-less environment and he was born a few hours beforehand, so his body was still flexible enough. But Sam should be completely without Spiritual Veins and that wasn’t something that a bit of Qi could change. Otherwise Jack’s parents would have formed theirs years ago.

“Is something wrong?”, Sam had noticed Jack’s frown and asked worriedly. “No, it’s nothing” Jack shook his head with a smile.

‘A genius in the martial arts and this strange formation of his Spiritual Veins. Sam gets more and more interesting. I better watch him closely. ’

Spheres, a gigantic universe, genius martial artists, strange spiritual veins and technology the likes he had never seen before. The longer he stayed in this world, the more mysterious it appeared to Jack. And that excited him a bit. Just what would the future hold for him?

With a slight smile on his lips he bid Sam farewell before he closed the door.