From here on out is the end of my back log of chapters

This is where the releases will start to get more sporadic in nature

Writing these "long" chapters takes quite a bit of time for me (my average chapter length when I was starting out was ~1000 words per chapter)

Again. Thank you for reading

Enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 5: Being sent out

I wake from my dream and slowly open my eyes.

I take a deep breath and sit up. What a tough day yesterday was, I wish it wasn’t as fast paced around here.

I flex my legs on the bed. Ugh, so stiff. I guess not using your legs for a while will do this.

I take another deep breath and swing my legs out to the left, and step onto the ground. Using my arms I make my way over to the window.

The sun was just rising, but the sky was already blue.

I open the window and breathe in some fresh air. I hope today will be less information heavy than yesterday.

I slowly stumble my way back to the bed and lay down.

I start cultivating after clearing my mind.

A very small amount of the power of heaven and earth enters my body. I circulate both at the same time. The veins have strengthened to the point that I am confident of being able to step into the first realm.

I frown slightly. There is absolutely no challenge in getting to the first realm. The hard part is being able to hide that I am in the first realm. My mother is probably at a high realm, I have a suspicion that Claire knows about this stuff, but I’m not too sure.

Anyways, I have to get to the first realm now, or I may not have the chance before I leave the hospital.

I take a couple deep breaths to calm myself completely. An amount of the power of heaven and earth that is larger than normal starts to circulate around my body. In order to get to the first realm I need to absorb these into the void type area near my heart.

At the first realm, a person will start to collect the power of heaven and earth within oneself. It is collected in a void type area near the heart. The void type area is in this spot because it is one of the two areas where the heaven veins and the earth veins overlap. The two veins never touch each other but are both connected to this void space.

The power of heaven and earth will get absorbed by the void space and provide power to the body.

I move the larger than normal amounts of the power of heaven and earth to the void space. Without any issues at all.

My body numbs momentarily as power flows throughout my body.

I have reached the first realm.

Using this world’s numbers, at the first realm a person will have an average strike force of 200 pounds. At the C rank that is. For the B rank it is 250 and at the A rank it is 300. Stepping into C ranked second realm will grant a person with a strike force of 400 pounds.

I quickly get used to the power by circulating the power of heaven and earth within their respective veins. After ten minutes of circulating the power of heaven and earth I almost have complete control of it.

The door to my room quickly slides open. The nurse runs in excitedly, “Ryu! It is time for your first morning walk!”

I sigh in my head. It seems like nothing will go as planned recently. This world is way too damn chaotic! Whatever. If the world doesn’t want me to be able to hide the fact that I made it to the first realm then so be it! I look towards the nurse, “That sounds like a great thing. I don’t know why I wasn’t informed of this before it actually happened… but I will gladly go outside.”

The nurse smiles, “That’s wonderful that you agreed to it!” She claps her hands together and gives an even wider smile, “Are you able to walk on your own or shall I get a wheelchair to push you around?”

I swing my legs out from the bed and place them on the ground, “I should be able to walk fine on my own thank you.” I stand up while slowly putting more and more weight onto my legs to make sure they are stable. Success! I am able to stand up normally! I almost fall to my hands and knees realizing that I am cheering over an accomplishment that even a young child cares nothing for.

Seeing the depressed look on my face, the nurse tilts her head in confusion, “Mr. Ryu, what is bothering you?”

I raise my hands and shake them in denial, “No it’s nothing. I was wondering where we were going to walk to though.”

The nurse grabs onto my left arm, “No need to worry about that. Regrettably however, the hospital’s rules are set, and the first walk cannot be longer than ten minutes.”

I sigh in relief, “Okay, that’s okay that the walk is only that short.”

The nurse leads me out of the hospital room towards the elevator at the end of the hallway. She looks at me while we wait for the elevator to arrive on this floor, “This is your first time out of the hospital room since after the surgery.”

I furrow my brow. I remember being told that I was out of it for two months. Which means that there had to have been at the very least one month where I never left the hospital room in Verandus…

The nurse moves her face directly in front of mine, “The elevator is here.”

“Ah!” I involuntarily let out a scream.

The nurse giggles as she pulls me into the elevator. I don’t resist her pull because if I did it would be like her trying to move a post. The elevator slowly descends to the ground floor.

The nurse and I walk out of the elevator onto the ground floor and make our way to the hospital’s courtyard in the rear of the building. The grass was green and there were a few willow trees scattered throughout the courtyard.

The sky was a deep blue color with a few light clouds throughout the sky. There was a warm wind that made it feel like summer was near.

Wait. Summer? Am I out of regular school just like that? For some reason I just can’t accept the fact that so many things that I thought would be useful information from this body would be so useless.

I sigh while being led around by the nurse. She didn’t seem to notice my sigh.

A large gust of wind suddenly blows, and the nurse almost falls over.

However, I know for a fact that that was not a gust of wind, but in fact a person moving extremely fast. I saw a blurry figure for less than a hundredth of a second. There was a small folded piece of paper in my hand.

The nurse worriedly checks on me, “Are you okay Mr. Ryu?”

I shake my head, “I’d like to go back to my room if possible.”

The nurse nods, “Certainly. You may rava-”

I cut her off, “I would also like to be left alone if possible.”

She turns to me with a sad expression and I turn away. The nurse sighs, “That can be done. I will leave you to get to your room yourself as I have to report to another patient immediately.”

Why take me for a walk if you leave as soon as I make you upset? Is this how a normal nurse treats her patients? I hope not.

Oh well. I slowly walk back to my room, wondering what is said in the piece of paper currently in my hand. I have a feeling I should be in my room when I read it though.

I rub my face with my hands as I get on the elevator. I really hope this isn’t anything serious, I know this is a different world, but even when I was travelling the continents alone it wasn’t this chaotic! My largest worry then was what would I want to eat that night, veggies or meat?

I sigh as I enter my room. The curtain was drawn at my window, stopping the light from going into my room. I shut the door behind me and sit down on the edge of my bed. I open the folded piece of paper:

‘Unlock your window please,

Love, Your mother’

I rip up the piece of paper and throw it in the trash can beside my bed. I will not let her in here. She and chaos seem to be pretty good friends.

I hear tapping from the window. I put my hands over my ears and lay down. After a while I take my hands off my ears and the tapping had stopped.

I give up on hiding the power of heaven and earth that I have absorbed and get ready to start absorbing the power of heaven and earth again so I can get to the second realm as fast as possible so that I can start practicing my method.

I empty my mind and begin to sense the power of heaven and earth. The power of heaven and earth in this world is so much thicker than in the previous world. This is cheating!

Whatever. I sense the power of heaven and earth within myself. C ranked first realm. Yep, everything seems normal for now.

I slowly absorb more of the power of heaven and earth. My veins slowly strengthen as I absorb more and more.

I stop absorbing the power of heaven and earth and feel for the strength of my veins. Above average strength, average endurance. I wonder how long it will take to get to the second realm.

I sigh as I open my eyes. After opening my eyes I look around my room. In a chair on the other side of my room are some angry looking women. My mother and Claire to be exact. They are both glaring at me with the intent to kill me using their eyes.

Claire’s tone is filled with disgust, “Look. It finally opened its eyes.”

My mother frowns, “The monster is listening you know.”

The room goes silent as the two stare at me.

I cough to break the silence, “So. Um, why are you two here?”

Claire frowns, “We were here to ask a few questions about various things.”

I nod slowly, “Then ask awa-“

My mother cuts me off with an angry tone, “But the monster was practicing a weird method and has already reached the first realm while in the hospital!”

I scratch my head with an embarrassed look, “Well, you know. I was just using a basic technique that any person could practice.”

Claire moves closer to me, “Oh yeah, any person?”

I nod quickly, “Yeah, any person could do what I was just doing.” I start to panic slightly.

My mother walks to the edge of my bed, “So you say that normal people can absorb the power of heaven and earth simultaneously?”

If I was standing up, I would have fallen over, “What!?”

Claire shakes her head, “You seem to not know this, but no matter what realm someone is, they can sense both the power of heaven and earth, they just can’t absorb both.”

I start shaking slightly, “Well… um… So Claire, I didn’t know that you had a link to the other world. If you had a link why did you freak out like the old Claire?”

She blushes slightly, “Well, I wasn’t aware that you weren’t the original Ryu, so I was not able to tell you about my link and therefore had to act like the old Claire.”

I nod, “That makes sense.”

My mother hits Claire on the head, “Don’t lose focus you idiot!”

Claire grabs her head like a child and pouts. I look towards my mother, “Mother, what questions did you come here to ask me? Is it school? How about where I’m going to be living? What realm you’re in? What realm I got to in my previous life? So many questions so little time.” I quickly stand up and begin to push them out of the room.

My mother resists and it feels like trying to push a cement pillar. She looks at me, “I don’t like that you are hiding this. However, every man has a secret or two.” She winks at me, “I just wanted to let you know that we are going to Verandus by car in one week. Say your goodbyes to the staff here. You will be going to the general martial arts class as a first year. Also, the school you are going to is Verandus beginner academy.”

I sigh in relief. I’m so glad I was able to convince her to drop it that quickly. This situation is worse than I thought however. I was unaware that people can sense both even though they can only absorb one or the other. My wonderful wife, why did you not tell me this? Because of my Pride? Because you were hiding things?

My mother pats my head, “Don’t worry about going to a beginner academy if you were strong in your previous life. The schools of this world are different than that of the other world. Instead of based on talent, the schools are separated by level. The beginner school will have students as high as the fourth realm then you will go to the intermediate school.”

I smile, “That actually seems better than what the system was before.”

My mother walks on her own towards the door with Claire in tow, “I will come in a week to pick you up for your new school. You shouldn’t need anything.”

I walk back to my bed to sit down. My heart rate through the roof. “Have a safe trip to wherever you go.”

She turns around as she exits the room, “Oh, congratulations on making it to the first realm. I look forward to your success in the future.”

My mother leaves while dragging Claire and closes the door. Silence returns to my room.

I sigh and lay down onto my bed. How did they even get in here without me noticing them?

Whatever. At least I get a week to relax from the craziness that is my family… and Claire.

Claire never ended up saying a lot this visit. I kind of pushed them out as soon as they started to ask me questions regarding my practice methods.

Oh well, I feel like a nap now.