Dreams often mimic reality and seldom is reality more bizarre than your dreams. People who wake up in a bizarre reality often have trouble facing up that everything that happened was not a dream. This is exactly what happened to Wei as he woke up.

‘Damn it. I was hoping this was all a dream.’ , was Wei’s first thought as Old Tibs woke him at the break of dawn.

“Good morning. Let me fix you some breakfast and then you can go to the fort.” Old Tibs exclaimed when he saw Wei open his eyes.

All Wei could muster was an unenthusiastic OK before he covered himself with a quilt again. The nights were surprisingly cold in the desert much like they were on Earth but he found himself a quilt underneath the bed.

After another five minutes of thinking about his rotten luck he dragged himself from the cot and exited the tent.

His first instinct was to go wash his teeth but considering the circumstances he would be lucky if he could wash his face in the coming week.

Coming over towards the fire pit he looked at Old Tibs making some kind of an omelette in a pan.

“So all I have to do is enter the fortress and show your blade to the merchant and explain what is happening?”, he asked Old Tibs.

“Yes. That is it. I am sure young master Smith will have an idea how to handle it.”, Old Tibs replied.

“Where can I find him?”

“He will most probably be in the hotel bar room.” Old Tibs replied as he scooped up the omelette onto two plates.

“Why would he be in the bar room so early?” Wei asked, surprised.

“He is a cultivator so he needs less sleep than we normal folks do.”, said Old Tibs with pride and a glimpse of envy in his facial expression.

“A cultivator? What do you mean?”

“Young master Smith has been getting lessons since when he was young from the Captain of the guards Morgan. He should be getting close to the breakthrough to the second stage in both body tempering and energy gathering. At least that is what I heard.” Old Tibs exclaimed.

Wei frowned before he asked Jinx.

‘What is this cultivator thing Old Tibs is talking about? Is it the same as in those novels I read on Earth? How is that possible?’

‘Cultivators are people who can use Qi internally to temper their bodies or condense Qi in their dantian as they call it and use it externally. There are also magicians that use mana which is essentially Qi; they just gave it a different name. They call it mana for some reason and they store it in their heads.

The novels that you read on Earth are mostly somewhat true since you humans have a weird ability that echoes dreams amongst each other no matter the distance. So when people wake up they might think they got a great idea for a novel that was actually someone else's dream that got implanted in them. So what they remember they write and so you got different versions of the same thing.

Any other questions?’

‘Yes, a lot of them actually. Are there cultivators and magicians on Earth?’ Wei asked.

‘There might have been possible in the past but right now the Earth is in the part of the Universe that is too stable for cultivation as the energy needed has already accumulated into its stable forms.’ Jinx replied.

‘What do you mean by stable forms?’

‘You call it matter and antimatter but basically they are strings with different properties that either reject or attract each other. Those strings accumulated and exploded when your part of the Universe was formed countless times until the regions there became full of predominantly matter or antimatter. Since if matter meets antimatter they nullify each other and release a ton of energy the intersections are usually also devoid of life. But there are regions where the ratio of antimatter and matter reach stable instability. There is enough antimatter to disrupt matter but not enough to cause a chain reaction. Those regions are usually where you can find plenty of cultivators and magicians.’ Jinx explained.

‘So what is Qi or mana actually?’ Wei asked.

‘As I already explained, it is made up of strings that haven’t formed either matter or antimatter.’ Jinx replied, obviously annoyed.

‘Can I use Qi or mana?’

‘You can use both if you learn how to find, feel and gather it inside yourself. Well, at least you should be able to.’ Jinx replied.

‘That’s great. What about magicians? Do they really use elements? Like fire, water, earth, metal, wood, light… ?’ Wei asked.

‘Yes and no. It depends on their techniques and which strings that attract those elements are present when they start. There are innate and acquired affinities possible. There is no wood affinity though per se. Wood affinity in novels is actually a combination of time and energy manipulation in synergy with a catalyst which is usually a seed of a plant based living organism.’ Jinx replied.

‘Arrgh. I should focus on the present. There is no point of knowing and worrying about this now when I don’t even know how I will survive the next day.’

Wei exclaimed in his mind as he accepted the plate offered by the unusually quiet Old Tibs.

“Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do. I can’t help but worry about Bakrash.” Old Tibs sighed before sitting down and picking up his plate to eat.

The food was not really tasty but it filled Wei’s stomach which was growling in frustration.

“What can you tell me about the men that are with Dolan Smith?” Wei asked.

“There are seven of them. All cultivators. Their leader is a tall blonde fellow with a red cape. He is the captain of Smith house’s guard Morgan. Hmmm. They usually stick around the young master. There is Layla with a bow. Jake who uses two short swords which are crossed on his back and Dylan who uses a spear. The others I don’t know, since they kept to themselves.” Old Tibs explained.

“How much is the entry into the fort?” Wei asked.

“It should be 5 copper coins. But the guard might ask for more.” Old Tibs explained.

Wei took out 3 coin purses from his pocket and spilled the contents on the ground. He could see some silver and some orange coins.

“Well, I think this should be enough. What’s the exchange rate between copper coins and silver ones?”, he asked Old Tibs.

“One silver for 100 copper coins. One gold for 100 silver coins.” Old Tibs explained looking down at the coins.

As Wei looked down he could see a yellow coin between two copper coins.

“So this is a gold coin?” Wei asked.

“Yes.”

“Any other currency?” asked Wei.

“Cultivators use some kind of crystals as currency but I don’t know much about that.” Old Tibs explained.

Wei packed some copper coins in a coin purse and stuffed everything else into another one. He asked for a string from Old Tibs who found a narrow leather one in his baggage.

Wei tied the fuller purse string on the coin purse and hung it across his neck as a necklace.

“Smart.” Old Tibs commented. “But stuff some grass in between the coins so they don’t jingle.”

Wei thought about it and figured he was right so he did as told.

Old Tibs soon came out of the tent carrying a jacket and the dagger he mentioned.

“Put this jacket on and hide the money inside your sleeve underneath your armpit or the bulge will give you away.” Old Tibs suggested.

The worn down jacket was smelling of leather and was a size too large for Wei but he still wore it so he would look more like a native.

“Thank you. I should go now.” Wei said as he nodded at Tibs.

“Good luck. I will be waiting here.” Old Tibs said as he watched Wei walking towards the entrance of the fortress.