After the purge, the school kept going for another day or two on inertia. People don’t know how to brake sharply, especially not when they’ve been given a new toy and frightened at the same time. But then, inevitably, everything slipped back into its usual rhythm.

  The topic of Space Madness quickly began to fade and, by the end of the week, had been downgraded to the level of ordinary conspiracy theories, drowned out by guides and life hacks on using spatial pockets. And, of course, by discussions of essence prices and specution: the lucky ones who had received an ampoule from the Order often hurried to sell it for a good price before the hype passed.

  The Order and their rough arrest operations ceased to be the main talking point. They did their job swiftly, then vanished from sight like maintenance staff after finishing repairs. Some were still whispering that someone, or mad something, was still sitting in cages down in the basements... but even those whispers cked the feverish panic that keeps crowds on edge. Panic needs fuel. Without new events, it burns out, leaving behind exhaustion and a collective desire to pretend nothing ever happened.

  But Space started seeping into the little things. Not through heroic monologues or political theories, but into everyday life.

  The first time I noticed it was in the corridor on my way to the hall. Two cadets were walking ahead of me; one of them kept twitching his hand in the air like an epileptic until he finally pulled a sword out of thin air. He grabbed it by the bde, which, unsurprisingly, ended with a sshed palm.

  “Practise with something small and harmless first, like an empty essence ampoule,” I advised.

  “Oh, you an expert now?” he snapped, clutching his wounded hand. I simply shrugged.

  In the range, it looked even more ridiculous. Two cadets, clearly friends, were training with their personal discs, actual combat models. One had brought his in a case, the other stored his in a pocket. Though to be fair, he kept them in a case inside the pocket too. Didn’t stop him trying to show off. Still, it took him three tries to actually get the case with the discs out of the pocket.

  In a strange way, the world was searching for bance. As it should be, the cadets adapted quickly.

  Only a couple of days after I’d watched those failures, I saw, in that same range, a girl pull a water bottle from the air without even thinking. She took a sip and returned it to her pocket space before resuming her training.

  I’d got used to hiding the fact I had a pocket, so I never stored everyday items in there. Maybe it was time I changed that approach. Water, a few bars, that could be useful.

  But that was just a passing thought. At st, I could calmly focus on my discs without feeling a hatred-filled gaze aimed at my back. Mendoza said only two demons from the local organisation had evaded capture.

  I suspected they were far too busy trying to stay alive to be plotting anything specifically against me. Besides, my time at Yellow Pine was drawing to a close.

  The discs had become my main focus. I’d stopped fearing the slicing sensation between my fingers, but I was still missing shots far too often. Not disastrously, but just enough to be annoying. Sometimes the disc would fly slightly too high, sometimes it veered off to the left, and sometimes it embedded itself in the target at such an odd angle it seemed to have changed its mind mid-flight. Eriksen had been right: discs were temperamental projectiles, existing on the edge between physics and esoterics.

  When I truly dedicated the majority of my time to the tilting trick, things became simpler. Not much easier, just simpler. The mistakes became predictable, which meant they could be fixed. Within two days, I reached a state where seven out of ten throws consistently nded in the central rings of the holographic target, two more in the outer rings, and only one would go completely off.

  My energy expenditure decreased as well. That was probably because, despite focusing on angling, I was trying to use the channel map from the Double Cycle. I suspect there are better techniques suited for straight throws, and I even considered buying one tailored for that.

  Ah, me and my pns…

  Right now, that definitely wasn’t what I needed.

  Now I was spending less energy in a few hours than I used to burn in thirty minutes of chaotic experimenting. That was because the channels in my arms were beginning to stabilise and clear, and the so-called ‘ditch’ was starting to close up.

  I wasn’t just throwing discs. Between disc-throwing sessions, I went back to my basic techniques: Airy Chain Punch, Hook, Heaven Fist. I was quite literally redoing the routine of opening and aligning channels, because it was the only way to clean up the mess in my subtle body. Though, this time, things were moving faster. The flows that I’d once had to force through were now finding the old, familiar routes on their own.

  I wasn’t giving the Double Cycle much attention, but I hadn’t forgotten about it either, and in the grand scheme, it paid off. I realised it wasn’t so much a throwing technique as it was a technique for sustaining the continuous circution of Bde Qi.

  My early attempts were pathetic. The disc either spun out of control or started curving so wildly I had to step back to avoid ending up in my own danger zone. Twice I stopped simply because I felt the channels in my fingers begin to burn.

  Why the fingers?

  Somewhere, the logic of proper disc usage was slipping past me. I was missing the switch that transferred control from my hands to my head.

  The core idea was that my hands remained free so I could work with projections, while my mind controlled the discs like drones.

  So far, I couldn’t manage it.

  I had solved the issue of maintaining circution, but for now, I could only control them with my hands.

  I’d become so focused on technique and personal growth that I’d cut myself off from everyone and everything. Not that I had many friends here. Zhang was the closest one who came to holding that title, and one evening, she barged into my room without warning.

  In her hand was a pstic bottle bearing the bel of a popur fizzy drink.

  “May I?” she asked, already stepping inside.

  Her gait was uneven. I’d forgotten people could still move like that.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “Never better!” she decred, spinning around and spreading her arms.

  The bottle flew to the floor, and I managed to catch Zhang just before she followed it.

  Her pupils were dited, almost entirely covering the irises.

  “What’s in that bottle?” I asked.

  “Oh…” She gave my cheek a couple of light sps. “Not the bottle. This is just me. It’s…” She fished a small tin from her pocket, the kind that usually holds sweets. She tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge, so she applied more force…

  Round green pills scattered across the room.

  “Oops…” she said unsteadily.

  I sighed and gnced at the central node of the protective system, which had been quietly observing all of this.

  “You haven’t forgotten about that, have you?” I hinted, pointing to the sphere.

  “Oh… are you worried the big scary Mendoza’s going to scold me?”

  She walked over to the tripod holding the sphere and dropped to her knees, bringing her face right up to it.

  “Hello!” she waved.

  “That’s enough!” I grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her back into the chair before she could do something foolish.

  “What happened?!” I barked. “Short and straight to the point!”

  “She told me she avenged Soro.”

  She, had to mean Mendoza. And given recent events, that had to be true.

  Mendoza and I had never spoken about Soro.

  “That's good news, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “It’s great news, but…” she paused and clenched her teeth. “I wasn’t even there. I didn’t do anything. The revenge happened. Without me.”

  Her fingers tightened until her knuckles turned white.

  “I know it sounds stupid. Selfish. Like I wanted blood…”

  “I did want blood!” She ughed, but the sound was hollow. “I keep thinking, if I’d been stronger…

  “You wouldn’t all treat me like I’m invisible.”

  I listened, and suddenly found myself caught by a strange feeling. Déjà vu, from this life.

  Nur. Broken Nur. Zo, Albert-Zo, not Nur-Zo. Bao, Marlon, and Denis — each broken in their own way.

  Cultivation clearly doesn’t heal. Even old Chen, a terrifying Fifth Stage, was just an old, broken man.

  I tried to recall someone happy. Truly happy, not just putting on a face. Kate, maybe. Even after her lost arm. Novak had worried about her back then, but she pulled through.

  Soro wasn’t an arm. Zhang couldn’t just grow her back.

  Adam and Lina had always seemed retively happy. They had some kind of inner bance, a quiet, harmonious complement to one another. But God forbid they ever lost each other.

  And Novak?

  Novak was harder to figure out. I couldn’t tell whether he was broken, or simply assembled differently. Whether he had long ago accepted his losses, or just learned to live above them, never touching what y underneath.

  Zhang had fallen silent. She leaned down and picked up one of the scattered pills, ready to toss it into her mouth.

  I caught her wrist.

  “Whatever that is, it’s not helping,” I said.

  “And what does help?” she asked. “I would love to have an easy life.”

  “Life kills anyway,” I said. “Not a single living soul has escaped death.”

  “What about the immortals? The Tenth Stage?” she asked.

  “You ever seen one?” I asked. “Besides… eternity? That’s probably the loneliest state there is.”

  “Then I’m immortal!” she decred. “Soro was my only friend. She was there for me when the news came about my parents…”

  Oh, fuck…

  I think I understood her right.

  “I’m an orphan too.”

  “And how…” she asked cautiously. “How do you cope?”

  “Fairly well,” I admitted honestly. “Made a few friends… already lost a few…

  “They didn’t die, they just returned to Earth.”

  Zhang snorted and rubbed her face with her hands, then offered her honest assessment: “Cultivation su-u-ucks!”

  “One hundred per cent!” I agreed.

  I made her some tea and sent her home.

  And after this, the local head of Order dares to say Bck Lotus can’t handle drug-reted issues? What about these pills?

  I collected them into the tin and handed it over to Patel. I also asked Mendoza to overlook the incident. She ughed and said there was no incident. The pills were a banned substance, sure, but not a dangerous one. Like beer for mortals. Non-addictive, and sometimes cultivators just need to blow off steam.

  A surprisingly liberal stance. But it wasn’t my pce to judge.

  I was a bit worried about Zhang. I genuinely felt sorry for her, but there wasn’t anything I could do to help. I couldn’t be a real friend to her. I couldn’t start a fling with her either, that would’ve been a complete arse move. Any day now, Novak was supposed to take me to Bck Lotus, and we’d stop seeing each other. Might never see each other again.

  Instead of thinking about Zhang, I threw myself into training: litres of marigold tea and a round-the-clock cyclone of discs.

  MaksymPachesiuk