Leo's mind wondered as he drifted in his dreams. Surrounded by stars, he came to a stop. Two objects began to float around him. The sun and the moon rotated around him. As the two began to spin faster and faster, everything turned white. In this white domain, Leo overheard a conversation.
~Don't tell him the truth. ~
~I won't, but please tend to leg wound~
The words drifted in and out, but soon everything went to darkness. Leo awoke in a large metal boxed room. There were no windows, and the main entrance was a massive metal door.
"Oh, look who is waking up," said a middle-aged male. The man had dark skin with a greyish-black beard and short hair. His eyes were sharp and had the look of a veteran soldier. His brown jumpsuit had holes but attempted stitching here and there.
Leo winced as he sat up. His exhausted body was battered up from the fights. He looked down at his leg to realize someone had dressed it. Leo looked up again at his cellmate.
"Your fancy robot voice told me how to bandage you up. My name is Joseph Brown Jr, but you can just call me Joe."
Leo nodded at him and thanked Sprite again silently. No matter what happens, Sprite has always been there for him.
"My name is Leonardo."
Leo spotted another man move in the corner of the cell. It was a canine beastman covered in black fur. The beastman stared back, and his top canine teeth could be seen over his bottom lip.
"Hmph, just a weakling," he said after sizing up the boy. The beastman stood up and walked over. "I am Unit 9345. I was a part of your capture party until the beastman 9110 started killing us off. I tried to escape, and my own brethren captured me and put me in here with you."
"He seems scary, but he is an honest man. I nicknamed him Fiver, for short. He doesn't seem to mind too much," said Joe smiling at the two of them.
The beastman looked at Joe and growled, but Joe just responded with an indifferent shrug.
Finally, Leo spoke up, "How do you speak our language, Fiver?"
Sitting back down, the Beastman responded, "Since arrival, we lower leveled beastmen were trained to learn the native human tongues." Leo wondered why to bother with learning it, but it did seem all the beastmen he met up till now could speak English like him.
Sprite interjected, "Sir, I'm glad to see you finally awake. You slept two whole days."
Sprite worried since Leo and Sprite used up most of their energy. This made Leo's recovery slow as Sprite nanites ran at the slowest rate possible due to low reserves.
"Sprite, do you know where we are?" asked Leo looking around the room again.
"Yes, Sir. We are currently located on the 3rd basement floor of a beastman's spaceship. They have converted it into their base."
"Can you find us a way out?"
"No, Sir. I have discussed this with Unit 9345 already, and he doesn't know either."
The beastman looked down, and Joe mentioned, "Well, Leonardo, with the three of us, I think we should be able to come up with some kind of plan."
"I met an old lady many years ago who called me Leo. So just call me by that."
At that moment, the short memory of an old lady in Virginia came to Leo. The lady had a small farm, and Leo stayed with her until beasts attacked one night. The mountain lions attacked, but Leo escaped with Sprite's help. After running away, the remaining beasts killed the lady, and Sprite warned him not to return. Leo frowned at the thought of not saving the lady.
Suddenly Sprite interjected, waking Leo out of the sad bit. "May I correct you, Joseph? You meant the four of us."
Joe chuckled and rephrased himself, "Yes, the four of us."
Once Joe quit laughing, everything became very quiet. Leo hadn't talked much to other people outside of Sprite and didn't know what to say next. Leo tried to say something, but nothing came to mind, so he closed his mouth.
Seeing the poor boy struggle, Joe said, "You don't have to push yourself too much, Leo," Joe paused for a second and thought of the boy's AI telling him the boy's story. "Sprite explained everything."
While Leo was recovering Sprite explained a bit who he was and how they were captured. The beast-man actually wondered how it functioned because even his race's technology had never had such an advanced AI. Sprite had to constantly produce a reverse signal to block the ships scans from discovering him or their conversations.
"Well, what about you guys then? What do you do, Joe?" Leo asked the two men.
"Well, I was trained by my late father. He was a trained soldier and marksman. He put me through hell, but I loved our flying lessons. Now, I'm just a survivor like yourself."
"Have you cultivated at all?" Leo felt no energy fluctuations from him.
"Until Sprite explained it to me, I didn't know cultivation manuals existed here."
"Oh, that makes sense. Sprite and I looked all over for techniques or guides into how to train using energy."
Fiver grunted and interjected. "Young human, you are a rare exception. You are the first human to be aware of energy before capture. No other human in this base can absorb or use it."
Joe heard 'other humans' in his statement and had to ask the beastman to confirm his suspicions. "Fiver, is there other humans here?"
"No, most of them have perished from imprisonment or labor."
The mood started to dip at this point, but Leo's curiosity about cultivation made him turn and glance at Fiver.
Changing the subject, Leo asked, "so, beastmen know about cultivation, right?"
"Yes, human. We train in the Beast Arts. This cultivation technique allows us to absorb large amounts of energy into our natural weapons. For example, we canine beasts use this energy in our claws. I'm currently at the late stage of tempering my body," responded the beastman proudly.
Fiver was only in the early stage when he arrived on earth, and in the past few years, he made it last stage. If lower beastmen were allowed to cultivate more, many more would be in the Qi Fighter realm.
"Wow, I learned from Sprite. He deciphered an old Egyptian art that was used many years ago. Using that as our base, I now can fight and absorb energy too."
Fiver looked at the boy and then Leo's wrist, where the embedded AI was located. The beastman wondered if this strange boy really defeated his comrades or was it Unit 9110 killing them.
"Alright, now that introductions are out of the way, we need to come up with a plan," said Joe.
"Joseph, my master needs at least a week to fully heal. Until then, I say our chances of escape are less than 10%." Joseph looked Leo up and down and agreed with that statement. The boy still needed to heal. "In the meantime, Joseph, you should learn how to absorb energy too from Unit 4345 or my master."
Since Joe agreed to put the escape off, Leo started to meditate and absorb energy.
From Sprite's base knowledge, he could t comprehend how all humans lost their dantian also known as the spirit root. Since Joe also doesn't have a dantian he would only be able to absorb energy into the body.
Learning the beastmen's way of embodying energy was more natural, so Joseph trained under Fiver. Joe learned the basics of breathing and pulling energy into the skin.
The boy asked Sprite if he should train with Fiver's technique, but Sprite told him it would be unwise. Leo's current foundation might crumble utilizing another's method. He pouted for a bit but understood and went back to meditating.
After three days, Leo's leg wound closed and was healing quickly. All of the other minor bruises and scrapes healed nicely. The three of them were awakened by a prisoner being locked up next to them. The mana fluctuations made Sprite react. "Warning, Sir, a peak level Aura Fighter is next door."
"Peak stage Aura fighter!" It wasn't Leo that was caught by surprise, but the beastman in the corner.
"Fiver, that's just the next realm up, right?" Leo asked.
Fiver surprised look finally disappeared, and he explained, "Most of the primary races on earth now have hundreds of thousands of Tempered Body warriors. Half of those make it to the next realm, Aura Fighter, but only a thousand or so make it to the Core Building Level."
"Is it really that hard?" the boy asked, with Joe wondering the same thing.
"Let alone the Core Building realm, just getting to Qi Fighter is difficult for most. Our beastman race excels at external arts, and only for us is the Tempered Body realm easy to navigate."
"I didn't know it was that hard," responded Leo.
The boy didn't understand is that most cultivators didn't have a personal AI to guide their every move and action. This allowed Leo to cultivate and absorb energy so efficiently that even geniuses of the four primary races could compete in this aspect.
"The warrior next door must be pretty close to breaking through since he is at the peak of Qi Fighter realm," Fiver stated.
Leo sat there thinking and wondering what it would be like to have that kind of strength.
Joe interrupted, "What if when we escape, we let that warrior out as a distraction?"
Fiver felt that wasn't very honorable, but he wasn't in a position to judge.
"That might increase our chance of survival. Good plan, Joseph," responded Sprite. Sprite may be intelligent but being clever was never his forte. That is why sometimes Leo surprised the AI with the weird ideas he would concoct.
Focusing back to the plan, Leo knew they needed to be smart, so he asked, "Joe and Fiver, what do we know about this place?"
"Sprite, tell him what we talked about last night while he was asleep."
"Sir, the beastman ship has 39 upper floors and 4 basement floors. The cells on this floor are meant for warrior detainment. There are no electronic components here as energy manipulation could fry it."
Fiver picked up from there, "Our doors are made of ancient metal and several measurements thick. It would take an Avatar Establishment realm warrior to break through. Even if we manage to get out, you would have to fight our way through three floors of beastmen."
"Sir, the ancient metal he refers to is the element metal called Iron."
"Well, let's focus on escaping the cell first. We will worry about the horde of beastmen next," said Joe. He knew the first hurdle would be getting out of this cell.
The three men and machine tossed ideas around until they all went to sleep. The following two days were spent throwing ideas around and meditating. Joe was on the brink of stepping into the first stage of Tempering body. Most beings naturally absorb energy into the skin. It only takes knowing it and training to take that first step. Leo, on the other hand, was healing up nicely. The benefit of cultivation wasn't constantly growing stronger or extending longevity but also healing. Combined with the nanites, Leo healed faster than even the new alien races on Earth. On day three, Leo finally had a crazy idea that just might work.