"From what I learnt so far, this world is established all over the Qi energy…" he muttered to himself, before recalling all the Qi techniques he learnt before.
When he was going abroad, following the advice of his therapists, he got the chance to learn lots of ancient Qi techniques, even mastered one to the fullest level.
"I shall try it then," this technique was aiming at stirring up his emotions, something he needed back then. It was a healing ability for any broken soul as the monks there taught him.
He slowly stood up, took the stance of training on this technique, while hoping it wouldn't stir his emotions for a single bit.
On Earth he always craved to have emotions like everyone else, but here he got his wish, and just missed the time when he felt so clear minded and at peace.
This technique had ten levels in it. Thomas stood on one leg, waved his arms around, moving them in the same pattern he used to do before on Earth.
He closed his eyes, kept regulating his breathing, and waited for him to feel the familiar serenity and peace like before.
"Ouch!" but unlike what he expected, he didn't feel peace at all, only a tsunami of painful emotions that suddenly got stirred up.
"Damn! It really stirred up my emotions!" he felt so painful that he fell to the ground and couldn't maintain his posture. When he stood up again, he started to notice something else.
"It didn't just stir up emotions, but it felt like I had zero perfection at all in this technique! Wait… Don't tell me it got resetted back to zero!"
Thomas' mind got no other explanation but this. "The first step in this technique was directed towards feeling Qi in the world. And with each step he climbed at it, he could feel Qi on Earth much clearer.
But when he used his technique, he felt nothing! And that was weird, especially when he was in a world that was filled with Qi, in a place that got such Qi condensation machines.
"I shall try the first level then," he readied himself for another painful experience, took a deep breath, then placed his palms opposite to each other at the level of his belly.
This technique worked by trying to sense Qi using one's palms, concentrating it inside one's belly, to open what monks said before as dantian.
The moment he did this stance, regulated his breathing, he started to feel something.
It wasn't like how he felt about Qi on Earth. There he felt like he was struggling to sense something far, far away, too thin to be felt purely and perfectly.
But now? He felt like needles were picking at his belly and palms of hands. He even started to feel weird warmth in his palms and in the space between them, as if he was holding a ball of fire or something.
"Ouch! This technique really is burdensome!" and like before, he also suffered from the intense emotions stirred up by his technique.
But he didn't notice it, this time he took much longer time in training. And if he was looking at himself when he trained, he'd get shocked to see his hands shine in a faint white light.
It wasn't that dense or pure, but it was there.
"Tsk! I should drop the idea of using this technique then," as he suffered from his ragging emotions for the second time, Thomas went outside the bedroom, sat on the table in front of his tree pot, while thinking about this dilemma.
This technique did stir up his emotions. And as he struggled in the first place to handle the flood of emotions he was normally feeling since coming here, it felt stupid to try and train on this technique.
"The best thing I learnt from Earth to cool down emotions is the chanting methods, best if I used a totem or something. But to use something like this, I need an energy stone first…"
He once saw an energy stone, one that came from a meteorite on Earth. Engraving certain words as enchantment on it worked like magic to soothe any stirred-up emotions.
He knew these enchantments and words, but he didn't know how to engrave them over a stone as he hadn't tried it before. Not to mention he got no such special stones here.
"Wait…" while he was thinking about this, his eyes landed over the tree pot of his, "I have the white pearls. Will they work as such special stones?"
He took one out and examined it closely. This time something new developed when he held it.
His hand holding the white pearl started to slowly shine in white light. He looked at his hand, and that small pearl-like stone he held, and couldn't help but feel something from it.
"It's not normal after all," he started to grow used to seeing such weird stuff since coming to this world. That battle he witnessed between superheroes helped in opening his eyes over the new world he was living in.
"I have to train in one of the calming techniques then…"
He took in a deep breath, returned to look at the white pearl he had in hand, before storing it away.
"Speaking about that battle…" as his thoughts drifted over the insane battle he witnessed before, he recalled something, "I totally forgot about it!"
He got a wallet and hid it under his belt before. And it seemed he got used to its presence on his skin, to forget about it till now.
He got it out and started to closely examine it.
He used to have wallets on Earth, but this one was the ugliest and biggest wallet he ever saw. Amidst his worries that dude would spot him, he hurriedly took the wallet and stored it away without closely inspecting it.
It was a big wallet made out of black and brown leather. It felt harsh, as if the texture of the leather was rough.
It was folded using a thin thread that looked as if it was made of rope like material. When he unfolded it, he found it at the size of two of his opened hands or slightly bigger.
"It has many things as expected," as he started to see what was inside, he found different things there.
The first thing he found was a group of cards. They felt like they were made out of plastic, but he doubted it. According to the level of technology here, it was impossible for plastic to be present.
"It's like some sort of leather… Getting processed to make these cards…" he placed a group of cards with different colours on the table. There were blue, silver, black, and red cards there. He picked one and looked at its front and back.
At the front there was nothing, but at the back he found a weird torch drawing, purple in colour, releasing a wave of energy that surrounded it.
"It's a symbol of something… An organisation perhaps? Or is it a cult?" he didn't know what this symbol represented in this world. And when he examined other cards, he found the same drawing on the back of each, without anything else.
"Empty cards, with different colours, and a torch drawing on their backs… Are they the torch cult or what?" he took it as a joke, laughing on what he thought, before turning his attention towards the wallet again.
There he found paper with lots of drawings on their surface. He counted one hundred papers, seventy of them had white drawings with few golden and silver colours there, and the other thirty got green drawings with blue and golden as well.
"Dems… And Niks…" he read the words written on each stack of papers, while muttering in realisation, "so I got seventy Dems and thirty Niks… Whatever these even mean…"
He didn't get the value of these papers, and yet he felt relieved. "At least I'm not broke anymore!"
He placed the two different stacks of currencies next to the cards. And then he turned to the wallet again.
This time he found an envelope there. It was long enough to be placed in this wallet, with a red stamp, the kind that got used in the Middle Ages back on Earth.
"It's made of red wax…" he touched it and felt the nature of the material used to stamp this envelope. The stamp was already broken, and so he couldn't get what shape it'd make if it was intact.
"A letter?" he found a folded paper inside, one that was filled with lots of words. It was yellow in colour, with its edges getting eaten up, telling him how old this paper was.
"And a note… Interesting," he placed the yellow paper carefully on the table, while getting the small white note out and read its content first.
Unlike what he expected, he found this small note that wasn't bigger than half of his hand filled with weird symbols.
"Ouch!" and just as he looked at it, not knowing a head or tail about what was written there, he got a severe headache, one that forced his hand to tremble and lose grip of the note.
"It's the same…" the headache came fast and vanished faster. But as he grabbed the note again, he found out he could read its content.
This time he was sure he couldn't read the content at first. And thanks to the mysterious headache, he got knowledge about the language used, enough to read them perfectly fine.
Just as he was puzzled with this weird phenomenon, the content of this note attracted his attention.
[One of the ancient relics was found. We tried, but it proved worthless. We buried the relic at a site marked below before boarding the train and continued looking for the traitor. The manual of the relic will be sent to the base, so you can try to decipher its weird and alien symbols]
Thomas read the words over and over again, but he didn't get much from it.
At the back of this note, he found a roughly drawn map, looking as if it was drawn in a hurry or something. But he found a name there, Retto town, the same name of the town he was currently at.
The location wasn't just drawn, but also instructions were written there in small handwriting.
"It's at the north of Retto town, three hours marching on foot," he read the words written there and then returned to study the map without getting much of it.
"So… They found some sort of a relic… I suppose it's some sort of old tech or a weapon of some sort…" As he knew the mindset of superheroes in this world, he could guess a thing or two about what relics meant.
Superheroes here wouldn't get attracted to anything that wouldn't benefit them in power, not serving their endless hunt for strength. And that meant no matter what this relic was, it could prove useful to him.
"They said it was useless… Does that mean it's broken or something? And what's with this manual thing? I believe there is nothing I can't read in this world!"
As he experienced his weird ability twice already, he got confidence in reading the content of the yellow paper, the one that the owners of this wallet failed to read.
But when he held that yellow paper and started reading its content, his entire body couldn't help but faintly tremble.
"It's… English!" he couldn't even control himself, stood slowly up without even realising this, while his eyes got attached to the yellow paper like it was magnetised or something.
The yellow and old-looking paper in his hand, the one described as a manual of that relic by the two superheroes, was written in proper English words.
Pushed by endless curiosity and weird happiness to find something from Earth, he started to read the content of this paper.
The paper spoke about some sort of new invention done by the one who wrote it. The one who wrote this paper called it Test Item 005. And by that name alone, Thomas could tell a lot about this dude.
"He must have been a scientist or something…" Thomas muttered while reading through the paper. The words there talked about this item, and how it was supposed to help the person who wrote this paper to solve his biggest problem.
But as Thomas kept reading, he knew that this item was actually a failed test subject. It produced some sort of an item that could grant anyone access to a wonderful world of dreams.
The owner of this item kept speaking about how truly disappointed he was and kept speaking about how Qi energy was a problem to keep this item working.
At the end, he ditched the idea of using it, threw it away, and marked it as a failure.
"Hmm… He made something that can take any shape in that supposedly dream world… Ending up having the shape of a ship before throwing this item away… Interesting…"
Thomas kept looking at the paper he placed on the table, while thinking about what he just read.
First of all, this paper was written in plain and simple English. There was no mistake in that, and such a note made him realise he wasn't the only person who came from Earth to here.
"That lady was on Earth, and that meant much more of her kind are or were there…" he crossed his arms while thinking deeper about this issue.
"What was the biggest problem that dude had? And what's the benefit of this item anyway?" he kept asking questions without having an answer.
In this paper, the owner mentioned the right way to use it. It seemed like it could be bound using one's Qi energy, and then it'd live on that.
According to the inventor's words, this item was like a bottomless pit in terms of Qi energy. Thomas didn't know how hard exactly it was to keep such an item working. But at the end of the paper, that owner left a small note:
"I couldn't maintain its daily needs of Qi, ending up for it to be filled with cracks and holes. It's now more like a ghost ship than anything else… What a waste!"
Thomas wasn't without clues here. Per that owner's words, this item had the ability to invite anyone over it from the dream world. But doing so required Qi energy in the first place.
The owner spoke about his experience in trying this, and his failed attempts. Everyone he tried to grab on his ship refused to budge, and asked why they should do that. And that left this item without any proper use.
Thomas could already guess a thing or two from these words. First that mysterious person wanted to invite people over to do something with them. Was it knowledge that he sought? Thomas couldn't tell.
"Don't tell me he was like a vampire, wanting to suck dry these poor people's souls and such…" Thomas laughed before he flipped the paper and there, he found another note.
"After careful consideration, I tried it out again with my followers. It allowed me to read their thoughts, the perfect way for me to know what I wanted. What a regret that no one ever accepted my invitation to board it… What a waste!"
"Oh… So, he is after knowledge…" Thomas found his answer at last. And also, he found something interesting about this item.
"If it can allow the owner to read the minds of those on board of it, then it shall be a heaven defying item. It seemed he lacked a good bait to let people board his ship, or else he'd end up being the most OP superhero in this world…"
Thomas couldn't guess anything further beyond this point. He reread this ancient paper, reread the note left by the two superheroes he met on the train, but couldn't get anything else.
"I have to get it," if it was a failed product for that dude, it didn't mean it wasn't an awesome tool for Thomas. Besides, who knew, he might find a good way to lure people to board the ship.
"The main problem lies in Qi at the end…" He returned to square zero in his thoughts. Everything in this world depended entirely over how much Qi energy one had.
He could tell that the owner of this paper, the mysterious inventor of that item, waited to climb in ranks, increasing his Qi energy, before trying this item again.
That also told Thomas that after many years, that dude failed to get what he wanted. And as there was no other clue there about what this dude was looking for, Thomas decided to leave this matter for later.
"If he just left his name… I could have searched for him later… What a waste!" he said in a mocking way, laughed shortly before starting to put the papers and cards back in the wallet.
He didn't want to have this wallet anymore, yet he couldn't just leave it behind. Or else, who knew, anyone might find it later on and link this one back to him.
"Time to eat!" Just as he hid everything over his body, covered by his vest and coat, he heard the loud shout of Lara as she seemed in a hurry or something.
"That weird food again…" Thomas' previous experience about this food was indeed quite unique. He didn't like how it looked, but he had to admit to himself that this food tasted like heaven.
*Thud!*
Just as he stood up abruptly to bring his tree pot, he accidentally let the seat flip over and fall. "Phew! It's not broken at least… What is this?"
He heaved a sigh of relief that this wooden seat didn't break from the fall. But when he moved to adjust its position, he noticed some sort of writing over its bottom.
"Varandar… What a unique name it is!" he found a single line, made of a weird language in this world. It said: Varandar started his journey from here!" and that made him wonder about who that dude was.