Wei Qing clawed his way back to consciousness, the world a confusing jumble of unfamiliar sensations. His lungs burned with each ragged gasp, his body a leaden weight resistant to his will. Coarse fabric scratched against his skin, a stark contrast to the smooth, climate-controlled comfort of his flight suit. He blinked, his eyes struggling to focus in the dim light, the room a blur of muted colors and indistinct shapes. Incense, thick and cloying, assaulted his nostrils, mingling with the musty scent of damp earth and old wood. The rhythmic clang of a distant gong vibrated through the air, a low, resonant drone that seemed to burrow into his skull.
Where... where am I? The thought felt sluggish, alien, as if his mind itself was struggling to catch up with his body's abrupt awakening. The pristine white walls and gleaming consoles of the Daode's bridge were replaced by rough-hewn wooden beams and walls plastered with peeling, faded paper. The hum of advanced technology, the comforting presence of Xīzhì's voice, were gone, replaced by an unnerving silence punctuated only by the rhythmic creaks and groans of the building.
Panic flared in his chest, a wild, instinctive response to the unknown. He tried to sit up, his muscles protesting with a sharp, unfamiliar ache. His hands, smaller and weaker than he remembered, fumbled against the coarse blanket covering him. He pushed himself up, his head swimming, his vision blurring. This body... this wasn't his body. It felt frail, underdeveloped, as though it belonged to a child.
"System rebooting... Dimensional transposition confirmed..." A calm, measured voice echoed within his mind, a familiar anchor in the swirling chaos of his disorientation. Xīzhì. The Daode's AI. But how...?
"Host body identified: Wei Qing, Cloud Mist Sect outer disciple..." Xīzhì continued, its report a steady stream of information filtering through the mental fog. "Initializing adaptation protocols... Accessing Daode data archives... Data fragmentation detected. Reconstruction in progress..."
Wei Qing clung to the AI's presence, a lifeline to his former self, to the world of science and reason he had known as James Chen. The ship's blueprints flickered in his mind's eye, alongside the elegant formulae governing the strange realities near black holes, intertwined with fragments of ancient Chinese texts from the Project Genesis archive.
As the mental fog began to recede, a new sensation emerged, a subtle energy thrumming beneath his skin, flowing through unseen channels within this frail body. It felt alien yet strangely familiar, like the phantom vibrations of a phone he no longer possessed.
"Detecting energy flow consistent with descriptions of 'Qi' in Daode archives," Xīzhì reported. "Qi: A life force energy cultivated through specific techniques... Preliminary analysis suggests parallels with quantum field fluctuations within a localized spacetime matrix. Further data required for comprehensive assessment."
Qi... a life force? His scientific mind rebelled against the mystical terminology, yet he couldn't deny the reality of the sensation, this energy flowing within him, obeying its own set of rules. It pulsed and vibrated like the quantum fields he'd studied, the fundamental forces that permeated all of spacetime – forces science had barely begun to understand.
The door to Wei Qing's small room creaked open, revealing a figure silhouetted against the brighter light of the corridor. An elderly man with a stern face and a long, flowing white beard entered, his eyes sharp and assessing. He wore simple gray robes, yet an aura of authority, of quiet power, radiated from him. This was Elder Hong, the cultivator responsible for overseeing the outer sect disciples of the Cloud Mist Sect.
"So, you finally decided to join us, boy?" Elder Hong's voice was gruff, tinged with a hint of impatience. He glanced around the spartan room, his gaze lingering on Wei Qing's still-frail form. "Still recovering from your... ailment?"
Wei Qing struggled to form a coherent response, his mind still reeling from the merging with Xīzhì and the strange sensation of Qi. "I... I am better, Elder Hong," he managed, his voice weak and uncertain.
Elder Hong grunted, unconvinced. "We'll see about that. Show me your Qi control." He gestured towards a small, smooth stone resting on a wooden stand. "Make it levitate."
Wei Qing reached out towards the stone, his hand trembling. He focused on the subtle flow of Qi within him, trying to direct it outwards, to grasp the stone with this unseen energy. His scientific mind wanted to quantify and measure, to understand the principles at work. He tried to visualize the quantum fields interacting with the stone's molecular structure, to translate the principles of entanglement into practical application.
"Focus, boy!" Elder Hong's voice boomed, snapping Wei Qing out of his scientific reverie. "You're not dissecting a frog! Feel the Qi! Connect with it!"
The word "connect" resonated within Wei Qing. He closed his eyes, stilling his analytical thoughts. He opened his mind to the subtle sensations, focusing not on control but on his connection to the energy flowing within and around him. The Qi, no longer an abstract concept but a tangible current of power, surged through his meridians and flowed out toward the stone.
The stone trembled. A faint, ethereal glow emanated from its surface. Then, slowly, impossibly, it lifted from the stand, hovering an inch above the polished wood.
A spark of surprise ignited within Elder Hong's eyes, a glimmer of respect tempering his usual gruff demeanor. But beneath that momentary approval, Wei Qing caught something else – a flash of calculation, quickly masked.
"Interesting," Elder Hong murmured, stroking his beard. "Your Qi... it flows differently now. Almost as if..." He trailed off, his sharp gaze studying Wei Qing with renewed intensity.
"Different?" Wei Qing asked, trying to keep his voice steady. Inside his mind, Xīzhì's processes whirred with increased activity.
"Analyzing energy patterns," the AI reported silently. "Detecting unusual quantum entanglement signatures. Warning: Elder Hong's life force readings indicate power levels far exceeding initial estimates."
Elder Hong circled the floating stone, his robes whispering against the wooden floor. "They say cultivation can open doors we never knew existed," he said carefully. "That the boundary between what is and what could be grows thin for those who walk the path." He stopped, fixing Wei Qing with a penetrating stare. "Tell me, boy, what do you see when you look at the stone?"
Wei Qing hesitated. Through his newfound sensitivity to Qi, the stone appeared different now. Threads of energy wove through its structure like luminous veins, pulsing in patterns that reminded him of quantum probability waves. But there was something else, something his scientific background couldn't explain – a sense of... connection, as if the stone was just one note in a vast symphony of energy that permeated everything around them.
"I see..." Wei Qing began, then stopped as a sudden wave of dizziness washed over him. The stone wobbled in the air.
"Careful," Elder Hong warned, but made no move to help. "The path of cultivation is treacherous for those who carry... unusual burdens." His emphasis on the last words sent a chill down Wei Qing's spine.
"System alert," Xīzhì interjected. "Detecting encrypted data fragments in memory buffer. References to Project Genesis and dimensional anomalies. Possible correlation with current location parameters."
The stone settled back onto its stand with a soft click. Wei Qing's head throbbed, memories of the Daode's final moments flickering through his mind – the event horizon's impossible geometries, the ship's sensors screaming as reality itself seemed to fold inward, and something else... something in the data they'd captured that he hadn't had time to analyze before everything went wrong.
"Rest now," Elder Hong said, moving toward the door. "Tomorrow, you'll join the other outer disciples for training." He paused in the doorway, half-turned. "And Wei Qing... be mindful of your dreams. They say the barriers between worlds grow thinnest in sleep."
The door closed with a soft thud, leaving Wei Qing alone with his thoughts and the quietly humming presence of Xīzhì in his mind. Outside, the gong continued its rhythmic calling, each resonant tone seeming to vibrate in harmony with the Qi flowing through his meridians.
"Xīzhì," he thought, "what exactly happened to us during the collapse?"
"Insufficient data for complete analysis," the AI responded. "However, comparing Project Genesis archives with observed phenomena suggests possible convergence of quantum mechanics and traditional cultivation techniques. Hypothesis: The Daode's experimental drive system may have inadvertently activated dormant pathways in spacetime, pathways that the cultivators of this world have learned to access through different means."
Wei Qing closed his eyes, feeling the gentle pulse of Qi through his body. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of chanting, the words indistinct but carrying a power that made the energy within him stir in response. What mysteries lay hidden in the connection between his scientific past and this mystical present? And more importantly, what did Elder Hong suspect about his true nature?
The answers, he suspected, would challenge everything he thought he knew about reality itself.