I, Lao Qing am a police officer. I have been in this job for 20 years and have currently been promoted into the captain of a few men. Pretty impressive if I say so myself. Currently, though I am doing a mission that I wouldn’t expect I would ever be doing. My teams as well as every other available team in the region have been tasked with searching the mountains.

Specifically, we are to search a little further north than the national parks for a pair of sibling foreigners. The weird part is that they are not criminals. Our excuse to them is that they are a danger to the Chinese people, and to us is that they are important resources.

Crazy I know! Since when are people treated as resources? But this is for the party and the nation so I won’t disobey, even if I did, I would lose my job and wife and everything else probably.

Oh! I think I am getting something! It’s the… sound of hammering? Why?

Lao Qing walked closer and close to the sound. Eventually, he was able to hear people talking. He was slightly surprised since he didn’t truly expect people to be staying up here.

He walked behind some big bushes and looked through. There he saw in an open space filled with grass a house in the works and two people, the siblings, working hard on building it. They talked as they hammered one plank after the other, moving with incredible efficiency and speed.

All it took was a powerful swing by the man as the big nail went straight through the wood, perfectly restricting it in place.

Qing just stood there and watched, eventually the young man noticed that they were running out of planks and stood up while his older sister replaced him in hammering the nails which astonishingly she did at the same pace as her brother.

What was even more out of normalcy though was that when the young man walked up to the prepared boards of wood that were tied up as if still packed. He bent down while using his left arm to lift off the ground the pile placing his other hand below it. From there in one fluid movement, he pushed the pile up and around hefting it on his shoulder as if it was nothing.

A pile of wood that weighed probably one hundred kilograms.

Even though he wasn’t usually a man of prejudice Lao Qing would shamefully agree that at that point in time he panicked. He gasped and immediately turned around and sprinted with all of his might down the mountain. Not bothering to hide any noise in his panic.

“???” Edward and Adel looked at each other when Ed’s stomach sunk, and he ran to the place where the sound came from. Blasting through the foliage, managing to see the man running in the distance. From this vantage point, he couldn’t only see that as further away stood the Cherry tree and a few more men wearing the same uniform as the runaway.

Edward turned around, this time his face had lost much of its light as he grimly walked back towards his sister.

“Adel… It seems that your regenerative ability piqued their interest in the end.”

“Shit… what are we gonna do? We promised not to kill so it is not like we can just rampage around….and no matter how you put it they still have guns.” Adel frowned deeply as the predictable an upcoming fight with Chengdu’s police for was already set in stone.

“And even if we simply beat them back without doing anything else, they may either come back again but more prepared or simply inform the army and the CCP and blast everything we have built to the ground….. Fuck!” Edward said in frustration in the situation they were put in.

He felt that it was unfair but on the other hand, when had life been fair to him, or even good. The only time he could think of was the cherry tree. But even then thy were now dealing with death… or even worse living a life of despair as a lab rat.

“Then we need to get to the root of the problem or find a way to protect our home…maybe even hide it. But we don’t have advanced things like formations and illusions or defenses and arrays, we don’t know how to use that stuff and even if we did we probably couldn’t yet.” Adel kept thinking aloud, trying to contribute even something, maybe something she just threw out there came out to be a good idea.

“How about we take things in steps? Let’s calm down. How about you try to get your Dantian today? Right now, actually. I will watch over you and when you are done we rush down the mountains for information gathering.”

“I was gonna do it tonight either way so… can you not watch over me since… you know.”

“You deserve it so nope!” Edward said unabashedly.
‘He who laughs last something something... whatever! Revenge!’

Giving in Adel sat down, only before preparing a set of fresh clothes and a washbasin. She closed her eyes and focused on the intent she spread to the Natural Qi first, Edward sat down behind her and spread his senses.

It was an interesting thing to experience the Dantian formation from an outside perspective.

He could feel the Qi inside Adel moving slightly as the minuscule wisp of Qi formed inside of her and picked up the pace as Natural Qi started entering the Wisp and becoming integrated. The first rotation was completed soon enough. The second, the third, and many more after that. Fifteen minutes after that Adel finally reached the final stage. The air around her seemed to grow restless as the now big bunch of unorganized Qi inside of her swam to the spot a little below the navel just like Edward’s and the Dantian started taking form. The sphere took a while to form and eventually it stabilized.

As it popped into place as expected Adel started spasming just like Edward had and the feeling of euphoria took over her body. It was two minutes into it that it struck Edward that it has been going on much longer than he did. He grew slightly anxious at that point, but they had agreed that they wouldn’t let anyone touch them at those times since they didn’t know if there would be a consequence.

Thankfully right as the euphoria had been going on for 5 minutes Adel stopped spasming and came to her senses. She looked at herself and found out how sweaty she was. She turned to look at Edward at that point.

“Five minutes…”

Adel looked at him in shock, anger and after a little thought with pity. Which was to be expected somewhat. Those waves of pleasure that they both felt were unique and rare but even then men got to experience them for a smaller amount of time than women.

“All jokes aside though, that could be pretty dangerous so we better teach people to be careful in the future. I’m leaving. Wash up and take a little break before you test for your attribute.”

Edward said to Adel as he sat up and left the area so that she could clean herself in peace. In truth, though he put on a serious face he was really excited to find out what his sister's attribute is.

They had easily concluded his was Fire, this conclusion was made in the time they where working on building the house since they could turn it into autopilot and work while thinking and talking. Most of their talks actually happened over the noise of hammering but it didn’t really bother them.

It was one hour later that Adel came over. She focused and gathered a ball of Qi in front of her. The ball was a little smaller than Edward’s since they had seen how dangerous it had been.

A small strand of Inner Qi flowed out of Adel and entered the ball. Its color quickly turned green. A vibrant almost living green. It looked beautiful but it was slightly problematic since compared to Edward’s Fireball it didn’t produce any other effect. He heated up the air but hers did nothing.

“I…. don’t know what that is….” Said, Edward.

“Me neither, but it certainly isn’t fire.”

“What can we do with it to test it?” Edward thought to himself as he talked aloud. A small light bulb lit up above his head as he looked at Adel and said.

“Drop it!”

“What?! Why?”

“Well if it is any of the more normal or generic elements then it will have an effect in the ground. It doesn’t feel like poison or light or darkness or anything like that so why not?”

Adel was just as excited as Edward to find out her Attribute so she didn’t put much thought into it. Especially now that it had already begun deforming because of her distraction.

Commanding the ball to move forward and drop she stepped back and shielded her eyes as the ball floated down to the ground and melted into it when it landed. Out of nowhere right as the ball fell the grass around it shot up.

One meter in diameter the grass grew taller and wider till it reached more than 1.5 meters in height. It may look unimpressive but that was because they tested It on the grass. Grass which supposed to grow only ten centimeters of the ground usually and be only 1mm thick and one cm wide.

Essentially what they had just found out was that Adel’s Plant Attribute not only made things grow faster but past the normal and known limits of the world.

“Nice! One Fire am other Plants! Polar Opposites yet partners in crime! Or something like that.” Edward posed as he nodded for Adel to join him. Not that she did but he at least had good intentions.

“So…. We go down?” Adel said without wasting any time. It wasn’t like they had any time to waste either.

“Yeah,” Edward said solemnly.

*Further down the mountain a little later*

“I still think we should move the Chery tree up with us.”

“Are you in love with it or something?”

“I owe it! Essentially my life.”

“…. I don’t have a problem but… Shouldn’t we first make sure that we get to stay there first?” Adel said as she got up and walked out of the bushes they had been hidden in.

The police car that they had been hearing in on had just turned the corner and they wouldn’t be able to spot her, hence it was safe.

Edward followed soon after as they dropped their little chat. Their faces stern.

“Follow?”

“Follow”

The two got on the bicycles that they had gotten/stolen and rushed down the dirt path. With their enhanced physical capabilities, hitting 50 kilometers an hour on the bicycle was a piece of cake and so they managed to keep up with the police.

Soon they reached the end of the national forest where the dirt paths met up with actual roads. In an open space there more than 10 cop cars where sitting. Around 50 police officers were standing around talking and waiting.

“If I were to guess I’d say we are in deep shit.” Edward stated as the two left their bicycles and crouched down to get closer so that they could here.

The police officers gathered together when the car the pair of siblings had been following arrived and the officers inside got out.

“Now that everyone has gathered we can decide who will join the Night raid.” Said one of the old captains to everyone present. Out of those 10 men walked forward. All captains of their own four-man team.

They gathered and talked. Many opinions were heard and ‘debated’ as most of the captains saw this as a chance to gain immense favor with the Head of Sichuan police. The only one that wasn’t as excited as the rest was the police officer that Edward had seen running away. The one that had found them and informed everyone of their existence and position.

To be truthful Edward was angry with him. If he had been lazy like the rest then none of this would be happening since they wouldn’t have bothered to look up there until more pressure was put on them.

The pair left the officers after seeing them and understanding that 20 men would be going up there to capture them in only a few hours, at midnight.

“So… How are we gonna deal with them?” Started Edward as the two began the long talk. Considering everything they should and brainstorming they managed to form a plan and set it to motion.