I bid Happyland goodbye, kissed my girl, and set off towards the sunrise with the Karen as my guide.

So far, she’d kept her word, but I kept my guard up in case she attempted something.

A burble of happy pling sounds scared away the birds from the cliffs near us. Karen let out a harpyish cackle, huffing that purple smoke, whilst her thumbs raced across the smartphone screen.

“This game. This C*ndy Crush… words fail to describe the genius of this. It’s designer must’ve been once in a lifetime Karen Cultivator. I can already feel tangible gains in cultivation, and I’ve only been at this for fifteen hours!”

“That’s amazing. Good for you.”

“You said there are more advanced versions of this cultivation device in your world. What are they like?”

“I didn’t say anything like that.”

Karen scoffed dismissively. “Describe them to me.”

Slowly, I turned to look back at her, giving her a weary glare.

“What? You can’t expect me to use ‘please’. Karens lose cultivation progress if we’re genuinely polite to anyone but our sworn hun sisters.”

“And Alpha cultivators lose progress if we let disrespect stand. You were the one who asked my help. I don’t need you, but you do need me. You’ll behave, or we will part ways here.”

Her painted on eyebrow was the first to twitch with anger. The eyelids, nose, and lips followed, until the entirety of the Karen’s face was vibrating with twitches of outrage. She drew in a shaky drag of purple smoke, swallowed, and pursed her lips.

“Please…” Karen coughed. “...forgive…” Her body jerked with a convulsion. “...my earlier…” Blood started to trickle past her lips. “...question. It was…”

“You can stop.” I raised my palm.

She gasped with relief and started wiping sweat from her forehead. “Well, phew! That was dreadful. Ack…” Karen stuck her tongue out and rubbed it on her sleeve. “It’s ghastly!  The taste of the p-word is still there. Quickly, do you have any wine?”

I shook my head and tapped at the five gallon jugs in my pockets. “Just my good old protein shakes. That’s all the rations I need.”

“Graah.” She moved onto rubbing her tongue on the cliff wall. “I do hope that, at the very least, convinced you of my intentions, Chad.”

“It showed me that you’re willing to take damage to convince me that you’re an ally, but nothing more. Don’t mistake my wariness of you for a personal grief Karen. I simply don’t know you well enough to judge whether the human part of you controls your meme, or is controlled by it.” And whether that human part is worth trusting in the first place, but I left that bit out to show some goodwill.

For a moment, her features fell into a strangely placid, almost nostalgic look. Then she shrugged it off with an outraged huff and stomped downhill. “Useless to think about it, isn’t it? Chad’s a Chad and Karen’s a Karen. The sooner we get the portal working, the sooner we can stop pretending otherwise.”

After a few moments of silence, aside from the video game noises, I spoke. “There aren’t other games as Karen as C*ndy Crush, but we do have other similar entertainments back on Earth…”

Rest of the climb down went amiably enough, with me describing various console games, PC gaming, television, and the wonders of the internet. As expected, Karen latched onto the ideas F*c*book, T*ck T*ck, and 24/7 online customer support like shark to carcass.

I took the lead as we descended into the humid jungle. The wildlife around us took one glance at me and either averted its gaze or fled, granting me a constant supply of Big Dick energy. Thus empowered, my Alpha Stride cut a swift path through the thick undergrowth.

While enjoying the scenery, I experimented a little with the excess Big Dick energy, focusing on different aspects of my stride in order to guide the manifestation of the power. It was difficult, requiring me to use a large portion of Big Brain, but I had been slowly improving at this, while training my junior bruhs.

I focused on the length of my stride, imagining the destination beneath my feet and allowed myself to experience the journey between here and there in fast forward. Big Dick energy swirled within my legs. The jungle blurred and a single step propelled me ten meters forward, bending space beneath us.

A thrill of joy shivered my Chadified heart, spreading cheer through my organs.

The closer I got to establishing Chad Core, the more my movements began to break the laws of physics. And although I might rarely (if ever) show it, inside I was as giddy about it as Nelly was about everything in life.

This feeling.

Of putting your everything in line to pursue something, be it a task, vocation, or a calling.

And seeing your own progress, of recognizing that you’ve come further than you ever imagined possible.

It is pure crack.

My head buzzed with exhilaration. I moved my focus from reaching the destination to the dominant mannerism of my ambulation, and how the Alpha Stride announced my presence to the world around me.

Big Dick energy resonated with the swinging of my crotch and the confident waving of my arms. Immediately, the jungle flora around us began to bend and shift, opening before me a comfortable path.

As afternoon came and went, I continued to experiment with various aspects of the basic Alpha Stride, and its interactions with Big Dick energy. Holding onto any specific style turned out to be the trickiest part. Big Dick energy has a bit of a will of its own and actively resisted being made to manifest only one aspect of its power, rather than being used in its native glory. Furthermore, the further you asked it to bend the laws of reality, the shorter the duration of its effect was.

At present, I couldn’t air-walk for more than a few seconds, and the limit of my far-striding Alpha Stride was roughly twenty meters. The more I used any of the energy’s specific aspects, the weaker their effects became, until Big Dick energy became too stiff to bend altogether. I could reset its bendiness by channeling pure Big Dick energy through myself, thus purifying the stiffness from my body, but I had to expend large amounts of Big Dick energy to do so.

Sweat beaded on my brow and my grin grew wider.

Whether it’s physical, mental, or conceptual I could recognize muscle soreness when I saw it. There were gains to be made with these bending exercises.

We both cultivated our own Daos, Karen with her smartphone, and I with my Big Dick energy control.

Tall pillar mountains grew thicker around us, squeezing the jungle valleys ever narrower until they were cramped corridors barely wider than a highway.

Karen paused by a tree, peeling moss off the bark to reveal a Qi-infused symbol carved into the tree. I recognized it instinctively as a protective formation.

“The valley with the portal is hidden from this realm. Close your ears, hun. I’m going to use [I Have The Right To Shop Here] to get us in.”

I plugged my ears with my pinkies.

Karen put her pipe and smartphone away, put hands on her hips, and began her technique. I felt great disturbance in my Dao as Karen energies focused on the tree. Her face was beet-red, her finger kept poking at its bark, and her mannerism was beyond aggressive. I felt sorry for the poor plant as its branches shrank into themselves and its leaves started to fall from distress.

It tried to turn away, but Karen walked around it and continued her attack. Spit and rage flew from her mouth, leaving sizzling stains of acid on the formation. Its Qi flickered and died.

The sheer rock-wall to our left rumbled. I removed pinkies from my ears.

“...how much trouble you have to go through these days to get any service down here. Unbelievable. You would think cultivators knew better, but noooOoo.”

“Great job.”

“Well, thank. You. Isn’t that nice of you to say, hun.” Her angry energies began to turn to me.

I held up my hand. “You can stop now.”

Jagged cliff before us unfolded as new matter appeared out of the hidden valley, adding new jungle and stretching our surroundings. Brown stone gate of hewn stone appeared on the wall and expanded to staggering proportions. Ornate icons of symbols cultivation sects adorned the bronze and jade doors. Reinforcing formations flickered and died on their surface the moment Karen approached them.

“Help me push this open, would you, hun?”

I shoved both of the several ton double doors, flung them, and stepped onto a wooden pathway. It, and tens of others snaked down the gently sloping valley to the bottom, where a smattering of simple houses, stockpiles, and building scaffolds surrounded a curious looking fortress.

Not a fortress.

A ship.

Built in the style of square Chinese ships, the behemoth of wood and metal was over five hundred meters in length. Complex formations dotted its side like scales, each humming with a different kind of Qi. A row of ridiculously large oars stood straight out from the sides, with tiny clouds dancing around their paddles. On top stood a tightly packed town of squat, bunker-like buildings of wood, bronze, and jade.

I couldn’t tell heads or tails about the Qi within the countless protective formations and the weapon platforms, but I did recognize the powerful Dao in the fortress ship’s bow and stern.

The thirty meters long bronze sword grafted on the bow emanated oppressive thick Blade Dao. The titanic jade crown floating around the aft radiated pure domination. Their power paled in comparison to those of the lesser deities First had faced in Townberg, but still surpassed mine and Karen’s by several magnitudes.

“A very ship-like ‘portal formation,’” I noted.

“It was the easiest analogy given that you’re unlikely to have seen such vessels in your world.”

“We have spaceships.”

Karen blinked. “You do? Oh my. How did a bunch of cultivationless mortals manage that?”

“Science.”

“Ah. The mysticism of natural forces. I’ve heard of scholars who practise it. Lonely, powerless scholars who tend to die even earlier than regular mortals. A terribly inefficient discipline, and me personally. I reckon most of it is a hoax, but I suppose you make do with what you have.”

I shrugged. Karen didn’t need to know the potential of people like Dr. Edelfelt and Laura’s Norwegian friend.

We paused, when we drew close enough to spot individuals, from the crowd milling about and on top of it.

A veritable army of caricaturized cultivators guarded the vessel. There were several young masters, dozens of young masters’ groupies, three jade beauties with their own maidservants, thirty-two cannon fodder cultivators, an arrogant elder who was clearly the uncle of one of the young masters, a brooding protagonist, his awkward fat sidekick, and a hidden master pretending to be the janitor. Besides them were also two hundred cannon fodder guards, a loyal captain of the guard, numerous servants and scholars and craftsmen with identical appearances, and seven ninja-like cultivators hiding on the rooftop.

My guts churned with a strange existential dread as I watched their interactions.

The broording man interfered on a jade beauty’s behalf, challenging a young master with a slap. The groupies heckled. The young master was defeated. Guards arrived together with the arrogant elder, demanding the brooding man to pay for his crimes, only for the hidden master to reveal himself and defeat the guards as well as the ninjas’ surprise attack in one move. The two elders agreed on an official duel to settle the grudge.

A training montage took place at the back of the ship, followed by a secret tryst between the jade beauty and the protagonist.

After they returned from a back room and promised to dual cultivate together, the protagonist faced the young master’s senior brother in a pitched battle, which he won after the awkward fat guy cheered his name.

The people then returned to maintaining the ship and the slapping event took place again.

Over and over again.

They interacted in loops more repetitive than ab crunches.

What a horrible fate. I wouldn't wish it even on a Karen.

My thoughts went out to Mr. Maxson and Sergei Ivanov. I could only hope that Dr. Edelfelt and others figured out a cure.

Big Brain mode completed a threat analysis of the cultivators and found them surprisingly lacking. “This doesn’t look like anything you couldn’t have handled on your own.”

“Obviously. The dangerous ones are inside. Two sage realms and one saint realm. They’re trapped in a loop of arguments and repeated attempts to power up the movement formations… there we go. Good timing.”

I felt a disturbance in the Dao as unseen forces coalesced around the vessel, rushing inside it as if to fill a balloon. Across the boat, the Qi powered formations brightened as enormous powers coursed through them. Thunder sparked around the oars. The boat started to lift off.

And crashed back down.

Like blind ants, craftsmen and their cultivator overseers rushed to inspect and repair the damage.

“A lesser deity realm cultivator finished the sword to cut through the Realm of Dao and the crown to protect against it, but was slain before she could empower the rest of it,” Karen explained. “Come.”

I grabbed her arm. “Hold on.”

“HOW DARE YOU LAY YOUR HAND ON ME YOUNG M—” Karen looked away, scoffing. “Instincts… Ahem. You were saying?”

“I can’t help but notice a distinct lack of lesser deity realm cultivators in your pocket.”

“Don’t assume what I have in my pockets. It’s rude.”

I laughed heartily. “I take it your plan was to kill the echoes, take over the ship, and look for a lesser deity realm power-source.” Her expression confirmed my guess.

“What are you insinuating? Do you think I didn’t think this through, hm? We could have hunted the Twin Horizon Dragons and had the echo of a master alchemist in the North combine them into a lesser deity realm core.”

I shook my head. “Killing people who’ve never met you and taking their stuff to advance your own goals… my senior bruhs would be choking on their protein shakes if I did it.”

“They are e c h o e s. What remains of their souls are flatter than paintings. Killing them is a mercy.”

“Killing or ignoring a person’s plight at their lowest point is a callous man’s justification for not being inconvenienced by them. I have seen what life and Dao can do to good people. And I have seen many of them rise again, once given the nudge they need. Neither you nor I will be doing any killing here. A battle between us and sage and saint realm cultivators would result in the death of most, if not all the bystanders.”

Anger twitched Karen’s nose. “How dare you assume to have the right to give me a moral lecture? And on echoes of all things, as if they were still…” She cursed, hrmping as she stomped off the path, a finger raised. “One. Moment.”

Karen lit her pipe and took a moment to gather herself. Once calmed, she gave me an accusing look. “I assume you have, what you imagine is, a better suggestion, hmm? And if you so much as whisper something about saving all the poor widdle echoes, I’m going to use a [Let Me See Your Manager] and get your elders to whip some sense into you.”

A hearty chuckle escaped my lips. “No. Getting back to Earth and taking care of my people is my priority. But, I do have a plan. Tell me, does your language share the concept of a heist?”