I froze as that ran through my mind a few times. It took me a few moments before I came to the conclusion that he ment my cultivation master, who was also a star hawk.

  “Haha, right, the star hawk. Uh, when is that going to happen?” I asked, trying to mask the nervousness I was slowly letting go of.

  “I am told, a void window for our ships will open in twenty-nine hours, and we will jump through it following the star hawk.” he replied like he was also reading a memo on something else.

  Feeling annoyed at his tone of voice, I let out a small huff and turned my head slightly, looking away from his ship. I admired the stars briefly as I considered if I should ask my cultivation master about this.

  ”I have to go, I’ll talk to you closer to jump time” I said to him before quickly disconnecting the line.

  I monitored the path and momentarily wondered if the AI could stop the ship in the right position, but I didn’t want to risk the ship to find out. Plus, I wasn’t really in the mood to ask the AI. I glanced back at the communications, wondering if I could use it to actually call my cultivation master. I frowned slightly as I realised I didn’t know his number or how I would reach out to him. My eyes stared out at all the stars and I began to laugh.

  ”how the hell would I find him amongst all that, even if I wanted to call him….” I trailed off as something seemed to suddenly pick up a sledgehammer and smash my entire brain into mush before dropping the hammer and slowly rebuilding it. Which kinda felt like a slow, old ass computer, rebooting. “Wait, what did he mean by dimension?”

  I quickly glanced around before my eyes landed on the Lazarus, and I considered calling him back to ask about this dimension thing. I bit my lower lip, feeling a bit indecisive about the decision. I still hadn’t made any decision by the time the ship reached its destination, and I had to reroute the power to the forward thrusters to bring the ship to a stop.

  I was just letting out a sigh of relief and mentally patting myself on the back for a job well done when I actually felt someone pat me on the back, causing me to jump. I pulled the helmet off as quickly as I could and spun my head around to see who it was.

  ”oh! Itshu Biyu, you scared the living crap out of me!” I cried out when I saw her smiling down at me.

  ”oh, my bad, I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done. Especially for an uncertified pilot. By the way, you did get your cert 1 right?” She smiled at me as she tilted her head.

  “Uh, yes, I also completed my cert 2, it was a little tough, but I seem to have managed completing it before we arrived in this star system.” I replied, trying to smile back at her.

  ”Wow, that’s impressive. Very few pilots can do both certifications in only forty-eight hours.” She said, looking surprised.

  ”Oh, not really, the first certification was really easy, it was just stuff I already knew. The second certification was a little tough though I had to reread the book a few times to get it but once I started looking at it from the deep dive perspective it all just kinda clicked into place" I said as I shrugged a little.

  I watched her mouth fall open for a moment before it slowly closed only to fall open again. I couldn’t help myself and giggled a little as I thought her brain must have overloaded and fried. But I did catch her eyes latch onto my giggle.

  ”Oh! You're pulling my leg! That’s not funny, ya know.” She snapped at me as she huffed and turned away from me slightly before glancing over her shoulder.

  ”I’m not pulling your leg, but more importantly. Itshu Biyu can you please tell me what the Lazarus’s pilot meant by following the star hawk through the void and into the next dimension?” I asked as I looked up at her curiously.

  ”Are you sure, it feels like you're pulling my leg, and it means what it sounds like, the ships will follow the path the star hawk lays out and will cross the void into the next dimension.” She replied simply.

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  “Yeah, I am sure. And for the record, I got that bit, what I meant was do they really mean the next dimension as in a completely different universe where my life took a different path to the one it did in this dimension? What would happen if I met myself? Would it create a paradox or something?” I asked nervously, trying not to freak out.

  “What? Uh, yea, I guess it would be a dimension where something like that most likely happened. As for meeting yourself, I highly doubt it, the likelihood of you stumbling into yourself in the universe is astronomical. Unless you actually went looking for yourself, I guess. As for the paradox, I have no idea, I doubt it, you are two completely different people. The choices made define who you are and each time you make decisions the other doesn't, it distances each from the other, making them less alike. At some point, you become completely different people that just happen to look like each other." She shrugged as she muttered, “I probably didn’t explain that very well.”

  She frowned momentarily before shrugging it off and waving her hand for me to follow her. I slowly got up and stepped out of the seat and followed her as she led me through the ship to my quarters.

  ”I suggest you get some more cultivation in, before we have to jump.” She waved her hand farewell at me as she turned and walked away, leaving me in my doorway.

  I quickly grabbed some food, chowing down on it hungrily, eating half the meal before managing to slow down enough to actually taste the food I was shovelling into my mouth. I coughed, nearly choking on the piece of meat that I forgot to properly chew, and quickly rushed to get a drink. After chugging it down and feeling a bit woozy, I took a moment to look at the bottle and was a little surprised to see it was alcohol. I let out a groan and turned to finish my food, not wanting it to go to waste.

  When the meal was finished I sat at the table feeling stuffed and sleepy, the buzz from the alcohol I had accidentally drunk was also starting to wear off. I decided to sit there for a bit longer, enjoying the feeling of being full and comfortable, before I slowly got to my feet and headed for my cultivation room. Finding a new cushion waiting for me, I happily sat down on it and turned my attention to the Time and Space Golden Core Technique. My mind rushed over the technique, eagerly reading through it. However, by the time I was halfway through reading the technique, I had slowed down and began to frown. If I had been reading this correctly, I had to fill my Dantian until it was about to break. My frown deepened as I tried to wrap my head around how I was supposed to use my Qi to form an interlocking lattice around the dantian and compress it into a core.

  Deciding, I might as well fill my dantian before I started trying to move the Qi around it. I opened my eyes and looked out at space, feeling the Qi around me as I breathed it in using the new breathing technique that had come in the golden core technique. I continued to breathe as my mind turned back to the technique and returned to reading the rest to make sure, when I did attempt to form the golden core, I wouldn’t have missed a part of the technique.

  When my dantian was finally full of Qi, I began to slowly reach for it, trying to guide it out and around my dantian. At first, I began to pull it out like a bubble forming around the dantian. However, I soon abandoned that idea as the bubble popped for the seventh time and the Qi fled away, causing me to have to refill the dantian.

  Letting out a groan of frustration as I watched the Qi circle my dantian. I needed something that was stronger than the bubble I had been attempting to surround my dantian with. I tilted my head as I considered a triangle, after I thought of the pyramids having stood for centuries. I attempted to form it around my dantian, I smiled slightly at first, but just like the bubble it would also pop before I could complete it.

  Letting go of the Qi, I dropped onto my back, feeling exhausted. After a while of breathing and feeling my dantian refill I didn’t immediately try again, instead I began to think about the problem I was having.

  “What am I doing wrong?” I muttered as I mentally went over the technique again, trying to figure out if it gave any hints at what I was meant to be doing. I locked onto the word lattice. It felt important but caused me to frown as I slowly asked.

  ”lattice? What does that mean?” Slowly tilting my head, it felt familiar, like I knew it, but I just couldn’t place it. After a few more minutes of it not coming to me, I was ready to bang my head against the floor.

  ”What the hell is a lattice? I screamed. A moment later, I froze when I remembered something Auntie Cleo had said about her garden. I paused as I started to wonder if she was actually my sister, she hadn’t been in the room when I was told most of my aunties and uncles were actually my brothers and sisters. I quickly shook that thought off and returned to what she had said about a plant in her garden.

  ”Kenna, you can’t just let that vine hang like that, it won't look pretty… You know, you need to enhance the chances of the plant flourishing. You should use a lattice.

  ”what? Do you mean these strips of wood that are crossed and fastened together with diamond-shaped spaces between them?” I replied, looking a little confused.

  ”Yes, it's a climbing frame used to control the growth of the plant. They can come in all shapes and sizes, including a ball for hedges to wrap their branches around.

  I sat bolt upright on my cultivation cushion as I slowly grinned at the memory. “A lattice, this just might work.” I muttered as I focused my mental energy on pulling the Qi from my dantian again. I began trying to form a lattice with my Qi, but I was struggling to get started. It took me a while to figure out how to create sticks with my Qi and hold them in place while I tied them together. I decided to copy the diamond-shaped spaces that my auntie had on her lattice and slowly built it into a ball around my dantian.

  I let out a triumphant yell when I managed to finish the ball around my dantian and took a minute to look at it proudly. It certainly looked like a lattice, but its shabbiness was bothering me, like I had done it in a hurry and with sub-par material. I let out a groan, knowing there was no way I could allow such workmanship to be a part of my core, and began pulling it apart. It took three more attempts to figure out how to weave the Qi used for the wood and the rope from one strand of Qi, allowing me to build the entire lattice out of a continuously flowing strand of Qi. then it took me three more attempts until I got a lattice that looked acceptable.

  “Alright, this is it.” I said to myself with glee as I began to add pressure to the lattice, trying to compress it down into a core. My excitement was building as I slowly pushed it, making sure to keep an equal pressure on it from all sides. However, my excitement was shattered when I had reached half way and the lattice began to tremble.

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