Lone Cultivator In Another World

The next day, few of Michael's friends noticed a change in him. Sofia felt something was different, but she couldn't explain it. Anna, on the other hand, was attuned to Michael better.

The air around her friend changed. Lately, undertones of anxiety and impatience appeared in his movements, but now he was the same as months ago. Always running somewhere, always busy, intense, but also calm and confident. As if he'd found a new goal for himself the day before.

After classes, the quartet had a meeting in one of the classrooms. Sofia had a knack for finding empty unused spaces. Tell her you need a room, and a minute later, she's already found one and can't even tell you how she got there.

"I think Anna's skipping today," Dimitri was munching on potato ch.i.p.s with mushroom flavor.

"Yes, her Chinese fan club has made a step in the right direction, so they wanted her to be there," explained Sofia.

"All right. We don't need her, anyway. First, a piece of news," announced Michael. "Some famous Japanese hacker Tojito broke your Angry Birds code yesterday, Dim. It took him two months, but the game is now on the Internet."

"So what?" sneered the Greek youth. "We have hundreds of millions of downloads already. I heard, when that guy realized nobody cared, he shaved his head and became a monk, never to touch a computer again."

"Fine. Today, let's talk about our taxi app."

"Sarantos Taxi," pitched in Dimitri.

"Nope," the programmer was dismissed with a wave of a hand.

"I also want to put my name on something! Like this app."

"Dude, I'm not going to call it North Taxi, that's tacky. I was thinking, Sonic?"

"The Hedgehog?" reacted Sofia. "Come on, guys, be creative! How about DestiniGo?"

The two youths looked at her in shock, their mouths falling open.

"Mm," she continued, "with a logo that looks like how Google Maps highlights a place, this overturned drop. And I can draw something inside the drop. What do you think?"

Dimitri and Michael exchanged a look and then spoke at the same time.

"I vote for Sarantos Taxi…"

"Done!" Michael's roar overshadowed the programmer's attempt to make his name known. "Can you stylize it in two-three different ways and show us tomorrow?"

The Bulgarian girl beamed and nodded like a woodpecker drumming on a tree. Without wasting time, she went into a corner, occupied a desk and took out her tools. Her soft humming lifted Michael's mood.

"I'm ashamed to have you as a creative director, Sonic the Hedgehog," goaded Dimitri, ch.i.p.s crunching in his mouth.

Michael winced. It wasn't his fault that Uber was his baseline! But using the same name as in his old world would mean stealing, and he still refused to admit that's what he'd been doing. He came up with Turbo and Sonic, trying to think of something similar to the original name.

"Hey, I watched your videos, good stuff."

"Why, problems with your classes?"

"Me? Please. I wanted to kill time while I ate. Not the best way to do the math, by the way."

"What do you even know about that?" the cultivator took offence.

"It's kinda the one thing I'm good at. That, and destroying you at chess."

"…We've never played chess."

Dimitri leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "I do it when you sleep!"

By the time Michael realized he'd been played, the programmer was already in tears from laughter, rolling around on the floor.

"What kind of crappy joke is that? Screw you!" he grinned, so infectious was his friend's laughter.

Suddenly, Dimitri choked on his giggles, "Ouch! Oww!" He stood up and rubbed his neck.

"What's wrong?" Michael moved to help.

"Damn. Like I've been tickled by nausea," he swallowed loudly and wrinkled his eyebrows. "It's fine now."

Sofia interrupted them with a loud belch. "Oh my God," she blushed, stealing a glance at the boys to see if they heard. They most certainly did.

"You tell anyone…" she threatened. Both of them shook their heads in solidarity.

…

At the same time, Anna was working in the laboratory with her teacher and his colleagues.

"I hear the boy you like is famous now," teased her auntie Wu, a certified oncologist and cancer researcher. Even after Zhao was scorned by the scientific community, his old friends supported him. It was those people, auntie Wu among them, that Zhao called on for help with the anti-tumor drug.

"Don't joke like that," a flush crept up the girl's face.

"Ah, I'm serious! I heard pretty girls sent him their pictures, wearing skimpy clothes, shaming themselves. Where did morality go? In my time, holding hands was a sign of affection!"

"What your time, aunt Wu? You're not even fifty yet."

"Close your mouth," hushed the Chinese woman, "If someone asks you, I'm thirty-nine."

Anna sighed, unable to understand her senior's process of thought. Old when speaking to her and young compared to other scientists, that's fine. But lying about her age?

"But you have to act, Anna! We have a saying in China, 'Even the maddest radish cannot take on a kitchen knife, the most valiant c.o.c.kroach pales before a slipper.' Understand?"

"No idea whatsoever," resolutely denied the girl.

"However strong your friend is, he too will fall to a woman's charms. I hope it's you, and not some hussy," elbowed her auntie Wu.

Anna nodded, the cute little tomato.

"Oi!" shouted Old Zhao. "Girl! Come quick!"

Two females, young and "thirty-nine," went to take a look.

In another room, Zhao was looking at a tiny puddle of fluid through a microscope. When he heard the steps, he motioned Anna to hurry up and pushed her to try for herself.

"What do you see?" he asked impatiently.

"There are two tagged elements," noticed Anna.

"Right. Fluorescent tags. We label genes with them. Now, see how one is approaching the other?"

"Yes. Is that… our drug seeking out the tumor?" she asked incredulously.

"Right!" bellowed the old man. "I've made progress! Me!"

"Not you, but the twenty people stuck here with you, old fart," retorted auntie Wu. "And we relied on the success of our counterparts in Norway and Portugal."

The woman marveled at the magnitude of the project Anna's future boyfriend launched. When Michael realized it would take years for independent teams to reach any significant milestone, he decided to give out stimuli in funding. After all, only one team could receive the grant of ten million. He was afraid that many would drop the research after a few failed attempts. The ten-million-dollar prize was about 30 times larger than those big research grants, but the chances of obtaining it were slim.

Therefore, Michael offered two hundred thousand to anyone who could produce any significant results and share them with other teams. Replicating others' results also brought in 5-10 thousand dollars. With this, he effectively stopped those grumpy old men from competing and encouraged them to work together instead.

That was how Zhao's team made a breakthrough, by relying on important research from other teams based in other countries.

"This is incredible! Does that mean we won?"

"Ah, girl," sighed Old Zhao, "There's a long way to go. This is a start."

Auntie Wu agreed, "Even if it works under a microscope, it might not work inside a human body."

"We should share it with other teams, anyway!"

"No." Zhao's refusal was met with incomprehension.

"Old fart, share it quickly. We are curing cancer here!" reminded auntie Wu. "One day earlier means thousands of lives saved!"

The old man's face turned grim. He wanted to explain himself but hesitated, his lips trembling. "I need that money," he built a single phrase.

"Teacher, what's wrong? I have some if you need it," offered Anna. Michael offered her a fixed pay for writing soundtracks for other games, but her share of revenue from Angry Birds totaled over 15 million. That was after reserving the best hospital ward for her mom and spending money whenever she felt like it.

In that moment, someone touched Anna's shoulder, but the girl kept her attention on Zhao.

"Girl, how much could you have?" he rejected with contempt. However, when she gave him an estimate, he did a double-take. "That sly kid gave you so much?"

Before the game came out, no one had high hopes for it, so Anna calmly accepted her share. Now, she also felt guilty for taking over 15 million for a simple soundtrack.

"He must like you too!" auntie Wu threw her arms up.

"Don't misunderstand. It went, 15% for me, 20% for Sofia, 35% for Dimitri and 30% for Michael. That's how he envisioned it, but those two didn't believe in him."

Someone tapped Anna on the shoulder again, but Zhao distracted her.

"I can't take your money, girl. If I told my daughter I accepted help from my student, she would curse at me."

"How is that worse than losing lives while we're stumbling in the dark? She can beat you up, for all I care! I'm sharing our results, try and stop me!" auntie Wu left the room in a hurry.

Anna moved to follow, but Zhao stopped her with a bitter laugh. "Let her go. Maybe it's for the best."

Someone tapped on the girl's shoulder for the third time.

"What?!" she turned around.

There was nobody there.

.