I was about to start poking the machine when a thought struck me and I spun around, looking at the many tables and benches that made up the cafeteria. They were positioned around the room in neat rows, all empty, it caused me to wonder where my crew was. I glanced around for my HUD again, wanting to call Clara and Devon, but I found nothing.

"Where is everyone?" I asked as I slowly turned around, inspecting the room. I found no one and was about to walk across the room and back out into the hallway to go looking for someone when a flood of people chatting to each other entered the room, heading for the machines. I did manage to catch snippets of conversation.

"The beds on this sect ship are so much better than the last one, I finally got the crick out of my neck."

"I hate that breakfast cuts into cultivation time, why can't they just add extra time to the day, it's not like we are going to notice out here in space."

"Hey, did you hear the sect patriarch picked up some life pod?"

"This is my seat, shift over one will ya."

"Wonder who was in that life pod we picked up."

"Must have been someone or something important for the patriarch to keep the ship waiting around that star system for 12 hours, since nothing else was picked up."

"Do you know how much longer it will be until we reach Elborugh Prime?"

"They need to add more fuel to the fire pit, I can't cultivate my fire technique properly with that low heat."

My attention snapped to the person that had said the ship had waited around for 12 hours, but there were so many people that I couldn't figure out which one had actually said it. The subject had changed a moment later. I was about to go and ask someone that was in the vicinity of the conversation when mentor Zhang appeared next to me, shoving a cup into my hand. She gripped my elbow and pushed me out of the cafeteria.

"Hurry up and drink your all-in-one soup" she said as she started pushing me down the corridor.

"Wait, what's going on? Where is my crew!" I snapped back at her as I subtly tried to pull my elbow free.

"Drink your soup!" she snapped back at me.

I glared at her for a few more seconds before glancing at the contents of the cup. It looked like tomato soup, so I drank it as quick as I could and turned to demand where my crew was, only to blanch at the horrid flavour of said soup.

"Yea, it's nasty isn't it, but it gives the body all the nutrients and vitamins it needs to continue cultivating, which I think is one of the reasons people cultivate out of needing it as fast as they can." she said as she glanced at me a little sympathetically.

"Where is my crew?" I coughed out as I tried not to think about what I was tasting.

"They didn't make it off that cursed ship of yours, and we were already delayed by having to come to this backwater star system, not to mention the wasted half a day waiting around for them. The patriarch made the decision that we had waited long enough and wrote them off as dead, and the sect ship departed immediately." I saw her shrug before she stopped in front of the cultivation chamber she had left me at previously and thrust me towards the door as her other hand took the cup. She then turned and walked away, leaving me at the door again.

I watched her go, my mouth open as I stared in shock, 'they left them behind?' ran through my mind on repeat for a few moments before I snapped out of my shock and called out to mentor Zhang.

"How the hell do I get back to my crew?"

"Earn your own ship and use it to go back" she called out as she waved and turned a corner, vanishing from sight.

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My head snapped to the cultivation chamber's doors as my eyebrows narrowed in determination, I quickly stepped through and put on the cultivation suit and rushed into the chamber sitting down on the cushion.

"Watch me! I will definitely get back to my crew!" I spat as I closed me eyes and focused on drawing in and circulating the Qi through my body.

After a few moments of nothing happening, I opened an eye to look around and let out a soft sigh of annoyance when I noticed the sun was not on my side to help me detect the Qi.

"So much for immediate focus and determination." I muttered as I stared out into space absently.

I don't know how long I stared out into space waiting for the sun to drift around, but at some point my mind must have emptied, and my body must have relaxed. I felt Qi slowly drawing into my body at a faster rate than what it had when the sun was in front of me. Unfortunately for me, the moment I noticed this, my mind became alert and the Qi stopped flowing into me.

"Shit, was I cultivating? How did I do that?" I asked myself as I quickly looked inside my body, watching the Qi in my dantian slowly circulating around my dantian into my body, the Qi then flowed through my veins and heart before ending back in my dantian.

I watched the Qi cycle through my body a few times until I noticed each pass made it slightly thinner, or smaller. However, the bits of my body it touched looked ever so slightly healthier.

"Fascinating…" I mumbled as I watched it do another cycle.

When it had finished that cycle I noticed as it had passed by, the walls of my veins got a little brighter, a little more vibrant. Three more cycles later, I noticed the Qi had stopped nourishing my veins and was now focusing on my heart. However, the Qi had also run out and my Dantian was empty. I turned my attention back out at the stars and emptiness that surrounded my cultivation chamber, once more staring at space.

My thoughts drifted to home, and I began to wonder about my clan, my family and how they were all doing. With the system flushed out of my body, were they all still part of a solar baron clan, or had that been taken away? Did I actually own those celestial objects, or was that just a system declaration to give me something to preen over? Thoughts similar to these kept circulating in my mind as I began to this, about how little time I had spent acquiring all this. How long my life span would have been if I had just kept following the rules laid out by those far stronger and powerful than I was. At some point, my mind slowly emptied again as I lost focus on the thoughts and my body slowly relaxed. This time when I felt the Qi entering my body I did not focus on it, I tried to maintain the peace and serenity I had found myself in.

It worked for a little while, until I focused a little too hard on trying to maintain it, and that is when it snapped, causing me to become aware of my surroundings and the Qi running through my body. I quickly noticed the Qi was circulating a bit faster. However, the Qi was not nourishing my veins or heart anymore, it was simply running through and returning to my dantian after a few cycles. I also noticed that Qi wasn't being used up like it had been the last time I observed it.

I sat there watching the Qi cycle for a little longer before I switched my attention to check the cultivation Manual I had been given. After reading the technique for a while, I switched back to looking inside my body and noticed that my veins and heart looked healthier than the rest of me. Feeling happy that I was improving, I quickly followed the next step in the technique and tried grasping the flow of Qi as it exited my dantian and guided it through my veins on a new path to my lungs. After a couple dozen attempts I finally managed to get it to follow the new path and a few cycles after that I noticed my lungs were improving.

"Ha, this is amazing, I wonder if this means I am in Qi Gathering Realm yet? Maybe I'm in the 2nd realm." I said to myself as I giggled a little bit.

I let my thoughts wander for a while before looking back at my lungs. I noticed that while they were improving, there was not enough Qi in my dantian to get them saturated in Qi like my heart was. I quickly came to the conclusion that I would need to focus on drawing the Qi in again.

I was about to stare out into space again and see if I could lull myself back into what I had realised was a meditation when I heard the chime from the speaker behind me, followed by an announcement.

Ding!

"Your allotted cultivation time is over, please head to bed immediately for your rest period. Qi Gathering 1st Realm, Kenna Mackenzie."

"damn!" I screamed as I instantly stood up. I reached out to open the door when I stopped and glanced up at the speaker. 'Why shouldn't I just keep cultivating, and ignore this speaker thing?' Crossed through my mind, but the answer came from my technique, instantly rising in my mind, a warning that if I pushed too hard and cultivated for longer than I should. Then I could cripple myself instead. I decided I didn't want to risk it and continued out of the airlock, putting away my suit as I passed, and headed for my room. I only had to ask the wall once which way I was meant to be going, and as soon as I found my bed, I laid down on it. A second later, the exhaustion I hadn't noticed caught up with me, and I was asleep in seconds.

I woke up eight hours later to an alarm blaring in the room, screaming at me to wake up and vacate the room immediately. I let out a groan and slowly crawled out of bed, the alarm didn't stop blaring until I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. I made a face at the room and turned, walking down the hallway. After a quick check with the wall, I found the cafeteria, this time actually using the machine to get a cup of soup. I sat down at a randomly selected table and took a sip, it still tasted like ass and if asked I wouldn't have been able to tell if the fact it was warm made it better or worse. I made another face at it and chugged it down as fast as I could before standing up and heading out of the room. However, as I exited the room I almost walked into a guy that had long brown hair, a chiselled jawline and looked fit enough to be an athlete.

"Wow, what's the rush? Nearly ran me over." He said as he laughed and took a step back.

I glanced up at his eyes, noticing they were a light brown with golden flecks in them, and for a second I thought I saw a golden ring around his pupils, but it wasn't there after I finished blinking.

"Sorry, guess I am a little excited to get back to cultivating. Eating this ass soup uses up valuable cultivation time." I said slowly as I stared into his eyes.

He smiled, showing off the white teeth of his as he nodded his head and stepped out of my way, lifting his hand showing me the way as he half bowed.

"Then by all means, Young Miss, don't let this lowly one stand in your way." He replied with a mocking grin on his face. I noticed his friend rolling his eyes as he turned to enter the cafeteria. I gave the dramatic boy a smile as I jogged past him and headed for my cultivation chamber.

It wasn't until I reached the cultivation chamber that something it had said last night registered with me, and I stopped dead in front of the airlock doors as my mind replayed the message. 'Your allotted cultivation time is over, please head to bed immediately for your rest period. Qi Gathering 1st Realm, Kenna Mackenzie.' It said I was in the first realm of Qi Gathering… I was officially a cultivator.

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