NOW

In the few months that Jack had spent in Olympus, he had undergone something of a transformation. As he stepped up to a rocky stream for a drink of the crystal clear water, Jack saw his own reflection for the first time in a while.

Even though his face was covered by an unkempt beard, he could still see that it was leaner than it had been before he had met Zachias. His straight dark hair was close to reaching his shoulders now, and it was slowly turning into one big dreadlock from lack of shampoo.

Jack's t-shirt had not done well on this little planetary field trip. It was a shredded mess of cloth that he had abandoned after a couple of weeks. He didn't have a 16 pack like Zachias, but most of the beer belly that he had started with had melted off by now.

Thankfully, he had been wearing jeans when he had come to this world. Otherwise, he would likely be walking around this forest wearing nothing but the biggest leaves he could find.

In his own reflection, Jack saw a stranger. Even the wild look in his green eyes seemed like it belonged to somebody else.

Jack had wanted to devote all of his time to finding Arthur, but Zachias had insisted that he spend time on advancement. The first thing he had learned was how to meditate while walking, so he could absorb qi while he looked for his friend.

Olympus was far richer in qi than Earth was, so Jack had been able to increase his intake by a considerable margin. Not only was the energy in the atmosphere denser, but Jack had also benefitted from a steady diet of qi enhanced plants and animals.

This huge forest was full of fruits, herbs, and wildlife that were brimming with qi. When they were eaten, that energy would be consumed as well. The only problem was that Jack was not the only one looking for these special resources. He had to compete with every living thing in the woods for them.

The wildlife on this world was universally dangerous. Jack hadn't seen a single cute little alien squirrel or anything of the like. Everything he came across was large and vicious. Even the bugs were bigger than most dogs back home.

Every time he came across something living, he would immediately be in a fight for his life. Jack wondered if this was what Earth was becoming now that qi had been reintroduced.

He bent down and washed his hands in the stream before cupping them and bringing the water to his mouth for a drink. His mad eyes darted around even while he was sipping on the refreshing water. After the first time he had almost been killed by a surprise attack, Jack had decided to enact a policy of constant vigilance.

His policy was vindicated a moment later, as a particularly menacing looking animal stepped out from behind a tree in the distance. Jack stepped away from the stream and reached into his pocket with his right hand. He grabbed Zachias' spatial artifact and willed the Aggre Staff into his free hand.

He faced the large animal that had a body similar to a wolf with a shorter snout and dangerous looking tusks like a boar. It stalked angrily through the gargantuan trees. When Jack had arrived on Olympus, he hadn't been able to tell from the mountain peak, but the forest at the bottom of the mountains was made up of the biggest trees that he had ever seen.

Jack continued to glance over his shoulders to make sure that there were no other threats sneaking up behind him. Some of the animals he had come across hunted in packs. However, it seemed like this was a lone wolfboar.

The dark grey furred animal stalked closer and snarled at Jack angrily. He sighed and turned his staff into a spear. Jack could have manifested his lightning, but that would only draw in bigger and more dangerous wildlife. The first time he had used his lightning in a fight with a giant bug, he had ended up running from something that would have given a full-grown grizzly bear nightmares.

Jack connected with his chakra and sent his excess qi to his limbs. Even without manifesting it, the energy would give him strength.

When the snarling creature stalked to within twenty yards of him, Jack bent his knees and held the spear out threateningly. He focused on his third eye and reached out to get a sense of the animal's mind.

Judging by the beast's lack of intelligence, it would not be able to manifest its own qi. It was rare, but Zachias had informed Jack that some of the animals on this world would be advanced enough to manifest their qi and use it like Jack used his lightning.

The wolfboar bared its teeth and tusks at Jack and then charged him. Jack dove to the left and then rolled to his feet as the creature rushed past. It was faster than Jack had expected it to be.

For an animal that came up to Jack's chest on four legs, it was extremely quick. However, he was no longer the out of shape American struggling to run a mile. Even without his lightning, he was faster. The wolfboar continued to charge and Jack deftly stepped out of the way like a matador.

The animal would charge Jack and swing its mouth from side to side trying to gore him with its tusks. Jack stayed just out of reach never even needing to use his spear to block.

It became increasingly frustrated until the wolfboar snapped and stepped back to get some room for another charge. Jack smirked at the beast and waited patiently for the next attack.

Of course, he payed for his overconfidence in the next exchange, when the creature caught him off guard. It was fighting more like a boar would, so it surprised Jack when it reared back to swipe its claws across his chest.

He dropped his spear to the ground and fell backwards bleeding from a fresh wound. Jack quickly rolled back, but the beast wouldn't let him get to his feet. He had to repeatedly dive and roll out of the way of its tusks and teeth.

Jack could already feel his qi reserves being pulled to his chest by his healing physique to repair the wound. Within seconds, the claw marks had almost completely stopped bleeding. Soon, the cuts would be entirely healed and even the blood that had spilled would be replaced in his veins. Jack had enough qi to heal dozens of similar injuries, but it would cost him a little bit of his strength every time.

He barely managed to avoid the wolfboar's tusks but it was only a matter of time before it would catch him again. He still hadn't managed to get back to his feet. Jack rolled to the side and it charged past him again, trampling his left knee on the way past.

Jack felt a pop and groaned in pain. He felt his qi rush to repair the injury, but it wouldn't heal fast enough for him to dodge the next attack. The animal spun around about ten yards away from Jack and prepared to charge him again.

Laying across the ground between them, Jack's spear was pointed directly at the beast. Jack wouldn't be able to pick it up before the creature mauled him, however. It bent down, preparing to charge one last time as Jack knelt on the ground unable to rise to his feet.

Looking at where it rested on the forest floor, Jack focused his entire consciousness on the spear. He could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins as his mind registered that this was his last, desperate hope. If he failed now, the beast would tear him apart faster than his healing physique could put him back together.

As the beast sprung towards him, Jack put his right hand out and lifted with every bit of focus that he had. Time seemed to slow as his whole world shrunk down to one single desire: lift. His head pounded as he overtaxed his chakra.

However, the silver spear rose off the ground just enough to catch the wolfboar in the chest as it charged. The handle of the spear dragged the ground as the beast pushed it back until it got caught on a root. Jack heard a loud, high-pitched cry as the animal impaled itself on his spear.

After he overloaded his chakra, Jack could barely see straight for a moment. Since he was spending his days absorbing qi, his nightly meditation had been dedicated to refining his chakra. Zachias informed him that it would become more important as he advanced.

When his vision finally stopped spinning, he found the creature laying on the ground with his spear sticking out of its chest.

Jack waited a moment for his knee to finish repairing itself before he stood up and walked over to place his foot on its chest and pull out the bloody weapon. He cleaned the scripted silver blade of blood before putting it back into his spatial artifact.

The sun would be setting soon anyways, so Jack decided to stop and camp for the night. He cleared a section of forest floor and set to carving a fractal pattern in the dirt with a stick.

When Zachias had demanded that Jack begin his training again, one of the first things that Jack had asked Zachias had been about the pattern that he had showed Jack in the fight against Janus. Jack had manifested his qi into a complicated spherical shape and it had created a barrier that turned the force of Janus' attack back on him.

"What was that pattern that you had me use against Janus?" Jack had asked. "I think Janus called it a reflection fractal?"

Zachias was projecting himself to stand beside Jack and he responded in his deep rumbling voice.

"Fractals are simply patterns that repeat themselves over and over" Zachias had taught. "The natural world is full of them. The branches and root systems of the trees around you, the veins of the leaves, even the branching arcs of your lightning are fractals. They are the shape of chaos. The shape of creation.

"You can use certain patterns to direct qi. The pattern that you used in the fight against Janus uses your qi to create a weak barrier that absorbs kinetic energy and redirects it back at its source."

"Is that why there is a weird pattern engraved on your little space key?" Jack had asked while removing the small piece of metal from his right pocket and showing it to him. It was a fingernail-sized piece of metal that was covered in fractal etchings.

"That is not exactly the same" Zachias had elaborated. "The pattern on that is a mind fractal which allows the holder to store and remove items from a separate space. However, that space itself was not created by a fractal."

"So what creates the actual space that the contents are stored in?" Jack had inquired.

Zachias had looked slightly annoyed. "What is important right now, is that you begin learning the basic patterns."

For once, Jack had enthusiastically agreed with Zachias. He was actually excited to learn the shapes of creation. So for the past few months, they had been taking a few hours a night to teach Jack how to use the chaotic shapes to direct qi.

Jack scratched a pattern around the outside of the circle that he had cleared and projected his qi into it. The circle erupted with a clear energy that formed a dome around him.

It was a warding fractal that linked with his mind. If anything but Jack tried to cross into the circle, it would offer some resistance as well as alert him. It wasn't much, but it made him feel a little bit more secure.

Zachias projected himself to stand next to Jack. He watched as Jack skinned the wolfboar and washed off the meat in the stream. The first time he had tried this, it had not gone well. Jack was ashamed to admit it, but despite growing up in the sticks, he had never learned how to hunt and clean animals.

"Pathetic" Zachias growled. "You almost just lost to a wild animal."

Jack put his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. He was actually quite ashamed about that. Obviously, he could have made short work of the beast if he had used his lightning, but that shouldn't have been remotely necessary.

Ever since the fight with Janus, Jack couldn't help but feel more worthless every day. He wasn't able to stop Janus and Diana from taking Arthur. He would have lost to Janus if it wasn't for Zachias' intervention. And now, here he was, wandering a giant forest for months while his friends and family suffered without him.

Jack took the meat that he had cleaned from the wolfboar and flash cooked it with his lightning. It tasted disgusting, but he didn't want to risk giving away his position with a fire. Even if he was prepared to risk it, it wasn't as if he had brought seasonings and barbeque sauce with him to this world.

Lightning blasted from his fingertips and Jack smiled. He must look like Sith Lord Tarzan right now. As the sun was setting, Jack ate his fill of the gamey meat and sat down to meditate. He wasn't trying to absorb qi, but develop his chakra.

"Your consciousness is not made up of your thoughts" Zachias had told him. "It is the awareness of your thoughts. That awareness is your soul. Without it, you would be nothing more than a fleshy automaton following nature's programming. To refine your chakra, clear your mind of thoughts and focus on the awareness instead."

It was an agonizingly slow process, but Jack was finally starting to see some results from the chakra training. He couldn't pick up a starfighter with his mind yet, but he could lift small things.

Every night, when he finished his meditation, Jack would reach out with his chakra and telekinetically lift as much weight as he could. A couple of months back, he hadn't been able to pick up a single leaf. Even now, lifting one end of his spear had nearly made Jack pass out. Still, the progress was more than noticeable.

After he was done with chakra for the night, Zachias would take him into the mental simulation and school him in fractals and ass-kicking. Jack was a diligent student, but he was struggling with the sheer volume of material.

When Zachias had showed Jack how to win the battle against Janus, there had been so much more technique involved in his fighting style than Jack ever would have expected. Learning how to move his body the right way was only the beginning.

Apparently, controlling the flow of his qi was just as important. The qi circulation that Zachias had showed Jack was incredibly intricate, and that wasn't even considering the art of using his chakra or mind’s eye.

They would train in the simulation until a few hours before dawn, and then Jack would finally get a little sleep.

Before his introduction to the powers, Jack would have been exhausted, but as he had advanced physically, he needed less and less rest.

As soon as the first light hit his face, Jack would wake up and walk towards the sunrise. This had been his daily routine for months, but he still hadn't found the edge of the mountain range that he had arrived in.

Every once in a while, Jack would climb up to the rocky peak of a mountain and try to find any sign of where he should be heading. He was starting to worry that the entire planet of Olympus was made up of this one forested mountain range.

He hadn't seen a single hut, let alone a village. Janus had told him that they sent Arthur to the city of Nyx, so Jack knew that there had to be some civilization to find, he just didn't know which way to go.

After he finished training for the night, Jack lay down on the cleared ground to sleep on his side using his arm as a pillow. As he closed his eyes, he couldn't help but think about his friends and family. How were they doing without him? Was Arthur even still alive? Was Matt handling everything on his own?

Jack wasn't really the type, but he couldn't help but say a prayer for the ones that he loved. When he drifted off to sleep, he saw the faces of his parents and sister in his dreams.

The next thing he knew, without any warning from his fractal ward, Jack felt something slithering around his arms and legs. Feeling like he was covered in snakes, Jack jerked awake and tried to jump to his feet with lightning crackling from his skin.

He quickly realized that his limbs were tightly bound by something that was rising from the ground. Whatever held him must have risen from underneath the dirt. That was why it hadn't set off his ward. Jack manifested his lightning and tried to burn whatever it was, but something wrapped itself around his neck and constricted until his vision was almost black.

Jack lost consciousness for a second before his fractal ward alerted him to an intrusion. The last thing Jack saw before his world went black, was the blurry sight of a humanoid figure bending over his prone form and looking down on him.