Xandrian Stone Book 3: The Academy Part 2 Read online

  Xandrian Stone Book 3:

  The Academy Part 2

  A shortbook

  by Christian A. Breitenstein

  [email protected]

  Twitter: @Ch_Breitenstein

  Chapter 1: NAVIGATION (focus)

  Chapter 2: COMMUNICATION (focus and attention to detail)

  Chapter 3: SHIELDS (pain)

  Chapter 4: THE ODER OF THE BROKEN LEG

  Chapter 5: WEAPONS (anger)

  Chapter 6: ENGINES (focus and pain)

  Chapter 7: NUTRITION AND STORAGE (attention to detail)

  Legal things:

  This work of fiction is released and is available exclusively on amazon.

  Everything, including all people, places, organizations and historical events in this publication are pure fiction. There is absolutely no connection between anything in this book and the real world.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Christian Alex Breitenstein, the cover was made with the kindle cover creator.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Chapter 1: NAVIGATION (focus)

  Healing and sensors were the two colors I had kinda grown up with. Those were the colors that I'd always practiced.

  As an Omni-Wizard, however, I had the potential for all the colors, and as a pure white Omni-Wizard I had an equal aptitude for all colors. Gray Omni-Wizards, such as Cadet Hector Johnson, the Supreme Admiral's cousin, also had the potential for all colors but but a definite preference towards one or two colors.

  My aptitude for everything meant that now, starting week 3 of the academy, I had to leave my comfort zone and enter new, untested colors.

  Then again, I might cheat a bit. Sensors and navigation were very similar, after all - so I started with navigation.

  It was amusing, but it also made a lot of sense that the training rooms for navigation were right next to the sensor ones. I had contacted a navigation instructor during the week-end, just to be on the safe side. So, when I showed up after breakfast, they were informed of my arrival.

  "Prime Cadet Adept Healer Master Sensor Stone. Welcome to navigation. Class, what are the basic lessons we've learned about our color so far?"

  One of the cadets stepped forward. "Sir, Prime Cadet, We find things." He smiled, evidently proud of himself.

  The instructor was not so proud, however. "Cadet Sainar, you're..." he shook his head and looked at one of his fellow instructors. That one nodded and waved the cadet to another room. "The cadet will get one-to-one training. Cadets?" Another stepped forward.

  "Sir, Prime Cadet. In essence, we make internal maps. That means, wherever we were we will always find again and within our range limit we can also scan unknown areas. We will know the layout of the terrain or buildings exactly, but we do not know what that terrain or building is made of." I nodded. "Interesting. So, you could not distinguish between a pool of still water and hard compressed earth?" "The water would have to be very still, but yes - then we could not tell the difference." "I am a sensor. That said, I can tell the same and much more about an unknown area. Where is the difference between navigation and sensors?" The cadet looked at me and shrugged.

  The instructor helped: "A navigator will always know the exact layout of buildings and landscapes they have ever scanned. Is that so with sensors as well?" "No, sir." Then I started understanding. "Aaaahh... A navigator maps for good, whereas a sensor kind of senses for the moment? The main difference is a stretch of time versus a point in time?" The instructor nodded. "Aye. There are other differences that you will discover, but this is the main difference."

  "I do not know how to activate navigation magic within me. Can you help me there?" "Sure, that's what we are here for." The instructor nodded and looked at me as if I had just asked a monumentally stupid question. Okay, maybe it had been.

  "Okay, what do I do?" The instructor grinned. "Do you know how many of the other cadets have asked me that question in that way?" I glanced around and saw lots of chagrined faces. "Judging by the fact that the others seem to try and sink into the ground: Not many?" Some of the cadets chuckled a bit guiltily. "Try none. They all expected me to wave a wand and they'd be Master Adepts." He did smile a bit fatherly though - so I guessed that this was so normal that he expected it by now. "No, you need to stand at a Control Rod, focus and get yourself going."

  I nodded. "What room do I take, sir?" "Number one with me. The other cadets: You know your rooms. Go there and do your magic." The other cadets, as well as the instructors, walked to the training rooms and disappeared inside. The instructor with whom I was talking and myself, we entered training room 1.

  Inside, I positioned myself in front of the unfamiliar yellow-green Control Rod.

  Not waiting for instructions, I placed my hands on the rod and focused. Much like when I had attuned myself to the sensor rod, I tried to feel the Control Rod in front of me. I sought its magic, probing gently and definitely felt something. What it was I could not really place - it was magic, but unfamiliar. However, it was definitely within my abilities to control it.

  "Report, what are you doing at the moment?" It was spoken in a neutral tone, just a request of information. Turning around and looking at him, I reported: "Sir, I am trying to attune myself to the Control Rod. I can feel its magic, I can also tell that controlling this magic is within my abilities. However, at this moment the magic is just outside of my grasp. I am trying to understand it better, to adapt myself to it and to gain control over it."

  "Good, you are doing this right. I'll just stand back and observe then." "Thank you, sir." I smiled, nodded and refocused. The best way to describe my next half hour is - soap. If you ever tried to hold on to a wet piece of hard soap, you'll know how difficult it was for me to catch the rod's magic. It kept squirming away just when I thought I had caught it. However, I did catch it eventually. Attuning myself to it I felt a change going through me.

  Not like I was shifting, maybe even loosing potential in another color, but changing as in growing sideways.

  Okay, bad example.

  My mind expanded to incorporate this new color into my palette without having to shift around the other colors. If anything, the other colors became a tad bit more solid, stronger in the process.

  Nifty!

  Okay, now that I knew what the new color felt like it was time to start using it. Focusing on navigation, I started expanding my mind - just into the training room to start with. It worked! I could tell the difference to sensors immediately. Sensors got all the information of an area they were scanning. This also was the area, but nothing within it had any special information attached to it. The Control Rods, the instructor and myself were mapped as obstructions, and that was it. Very finely detailed obstructions, I knew that where they (and I) were I would not be able to walk. But nothing more.

  Staying true to the color I was training for I did not try to incorporate sensor data. That was something for the afternoon jog. When I was satisfied that I had mapped the room completely I expanded my mind a bit. Then I saw the next difference to sensors.

  Where a sensor worked in a smooth circle, the navigator worked along walkable paths. That means paths where I would be able to walk, crouch or if necessary rob through. Anything smaller would not be mapped. The general shape of my minds expansion was also circular, but I felt my mind scooting along corridors and into rooms wherever possible to map them. When I encountered the backside of a room, for example, I just saw an impassable box
until my mind found a door I could walk through. Then the room would be mapped as well and the picture more complete.

  The training rooms for navigation, sensors and shields were separate boxes, surrounded by hallways. That was to avoid the people in one room accidentally influencing the people in the neighboring room. That was what I mapped to my south. To my west I mapped the long running strip of the training room. To the north I mapped the large training rooms for engines and storage. Based on my experience with motion sickness I thought to have a rough idea how engine magic worked, but storage magic was completely unknown to me. I was looking forward to that.

  To my east I mapped the infirmary. Up until this time I was moving gently, to not overtax my mind.

  In fact, I got a bit bored. Sensor magic was far more exciting, honestly. So I started pushing through the Control Rod - first with medium pressure. The map in my mind kinda exploded in size. Almost immediately I mapped all of the academy and started moving outside, first the landing pads and then the scarce wilderness. Still I felt no strain, so I pushed hard.

  At first, I did not understand. I saw a ball that was white on one side and a bit dirty-brown on the other. More information was available: The ball had a diameter of almost 10'200 km, a periphery of a bit more than 32'000 km and a surface of roughly 326 and a half million km squared.

  What was that ball? It was surely big, but I could not wrap my mind around these numbers. Yet, if felt familiar. So I stepped away from the Control Rod and asked the instructor: "Sir, something went wrong I fear. I..." I did not know how to describe what I had just mapped.

  The instructor looked at me, with a smile. "One thing I can tell you right now: The Control Rod has mapped your navigation range at 125 km. That means 2 pips for you. The Control Rod increases your magic, as is normal. However, as navigation magic is somewhat simple and straight-forward, the rod increases your range by a factor of one thousand. That means that your range with a Control Rod is roughly 125'000 km."

  That sounded like much. But I did not have a point of reference to even begin to try to understand that number.

  So I nodded. Opened and closed my mouth a couple of times. Admitted: "I do not understand, sir."

  Now he nodded. "That is a good sign. I am guessing that you mapped a large ball, white on one side and brown on the other?" I nodded. "That was this moon." He tapped his foot. "Eden 6-1."

  "This moon has a diameter of almost 10'200 km?" "Sounds about right, yes." "Is it okay if I take another look?" "Prime Cadet, that's what you are here for." he smiled.

  So I went back to the Control Rod and pushed with all that I was worth. Again, the brown and white ball came up in my mind, but this time I took a closer look. I zoomed in all the way to the surface of that ball and suddenly found myself looking at a representation of scarce plant-life. Looking the gnarled tree up and down all I saw was a tree, like looking at a picture. Something felt odd, and it took me a second to realize what it was.

  I had gotten used to automatically surface-scanning everything I was looking at, which gives me a lot of additional information. Now, only using navigation magic, that additional information was not there and made the tree feel distanced, almost dead - bland.

  Zooming around on the ball I ended up looking at our academy. There were others, of course - but I could find ours easily. I was physically there after all. This really was the mood Eden 6-1! Most cool.

  So I zoomed out as far as I could. I ended up looking at a picture of lots of empty space and a small moon in its center. Just as I was pulling my mind back in to step away from the Control Rod something poked my mind. Something at the outermost stretch of my range.

  Focusing on that area I could not find anything, however. Weird. Also, taking a closer look at that outermost area that I could map I saw that there was a thin layer of fuzziness. It looked like my navigation picture did not end in a sharp border but it gradually faded. Okay, not that gradually. If you compared the fuzzy area with the clear picture, the fuzzy area was paper-thin.

  I disconnected from the Control Rod and looked at the instructor. "For a very small moment, I felt something on the outermost stretch of my range. I do not know what it was and when I focused I could not find it again." He looked at me. "Hm. It will have been recorded by the rod. Let me take a look." He stepped to the Control Rod and his eyes glowed yellow-green. He frowned and disconnected. "There was something, but the contact was too short to tell anything. Probably a small meteorite or something similar." He did look concerned though.

  "Tell you what: You will continue training, focus on making as detailed a map of this moon as you can in the next few days. I will now go and tell the Admiral of your finding, just to be on the safe side." Then he smiled and left.

  For the rest of the week, I did as instructed and mapped the moon. Divine, this was hard! Not because it was taxing, no. Looking at this dead picture all the time, paying attention to the smallest details I could see to make as good a map as I could became very, very boring after a time.

  Not because navigation magic was boring, but because it was all the same! When I was done mapping the "warm" side of the moon, the cold one gave me some excitement for a little while. Then it became even more boring than the warm side, because now I was mapping one vast icy desert. Before I had at least some plant-life to look at, each plant was a bit different than the others. Now, just ice and snow.

  This Saturday, when I sent the picture of myself in my dress uniform to my folks back home, I took a closer look at it:

  I was standing in the middle of my quarters, grinning a bit like I was high, standing proud. On my shoulders I had three ribbons, from the inside to the outside: sensors with 2 pips, healing with 3 pips and navigation with 2 pips. Just over my right breast I sported the gold-rimmed Prime Cadet rank insignia with 4 little stars clustered in its center. To my left breast was pinned the order of the Bandaged Leg.

  Not bad for three weeks in the academy!

  Chapter 2: COMMUNICATION (focus and attention to detail)

  The next color to start exploring was communication. It was a bit dirty yellow-brown looking, because it was closely related to sensors in nature.

  After breakfast that Monday morning, I joined a group of Communication-Wizards at their training rooms. I had begun to not think of myself as this-or-that-Wizard, because I really wasn't - I am Omni. Each color is a part of me, but I am much larger than any single color.

  The training rooms for communication and shields were a bit different than the ones for sensors and navigation. They were just as stand-alone to avoid interference, but they were a bit less than half the size. That was achieved by placing a wall in the middle of the room, turning each stand-alone room into a double. So, there were a total of 12 training rooms for all those four colors.

  I guess that whoever planned the academy's layout ran out of space and had to improvise.

  So, I was waiting with the communicators who were grinning at each other, nodding at each other and doing all the other physical moves of a lively discussing group - but there was no sound besides the occasional rustling of a uniform. Scratching my chin and grinning, I decided to take the challenge.

  It looked like some sort of telepathic communication - much like sensor-to-sensor. So I scanned for sensor signals first and of course came up empty. I then placed a sensor field over all of us, keeping it as general as I could. Still, nothing.

  Some of the communicators were watching me by now, amused. Resisting to speak and closing my eyes, I kept scanning in the most general way I could. Not coming up with anything, I changed my tactics. I still scanned as general as possible, but I focused on sensor-to-sensor communication.

  There... something! There was some sort of rushing noise. Focusing on that I quickly found out...

  That one of the communicators was standing behind me, softly shushing.

  Still resisting to speak, I looked at him and spread my arms in an exasperated way. His shushing changed from a soft, long "Ssssshhhhhhh" t
o "Sshhh-sh-sh-SH-SH!" and then he burst out laughing as did many of the communicators behind me. Frankly, I found myself unable to be mad at them for this practical joke - I found it amusing myself, after all. So we all laughed together and I yielded.

  "Okay, could one of you funny people please describe to me how you communicate with each other?" "What? An Omni-Wizard sensor who cannot tune in to us?" He wanted to add some other joking remarks, but I raised my hand. This bit about tuning in had tickled something in the back of my head. "Tune in? Wait, lemme try..." '1, 2, 1, 2...' That was thought in the sensor way. The communicator in front of me shook his head to my raised eyebrows. So I started to - what exactly I did is very hard to describe. I kind of moved the focus of my mental signal around, much like poking in the dark until I found the right hole.

  The right hole with a gentle slope all around it. When I heard the slightest rushing, but very different from the shushing of before I started homing in to it. After a bit of trial and error I was there. But I did not hear the communicators communicating, it was all drowned by a deafening roar of a rushing. Snapping around to face that roar I was almost physically knocked back and had to close my mind.