Adapt (A Touch of Power Book 2)

by Jay Boyce

  Ian looked a little lost as Jade hefted her chest. He opened the door for her, waiting until her fellacai had all flown out after her before he allowed it to close. She asked softly, "Do you want to come to my workshop for a bit? I've got a few things I'm going to test." Ian looked a little hesitant, and Jade cajoled him instantly, "Come on. It's better than sitting and brooding. We can't change what's happened, but we can prepare for a better future. That's what I choose to do." Ian nodded, silently following her.

  After a moment, he asked, "Do you want me to carry that for you? What's in there anyway?"

  She smiled at him, glad he'd seemed to drop out of his gloom at least a little. Gloom did nothing. Anger at least fueled her need for revenge and action. Smiling, she shrugged and said, "Sure, it's not heavy." She passed over the box, which he easily took. For some reason, he didn't question that she was carrying around a large empty box. They made it to Magnus without any further incidents, just her waving at a few students who recognized her. He followed her up to her classroom, waiting patiently as she unlocked her door and let the fellacai fly in before she held it open for him.

  He walked in, looking around in amazement. He'd never been in her workshop before—not many people had, really. Still, his eyes were drawn to the fire tree sitting there as the fellacai went and started playing in its branches. "How are they…okay?" She smiled, indicating for him to put the box down on her 'earth' table. He did so, still staring absently at the fire until she opened the chest and started pulling out shiny stones. His attention immediately snapped back to her as he asked incredulously, "Wait, that box wasn't empty?!"

  She laughed, shaking her head. "Nope. I just used magic to lessen the weight so I could carry it. Also, the firetree isn't burning them because when I made it, I put in a specification that it wouldn't burn anything else. You could go stick your hand in and be just fine.” Taking her at her word, he walked over and did just that, creating another obstacle for the flying butterflies. He stared in awe at her creation for a minute before walking back over to her, curious as to what she was doing.

  By this point, she'd taken one of the stronger metals and fused it into a tube with grips. Leaving a place for a 'battery,' she left that as hollow metal, then created grips inside for a crystal of her choice. She knew there was a bunch of circuitry she was missing but decided she didn't care. She was using magic, rather than some random energy source. Next, she took the rough diamond she'd found, concentrating her magic into it. She was compressing it into a more pure form, pulling any imperfections to the outside, which she made fall off. This actually took her about five minutes just to shape this one little diamond—well…it was the size of her thumbnail, so she supposed it wasn't really 'little.' Still, it was a perfect hexagonal crystal, and she absently wiped the sweat off of her forehead before grabbing her bag and starting to snack. That had taken way more energy than she'd anticipated.

  Ian was just examining the crystal she'd created. "This is incredible," he finally announced, and she smiled.

  "Thank you. Although the cuts in my old world were much prettier, this one will fit the function I want.” She silently worked on it again, forming a cylinder that would be the focus. A minute later, the diamond was finally in the form she wanted and she dropped it down the tube, shifting it with her energy until it was held in place securely. She created a latch at the top that would close over the entry to the tube at the click of a button, as well as a button that put a cover over the crystal to separate it from the energy. She closed that one first, then opened a small hole into the hollow bottom. She paused, gathering her thoughts.

  Lasers were the effect of energy pouring through a crystal and emitting photons of light, more or less. Concentrating, she focused a combination of light and lightning magic into the tube, compressing it with the idea that it would travel through the crystal and form a four foot laser beam shooting out of the top. After she had compressed as much energy as she could, she sealed it off, making sure it was funneled properly to the crystal when she opened the safety latch.

  Triumphantly, she looked at Ian with a grin. "I think I did it!"

  "Congratulations? What is it?" Ian asked with curiosity.

  Jade walked over by the door, which had the most empty space. Pointing it away from her at the wall, she said, "I made a laser sword!" She first released the top latch, then with anticipation, released the latch separating the energy from the crystal. She was unprepared for the massive backlash as a four foot beam of energy shot OUT of her 'lightsaber' like a gun and impacted the wall with a loud bang as it exploded against the stone. She was thrown back as rock shards flew in all directions from either side of the hole.

  Ears ringing from the blast, she sat up and gazed dazedly at the hole, which she could see had continued to the other side of the hallway and made a nice crater there too, though thankfully it had been stopped there. She felt Ian's hand on her shoulder, shaking her in panic as she blearily looked at him. She could see his mouth moving, but all she heard was the ringing. Absently, she reached up to her ears, healing them as blood seeped out. Sound and vision returned in a shock, as she realized she'd been seeing bright lights. She could now hear Ian yelling, "What in the heavens was that!? What happened!?"

  She could hear footsteps pounding up the stairwell, drawn by the noise of the explosion. Voices called out, asking if there had been an attack as they came to the second floor, halting at the sight of the rubble filling the hallway, noting the otherwise stillness of the area now that Ian had stopped yelling. Someone started picking their way through the rubble and she stared at the hole as Stephen's face looked through it with concern, lightening only slightly when he saw her staring back at him dazedly. He asked curiously, in a strangely calm voice, "Jade, what exactly did you do?"

  She looked down at the now closed not-lightsaber that was still clutched in her hands as she shrugged and said in a dejected voice, "It didn't work."

  Chapter Twenty-One – Potential

  Jade stared down at her failed lightsaber. Where had she gone wrong? She was pondering her failure as she absently heard the door open and several people file in. More were in the hallway, and she glanced up, annoyed that there was now a hole in the wall and rock dust covering her workshop. Stephen was studying her intently, while three other professors had shooed the few other people away and were now curiously inspecting her workroom.

  She clambered to her feet, ignoring their whispered conversations as she walked over to inspect the hole in the wall after setting down her non-saber on the closest table. She wasn’t quite sure why it had exploded the wall instead of making a clean cut. She’d have to look into that. In the meantime…she glanced around at the shards of rock all around her shop, frowning.

  Holding her hand out, she felt the magic respond as she called to the rock and it began to move through the air towards her. Her other hand got stuck out the hole, doing the same thing. She realized when it had all collected that she had too much rock for her hole, then remembered the crater in the other wall. She reallocated a portion of that, then pulled her hand out of the wall, telling the rock to take its place. After it was packed in tiny pieces where it was supposed to be, she mentally melded it with the rock around it, telling it to become one, unblemished and strong.

  To her joy, it did just that and she smiled triumphantly. At least this aspect of her magic was still obeying her! Finally, she turned to her four new guests and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. Unfortunately, something went wrong with my latest experiment…” Her voice trailed off as she stared down at the failed saber. Was it really unfortunate? She still had no idea how to use a sword, but a laser gun… It would still take learning how to do it properly, but it would be a nice ranged attack.

  She was staring thoughtfully down at it as Stephen asked quietly, “What exactly were you trying to make?”

  Startled, she looked back up at him and smiled ruefully. “In my old world, there were…” She paused. How should she e
xplain movies? Special effects? Science fiction? She was trying to think of how to explain it, then gave up. “People had been trying for years to create a sword out of energy, called lasers. I thought I might be able to finally do what my people couldn’t because of my magic.” She laughed dryly, realizing her hubris had gotten the better of her. Still, she shrugged and went on. “This ended up more like a laser beam gun than anything. Which honestly, is probably better. It would be a very portable ranged magic attack that anyone could use.”

  She was staring down at her not-a-lightsaber again, then sighed, reaching over to the earth table to grab another hunk of metal. From it, she added a handle, rearranging the configuration slightly so that the whole thing appeared more like a pistol. She contained the energy in a casing of metal, as if it were a little bullet cartridge, then put in a button that would open the bottom so it could be easily switched out.

  Pondering the cartridge of energy, she wondering if she could put other elements in, rather than just light and lightning. She had hooked up the trigger so that it opened the chamber between cartridge and crystal, so as long as you held the trigger, the energy would keep going until it was depleted. Belatedly, she added a safety switch and quickly pushed it to off mode. She grabbed a few more chunks of metal, absently making empty cartridges for more energy until she remembered that she wasn’t alone and glanced up guiltily.

  The four professors and Ian were all just staring at her in fascination. It was Count Aiden Davion who stepped forward, looking curiously at her new energy gun. She vaguely recalled meeting him with Stephen before, and if she remembered correctly, he was the light instructor. Probably in his late thirties, he reminded her of a cross between a shiny paladin and a stereotypical wizard. He wore white robes accented with silver armor pieces and had a large gnarled staff that had been worn smooth with years of handling and boasted a large glass ball glowing gently at the top. His face was clean shaven, his eyes light blue and threaded with fascinating flecks of white. His hair was the only thing that messed up the wizard image, given that it was medium brown, of medium length, and tied neatly into a ponytail at the back of his head, the ends coming only about an inch out of the tie.

  “You’re saying that the explosion from earlier was caused by light magic?” He was now examining the gun in her hand curiously, and she pulled the light cartridge out and handed it to him so he could have a closer look at it, which he eagerly did.

  “Yes. I used the crystal as a focus and amplifier to create a beam of concentrated light and lightning, rather than letting it spread out at will.”

  He nodded absently, still studying the cartridge as he said softly, “I can feel the intent you put into this. It’s rather ingenious.”

  Jade smiled at him. “Thank you, Count Aiden. I’d like to test other elements as well to see if the crystal will amplify them too.”

  Stephen interjected here, “Perhaps you should wait to do that until you have a better place to test this. If anyone had been in the hallway…”

  Jade winced, nodding. “Yeah, sorry about that. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting it to blow up. I’ll be much more careful next time.” Stephen seemed to sigh at her ‘next time,’ and she looked at the pretty woman next to him. “Sorry for not greeting you properly earlier, Countess Delaney, Randal.”

  “You can just call me Ren. I was just about to head up here anyways.” Countess Delaney, or Ren, walked over and did the whole greeting with a kiss on the cheek. Her eyes were twinkling excitedly as she looked around the workshop and the various materials strewn all over. Her eyes had been especially drawn to the fellacai playing in the fire tree.

  Jade glanced down at her watch, seeing it was quarter to eleven. Where had the time gone? She was about to respond when Randal came forward, greeting her politely. “No problem, Jade. It’s good to see you. I forgot to give you the key yesterday, so I was about to head up here as well.” He smiled and handed her the key to the contractual classroom, and she smiled cheerfully back at him.

  “Thanks, Randal! I’m glad you weren’t already up here when I did my experiment. I would have felt awful if I’d injured anyone.” Aside from herself, that is. She was glad no one had been in the hallway and that Ian was okay. She tucked the key into her bra-purse, once again lamenting the fact that she hadn’t been able to figure out how to make a pocket dimension yet, despite the fact that she’d gotten beginner 4 in it from siphoning Cosmo. Maybe she should just try it? Perhaps after classes, she’d go into an empty courtyard where she couldn’t hurt anyone and try it there.

  He coughed, then pointed at the side of her head. “You might want to take care of the blood coming out of your ears. I’d say you did hurt yourself.” She had been trying to gloss over that, but the fact that she had dried blood on her face was probably pretty gruesome, making Ren’s greeting all the more noticeable for her lack of reaction. Concentrating, she quickly pulled at it with her magic, creating a tiny little globe of blood, which she set aside on a shelf in a little jar.

  Everyone was now looking between her and the jar, and she shrugged. “What? I’ve gotten used to cleaning blood off of everything.”

  Stephen looked a little like he wasn’t super happy with her statement, but there wasn’t much he could do. It was a dangerous world, and she was ever so slowly losing her innocence. She had killed multiple creatures in the last twenty-four hours, and she felt…nothing. It was just something that had to be done in order to survive. Perhaps she was in a state of numbness, but she didn’t think so. It was more like acceptance that it was just a part of life. If you went to a video game world, you had to kill things. Simple.

  Ren however, looked excited. “Do you keep the blood you clean up?”

  Jade thought about it and shrugged. “I normally just stick it in a jar or bottle of whatever room I’m in and let whoever spilled it deal with it. I do have the blood that was in this room, though.”

  Ren smiled triumphantly. “Perfect, that will be great for our lessons! We should start.” She paused, looking at the other teachers and Ian before smirking as she said, “The rest of you—shoo.”

  Stephen groaned in resignation, Randal and Ian both looked ready to bolt, and Aiden looked miffed. “Ren, you’re giving her private lessons?” he asked indignantly.

  She smirked at him. “Of course I am. You saw what she just did so nonchalantly. She’s the most gifted magic student I’ve ever seen. Having her in a normal class would just slow her growth.”

  Aiden looked thoughtful as he nodded slowly, studying Jade. For her part, Jade chimed in, “I actually like being in normal classes sometimes. I didn’t exactly have a normal upbringing, so I like being around people my own age.” When Aiden looked both mollified and frustrated at her admission, she continued, “At least for this week. I like meeting new people, but if I advance past the class, I’d be happy to receive private tutoring instead.”

  Grinning, Aiden nodded. “Very well, that will do then. I’ll see you this evening.”

  Jade nodded, waving at all of them as Ian mentioned he had a class to get to, and the four of them filed out, leaving her alone with Ren, who’d gone back to studying her room. Finally, she turned back to Jade and asked, “What do you know about nature magic?”

  Jade pondered for a moment, then said softly, “In its most basic form, nature magic is the ability to affect the growth of plants.”

  Ren took a seat at her sitting area, motioning for her to sit down as well, which she quickly did. “You’re partially correct. Nature mages do indeed control plants, but there is much more to it than that. Nature magic is what I call a bridge magic because it bridges the gaps between various types of different magic. Plants need earth, water, and light to grow. Nature mages can also affect the weather, which are products of wind, water, and lightning magics most frequently. Thus, nature mages are very rare because they require at least some affinity in all of those magics in order to function properly. Granted, not everyone has all of those affinities. They are able to bridge t
he gap with raw power, but being able to control them makes nature magic much easier. For instance, I have affinity with earth, water, and light magic, but no affinity for wind or lightning. This is the more common combination and why most people think we only control plants. Since we do not have the corresponding affinities, it’s much harder to change the weather.”

  Jade nodded, as this made sense to her. Plants and the weather were derivatives of other things being used in conjunction. It was perfectly logical. Ren was continuing on, however, “Now, I mentioned that having those affinities makes things easier, but having the elements present is also important. If you have the seeds, earth, water, and light, it’s much easier to grow a plant. If you’re missing any piece of the puzzle, you have to make up for it with raw magic power, which is extremely draining.”

  She pulled a seed out of her pocket, showing it to Jade. “With this seed, I could instantly create a plant, but with only the seed, it would be extremely draining and might go awry. It’s often far better to provide the ingredients for the recipe, then use magic to speed up the process.” She gestured to Jade’s worktables. “Why don’t you make a quick pot for your first tree.”

  Jade grinned, getting up and grabbing some rock and earth from her table. She formed the rock into a square box, then put the earth inside of it, running her fingers coated with magic through it. As she did so, she imagined her fingers infusing the dirt with the rich ingredients a plant needed, turning it into a nice loam. She could feel the magic seeping from her fingers into the dirt, changing it subtly. As she carried it back to the table, she gathered water from the air absently, weaving it into a ball that hovered at her side. Sitting down again, she presented her tree box with pride.