Xandrian Stone Book 2: The Academy Part 1
Page 4
The rooms themselves held three control rods each, one next to each wall, which looked identical to the ones on a Brick's bridge (one and a half meter high pedestals with ball-shaped tops), only that instead of being white they were yellow. 'All sensors, gather at training room 1 if you please' Smiling a bit, I left the room I had inspected to follow that mental order and followed the others to wherever they were going. Training room one was, as it turned out, the top-left one of the double row of six rooms each.
Nobody spoke a word, which was a bit eerie. I did not sense any telepathic communication either - everyone was just totally silent.
Then the instructor spoke: "Cadets, Prime Cadet, welcome to the second week of your training. Let's fill the Prime Cadet in in what we did last week. Cadet Henderson please?" "Sir. Prime Cadet, we learned about the Control Rods, how to link up to them and focus our magic through them to increase our natural sensor abilities by about a factor of a thousand. Without the rod I can sense things that are 5 to 10 meters away, furniture and other people mostly. With the rod my range increases to 5 to 10 kilometers, I can sense large houses and bigger things."
I nodded. "The increased range comes at the cost of a decreased resolution then?" "Yes, exactly."
The instructor spoke up: "To be named Able Sensor you need a natural range of 10 meters and a resolution of Pens and small items. Where do you stand, Prime Cadet?" I opened my mind, set a filter and stretched it out. The filter was because of my resolution, I wanted to avoid an incident like that on Classification Day. I sensed most of the Officer's Wing, the lower half of the Training Wing and about half of the parade ground. My resolution was, as usual, single-celled organisms.
The instructor's eyes grew wide. "That's far below my own range, but my resolution is much less refined. In general, a sensor's range will grow over time to match their resolution, which does not change much. Your resolution is deep within Adept magic, your range solid Able."
He looked at the other cadets. "Cadet Eelon, what are the specified prerequisites for each magic rank?" "Uhm, Potential has no range and the resolution is furniture. Able has a range of at least 10 meters and a resolution of pens and other small items?" The instructor nodded. "Go on." "Um, Master has one hundred meters? No... one thousand meters, and a resolution of bread crumbs." He scrunched his forehead. " Adept has - one hundred thousand meters range, and Stone's resolution. Master Adepts has again a hundred times more range and much finer resolution, sir!" I could see that he was happy to have remembered everything, more or less. "Cadet Eelon, it is customary in the Swiss Federated Space Navy to use the rank of any officer you speak about properly." The instructor stared him down. "Um, Prime Cadet Stone?" I resisted answering with a "Yes, how can I help you?" - but just barely. The instructor grunted and moved on.
"Now that we are reminded of the prerequisites for each sensor rank, you will get into the other training rooms and work on your magic. Prime Cadet Stone, we will stay here." The others dispersed and the instructor and I entered room 1.
"Prime Cadet, These are the Control Rods. Judging by your pips you mostly have healing experience so far?" I nodded. "Yes, sir." "Okay. Stand before one of the rods. Now place your hands on the ball shape. If you do it gently or aggressively will not have any effect on the rod. Now scan again, like you did before. What has changed?" I expanded my mind, and everything was as it had been before. "Nothing, sir." "Good. In order to use the rod, you have to actively focus your magic through the rod. Do that now."
I gingerly tried to focus my sensor magic through the rod. At first, nothing happened. I kept probing and poking until I felt a spike of increased range. Focusing on the faint memory of that spike I managed to attune myself to the rod. That is like riding a bicycle: Before you "just know" how to ride one, you will fall on your face. After that skill has clicked into place you do it automatically. Control Rod using is essentially identical. I am using the simple present here because, as you of course know perfectly well, Control Rods were, still are and likely will be for a long time, the most efficient way to concentrate and focus your magic. That increases its power by about a factor of 100 but decreases finesse significantly. The loss in finesse is dependent on who uses the rod. Very powerful wizards have less finesse loss than less powerful.
Anyway, the rod and I clicked and my senses were suddenly all over the place. My range went up from of roughly fifty meters to nearly five thousand. My resolution dropped significantly, the smallest objects I could make out were roughly the size of a tooth. Then something unexpected happened.
I sensed my resolution going finer again, and my mind kept expanding. Soon it was at six thousand meters.
I focused on the increase and found something in my mind. It was some sort of a blockage, my subconscious mind depicted it as a yellow door. I focused on that door, trying to nudge it a bit more open. It worked, the door opened a bit more and I felt a sudden increase of magical power within me. My range jumped to almost twenty thousand meters, then again to thirty thousand. The door in my mind kept opening, but it slowed down. After it stopped, I was close to sixty thousand meters. The resolution did not change, however.
I stabilized my mind and started focusing on what I was actually sensing. There was the academy, a tiny speck in the middle of my sensor circle, and a lot of scarce bush-lands with the occasional copse of trees and a couple of animals. Zooming in to the academy my resolution suddenly jumped up.
Ah, if I zoomed I got more precise readings! Good to know. Out of curiosity I zoomed in all the way to the room I was in. It was filled with a yellow glow from both mine and the eyes of the instructor who had linked up to me. I filled our minds with a full scale scan of his face, with the eyebrows that went up in pleasant surprise. Then I zoomed out again, and ended the contact to the Control Rod with a landscape scan of the academy and its surroundings.
"Impressive, Prime Cadet. You just grew as much as a normal sensor does in about a decade. Now scan again, without the rod. Go full stretch, stretch your mind as far as it will go." I nodded, focused and opened my mind.
Again, I saw the academy surrounded by the landscape. Only this time the academy was a lot bigger in the center of my sensor circle. What became apparent immediately was the fact that my range had gone up significantly. Before, even at full stretch, all I had seen was the academy, and only a relatively small part of it. Testing my senses I measured my new range to be roughly six hundred and fifty meters, my resolution was unchanged. The instructor was shielded from my resolution by the filter I had put in place. He saw that and asked me about it.
"Sir, at Classification Day there was an accident, I had to help a lieutenant pull her mind back together after she had seen too much." "Wise precaution." The instructor nodded. Then he spread his hands. "You have been sensing things most of your life. Understand the difference between you and every other sensor cadet here: They started sensing only after they were unlocked. The first experiences you made and adaptations that came from those experiences happened years back. They have only just begun doing that."
"In a way, you are more than a decade ahead of them. That showed just now. At this stage, the others are sensing the rooms they are in. They have a long way to go, a way you have gone already. By academy standards, you are a fully trained Sensor Wizard well on his way to the second pip."
"Which means that I'll leave you alone now, to practice and continue stretching your mind. The other cadets need me more than you." He smiled and left.
Interesting. Thinking back to last week I started wondering if I might have the same time-wise advantage in healing magic? It seemed logical. That also meant that my head-start was spent now, because all the new forms of magic were unknown to me. That got me excited, and it reminded me to not get cocky. So I decided to stay with the sensors until I had stretched my mind to Master level. My range was already at six hundred and fifty meters, the remaining three hundred and fifty meters should not be that much of a problem.
The rest of the week was rout
ine. Stretching in the mornings, physical exercise in the afternoons. By the end of the week I was at one thousand and four hundred meters of range and Master Sensor.
Over the next week-end I made a game plan. I would start the next week with navigation, then shields and continue to weapons. The other colors would come after that.
End of book 2.
More adventures of Xandrian will come in the next short-book, Xandrian Stone Book 3: The academy Part 2.
Thank you for reading this short-book, dear reader. I hope that you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. More are coming!
May I humbly ask you to rate this book as you see fit, both to let me know if you liked it and to help make and keep it visible for others to find? That would be most nice, thank you. :-)
Yours humbly,
Christian A. Breitenstein