Xandrian Stone Book 3: The Academy Part 2

by Christian Alex Breitenstein

  So, after I was healed completely, I opened my eyes and was helped into a sitting position by the head-end healer. There was no ring around the cot anymore - when I looked down I saw its pieces on the floor. The foot-end healer sat, having exhausted himself. Both were Master Healers, by the way. The head-end healer sat as well and spoke: "He's healed." I nodded and croaked: "I could use a glass of water please. We all could." The two healers nodded.

  "On it!" came a voice from outside of the room. Another voice, commanding: "Get back to your training, people. Prime Cadet Stone is well." With cheering the crowd outside dispersed by the sound of it. Then the head shield instructor entered the room and inspected what was left of the ring.

  "Impressive. You broke the ring." He said that in a way that told me that it was something worth mentioning. "Only a handful of wizards have managed that in recorded history."

  "But sir, my shield failed first. How come the ring is broken?"

  "Applying all that pressure to your shield damaged the ring. When your shield failed, it compressed to its 2-meter minimum diameter so fast, that that was the last bit needed to break it. Having stressed the ring that much puts you on the uppermost end of Master Adept Shield."

  four pips? Out of the door, so to speak?

  I was getting a weird feeling about myself being far too powerful for this to be normal. We all got a little break, the water was being brought by a fellow cadet. "Thanks." I nodded at him and took a sip while he left the room again. Four pips. Normally I would have been blown away by this news, happily. But with The Prophecy, that got a different, much darker meaning - almost foreboding. I would have to be the best I could be or the Colonies would die. That with this latest news meant that - I did not know what. And that scared me. Before, I had been an Adept Healer as my best color. Now I was a Master Adept Shield. If shield magic was my strongest magic that meant that likely some sort of attack might be coming - but by whom? when? why? For that matter, how? I had not the slightest idea.

  The healer to my right looked at me. "You frown, Master Adept Shield. Why?"

  "Because I am too powerful." I shook my head. "I do not feel like this can possibly be normal."

  Both healers and the shield instructor burst out laughing. After a second, I managed to chuckle a bit, breaking the worst gloom in my mood. When he got some air to speak again, the instructor managed to say: "You are absolutely right, son! You are not normal. But that should have been clear to you when you were unlocked an Omni-Wizard." All three were wiping tears of laughter out of their eyes.

  "Well, I was told that I am special - but it never really sunk in I guess." I shrugged. "Being a Master Healer for example feels normal to me, I have healed people almost all my life." I shrugged. "I guess that healing and shields are similar insofar as both are painful - so I might have had an advantage there. But still, Master Adept? Is that not a bit high?"

  The instructor shook his head. "Nope. It is actually a bit low for you." My left-hand healer looked at him. "Inconclusive?" "Not at this time - but if he manages to break the ring without his shield failing, then yes." I raised my hand and looked at him questioningly. He answered my unspoken question. "We all have up to four pips on our ribbons as you know. four pips is Master Adept. If you are above that on a level that we cannot measure you, you'll get one solid bar top to bottom, kind of the fifth pip. That means that you could not be properly measured and your wizardry rank is inconclusive."

  "Like you, sir?"

  "No, look closer." He even took the ribbon off to show me. "You can see that I have three normal pips, being an Adept Shield. The square on top of my ribbon is not gold like you, it's silver. Also, I have two thin silver bars to each side of the ribbon going top to bottom. Those silver elements identify me as an instructor. You, if you become inconclusive, will have the normal golden square and a massive golden bar down the whole length of the pip, filling it side-to-side. Much like a Master Adept, but without the little gaps in between the four pips."

  "Aaahh..." I nodded.

  Then the Admiral walked in. "Son, I hear you got yourself wounded in the line of duty. As you know, any activity that is navy-related is defined as duty." He got a box out of his jacket, opened it and handed it to me. "Therefore, it is my pleasure to award you with the order of the Broken Leg. Carry on." He left again.

  This time, we all burst into laughter. That must have been a record in the shortest order-ceremony ever!

  "Prime Cadet, go to your quarters and update your uniform. Then take the rest of the morning off, rest up. Tomorrow, you will be in this same room again."

  I nodded. "Aye, sir."

  The rest of the week was painful. In the mornings, I trained to hold a shield for hours at a time, constantly being in pain. It was not so hard. At the end of the week I had another test of my maximal strength, and this time I broke the ring without my shield failing. That gave me the solid bar instead of pips, unofficially called "the fifth pip". At the end of the week, I kinda felt like a rock star amongst the shields.

  The picture I sent home to my folks was rather impressive: Five ribbons, none with less than two pips, seven stars in my Prime Cadet's insignia and both the orders of the Bandaged Leg and the Broken Leg. I must confess: I may have looked a bit like a rooster with my chest thrust out like that - but I was happy and proud.

  Chapter 5: WEAPONS (anger)

  The Weapons Wizards got me back to the ground, which felt like a good thing even then. Getting too full of myself would not do, after all.

  The weapons' training area was in the back of the training wing, kind of the backbone of the c-shaped academy. There it ran the whole height from top to bottom with three long shooting ranges and a bit of close combat training grounds. Though, that part was also what the general training area, which was right beside the weapons training area, could be used for. There was not even a wall or anything to demarcate where one stopped and the other began, it was one large room.

  The three shooting ranges were 250 meters long, five meters wide and the normal two and a half meters high. They were marked every ten meters and sported black spots all along their length.

  When I arrived, the other weapons were mostly there already and they immediately started making fun of me. It mostly went into the direction of them being curious how I'd fare with REAL magic. I smiled and endured.

  The instructors came and a large group went over into the general training area to start close combat training with practice staves much like the ones I'd seen in the Brick that brought me here. The few that remained got shooting staves and lined up at the shooting ranges. The head instructor motioned me over.

  "Prime Cadet, got get a shooting staff and shoot the target at the end of the range." It sounded like he, just as myself, expected me to do great. So I got a staff, waited in line and watched the others shooting. They took position at a little line in the ground, pointed their staves into the range before them, and balls of energy shot out of the staves into the range. Some times that ball got far, some times it did not - making more of the black spots in the walls, ceiling or floor. When it was my turn I took position, pointed my staff and focused. Hard.

  I fixated the target, which at this distance looked like a tiny little circle down at the end of the tunnel, and shot a soaring meteor of an energy ball down the shooting range.

  Or, I tried to.

  What came out of the staff was a little speck of light that sputtered and winked off before having gone farther than a meter. It looked so pathetic and funny that I could not help it - I had to laugh at my failure. "Prime Cadet! STOP THAT NOISE! Stand at ATTENTION!" Out of reflex, I stiffened myself immediately. That instructor had almost as thundering a voice as the Drill-Lieutenant.

  "WHAT do you think you're DOING!! If there was an ENEMY down there, YOU'D BE DEAD! AS WOULD YOUR COMRADES!"

  "NOW FOCUS AND DESTROY THAT TARGET!!" Oy, that was almost deafening. So I took position again, focused hard and produced another sputtering speck. This one winked off half
a meter away from me. Oops, I was getting worse it seemed.

  "Sorry, sir." I tried again, becoming embarrassed. This time, the speck sputtered less and got a whole four or five meters! Happy, I tried to follow up on that success. This speck winked out right after leaving the staff. I frowned. "I do not understand, sir. I know that it's not the staff, but myself. When I try to shoot, I feel - nothing, really. Maybe a tad bit before, when I was embarrassed. But the other tries, nothing."

  The instructor nodded. "That is because you do not use your magic. Weapons magic requires aggression, anger, emotions like these. Hatred will not work, neither will happiness. I was told this might happen, though. You are strong in the magical colors that require focus, concentration and suffering. Have you ever beaten someone up?

  "No, sir! Of course not." I did not understand that question or why that was of interest right now.

  "Exactly. You are a mellow mouse, content with floating with the flow, no ability do make any decisions four yourself at all. I guess that you're here because Mommy took away your stuffed animals and drove you out of your home by stopping to feed you chocolate milk?" I tried. I really, really tried.

  But I could not keep a straight face. I snorted and then laughed so hard that I had to support myself on my staff. The instructor looked a bit sour. "That usually gets a different reaction." I was still unable to talk, but then something changed. A sense of danger overcame me and within a split second and I stood upright, raised a shield and spun to face the direction out of which I sensed the danger.

  And I looked right into the eyes of Cadet Hector Johnson who was staring at me with a deep anger. Automatically, I also scanned his surface thoughts and feelings and knew that he was about to lower his staff to attack me. He hated me with passion, which was something I had never felt before. But I was in combat mode, or rather self defense mode, so that was only a neutral information.

  The mood and atmosphere of the entire room shifted immediately towards tension, uncertainty and readiness. The instructor shot me a bewildered look, glanced the way I was facing and saw that Cadet Johnson was making a fierce face and actually started to lower his staff.

  "CADET JOHNSON!!" That was yelled in a volume and strength that would have made the Drill-Lieutenant envious. I guessed that there was a bit of magic behind that yell, the instructor was an Adept Weapons Wizard after all. Johnson was less impressed than I, however. He did straighten, he did plant his staff at his feet in a rough at-attention-pose, but his face kept some of its surface emotions.

  "We are NOT going to shoot each other! You WILL NOT keep testing my nerves like this! YOU WILL BE EXPELLED THE NEXT TIME I HEAR OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS! DO YOU GET ME?!?"

  Johnson looked at the instructor. "My uncle..."

  "WILL NOT SAVE YOU INDEFINITELY!!" The instructor took a deep breath. "Now lay down your staff and go to your quarters. I do not want to see you again today. IS THAT CLEAR!!"

  Johnson shot me a look that was beyond venomous. Then he threw his staff down and stormed off. A couple of cadets around him seemed to be unsure what to do. The instructor just looked at them, and three of them laid down their staves and left as well. The instructor shook his head. "Johnson is charismatic, stupid and a bully. That's a bad mixture." Then he realized that he had said this aloud, glared at everyone and suddenly there was a flurry of activity as everyone threw themselves at their training with vigor.

  So did I. Anger, the instructor had said. That was a problem - as a healer I knew the result of anger and how painful it could get. So I automatically always sought the most diplomatic solution, or to break the mood with humor or something similar. Aggressive determination, however, might work. So I faced the target again, and poured all the determination I had to not let the Colonies die when the Prophecy would come true into the staff. I aimed the staff at the target and shot a ball of energy down the hall that almost got to the end. At 221 meters it hit the wall.

  "Better. Still far beneath what you can do, if you apply yourself, though." I knew the instructor tried to get me angry, but it did not work at all.

  "Sir, as a healer I know the receiving end of anger more than well. Harming another is not a possibility for me, so I try to work with determination."

  "I see." The instructor paused a breath. "No, I don't. But then I am no healer." He considered for a moment. "Keep working with determination then, and do not go for strength but precision. Hit that target by the end of the week and I can give you a weapons pip."

  I nodded. "Will do, sir."

  For the rest of the week I got in line before one of the shooting ranges, shot five shots when it was my turn, and went back to the end of the line. It was business, I was working at my aim - sometimes it was embarrassing, causing lots of laughter amongst the other weapons, sometimes I got close causing the other weapons to pat my shoulders and encourage me. All in all, it was a nice week. I was one of the weaker cadets present and applauded along the others when the weapons stars achieved something good. Like, for example, when a cadet blew a hole into the back wall of one of the shooting ranges and got his second pip for that.

  Johnson was doing his best to keep in control, I could tell. Why he hated me that much was beyond me - he was gray, but still an Omni-Wizard. Why he focused on weapons alone I did not understand and following an inner feeling I did not ask. In fact, I kept out of his way to avoid any further confrontations.

  By Friday I hit the target four out of five times, which was deemed acceptable and was awarded my weapons pip. I was an Able Weapons Wizard now and content that way. The picture I sent back home that week-end, with me pointing excitedly at the weapons ribbon and grinning as if I had won something great got a short video from my dad as a reply. It just showed him laughing.

  Chapter 6: ENGINES (focus and pain)

  The next week made me feel a bit - uneasy. The memory of my motion sickness on the flight from Eden 3-1 to here was still very fresh in my mind, after all. And in this next week I would be in motion sickness almost constantly, a natural side-effect of engines magic.

  Taking a deep breath I went to the engines training rooms. There were six of them, just below the mess hall. When I arrived there, I saw that those rooms looked like normal engine rooms on the Bricks. When I asked the instructors who were already there about that, they nodded.

  The head instructor waved me aside: "Prime Cadet, let's go to room 1 straight away. The other cadets in this batch are not so very talented, and I don't want them to feel bad about themselves. Then They'll never graduate." This instructor did not have a clue about human motivation it seemed. I nodded anyway.

  When we walked into the room, the instructor stopped me: "Prime Cadet, as you can see there are a lot of runes on the floor here. That thick line of runes in the middle there is the jump drive. Only Adept Engines Wizards can operate those." He himself was an Adept, by the way. "To both sides of the jump drive, you see thin double-lines of runes. That's the rail drive. Master Engines Wizards. The four short lines on the outside are the sub-light drives. Able Engines Wizards. Understood that far?" I nodded. To clarify, the sub-light runes were like a dotted line on the outside of the rail drive, right next to the walls of the room.

  "We will begin with the sub-light drives and work our way upwards or, as we say, inwards from there. The eight sub-light drives are redundant. That means, the Brick will operate fine with one of these, but to stabilize flight and reduce the stresses on the runes all eight are usually used on a low setting. What most people don't realize is the fact that all the propulsion of the Brick is exerted here, and only here. So, if you use just one rune and do some fancy flying, there is a realistic risk of you ripping that rune out of the Brick, most likely destroying it. Always keep that in mind. Understood?" I nodded.

  "Good. Now: These runes are specially made to just simulate the effects. Essentially, if you show promise, most of your engines training will be in the second half of the year, in the advanced magic training. Then you'll fly around in Training Bricks and h
opefully not kill yourself." He laughed at his own joke, I nodded and tried to chuckle a little.

  "You got humor I see, good. Now access this rune and show me what you're made of." I nodded and knelt. "You only pray to the Supreme Divine, son. Not the engines runes!" He laughed loudly while I stood again and laughed a little bit too. Then I focused on the rune at my feet.

  Immediately I got nauseous and fought that back just as on the flight here. That told me that I was doing it right, so I continued. The rune at my feet flared brightly, while I felt it trying to move. "Whoa, Prime Cadet! Don't fly the whole moon away! You are throwing way too much power at the rune. Lower your setting and nudge it gently. I want it to glow, just brightly enough to be visible." I tuned back and nudged the rune as gently as I could. "A bit more, another bit, yes! That's it! Now you are moving your Brick at a gentle pace. Remember this setting. When you start the advanced training, try and nudge the Brick as gently as you can until you have a feeling for how much power will yield which result." I disconnected and nodded. "Understood, sir."