When he finally woke up again, the first thing Jake saw was the worried face of the First Lieutenant looming over him. He slowly sat up, wincing painfully as he looked around trying to figure out where he was.
“Relax, cadet. You’ve only passed out for a few seconds, you should be fine.”
Jake looked at the officer, his thoughts starting to slow down for the first time since he’d woken up. He was about to ask the Lieutenant what had happened when he was interrupted by his status screen appearing in front of him, along with lines of text.
Status
Name: Jake Hawkins
Rank: Cadet
Energy Core: 20/20
Recovery Rate: 0.1
He read through the text, his brows furrowing more and more as he went through each subsequent notification.
“It seems like you’ve passed out from the shock of awakening, I've never seen it happen before but I hear it’s something that happens from time to time. You should be fine in a few minutes.”
Officer Gwyra looked to the side and met eyes with Officer Valadis, with the both of them looking concerned. Jake had never heard about anyone passing out from awakening before, not that anything about the awakened was common knowledge anyways, but he felt anxious at the thought that something might have gone wrong.
Jake looked all around him, and he could see the sneers on all of the other cadet’s faces. He’d never heard of such a thing happening before, yet he could tell from the other expressions it was most likely bad.
[Don’t worry kid, you’re going to be fine]
How do you know?
[You’re core’s capacity is a lot smaller than average, which means the amount of energy the Akira released to trigger your awakening was too much for you to handle. But don’t worry, you pulled through in the end and there are no subsiding issues, as far as I am aware of.
Wait, that’s fucking bad then, what should we do? Jake shouted internally.
[Don’t worry, a core’s capacity is very easy to increase, it only gives the others a head start on you, although in your case the head start is tremendous.]
Jake stood still for a moment.
What the fuck are you on?
[I assure you, as long as you trust me and do as I say I’ll make a powerhouse out of you kiddo.]
He was about to sit up when a powerful hand grabbed him under the arm and lifted him like he barely weighed anything more than a feather.
“Here you go, cadet.” Second Lieutenant Mayers said.
Jake looked around for the second time, and he could see most of the other cadets speaking in ushed tones between themselves. On the other hand, the commotion wore off instantly when the First Lieutenant spoke up.
“Everybody listen up!”
She waited a few seconds for every cadet to quickly turn back toward her, then continued.
“Although we’ve been sidetracked for a few minutes, I expect all of you to refocus on the task at hand. I’m sure you have a lot of questions right now, but let’s go through this one step at a time. The first thing you need to know is that you’ve been awakened, which by itself comes with a lot of benefits.”
She held up a hand, and an instant later a glowing ball of swirling energies materialized in her hand.
“This is biotic energy, and it can be used by the awakened to accomplish various things, like this ball of pure energy here. If I threw this thing at one of you guys, you’d die.”
Was that a threat?
[Sure was.]
“Biotic energy is the foundation of the awakened and their powers, and with time and dedication, this power can grow strong enough to level entire planets and decimate armies with the wave of a hand. To do that, however, you will first need to start with the very first step.”
With a shake of her hand, the glowing ball of energy simply dissipated in a woosh, before she went on with her explanations.
“Now if you could please open up your status screens, I will provide you with further information.” The Akira said, and every cadet obeyed.
Status
Name: Jake Hawkins
Rank: Cadet
Energy Core: 20/20
Recovery Rate: 0.1
Base attributes
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 3
Recovery: 3
Perception: 7
Cognition: 12
Specs
[ None ]
Skills
[ None ]
“The first thing you’ll notice is that your implant has added a measure of your overall biotic energy capacity and recovery, which doesn’t really need any explanation. If your biotic energy reaches zero, you will faint, and probably injure yourself and die, so don’t go there unless it is absolutely necessary.”
Immediately, Ed’s voice echoed inside his brain to clarify a few things about the training officer’s explanation.
[Usually, newly awakened have a natural biotic energy capacity of nearly 100 to 150 units, with the most talented of them reaching as high as 200. As for their recovery, most of them have a recovery speed of around one unit per minute, with some of them even reaching two units. I guess what Ièm trying to say here is: you suck.]
The implant's words felt like burning water on an open wound to Jake, who had hoped his situation wasn’t nearly as bad as the implant had first made it out to be. Unfortunately, he now realized it was way worse than he could have ever imagined.
“Now, as for the last two sections of your status screen, I guess you will see for yourself soon enough.”
With a wave of her hand, a small cubic box appeared on the ground next to her, and the Akira only waited a brief moment before finally explaining what was going on.
“Every one of you will come and get a small marble from the box over here, and then you’ll all go back to your seat and await for further instruction.”
One by one, every cadet went to the front of the classroom to pick a small bead inside the mysterious box. Every marble was made out of some unknown metal, and Jake immediately noticed the small metallic marble was a lot heavier than an object of this size would have originally suggested.
“Now, you should all receive a small prompt through your implant in a few seconds.”
Jake only had to wait a few seconds before a small line of text appeared in his line of sight.
[You’ve received a digital grimoire. Learn Basic Telekinesis? (Yes/No)]
[Digital grimoires can contain either skills or specs, and can be obtained through various ways by the awakened. They are essentially imprits, and with the help implants, they can be used to instantly learn skills or specs within a matter of seconds. Since their invention, no one really bothers learning skills and specs any other way, since it’s so convenient.]
As always, Ed provided aditional explanations during the training officer’s class, and it was the Akira expected the implants to handle most of the teaching, since she didn’t bother teaching them anything beyond the basics.
“Once you’re done learning the skill, you can start using it to make the small marble in your hand levitate. Don’t worry too much about how to do it and just follow your instincts. I’m sure you’ll find that skills learned through digital grimoires are very convenient to learn and use under very little time. Once you’ve used the skill for a minute or so, you’ll run out of biotic energy, so please head to the conditioning area where Second Lieutenant Valadis will take care of the second part of today’s training.”
Without a moment of hesitation, Jake sat back down at his desk and held the hand holding the small marble in front of him. Then, an instant later, the marble was moving around in the palm of his hand from one side to another, although it was still far from floating. It was a weird sensation for him to be able to use telekinesis as easily right away, and it felt like he’d known how to do it for all of his life.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It only took around five or six seconds before an intense pain started to radiate inside his stomach, and that’s when the extent of his limitations were once more brought to light as he used his energy core for the first time. The pain increased progressively until Jake lost his concentration on the skill and the pebble in his hand finally settled down, with Jake looking at his palm with a look of disbelief. He still opened his status screen with a thought, wanting to confirm whether or not his hunch was right or not.
Status
Name: Jake Hawkins
Rank: Cadet
Energy Core: 2/20
Recovery Rate: 0.1
You’ve go to be fucking kidding me.
After only five seconds of casting Lesser Telekinesis, his core was already empty. He looked around to see every other cadet still levitating their marble with great ease, and Owens to his left making the marble spin in wide circles over her head like she’d been doing this her entire life.
Ashamed, he stepped up from his chair and made his way toward the conditioning area, with everyone around him shooting him surprised or mocking glances. The two officers in particular exchanged a confused look for a few seconds, although only for a brief moment.
When he arrived in front of Officer Valadiss, the small Zerkan instantly spoke up.
“How much time until you’re core’s full again?”
[200 minutes] Ed answered in his mind and Jake told the officer as much a second later.
The officer almost grimaced but seemed to think better of it at the last moment, and simply asked him to wait for the others to finish so they could take care of the second part of today’s training.
[Stop worrying so much, kid. Since you can’t use your biotic energy a lot for now, we’re simply going to have to go at this a different way, starting with building up your body and increasing your core’s capacity. Might be a little gruesome but you’re going to catch up in no time, just trust me.]
For once, Jake was glad for his new implant and he was thankful that his usual pettiness had been replaced with compassion somehow.
Moments later, the last of the other cadets were finally joining the rest of them in the middle of the open area. Unsurprisingly, Owens was the last of the cadets to arrive, and as soon as she did, Second Lieutenant Valadis spoke up.
“Thanks to the first Lieutenant, you’ve all had hands on experience with skills a moment ago, which uses biotic energy to accomplish various feats. However, my job today will be to introduce you to the concept of specs.”
[You’ve received a digital grimoire. Learn Basic Reinforcement? (Yes/No)]
“In contrast to skills, specs provide a passive boost to your abilities, requiring no active expenditure of biotic energy to activate. However, training your specs will require a continuous and substantial drain of biotic energy. The best way to manage this is with the help of your implant. It can use a portion of your energy recovery to feed into the spec, strengthening your body. This will, in turn, grant permanent bonuses to attributes or energy capacity, for example.”
[How much of your biotic energy recovery do you want to allocate toward improving your spec? I suggest to use all of it at night, and only half during the day so that you can at least practice telekinesis a few times a day, although I really suggest focusing on your spec for now.
“We’ll do as you say for now, let’s focus on reaching 100 units in core capacity before we do anything else.
When class finally ended at 1800, Jake had spent the last four hours going through some gruesome conditioning, and he’d barely managed to use telekinesis twice, and only for a few seconds. The good news was that officer Valadis had revealed to him that conditioning would greatly benefit the speed at which the Basic Reinforcement spec progressed. Although not all specs could be improved that way, the basic reinforcement one could, and it was the main reason why they were using this particular spec for basic training. As a result, he’d spent the whole class training his body as much as he could, while Ed had allocated Jake’s entire energy recovery into improving the spec.
Jake picked himself up and slowly headed for the exit. His first day at the Academy had been utterly underwhelming, as he’d found himself lightyears behind every other cadet. While Ed had promised him he would be able to catch up provided he worked harder than everyone else, he still had to consciously force himself to stand upright and keep his chin high as he exited the class.
He was headed to the dining hall when Owens suddenly appeared right next to him, and she looked concerned as she looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Are you okay?”
Jake looked at the girl for a few seconds. He had expected the girl to simply ignore him ever since he’d awakened as a failure, but for some reason it hadn’t been the case. After a few seconds, he gave her a small thankful smile, before finally answering.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Disappointed, but fine.”
“Don’t be too worried about starting at a disadvantage. To be honest, my father was also considered a failure when he first awakened, n-not that you are a failure or anything. But he ended up growing into one of the strongest awakened of his promotuion, so what I’m trying to say is to not be too discouraged with today. So long as you work hard, you’ll catch up in not time.”
Jake knew she was trying to make him feel better, yet she was so bad at it he couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle in response, which evolved in a full blown laugh.
“Don’t worry, I’ll work extra hard to catch up with you, you don’t need to worry about me giving up or anything.”
Owens was about to respond in turn when they finally reached the dorms. They stepped inside the large door that led to the common area, where an unexpected guest was waiting for them. An old woman was sat on one of the couches, near which a kettle of tea was still lightly steaming on the adjoining table.
“Grandma Al!” Jake called out to her, and she instantly turned her head toward him before giving him her usual smile.
She gestured at Jake to come sit with her, and he almost ran over to the couch next to hers. Owens awkwardly took the seat next to his after Grandma Al signalled her to do so, before pouring a cup to each of the cadets.
“Good evening, dear. My name’s Alice, but you’re free to call me Grandma Al like this idiot does.” She said to Owens, who still looked somewhat nervous.
With a shaky voice, Owens introduced herself awkwardly to the woman in turn, and Grandma Al seemed to like her because she offered the girl a very wide and pleasant smile. Then, after a few seconds, she turned back toward Jake and the smile on her face had completely disappeared.
“I hear your first day hasn’t gone quite like you’d expected?” She finally said after taking a few sips of tea.
Jake looked at her and he could see she had meant no harm with that statement, although it still stung to know that even his grandmother had learned how miserable his first day at the academy had gone.
“Could have gone better, but at least I can say I’m an awakened now.”
For almost a full minute, she simply nodded and continued to drink her tea in complete silence. Jake had long become used to those long stretches of silence where Grandma Al seemed to enter through more and more lately, so he simply sat there and waited for her to continue. Next to her, Owens had noticeably calmed down after a while, and she was drinking tea in silence with the other two.
“I’ve come to tell you that I’m going away on a special assignment for the school. We won’t be seeing much of each other for the remainder of the trimester.”
Jake was taken aback by the statement for a moment, and he almost choked on his tea as a result.
“Where are you going? Also, what does the Academy need out of a janitor?”
“Cleaning, of course. Now I can’t tell you where I’m going, and please keep the fact that I am going way to yourself. You too, miss Owens.”
He looked at her with a puzzled expression. The fcat that his grandma was going away on a special assignment for the school was suspicious in and of itself, but the fact she needed to keep it a secret for whatever reason was the cherry on top.
It was only after she looked straight at him intently for a few seconds that Jake realized she was dead serious, and that's when he finally nodded, still a little confused. He didn’t really understand what was going on, but he would make a point of keeping the secret the best he could.
“I’m afraid I’ll need to be going now, but before I go, I want you to have this.” Grandma Al suddenly said as she turned toward Jake, before she took out a small metallic object from her uniform’s pocket.
In Jake’s hand, a small pendant made out of a metal alloy he’d never seen before stood in the palm of his hand.
“It was your father’s. It’s one of the few things we recovered from his body the day they died. I hear it can be quite helpful for the awakened, so it’s yours now.”
Jake was taken aback by the present, and he was about to voice his thanks to Grandma Al when Ed went crazy inside his brain and started screaming.
[AN ARTIFACT!! IT’S AN ARTIFACT.]
Now, Jake didn’t know much about the world of the awakened, but even he knew what an artifact was, and Ed confirmed his earlier guess when a definiton popped up in jis field of view.
[Artifacts are objects that can grant powerful boons to their awakened wearers, similar to the bonuses granted by specs.]
What does this one do?
[It grants a biotic energy recovery bonus of +1, which means the amount of time needed for you to completely refill your core has gone down from 200 to 20 minutes. That is massive, kiddo, you just multiplied your biotic recovery over 10 times!]
Jake couldn’t believe his eyes, and he looked back to Grandma Al before he finally thanked her profusely for the pendant.
His eyes shot back to the small medallion, on which a majestic hawk was carved beautifully. He turened the pendant around, only to find his name was carved out of the back of the medallion, surprising him even more so than the gift.
Jake Hawkins
“Your dad gifted this necklace to your mom on the day you were born, and she wore it as a good luck charm on the front lines. They had originally intended it to be a gift for you, once you awakened.”
Jake looked back to Grandma Al, who was staring off into the empty space looking almost depressed, but he didn’t interrupt her. Finally, they made conversation for a couple more minutes before Grandma Al finally had to go and said her goodbyes to the two cadets.
Jake was weirdly reminded of all the times he’d had to say goodbye to Grandma Al whenever he’d depart for boarding school at the beginning of the school year.
It was only a few moments later that Owens said her goodbyes to him as well and Jake was left alone in the middle of the dorm. For the first time in a while, he felt sad. Yet, as he held on to his necklace tightly in the palm of his hand, he somehow felt like the motivation he’d lost earlier today had found its way back to him, stronger than ever.
He went back inside his room, and like the day before, showered and cleaned himself up from the arduous day of training. Before going to bed, he spent a couple of seconds making the marble levitate and even tried to do the same with his toothbrush, which was way easier since it was much lighter than the mysterious metallic marble, but even then he only managed to lift the thing for around a dozen seconds before the headache. Finally, he was about to go to bed when a small notification popped up to the corner of his eye, along with Ed’s voice echoing inside his mind.
[Your recovery has now reached a new total of 1.1 units per minute, which means it’s around just as high as every other cadet in your promotion, if we exclude a few outliers, so we have a lot more options than we initially did concerning your training.]
“I want you to allocate a whole unit into improving my basic reinforcement spec. Our main goal for now is going to be to improve my attributes as well as my core. Until I’ve caught up on that front, Basic Telekinesis can suck it.”
[Very well.]
Finally, Jake painfully made his way into bed as his body protested against the fatigue and soreness accumulated during the day. Still, for the first time since this morning, a wide grin was plastered on Jake’s face as he slowly fell into a deep slumber for the night.