The walls lit up, momentarily blinding him. Then began displaying a large grassy field. Looking down, the panel beneath him flowed seamlessly with the rest of the display. The simulation also emitting realistic sounds completing the illusion that he had been transported somewhere else.
A heads up display loaded into his view, following is eye movements. The left side featured a marquee box with Tasks floating above it and at the top right was a vertical bar that appeared to be empty. Ping!
Tasks
-new- Activate Aura
Koro rolled his neck and shoulders while hopping on the balls of his feet. Then he reached out with his senses and met his aura. His biofield pulsed in response and he felt his body connect to the world around him. His senses could suddenly make out the details of the force constructs around him. He even noticed the neighboring walls of the other platforms, albeit just barely without any other details.
He focused back on the task at hand. Noticing the empty bar had now started to fill with blue. It must be gauging safe energy use for the shield badge.
He had pushed himself regularly for the past few years trying to expand his aura and get used to his abilities but safety ruling prohibited children from overextending themselves before the age of 12. After his last birthday he booked training hall space at the District 2 community center whenever he could. After all that, his total pool before getting exhausted was still very small but that was the case for most kids his age.
You had to be careful especially for the freshly Manifested. Besides energy poisoning, which was super dangerous. There were also things like feedback sickness and resonant cascades, in which you basically detonated your own aura by not syncing with it properly and attempting to use your Enki without it actually casting. Enki was the epitome of beautiful but deadly.
-complete- Activate Aura
-new- manifest Bolt
Bolts were one of the first things they taught children. A basic casting in which you'd form your materials into a dart.
He gathered the energy around his palm and focused on shaping it. Pale yellow energy started accumulating above an open palm and half a second later a shard of energy floated above his hand, the edges of it sparking and warping slightly. His casting time was decent for a younger Manifested but Adepti and up could do this at the speed of thought possibly faster if the rumors were true about some of the Archeons.
-completed- manifest bolt
-new- cast bolt
He held his arm out straighter and visualized a trajectory in front of him. There were a number of aiming techniques that were known but his dad drilled into him that understanding the entirety of point A to B always made for more accurate casting. It was slower by a fair amount but the difference was obvious from all of his target practice in the past. He was simply just shooting in a direction so making a full point to point connection was unnecessary but he didn't want the shot to go wild. Especially without knowing what this test was really looking at. He formed a loose array in his mind array and connected it to the origin point of his ability. Pushing his aura into the construct, he casted it.
Fffwwwppp. The bolt shot off in front of him, seeing and feeling it connect with the wall a heartbeat later. Glancing over he saw the blue bar drop down just a little. Wincing a little at the sight.
"I knew my levels were low but I thought I'd be able to fire a few Bolts before it even took a hit.”
-completed- cast bolt
-new- hit targets 0/5
He was starting to get comfortable with the tasks now. Just like one of his holo games he thought as he shook his shoulders out.
Move to designated floor position
He looked around until he spotted the red line behind him. He quickly moved to stand on it. Immediately after a circular target materialized a few feet in front of him and about 8 feet in the air.
He held his palm out this time and summoned another bolt. This time he marked the target with his senses and created a clean trajectory line in his focus. Breathing deep he casted the bolt. ssswwwiisssh
The bolt zipped off and smashed the target. The target disintegrated into particles and another took its place a few feet lower to where he had to look down. Firing off another bolt. Smash.
"Next one down good." as three more targets showed up.
One to the right and the left at the same range and then another farther back. He smashed all 3 and looked at the blue bar. It had dropped to about 80 percent. " Six Bolts and I'm already down that much'' he said defeatedly.
-completed- hit targets 5/5
-new- hit moving targets 0/3
Three new targets popped up and began moving in different patterns from each other. Each one spaced at 10, 12 and 16 feet. He tried focusing on how they were all moving but it just hurt his head.
“Okay one at a time.” He tried to focus on his usual trick of connected trajectory points but it was too slow to keep moving his target point. It felt like it was exhausting his aura to do so as well.
Canceling the trajectory focus he changed to just focusing on the force application of the bolt. Trying to lead the target instead but the shot missed after he pushed too much on the bolt during casting and it flew at a ridiculous speed across before pounding into the wall. Making another attempt with some…adjustments.
The second attempt went just as poorly, as the bolt shot out like two feet slowly and dropped to the floor.
He figured it out from there and taking down the remaining targets became much easier.
-completed- hit moving targets 3/3
-new- hit as many targets as possible 0/20
Glancing at the bar again, he was surprised to see that just firing of Bolts without the beacon actually conserved energy.
"I should've noticed that I was using that much more energy to create a marker like that. I don't know how many more of these I'm gonna need to shoot, better that I conserve my energy." The way things were going, he was sure it wasn't gonna let him rest long enough to recover.
Sure enough the first target popped up. He stopped his thoughts and tried to focus. Just as he got the bolt ready to fire though the target disappeared.
"Oh come on, they're on a time limit." He sighed as another popped up in a different spot. He casted hurriedly, smashing the target.
"Yes" pumping his fist. Another popped up as he scrambled to ready another bolt. He fired but the target disappeared just as he cast.
"Crap, I need to focus better." He readied his next bolt, scanning the room as he did. As soon as he spotted it. Smash. He was getting the hang of it. More and more popped up and he did his best to hit every one of them.
-completed- hit as many targets as possible 14/20
"It took me way too long on the timing." Scolding himself. The bar now showed less than 20 percent.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
-new- cast the largest bolt you can make
A larger version of the circular target appeared on the far side of the room. "It just wants me to make a really big one" slightly confused as he shrugged his shoulders.
"I can do that, " he chuckled.
"Easy." He focused on what was still available in his pool. Gathering it in front of his outstretched hand and light began to form together.
The pale yellow light brightened and he continued to push. After a few breaths it was as large as his hand.
"No I can do better" feeling his pool start to thin. He closed his eyes concentrating further, the construct getting larger with each moment.
"MORE" he screamed. He let out a struggled war cry. The huge ball couldn't even be called a bolt anymore.
ffwomm. The energy shuddered and air whooshed in creating a split second silence. Koro pushed.
WWWWOOOOOMMMMMM. The ball took off leaving a light trail as it crossed the room and hit the wall.
He opened his eyes as all the walls flickered. The imagery of the field distorting and breaking. He noticed the spot where his attack hit. It seemed to have damaged the force wall and for a split second he saw outside light coming through before the wall began fixing itself. The image of the field appearing once again.
He glanced at the bar one last time. It was now flashing red with a small sliver left.
-completed- cast the largest bolt you can make
Test complete
Results- error still calculating…calculating
Results- …….S
His eyes went wide. "No way." The display changed back to pitch black. Moments later the tint rolled off the walls from the ceiling until the whole cage was see-through again. The walls came down shortly after that and he felt his shield deactivate.
Some of his class had already completed as well. Noticing a few that looked like they had been done for a while, including Eliza and of course that Handis kid. Other tiles still had walls up so at least he wasn't the last to finish.
His teacher walked by a moment later and smiled at him before throwing him a water bottle. "Good work Koro. Wait here and recover until everyone is finished." Koro nodded his head and raised the bottle.
The Exhaustion hit him in a wave as his body got weak. He took a long swig from the bottle. It tasted slightly sweet, realizing it wasn't water. Must be a regenerative drink or something, taking another pull before setting it down and taking a big breath.
It didn't take much longer before the rest of the class finished the test. Koro watched his teacher pass drinks to the rest and let everyone settle down.
“ Well done everyone. Most of you have probably noticed that this test was designed to gauge where your skill usage was. From being able to just activate your aura and complete a casting to the actual usage of skills. We were also looking at what your general safe usage was because although higher Power Scores tend to be indicative of a larger pool, this is not always the case. All of you surprised me and I look forward to seeing how you grow throughout the year.” A screen popped up in front of Koro as Kenning took a breath.
“Now for our first practical lesson of the year. ‘Recovery Breathing’.” He smiled looking over the class.
“This is perhaps the single most universal skill you will ever learn. Most of you were not able to complete every task due to a limited pool or inefficiency with Aura stabilization when casting. These are all skills that will take your ability to the next level but they take time to develop and are things that simply grow with experience and use. Recovery Breathing on the other hand is something you can use now that will help you keep up with our practical lessons.”
The screen showed a silhouette of an androgynous human standing up. “This doesn't require anything special and it works with all Enki. Everyone, stand up and follow along with the prompts.” The class struggled to their feet still fighting the energy exhaustion.
“You can technically do this anytime in any position, but for today standing is the easy way to teach you.”
“Open up your senses and connect to your aura.” The screen showed the figure fixing their posture and taking a big breath in. An aura appeared around it then stopped.
“You'll notice that your aura feels thinner and pale. I'm sure you've all noticed this before when practicing but probably haven't paid much attention to it afterwards.”
Koro felt for his aura noticing the weakness his teacher was talking about. As he felt around he noticed something weird. It seemed like his aura was grasping at something around it but it didn't make sense where the additional energy was coming from.
“Now I want you all to focus on the edges of your aura.” The figures' aura on screen began to wriggle showing it probing the edge of it.
“You should notice new energy coming into your aura. Your aura naturally recuperates when not in active use. Pulling energy from the Ether. We will have more academic discussions later in the year about Ether but for now what you need to know is it is the primordial place where energy comes from. It's all around us all the time even in between the matter that makes up all things. Its converted through processes like the bonds of atomic materials or movement and friction. Everything that happens does this. These converted energies are what you sense with your Enki. Your aura is like an organ that converts Ether to make it sync with you.”
The display now showed energy flowing in at every angle into the aura.
“The only real rule breaker to this is someone like our Koro” sending a nod his way.
“E’ona can process raw Ether although they still have to convert it into something usable or else the effects would be at a microscopic level with no discernible effect. Interesting, just not something practical for use. Now for the specifics on Recovery Breathing.”
The screen zoomed in on the edge of the aura. “We are using this knowledge of where the energy is coming from and essentially forcing our aura to work a little harder. Like trying to take in big breaths after running hard. The principle is the same, hence the name. We are going to squeeze our aura like we do when we are getting ready to convert it to cast but before it connects we’re gonna just let it go.” The image showed the aura getting closer to the skin then relax back.
“This strains the aura and draws on a natural response for it to pull more Ether.” The image played again showing the incoming Ether now represented as particles. As the aura pulled back it would create small vacuumed sections before releasing and at that moment the particles would increase for a short moment before going back to normal.
“This way we increase the flow without actually using any energy. At first it'll cause a little bit of physical exhaustion in return but like a muscle over time your endurance gets better and will improve your physical health exponentially. Your turn, everyone. We will do this for 10 minutes and then it’ll be laps.” Groans went out across the class, he even heard a few why’s. Then he spotted Jorum smiling. Was he actually excited about running? Also noticing that he looked the least tired out of everyone.
Recovery Breathing was actually easier than the whole class expected with only one or two people struggling at first. Surprisingly Beln who was the weakest in class seemed to be having an extremely easy time with it.
The ten minutes flew by practicing the technique. It was calming to a degree Koro didn't expect and afterwards the class’ mood seemed to shift to a fairly relaxed state. With less complaints about the laps. Which Jorum was in fact excited about after scaring a few students with his yells of encouragement.
Koro found a nice pace and moved his way down the track that surrounded the field. It was only 2 laps but the arena was enormous. Most of the class started to form clumps around the track attempting to talk and jog. Except for Jorum of course who had immediately sprinted off and was keeping a stupidly fast pace way out in front. Ashby tried to keep up with him but after being left in the dust (literally) he backed off and jogged with Merriam and Vidic.
To Koro’s annoyance Beln caught up with him after a moment and opened his mouth with no time to spare. “ Koroooo what's up buddy” flashing a thumbs up.
“ Hey… .Beln” he responded, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
“So what did you think of the test man?”
“It went…well I think” shrugging his shoulders.
“Oh yeah, you too. I was worried there for a sec, that it was gonna be like all raw power testing but when i just had to throw some bolts. I was like AH YEAH this ones in the bag. You know what i mean”
“Uh sure yeah. Was it really that easy for you?”
“Cake walk. I've been doing recovery and aura training since before I even manifested, ya know” confidently flexing his twiggy arms.
“Oh wow I had no idea”
“Yeah us Spriggs all have plant based affinities. Although mine is specifically wood and mum always says that us earth types gotta put in longer hours than anyone else. So if you don't have the endurance, what good are ya to anybody? So I figure why not and this type o’ tech ain't dangerous at any age really. Helps build strong senses too.” he gleamed with pride.
“That's actually really good to know Beln. I really appreciate you telling me.”
“Not at all man. What are friends for?”
That caught Koro off guard. Who calls somebody a friend after not even two days.
“Hehe yeah I guess you're right” a little bit of flush in his cheeks. Realizing maybe he wasn't embarrassed by the thought.
“So Beln, how well did you do on the test?” the boy lit up, a wide smile consuming his tiny face.
They ran the rest of the time together laughing while regaling each other with the details of their tests. Beln had actually succeeded in scoring an A-rank. His only drawback was a slower casting time that made him lose a few targets but his pool was still at more than 40 percent when he got to the final task.
He wasn't wasn't a bad guy just…eccentric but maybe that was what he really needed in his life. Someone who could outweigh the anxiety and he actually liked talking to him once the ice had been broken.
He needed to make friends anyways and it's not like he was bad at it. Just didn't really go out of his way to approach the idea.
He smiled to himself, yeah…friends. I can do that.