While the reveal of Alex’s status as a robot hadn’t changed our dynamic as a team, making them aware of Edward certainly did. It was evil to have my team conspire against me to give me more experience with actual fighting and exercise. The rest of the team also benefitted from Edward’s guidance between lessons.
Apparently, the liminal space that either Edward or I occupy whenever we’re not the main one in control allows either of us to see auras and legacies. Mathew made use of this new sense the most in improving the efficiency of his spells through trial and error, changing the pronunciation of each spell to see which caused his runes to be more precise or how it affected the outcome. He managed to cut the aura cost by about fifteen percent.
Alex also saw an improvement. Under aura vision(™), his tech legacy looked like many arms and hands. Through Edward’s and my tutelage, he managed to produce more arms with less aura, especially when using his drones, which took less aura upkeep than what he was using. We weren’t able to improve the initial cost, though.
Unfortunately, my team thought my aura awareness needed improving, as that was one of the lessons I missed by not going to a weapon training school. It was an incredibly useful skill, as it meant that you could dodge attacks that you couldn’t see directly. Most people have a weak version of this that makes them aware that someone is watching them, but with training, it can work as a sort of danger sense.
One method that Edward recommended was to blindfold me and have me guess which shoulder a marble was thrown over and use my aura to see it. It was difficult as I had been putting my aura in loops around my body as per Dr Keter’s recommendation, but that caused my aura to mostly be kept inside my body instead of defused out, which is normally better. In the aura sight, my body looked almost like chainmail glowing purple, though you could see the distinct red and blue pattern up close.
After a while I couldn’t work out how to diffuse the aura around me to make the method work so I just started guessing. My team caught on relatively quickly as eventually every guess was wrong instead of just fifty percent of the time. I took off my blindfold which revealed they were just throwing the marbles above my head.
When Mathew saw that I had worked out their treachery, he sighed, “Come on, Tom, guessing won’t help you train. Repetition may be the mother of learning, but you actually need to practice. Have you tried, I don’t know, making a bigger aura loop that links outside the body?”
“Yeah, but that only works in a certain area and is difficult to maintain without landmarks. When I tried it before, it was more like a tripwire.”
“We could just ask Keter,” Alex suggested, looking bored, “considering it’s his technique that’s causing you the problems.”
“That’s actually not a bad shout.” I turned to leave to go do that and quickly turned back. “You guys will be alright on your own?”
“Yeah, just go bother Keter; he’s likely in his office.”
***
I arrived outside Dr. Keter’s office after a few wrong turns and redirections from Edward. I swear that this place was a maze, and everywhere just looked the same to me. As I went to knock on Keter’s door, I overheard talking in his office.
“Yin, I respect you, but you need to find a way to rain in your Legacy. It’s extremely inconvenient. I almost lost a whole month of research last month due to the file corrupting. If I had been the only one with that file, it would have delayed everything else.”
The second voice just sounded tired as they sighed in response, “It’s not like I don’t know Keter; I’m just glad it’s not something worse. Do you know how many times Jacq has threatened to tape my sister and me to each other to neutralise the effect? Just be glad I got everyone into the habit of backing files and increasing safety operations around here. None of the previous mes had the Legacy to be so passive, trust me I researched it thoroughly.”
“Ok, I’m still planning on trying to get Washington to send you on a mission when the final tests are happening; I don’t want those resources being wasted because of stray bad luck.”
Through gritted teeth, Yin replied, “While I completely understand, fuck you, hope you didn’t accidentally pick up decaff by mistake.”
I stood to the side of the door to get out of the way of his exit. As the door opened, I quickly dodged out of the way, and it almost hit me. The man looked back and apologetically said, “Sorry!”
I shrug it off and go and knock on the door.
“Come in.”
I walk into the room and see Keter at his desk. He looked at his mug suspiciously before taking a sip, his face relaxing slightly. “Sorry if this isn’t the best time.”
“It’s fine,” He sighed, just looking annoyed, “what do you need?”
“Uh, I’m having trouble with my aura awareness, and I think it might be because of that aura technique you taught me.”
Keter opened up a drawer in his desk to look for something, “Which technique, I teach a couple?”
“The looping chain mail type one.”
“Ah, that one’s expensive. I see the issue. The technique does take a lot of aura to use, and therefore, those who try it typically fall into the precision pit full.”
He put a book down on the desk and opened it to a specific page.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“You see, while clean loops in your case are more aesthetically pleasing to look at, they lock the aura too close to the body, so to help with your sense issue, you mostly just need to make the loops more hazy. This also helps as the looser defined loops cover more of the body, therefore making the technique more effective in the long run. Obviously, there is a limit to how hazy you can make it, but I’d recommend slightly larger loops as you move out, as that helps cover more around you. Your legacy is well suited to a closer aura pattern, though, as you need less warning than most to react to.”
“And how do I make the loops more hazy?”
Keter waved his hand annoyedly, “Uh, didn’t they teach you this in weapon’s… Oh yeah, your Jacq’s pet project.” His voice took a more dull tone like he was reading a simple textbook definition: “Aura predominantly relies on intent, so just loosen it when you’re doing the technique.”
Keter was clearly done with interactions currently, which bled through in his tone, “Is that everything you need? Yes? Good. Shut the door on the way out.”
As I walked out of his office to try and make my aura intent more hazy(?) I heard Keter mutter under his breath when I closed the door.
“I need more coffee.”
***
I met back up with my team where we had been training to see Alex attempting to use his drones as stepping stones. He managed to get to two as I came closer, with Oliver cheating him on.
I yelled after them, saying, “Keter says my technique intent is too rigid and needs to be more hazy. Also, Alex, while that does look cool, what’s the purpose?”
My interruption caused Alex to lose his concentration, and he tripped on the third drone, which fell back, landing half awkwardly.
“Tom!” Alex complained, “I was so close to getting that right!”
“Uh, sorry?” I apologised slightly, cringing at how Alex had fallen. “I was just asking why you were doing it in the first place?”
Oliver answered, “Well, you see, Mathew had the idea of using the drones in order to gain a height advantage where we’d more easily attack or cause our hits to have more impact.” he gestured towards Alex, who was still sitting on the ground. “We were using Alex as a ginny pig as he’s the heaviest and has to concentrate on multiple things at once, so if he can do it, it means it’d be possible for anyone on the team.”
“Except Tom, maybe.” Alex interjected, “Your speed might kick the drones out of sync.”
“Eh, probably more like it would just be a more one time deal; I’d be out of the way by the time physics kicks in,” I corrected. “The only annoyance would be after and the fact you wouldn’t be able to correct the placement as I do it.”
“Also, you’re not that dexterous on your feet.” Matthew said, “Judging by the amount of times I’ve seen you trip since knowing you.”
“Hey! That was the leg. Alex sorted that out ages ago, remember?”
“Sure, I believe you.”
“I’ll prove it; let me try, Alex!”
Alex shrugged, “Sure, try not to break the drones, though.”
“Or black out.” Mathew joked.
Alex lined three of his drones into a staircase, and I gave myself a running start. Blue sparks radiated off my body as I successfully pushed off the first drone and landed on the second. I managed to propel off the second to get to the third. I felt like a master omnivaulter as I leapt from the last drone, thoughts of gloating to Alex and proving Mathew wrong in my mind.
“You forgot about considering how to land, didn’t you?” Edward sighed. “Alex is metallic and didn’t need to consider the chance of injury.”
“Huh? Oh shit.”
The ground was getting ever nearer as Edwards’ words registered. Landing, ok, landing? How am I going to-
***
The main thing on my mind as I woke up in the medical wing was the fact that this was the third time I had blacked out. The doctor on staff was the same as before, and as he realised I was awake, he gave me a look of disappointment.
“I regret telling you that you heal fast,” He said with the tone of an annoyed medical practitioner, “I feel like if you actually suffered the consequences of your actions, you would learn not to be as impulsive with your health. As much as I believe that the effect of moral hazard is overblown, you might be a particular case.”
“I don’t actually feel any pain,” I said, looking at my body, which showed no sign of injury or pain. “And I don’t think I’m currently injured.”
The doctor sighed, muttering to himself, “Of course, no consequences. Love the miracle of aura techniques but I hate only ever dealing with the consequences of other people’s actions, when will I get to my own?”
He pointed towards the exit.
“Yes, you are dismissed. And I hope I don’t see you back too soon.”
“Annoying the person who has to cure your injuries is ill advised.” Edward joked.
“I am aware.”
“Don’t worry too much though they deal with dumb asses a lot, it’s a good thing we had been working on your aura technique though; you weren’t out for long. I do have to say belly flopping on solid ground was almost the worst thing you could have done.”
“I panicked and couldn’t think of what to do, which I think turned my legacy off, giving me even less time to think.” I paused in thought. “Also, I didn’t belly flop; I kicked off the ground and then fell over.”
“Same difference, you should probably catch up with your team. I think it’s tea time.”
***
I met with the team at the cafeteria with the Legends, and once they clarified whether or not I was okay, they went straight to making fun of me. Money was exchanged, as they apparently had bets on how long it would take me to black out again, with Mathew apparently winning.
I mostly just went through landing strategies for when we try the technique again and safety precautions that we should have already taken. No one had thought about it, as it was mostly Alex who was in the most danger, which meant that safety was slightly less of a concern than it should have been. Alex was used to being the testing dummy.
Luckily the only thing that broke was me, Alex’s drones while suffering some damage were easily fixed so even with me pushing them with a lot of force at a high speed it wouldn’t be too costly in a fight, with the addendum that we don’t abuse it too much. The first drone did take the most damage and would only be able to take it one or two more times, the rest about two or three more times without being fixed.
After food, I went back to our room to try to edit my aura, following Keter’s advice, taking the haziness into account.