Two years passed in the blink of an eye, in that time Garrod leveled up 6 times and managed to complete some missions, unfortunately, the vast majority only gave him credits as a reward. And although it is possible to use them to buy a variety of different items at the system store, it would still be better if he had earned a few points to increase his power, in general, it was two very productive years, and although he is still unable to compare to Jedi masters, his overall strength is on a par with that of a Jedi knight or a high-quality Sith apprentice.
Right now it could be said, he is way more powerful than Anakin Skywalker, and considering how much progress he made in so little years, it wouldn't be too farfetched to say that sooner or later he would surpass their level of power during their prime.
As he walked through the Jedi temple he entered the room where the other members of his clan were waiting for the trials, they all looked at him with awe, ever since that day when he awakened in this world, his mastery and powers increased constantly at an overpowered speed, it was such a difference between him and the other initiates that they would ask him for help and guidance now and then.
Sitting in a meditative position, he opened his system and observed his status
SYSTEM
Name: Garrod Seafair
Lvl: 7
Exp: 0/700
----------------------------
STATUS
Force Points: 0
Skill Points: 0
LIGHT SIDE: 8
DARK SIDE: 8
Strength: 37
Constitution: 41
Dexterity: 31
Intelligence: 59
Wisdom: 28
Midi-chlorians: 19.700
Shii-Cho: 8
Makashi: 0
Soresu: 11
Ataru: 0
Shien: 0
Niman: 9
Juyo: 0
Credits: 5.240.000
During his time in the temple, not only did he mastered a series of useful knowledge, as he managed to go way above he expected. Each time he leveled up he got 2 FP and 2 SP, and while the majority of his SP was spent on Shii-Cho and Niman, he managed to practice Soresu to a high level of mastery on his own.
But even better than that was the fact that every time he spent some points on his force powers, he would receive knowledge of quite a few force abilities, of which the most notable ones would be the force burst and white force lightning.
While he was lost on his thoughts a woman entered the place and said, "Today I'm the one responsible for overseeing your trials, you have a few minutes to prepare, remember that those who managed to pass the trials will have the opportunity to participate in the Jedi temple apprenticeship tournament, those who are ready seat on the mat and wait for further instructions."
As she said that, everyone sat on a mat and waited for her next words.
While they waited for the woman's next words, somewhere in the temple, the Jedi council watched the trials through the holograms.
Although this was a common occurrence during every initiates trials, this time they had more than one objective other than simply watch the initiates trials. All of them were interest in an extremely promising and worrisome youngling.
Yoda looking at the projection started to speak.
"In recent years, clouded our visions were. And in such turbulent times not only did we find two younglings that could be related to the prophecy, one of them has a high connection to both the light and the dark side, however different from young skywalker he is. Emotions he has, but serenity and harmony engulf his being, as both life and death perfectly blend inside him as one force."
"The one we talk about is Garrod Seafair, right now we do not know much about his future, all we know is that he is probably the most unique force-sensitive child we have ever seen." Mace Windu commented.
Then Master Yaddle a female from Yoda's species said.
"He, differently from the other boy, can bring forth a different interpretation of the prophecy. When we thought of balance, we always considered it being the end of the dark side, but it could very well be its fusion together with the light side. However, we still must proceed with caution, if he shows any signs of falling to the dark side, you know what we must do."
...
"Let us begin with reciting the Jedi code!"
All of the members of the clan then started reciting it at the same time.
"Alright, we will now proceed to test your connection with the force." as she said those words, she led them to a room where one could see quite a few rocks spread everywhere, some were large and others were small. "One at a time, try and lift the highest amount you can."
Then one by one, the younglings tried to lift the rocks using only the force, until Garrod's turn, the person who managed to lift the highest number of rocks, lifted 23 rocks all of them around 1Kg.
As Garrod stepped forward, everyone looked at him curiously, wondering how many he would manage to lift and how heavy they would be.
Without even moving his hands, all of the rocks inside of the room, including the few ones who weighted more than 20Kg, started floating midair.
Looking at the scene booth the woman responsible for the trials and his clan members were left with their mouth agape.
The same scene happened in the room where the Jedi council was watching the trials.
"His connection with the force, truly powerful it is. They have the same age but are already leagues apart." Yoda said as he massaged his chin.
...
"Since everyone finished. Follow me to the next test." The woman led then to the same room where master Yoda teach them how to fight with the lightsabers. After giving everyone the usual equipment she said. "You have to defend against the blaster shots of the training droids, every ten seconds I will add another training droid, to pass you must be capable of enduring two training droids at their highest fire rate, let's begin!"
At the beginning everyone was fine, they all managed to pass with success the requirements, but from that moment on, more and more younglings gave up due to the difficulty of three or more training droids at the same time.
After one minute, only Garrod remained. His fluid movements were the proof of his high mastery of form 3, Soresu, at some point, his force abilities were allowing him to predict and have a short sight of the future, which allowed him to perfectly defend against the shots, in the end, he only managed to go against 9 shooting droids. And once again he made all the onlookers awed with his demonstrations of skills.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"Alright, tomorrow we will start the tournament." Having said that the woman departed.
After that, the other clan members went to talk with Garrod.
"Hey, Garrod, who do you think that will take you as padawan?" asked a young Nautolan boy, named Hameic.
"Yeah, with that show of abilities of your, I bet the Jedi masters will compete for your apprenticeship." said a Twi'lek girl, named Esob'seci.
Looking at them Garrod smiled a little, during his time in the Jedi temple, those two could be considered his only friends.
"I don't know, although I'm confident of surprising them, I think there is a high chance that I no one will want me as an apprentice."
Everyone curious to learn why he would say that looked at him with a weird gaze.
"Why are you saying that?"
"Because instead of fighting and refuse the dark side, I decided to accept it as a part of me. The force for me isn't merely a side or another, but the combination of them."
"But, this goes against the teachings!"
"I know, but I can't avoid it, its something so natural for me, as it is natural to live and to die. Don't worry about this though, not everyone follows the same path, this is my fate."
As he said that he left the room and went to sleep, while the other members of his clan thought about his words, they couldn't accept their companion choices so easily but they respected him nonetheless.
The next day everyone gathered inside the combat training chamber together with three different members of the Jedi Service Corps, while all the Jedi knights, Masters and members of the Council were watching.
Every student then received a paper with the name of his adversary, considering the space of the chamber, it was possible to have more than 10 fights at the same time.
There was a total of 32 students and three rounds, being the first rounds individual fight, and the last one some sort of battle royale.
In his first fight, Garrod faced another human boy, but this one came from Naboo.
With their training lightsabers in hand, they went to the arena, after showing respect to each other, they activated their lightsabers.
Seeing that Garrod didn't move to attack, the boy lost his patience and went head-on. With a swing of his lightsaber, he tried to attack from above, but Garrod perfectly defended against the attack.
This continued for a minute, Garrod could have finished this sooner, but he didn't want to destroy the boy's future, so he allowed him to show off all his skills with a lightsaber, which he must say was much better than most of the younglings from his clan, it was his lack of luck that made him have to fight against Garrod.
During all that time, Garrod only used form 3 attracting the attention of the famous Obi-Wan Kenobi who, together with his padawan, Anakin Skywalker, was watching the tournament.
Seeing that the boy had no other cards up to his sleeves, he defended against his attack, and using his feet made the boy lose his balance at the same time he stole the lightsaber from his hand.
This made all the Jedi look at him with an interesting look, although he's the one with the highest connection with the dark side of the force, not only was he calm from the beginning to the end he even managed to win without hurting his opponent, unlike the other younglings, going to the point of even allowing his opponent to show his skills so he wouldn't be undervalued because he was fighting against someone much stronger.
Helping his opponent to get to his feet, they shook their hands and went back to wait.
The next fight however Garrod didn't hold back against his opponent and ended the fight in the first move, once again stealing his enemy's lightsaber.
After that round, they took the younglings to an arena that was outside of the Jedi temple, which also had a much larger space to move.
"This time, things are different, as you already know, this round only ends when only one person remains above the arena. Let's start!"
Activating his lightsaber, Garrod went to the east side of the arena and stood there close to the borders, he didn't want to waste much energy, he planned to use his superior constitution to simply throw his opponent out of the arena. It's a pity that he isn't allowed to use the force directly, otherwise, this would end in a blink of an eye.
This time, however, things would be way harder, the Jedi were against violence and plotting, but they weren't stupid, against an enemy they know they won't win, they would always seek for more intelligent ways of fighting.
This time it was one against all.
All the kids approached with their lightsabers and attacked Garrod, unfortunately for them, they would need an attack speed comparable to nine training droids in the highest difficulty to break through his defenses.
Using form 3 he slowly defeated all of them.
Standing alone above the arena, everyone looked at Garrod with respect.
Sitting in one of the stands, Obi-Wan couldn't help commenting on Garrod's brilliant display of skills.
"Impressive..."
Anakin seeing how much attention everyone was giving the boy asked Obi-Wan curiously what was going on.
"Oh, you might have not noticed, but this boy standard is already at the level of a beginner Jedi Knight, not only that but unknowingly he even went through one of the Jedi trials, really impressive."
After that, every single one of the 32 younglings stood in front of the Jedi Masters, awaiting to see if they would be selected, surprisingly this time, with exception of one, the others were quickly selected.
Everyone was looking at Garrod, some were whispering to each other, but none of them took a step forward.
Usually, there are only five minutes for the masters to choose, right now only one minute has passed, so Garrod would have to wait for another 4 minutes before either entering the Jedi Service Corps or directly leave the order.
The members of the council were observing the boy, much like skywalker, none of them seemed eager to take him as an apprentice.
Anakin, noticing the heavy atmosphere, which resembled the one on the day Obi-Wan wanted to take him as his padawan, he couldn't help but ask.
"Master, what's going on? Why are they acting like that, isn't he someone who was taught from young, why his situation seems to be like mine?"
"Anakin, you don't know because this wasn't made public to most but he has practically the same amount of midi-chlorians as you, but different from you, this boy connection to both sides of the force is equally matched."
Anakin looked at Garrod and thought about the things he was taught in this little time he became Obi-Wan apprentice. "Does that mean he is a Sith?"
"No, through history there were a few similar individuals, those more similar to the ways of the Jedi were called grey Jedi, and those more similar to the sith, dark Jedi, although none of those nicknames are truly official."
Anakin nodded and watched as everything unfolded.
As time went by, Garrod sighed, only thirty more seconds, and his fate would be decided, this, however, didn't affect him he was confident that with or without the order support he would be capable of growing to the point of being invincible.
This time a notification popped up.
[Mission: Impress the Jedi and show you won’t fall to the Dark side. Completed... Rewards: 10 FP, 10 million credits, and 700 XP.]
[Congratulations on leveling up! 2 FP and 2 SP awarded.]
Without another thought, he decided to spend all his FP.
But before he could move, at the last second, a voice rang out in the area.
"Garrod Seafair, I Shaak Ti will train you in the ways of the Jedi and eventually make you one of the best Jedi Knights."
Seeing that someone accepted him, everyone was stunned, they couldn't believe their ears and eyes, this was almost like a dream.
Yoda looked at her and after thinking for a little he said to Mace Windu who was next to him. "Hmmm, great Jedi Master she is, perhaps young Garrod's future won't be as we fear."
However, the others were thinking about something else, the only two other apprentices she had taken all died because of her unconventional ways of training, but no one dared to say anything, she might not be like the others but she is also a Jedi Master.
Smiling, Garrod bowed and said. "I'll be in your care, master!"
At that moment he spent his FP, making his connection with both sides of the force nearly double in power!
At that moment, every force-sensitive being on the planet felt something in the force, a powerful presence that differently from anything many had ever dealt with, didn't seem to be a Jedi or a Sith.
The Jedi looked at Garrod with a certain glint in their eyes, even Yoda was trying to understand the mysteries around the boy, for him and Shaak Ti, just the gesture of acceptance from her was enough to make his understanding of the force to break through to such a high level that it was probably caused the famous force enlightenment.
However, something even more stunning happened soon after. Everyone from the Jedi order near and inside the temple suddenly felt as if they were filled with energy and their minds were completely rested.
"Battle meditation..." Yoda whispered surprised.