Luke stood before the forcefield, centering himself. He drew in a shallow breath and stepped through the blue glow. A tiny force pressure point in his nose kept the air in his lungs from mixing with the pure carbon dioxide atmosphere within the circular shield. Luke closed his eyes and reached into his memory for a technique that he hadn't used for quite some time.
Aer-ki watched from outside the shield and felt Luke began to manipulate the air within his lungs. It was a subtle thing within the force, but up until now the rogue Jedi had never before witnessed the third tier of the breath control technique. He was hoping he could learn to overcome his inability to move beyond the second tier by observing Luke's manipulation of the force.
The oxygen in his lungs was depleting rapidly, but that was intentional. Luke didn't utilize tier two's oxygen consumption reduction techniques and allowed himself to progress to the point where he would need to step out of the shield and take another breath.
He felt the growing need for more oxygen as his lungs began to fill with carbon dioxide. Soon the concentration level in his lungs would equalize with the concentration level in his bloodstream and his respiration would stall out all together.
But before that could happen Luke used the force to create microscopic chemical reactions within the gas. The carbon dioxide molecules began to lose their carbon atoms…and suddenly Luke had more oxygen available, albeit in very small amounts.
Luke maintained the force-induced recycling for over ten minutes before stepping through the forcefield and back into clean air. He coughed a bit of carbon dust out of his lungs and looked at Jyr. "Did that help?"
Aer-ki nodded. "I don't know if I'll be able to replicate it, but I got a sense of it. Thanks."
Luke smiled. "I'm just glad there's one category on the scoreboard that I'm at the top of."
"Why don't you go work on making it two," Aer-ki prodded. "I'm going to stay here for a while."
"Good luck," Luke said as his friend stepped through the field. He turned and headed for the corridor while reaching up to run his fingers through his short brown hair.
He'd been doing that a lot lately. Part of him still couldn't get used to the long locks being absent, but he'd found that his ease of movement had increased without having to subconsciously factor in the movement of his hair.
That, and the fact that Aer-ki had made one of the disadvantages of long hair crystal clear when Luke had asked him whether he thought he should cut off the white strands as the brown roots began to grow further out. His friend had simply smiled and grabbed Luke by the hair, dragging him to the ground with it.
"Not something you want to have happen during combat," he'd said simply before letting Luke up.
Crude as his example was, Luke had gotten the point. He'd buzz cut the white off and discarded it…along with the Consular lifestyle that he had unwittingly adopted. One piece of the Jedi code that had not survived to the present era had reinforced his decision never to become stagnant again.
A Jedi is always in motion.
Aer-ki had agreed, yet corrected him on one point. "Consulars are not supposed to be stagnant. All Jedi are expected to be skilled in combat. All train to improve their skills over time, even while they take on assignments that are far from physical. It has been said that 80 percent of a Jedi's life is devoted to combat and combat training…it's the other 20 percent that determines a Jedi's class."
Aer-ki had gone on to explain how Consulars often focused their secondary training on additional force powers, academics, or teaching in order to enhance their combat skills or the skills of others. Combat was the way of the Jedi, in one form or another, and it was when Jedi turned away from this basic philosophy that they began to lose their edge.
"Even healers," Aer-ki had said, "are Masters of combat. They can hold their own in traditional battles, but they are Warlords when dealing with the microscopic. The subtle art of healing is actually an art of war that takes place on a cellular level."
Luke had never considered it that way, and searched through the archives for additional references. Most had regarding healing powers as pacifistic, but there were several perspectives that agreed with the microscopic combat philosophy. One Jedi healer in particular, a Master Yuis, had likened viruses and bacteria to enemy capital ships fighting in space. He said his mission was to assist his fleet, referring to the individual's immune system, in defending its home systems from invasion.
An odd approach for a healer, but it was beginning to make sense to Luke. The more areas he trained in the more he realized that a Jedi's life was one of perpetual combat. A Jedi is always in motion.
"No," Aer-ki had said when Luke mentioned that he thought he was best suited to being a Guardian, "your aptitude lies more with a Sentinel than a Guardian."
Luke disputed that, wanting to get as far away from a Consular as he could, but once again Aer-ki corrected him.
"A Sentinel is not half Guardian, half Consular. A Sentinel is essentially a Guardian that acts as a troubleshooter. They go on a wide range of missions and accumulate a wide array of skills, but their combat prowess is nearly identical. In some ways a Sentinel is in more motion than a Guardian, given the ever changing fields that they are assigned to."
The more Luke had thought about that, the more he agreed with Ki. He was a troubleshooter by nature.
To that end he had begun to search through the various powers and skills that were included in the facility's regimen. He had discovered, through a comparison with the archives, that there were many abilities that there were no training drills for, due to the fact that computers couldn't measure the force itself, but there were hundreds that Aer-ki's Master had documented and refined down to very specific exercises.
Luke searched through Aer-ki's marks in each area and found that there were many that his friend had no marks in whatsoever, and more so with very low marks. Luke had originally thought this would be an opportunity to surpass his friend, but had quickly discovered this not to be the case.
The most difficult part of learning new abilities was in attaining the first flicker of that ability. In the case of telekinesis, getting the first twitch of a pebble was far more difficult than learning to control and increase that same twitch.
After all, how did someone know where to start? Luke had tried in vain to learn several new abilities, but since he had no base to work from he was essentially taking stabs in the dark hoping he would hit on something that he could work with. The archives had left instructions to nudge someone in the right direction, but without someone to sense actually using the ability it was nearly impossible to make a breakthrough.
Most of the breakthroughs that did occur were usually offshoots of a preexisting ability, which tended to leave Jedi skilled in certain sets of abilities and completely oblivious to others. Sentinels notoriously sought out at least base levels in a variety of areas, often spending months or years before having an isolated breakthrough.
Luke had been attempting to live up to his predecessors' example, trying to learn a wide array of skills that his friend had no, or little success in. So far his attempts had gotten him nowhere…save for one exception.
Force camouflage was a specific, and very rare, ability to bend light around an object, creating a crude 'cloaking' effect. Aer'ki had achieved a level one rating in this ability but had gone no higher. Luke had also achieved level one, and was on the verge of surpassing his friend's time duration mark.
Luke had spent over a month trying to get a grasp of how this was accomplished before stumbling upon the ability while trying any and all approaches he could think of. The training drill for this ability used a low grade laser beam with a sensitive receptacle that would measure how much laser light was reaching it and for how long a duration.
Luke had spent hour after hour with his hand in the beam trying to get a flicker of light redirected in any direction. When he finally did he was elated, only to find that it was very difficult to reproduce. He spent another four hours with only two additional twitches to his credit…but it was a start, and something that he could build on.
After Luke left Aer-ki to his breath control practice he ran through obstacle course #3 and #4 before grabbing a quick shower and heading off to another part of the facility to continue work on his Force camouflage skills.
Luke put his hand into the blue beam and concentrated. A subtle distortion rippled through the air in front of his hand, much like heat waves rippling the air above a thermal exhaust vent. Slowly the distortion crept further around his hand and a dull blue glow illuminated a square meter around the photo receptor.
Enough of the light was reaching the receptor, though, to start the clock running. Luke didn't dare look at it…it was taking all his concentration just to maintain the limited distortion. He held on until a faint tone rang through his ears, indicating that the level of light reaching the photoreceptor had slipped below one percent.
He didn't completely release his deteriorating distortion and glanced up at the clock.
14.4 seconds. 5.3 max intensity.
Luke nodded, content with his first try. Attaining a level one ranking required a twelve second duration at one percent or greater intensity. Level two required 60 seconds at ten percent intensity.
While Luke was far from reaching level two, Aer-ki's best mark to date was 15.3 seconds. He was pleased to be near to surpassing his friend, but was even more proud that he had developed the skill without observing Aer-ki's attempts. If he could break through to one new ability on his own, it bode well for his attempts at others, especially the ones that Aer-ki couldn't touch.
Luke reset the counter and restored the distortion around his hand to the best of his ability. Another tone sounded and the clock began ticking upwards again…