*exhausted sigh* Life's been a pain and writing was my only relief at times... A lot of research went into this and a bit of assumptions of the timelines. I believe Revan could've accessed all this knowledge as he was way, way, WAY before the Tython in Star Wars: The Old Republic (where the Je'daii originally hailed from in legends) and we only really explore the council on Dantooine in Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic and a cameo of the council on Coruscant in Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2. I believe that Revan scoured the libraries for information on what options were left for him before he and Malak went to war, knowing the Jedi would condemn them for their actions and expel them. I think they chose the way of the Sith when they found the Emperor and he soundly beat them before sending them back into the galaxy. I am assuming a fair bit, but I hope you can agree that Revan always intended to destroy the Emperor, but it was out of fear which made him hasty.

All credit to respective owners.

-YARN

Revan waved his hand and two chairs materialized from absolutely nowhere.

"Sit. I want to talk to you."

Cal slowly sat down and blinked as Revan flopped onto his seat with an casual air that belied the fact that he was a tightly contained maelstrom of power in the force. Cal didn't know what to say in the face of this ancient Jedi, or was he an ancient Sith? He referred to himself as a grey Jedi, so Cal supposed he would just shorten it to Jedi since it was it would help Cal feel a bit more at ease. Revan waited patiently as Cal debated with himself over what was going to happen. What should he say? Should he even start? What would Revan think? Was Revan lying to him? What if he wasn't a Jedi?

"Merrin wasn't nearly as hard to help when it came to her problem." Revan says without preamble.

"What?" Cal says in confusion.

"Then again, healing a crystal is nowhere near as difficult as it is to determine how you want to live the rest of your life." Revan continued as though he didn't hear.

"You taught her how to heal Malicos' crystal?" Cal asked.

Revan smiled at the young knight, "I gave a nudge. A lot of Jedi think they need to be taught every little thing when it comes to the force, but in all actuality force-sensitives tap into it intuitively. The only real limit that can be done with the force is your mind and imagination and your belief in yourself."

"So I don't need to be taught about the force, I can do it from the start?" Cal queried.

"It's always helpful to have a master." Revan replied, "But it isn't a NEED, just someone to help you grow faster."

Cal tilted his head in thought at that.

"So you intend to choose a different path than that of the Jedi?" Revan inquired as he leaned forward to give Cal a long look, "You don't want to be a conventional Jedi, but refuse the Sith way of the dark side as well?"

Cal looked down and seem to struggle with himself, "I know that I am going against almost everything that I was taught, and I wish that I had a way of knowing if Master Tapal would be disappointed with me because I know Cere is... But after the fall of the Jedi, The Empire has shown me how arrogant the Jedi were and how we didn't even realize our mistakes till it was too late. We were blinded by the war that killed billions upon billions."

"A constant high of galaxy-wide slaughter..." Revan sighed as he closed his eyes and thought of his own past, "Billions dying when they fought to save themselves... no wonder the Sith were so strong, they probably fed off all that violence and death with the Jedi none the wiser."

Cal looked up, "So what do I do?"

Revan doesn't answer and tilts his head up, eyes still closed, "I was a Jedi Master in all but name before I left the order. A war was happening between the Mandalorians and the galaxy that killed so many and the council said we should stay out of it. I couldn't just watch as billions suffered and went to war, some of the Jedi who agreed with me joined me and in time we won. But the battles had marked us, and the horrors of war caused many of the Jedi to fall and become Sith, even I became a Sith Lord but for something much more damning than the scars of war. When I returned as Darth Revan and began to conquer the galaxy, I knew the Jedi wouldn't be able to ignore me. I never wanted to destroy the Jedi, but I needed as much power as possible to be consolidated into one force. I knew that the galaxy wasn't ready to face me when I struck. I needed more power and searched for artifacts left behind that would give me that power. In the end, they were destroyed and I went back to face the darkness alone. It wasn't enough."

"You waged war on the entire galaxy?" Cal gasped, standing up and instinctively lighting his saber and settling himself in a defensive pose, "Why?"

Revan regarded him calmly, "The Emperor. The True Sith Emperor who was alive in the wild reaches of space. He lay waiting for the galaxy to be under his heel, using me and my apprentice as pawns."

Cal swallowed nervously, "He's been alive that long?"

Revan scoffed, "Please. That melted-candle-face-so-called Sith is barely even worthy of his mantle he so arrogantly claims. The Emperor I knew was the culmination of years of power as a Sith Lord like no other, and he captured me, prolonging my life against my will with the use of ancient Sith alchemy to tap into my connection to the light. When I was finally released, I realized all my power was still not enough to take him on alone. He was apparently defeated by a powerful Jedi only for his essence to inhabit a new body, and when that body was defeated, The Emperor devoured planets to nourish his power and restore himself once again. In the end, it took a joint effort from Jedi, Sith, Republic, Empire, and whoever else we could gather to finally destroy him for good."

Cal fell back against the seat, legs nerveless, lightsaber deactivating and falling from trembling hands while trying to process THAT sort of scenario. This maelstrom of a force-wielder had faced someone he couldn't beat alone? How was that even possible?

"What am I supposed to take from that?" Cal murmured, "What are you trying to tell me?"

"Stand up and walk forward." Revan breaks Cal out of his thoughts, waving his hand and raising Cal's lightsaber to hover in front of the dazed knight, "You're no fool. You see the past as it is, a place where mistakes were made and need to be learned from. Become strong so you can protect what you care for even if you must destroy your threats, push forward every step and never stop walking as all paths lead to the same place through different ways, and don't let yourself doubt what yourself as you are only as steadfast as your constitution. You are never alone. The Force is with you and trusting in it is the only thing you need to do. I will tell you one thing. You see what The Force really is and where it lies; the light and dark aren't the only two dogmas in the force, many have been lost. But being lost doesn't mean being gone, it just means you need to rediscover them. And the dogmas themselves aren't meant to control, but simply provide a viewpoint for a force-wielder to interpret The Force."

"Where should I look?" Cal asked, hope flickering in his chest that there was something that would help him define his new path, "Is there a specific planet I can go to?"

Revan was silent for a moment, as though listening to something only he could hear, "I don't have a safe answer for you if you want to go looking. The Emperor has set guards on any planet that had ties to Jedi history and even before that the Jedi hoarded as much knowledge that fell outside their belief as a means of censuring their acolytes. The only reason that Dantooine was left unguarded was they assumed Falon Grey had destroyed any artifacts and they had already scoured the planet for anything else. It was a dose of luck with a dollop of The Force that they never found the kyber crystal caves and didn't put this planet on lockdown."

Cal frowned and grasped his lightsaber, running a hand down the metal, "Is there nothing you can tell me about what you found?"

Revan was silent for a long moment before standing up and raising his hands, the room rumbling as two slabs of rock lifted from the floor. Revan turned and ignited two sabers, one red and one blue. With precise strokes he began inscribing words into the stone, his blue lightsaber marking and leaving a trace of their glow into the stone.

"Maybe I can't give you a planet to find the knowledge," Revan murmured, "But I have no qualms in showing where everything ended for my searching when I was finally dead."

There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Revan then moved to the second slab, igniting his red blade before slicing into the rock and leaving a second code written in the stone; Cal could tell that it was different as he slowly read through the words.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Through passion, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me.

"These are the two codes that I lived under during the earlier years of my life." Revan said as he deactivated his lightsabers and drifted away from the words that had been seared into the rocks, "They are to be opposites of each other, one for the Jedi, one for the Sith."

Cal wandered over to rest a hand on the Jedi code, "I memorized this by heart. We are all taught about it as children."

Revan nodded, "Yes. The Jedi Code is the cornerstone of the Jedi philosophy, preserved and unchanging for millennia upon millennia. It was the same way for the Sith as well, their supposed extinction didn't mean their knowledge was lost if you knew where to look. The codes are the base from which all those trained expand their knowledge from. But before the division that resulted in the formation of the Jedi and Sith, there was a code that existed that seemed to try to strike a union between the light and darkness. In my travels I found hidden records of it, history that the Jedi buried in an attempt to keep anyone from finding that there was another way."

With that he turned and held out a hand, and a third slab of rock rose and was inscribed with words, but rather than use his lightsabers, Revan used the force.

There is no ignorance; there is Knowledge.

There is no fear; there is Power.

I am the heart of the Force.

I am the revealing fire of Light.

I am the mystery of Darkness,

In balance with Chaos and Harmony,

Immortal in the Force.

Mesmerized, Cal walked forwards and read the words, mouthing them and frowning as he had never seen this before, "Why is this not taught?"

"Lost. Hidden. Censured." Revan said, voice filled with disappointment, "So much of knowledge was seen as flawed and incorrect, better destroyed than ever discovered. In a way the Jedi were just as paranoid as the Sith in that they would never allow their members a way that wasn't pure light. Their subjects were children that were indoctrinated and brainwashed with no chance to say otherwise. The Jedi in a way, were just as much as a monster as the Sith; and there is merit in the thought that their 'division' is arbitrary."

Cal flinched at the blunt accusations, knowing that his experiences were showing the folly of the Jedi's strict adherence. A order built on arrogance and denial rather than the bastion of wisdom and knowledge that they claimed to be. The weren't perfect, they were damaged and tainted by war, consumed with fear from losing, consumed by the darkness that swallowed the galaxy whole. Cal suddenly felt very very small; how could one person — no matter who or what they were — fix all of this?

Revan sighed, knowing exactly how Cal felt many times over the course of his life, "Later, in my suspension in the millennia of my imprisonment and after my eventual freedom. I found my darkness and light at odds with each other, each one struggling to overtake the other. My own conflicts were throwing me off and diminished my focus with my abilities. I wandered as both a body in flesh sustained by The Dark Side and as a spirit aware and walking around through The Light Side of the force. When I was whole, merged with both the light and the dark in true union, I uncovered one last code that seemed to help define what I was most in the end."

Revan shifted the third code to the side with The Force as another slab of stone rose and was inscribed through Revan flowing motions gouging lines in the rock, glimmering light flickering at the edges to give it clarity.

Flowing through all, there is Balance.

There is no peace without a Passion to create.

There is no passion without Peace to guide.

Knowledge stagnates without the Strength to act.

Power blinds without the Serenity to see.

There is freedom in Life.

There is purpose in Death.

The Force is all things

And I am the Force.

Cal observed the new code with a almost confused-yet-amazed air, "This balances the Sith and Jedi codes... and goes further..."

"Exactly." Revan said, walking over to run his hands over the etchings, "To have the peace of The Jedi with the freedom of The Sith is the concept behind this code. One of the reasons Jedi fell to The Dark Side is when they felt an intense surge of emotions, they had no idea what to do with it or how to just release it. They knew they were supposed to let it go, but doing it was sometimes just not possible. That frustration and dissatisfaction in their own percieved failure sowed the seeds of anger in them, and it kept growing until it consumed them. The Sith were obsessed with exultation of the self, abandoning their empathy to fill a hunger that turned them into monsters. Emotions don't make you weak, it's okay to feel them, the only precaution is to never let them control you. You do that, you are simply enslaving yourself to a master who has no sense and forces you down a path with no handbrakes."

Cal nodded, committing the knowledge and words to memory, he wondered how far Revan had gone when it came to finding these scraps of long-forgotten orders. Years? Decades? A whole century? Considering that the Emperor he fought against was revived twice that would mean three lifetimes — longer if you considered the fact he kept Revan in stasis for decades — Revan was old, very old; as a spirit even more so. Revan was stronger than anything he had even felt, beyond even Vader during those terrifying seconds on Nur when Vader had thrown Cal around like he was little more than a rag doll or a empty crate. Did the Jedi of today even begin to compare to the Jedi fo the past when there was a war waging on both sides? Cal had never been one much for history, and that was mainly because he was on a ship for most of his apprenticeship under Jaro Tapal, but now he wished he could've looked into the order's past and see if there were any mentions of Revan in the archives.

Cal was broken out of his musings by the slabs of rock crumbling into dust and a gust of wind scattering the dust into the air. He turned and stiffened apprehensively when he saw Revan turn to him, a lightsaber hilt in hand. Cal's hand snapped to his waist and gripped his own lightsaber, igniting it in a flash a cyan light.

Revan laughed, twirling the hilt before igniting the blade in a flash of blue, "I was just going to ask to see how strong you are. I won't strike back and I wanted to see how good your offense is."

Cal sighed in relief, still...

He felt like he wouldn't even make this Jedi break a sweat.

Revan crouched down next to Cal, who greedily sucked in air as he lay flat on his back.

How was he so exhausted in a vision?

"So... You tried really hard!" Revan tried to maintain his composure, only to burst out laughing at Cal's disgruntled look.

Cal scowled, "Oh, shut up."

Revan managed to compose himself after another fit of laughter and hauled Cal to his feet with The Force before clipping his lightsaber to his belt, "You have potential. You're still pretty wet behind the ears though."

Cal sighed, a wave of disappointment filling him, "Well I was only knighted a year ago... I am not at all where I want to be at all."

Revan inclined his head, "Most people never are. But I think it's time we talk about the main reason you came. What have you decided?"

Cal looked down at his lightsaber and took a deep breath to finally commit his choice to himself, "I think that... I need to move on from being a traditionalist Jedi. It was enough while the whole order was still there, but the times have changed, the whole galaxy is changed... We need something better if not new... Being a Grey Jedi... I think that will be a good way to move forward from the past."

Revan's presence became serious, lifting his hands and having them crackle with blue and green lightning, "Be sure. The path of balance is the hardest to achieve. To be in the division of light and dark and still have mastery of your thoughts so when you tap into the dark and actually keep from succumbing to what it can do is not as easy as swinging a saber around. You need to learn to keep yourself in check constantly, you need to know when you slide to far into the darkness and how to react without thinking pull back towards the light. You've seen your friend Cere struggle with the rage and anger. Her hate. You were able to pull her away from the edge, but helping someone do that is easy. Doing it for yourself is a burden unlike any other."

Cal eyes blazed with determination, he was not going back to what he used to be, " I know it is. But I can do it. I have the ability, I know what I need to do. But what I also have is time, and that's all that's needed right?"

Revan smiled and the room began to dissolve, "Right."