Chapter 54: Chapter 54 : Jeff’s Lesson (Part 1)

Stepping through the wooden archway, Ralf’s gaze rushed to the reception counter in search of a familiar face. Finding it, he picked up his pace and closed in.

Smiling, he greeted, “Hey Genise, long time no see.”

The receptionist returned a smile. “Really has been, I’ve been waiting for your next visit,” she said, running her eyes over his figure. “That’s quite the outfit you’ve got on.”

“Like it? Pretty cool, right,” Ralf did a slow spin to showcase the outfit’s magnificence in full.

Genise took in everything with a wry smile. “Of course of course…it looks very cool.”

Seeing his expression beam at her words, she smiled to herself. ‘They’re all the same, so childish,’ she couldn’t help but think.

“I take it your Consolidation Phase is over and you’re looking to throw yourself in the fire.”

“Yeah, I am…but first, I’d like a basic lesson. Is Jeff present? I want a lesson from him.”

Hearing his initial words, Genise’s mind was already in the process of unpacking lecture number 432 from her mental library, warning him of jumping the gun, but as he continued, said lecture returned.

She nodded. “Good thinking. Jeff is here and just finished up with another client. I’ll check if he’s willing.”

Genise paused her speech and relayed Ralf’s request through the telepathic network. “Okay, he’s willing. You can head in, it’s the same training hall as last time.”

“I’m off then. I’ll be back shortly, have a lot of things to do today.”

“Okay, learn well little monster.”

Ralf smirked and continued onwards.

***

“Oooh, Ralf, missed you, buddy. How are you doing?”

As he crossed the doorway, Jeff all but teleported in and wrapped him up in his embrace.

Surprised at first, Ralf accepted the hug with open arms and said, “Better than ever, how about you?”

Jeff separated. “Great…and it’s all thanks to you. Telling your tales around town has been pretty fun.”

‘Figured as much,’ Ralf commented internally as he remembered the fanaticism the other showed when they met up at the bar that day.

Gaining some distance, Jeff took a moment to examine Ralf’s outfit and gear.‘Looks like he’s ready for some action.’

“The design is simple but elegant. Black, white, and...silver, any meaning behind them? I’d expected a Fawkes to have some red on them.”

Ralf shrugged. “Red denotes weak flames. The hottest flames burn white, that’s why it’s white.”

“Oh, I never thought about that, as expected of a genius,” Jeff complimented with a nod before following up. “And the black, and silver?”

Ralf showed a troubled expression at the question.

“Does it not have a meaning?”

“No, there’s a meaning but,” Ralf closed in and lowered his voice, “can you keep a secret?”

Jeff gulped. “Not really.”

Ralf rubbed his chin. “Perfect, I’ll tell you then. You see, I actually have two other personalities within me.”

Jeff’s eyes bulged. “For real?”

“Yeah, they’re represented by the black and silver on my outfit. Speaking of them…a word of warning,” Ralf’s voice upped in seriousness, causing Jeff’s breathing to become uneven, “ I don’t mind affectionate actions, I welcome them actually, but the same isn’t true for my black personality. He’s very prickly to strangers, which is pretty much everyone.”

Jeff gulped hard at Ralf’s words, his mind not doubting their veracity in the slightest. In fact, when he remembered the day he sparred against ‘Ralf’, he was sure Ralf was telling the truth.

“That black personality, he was the one I fought in the sparring match, right?”

Ralf nodded. “Yep, that was him.”

Jeff’s eyes flickered at the confirmation.

“He is cold and standoffish on the surface, but at his core, he’s similar to me. He just takes a long time to warm up to others. ”

“I see, I’ll be cautious next time.”

Jeff’s skin broke out into goosebumps as memories of standing opposite Rei passed through his head.

“By the way, what about the silver one?”

“Mmm, the silver one, I doubt you’ll ever have the chance to meet him. He’s affectionate, more than me. You can hug him, no problem, but if you’re in his presence, I doubt you’ll want to. He’s a bit...intense,” Ralf said, his face showing a complex expression.

“Huh, more intense than the black personality?”

Ralf shook his head dismissively. “The black personality can’t compare.”

The words set off a mental bomb in Jeff’s brain, short-circuiting it as he tried to imagine a more intense version of Ralf; his imagination wasn’t up to the task. Luckily, Ralf freed him from the impossible task with a clap.

“Ah, sorry, nearly got lost there,” Jeff straightened his manner. “You came for a lesson right, let’s not dally further.” Saying this, the aura and dignity of an instructor overcame Jeff.

He shut the doors and brought two chairs from the corner to the centre of the room. “Have a seat, we’ll start with some basic theory then go into actual practice afterwards.”

Ralf’s eyes widened for a moment before returning to normal. ‘Basics huh, I guess that makes sense. Okay, let’s hear it out then.’ With a slight smile on his face, he silently seated himself.

Jeff nodded then began. “First thing to keep in mind is, while psionics powers are easy to use, they’re hard to master. No matter how talented you are, they require a long time to get competent in. The Telekinetic class isn’t the hardest to master, but it’s also far from the easiest. So don’t expect immediate fluency.”

“Of course,” Ralf nodded with a serious look on his face.

Pleased with Ralf’s answer, Jeff nodded himself and continued. “A Telekinetic has several basic abilities. Since you’re going to be adventuring, I’ll focus on their combat uses. The first thing we’ll focus on is Psi Scan,” Jeff expanded his own Psi Scan. “One releases tiny Psi particles into their surroundings, which communicate with each other and constructs an image in one’s mind. The Psi Scan’s natural shape is a sphere, however, it can be shaped however one likes. Most keep it as a dome though.”

“Why’s that? Wouldn’t a sphere be better,” Ralf asked, like a good student.

“In the air, yes, but on the ground now, no.” Jeff tapped the tiles below. “Driving your Psi into solid objects like this is a very taxing exercise, both from a Mental Energy standpoint and an aura standpoint. It’s best that you check the underground with a quick Psi Scan and rely on your Psi Sense to tell if your opponent’s Psi is up to some mischief. Of course, as I said, this only applies to when you’re fighting on the ground. If you’re in the air, you’ll definitely want to have a spherical Psi Scan.”

“I see, got it.”

Jeff took a moment to appreciate Ralf’s seriousness before continuing the topic of the Psi Scan.

“...the Psi Scan is pivotal during battle. It’ll allow to you sense attacks coming from multiple directions, and when you pour your energy into it, you’ll be able to focus on something in minute detail or slow down your perception to capture things your regular senses wouldn’t be able to capture normally. Switching from flat vision to omnidirectional vision will be jarring for a long time, but it must be mastered. Without a good grasp of your Psi Scan, you’ll be helpless in combat situations.”

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“How long did it take you to get comfortable, Jeff?

“Me? Two months, though, I took the hard path.”

“Hard path?”

“Yes. There are basically two types of Telekinetics. Those who choose to focus entirely on their Psi Scan or those who try to use their physical senses in conjunction with their Psi Scan. Needless to say, the latter is much harder to get good at. Still, while it’s harder, it reaps more benefits.”

“Like what?”

Jeff didn’t answer immediately but instead walked over to the wall. “With the inheritance potion I have, my enhanced vision can capture movement as well as my Psi Scan you see. It means that....” Psi wrapped around Jeff’s body, and a second later, he Blink Stepped to the other side of the room. Stopping, he turned to Ralf and continued, “...I can momentarily cease my Psi Scan, and divert all my energy into movement or anything I desire while relying on my physical senses alone. I can only do it when I’m doing a frontward Psi Step, but it gives me more speed than I would have normally.”

“Oh, how efficient,” Ralf said with an awed look, as though greatly impressed by Jeff’s ingenuity when in fact, his True Flicker worked on this same principle.

“This balancing act is worth it for those who have good enough enhancements, though only when the combat level is low. The combat done by elite powerhouses is way beyond the limits of physical senses. At that point, you’ll just be using Psi Scan. Still, as you are now, it’s definitely something to consider.”

Returning to his former position, Jeff moved on to the next topic. “Now let’s move to other aspects of your abilities as a Telekinetic. Psi Scan’s been mentioned, but an even more basic one and the reason for the class’ name is telekinetic Psi. This Psi allows you to grab objects at a distance, generate and expel force.”

Saying this, Jeff floated over a knife from the weapons rack. “To lift the knife, I smothered the object with my telekinetic Psi. Once it was within that domain, I could perform telekinesis. This is the basics of basics and pretty easy to do. Give it a try.”

“Okay.”

Ralf orientated his body toward the weapon rack while thrusting out with his palm, then from said palm, expelled his Psi. His Psi moved sheepishly across the room until finally ganging up on a lone knife. After a few seconds of intimidation, the Psi finally picked up the knife. Taking another few seconds, it arrived in Ralf’s hand.

Watching this play out, Jeff smiled bitterly. Disappointment couldn’t help but pour in, enough that he had to release a small sigh. ‘Well, this is usually how it goes,’ he thought.

Shaking his head, Jeff adjusted his unreasonably high expectations and continued his lesson.

“Okay, good work. Now, let’s move on to attributation. There are two types, basic hardening and softening, and not so basic, barrier filtering. Let’s start with hardening and softening. For this, Psi object creation goes hand in hand, ”Jeff conjured a Psi knife in his free hand, “Object materialization is a staple of the Telekinetic class. You can shape Psi into whatever form you want, an axe, a needle, a sword, a shield,” as he was saying this, Jeff’s Psi took the forms of his examples.

“So much stuff, your Conceptual Memory really is massive,” Ralf commented with a wide-eyed look.

Jeff rubbed his nose, a hint of pride flashed across the young man’s face. “This is just the iceberg. I’m confident that I have the biggest Conceptual Memory in all of Zudrad.”

“Oh, amazing,” Ralf said with a look of genuine awe.

Wanting to bath in that look a bit longer, Jeff materialized item after item in quick succession. Only ten seconds later did he manage to stop himself from releasing another object.

“With Psi object materialization, the possibilities are only bound by your imagination. Also, because it’s Psi and not an actual material, you can give it impossible properties, like making a sword both incredibly thin and ultra-dense, so much so, that it can slice through stone or metal structures with ease.”

Jeff demonstrated this in practice, holding the real knife in his left, he slowly slashed out with his Psi knife, and like a hot knife through butter, the real knife’s tip was cleanly cut off.

“Impressive right?”

“Very,” Ralf said with a vigorous nod.

Jeff dismissed his Psi knife. “Hardening is used very frequently, from creating armour to weapons, but that’s not to say softening doesn’t have its uses. For instance, you can make stretchy rubbery substances that can be used to cushion blows or landings.” Jeff did a hop-forward and jumped on the freshly constructed Psi trampoline. “Springs, trampolines, slingshots…”

“Bow stings,” Ralf added as he saw Jeff struggling to find more examples.

“Yes, that too. The uses are endless.” Descending from a jump, he dematerialized the trampoline and landed on the stone tiles. “Now, let’s move on to the barrier filtering. Barrier filtering is like Psi Scan, in that it’s a psionic technique used by multiple classes. First, let’s make a barrier,” Jeff constructed a watery-looking Psi board and had it float vertically before him.

“Filtering is arguably the most important. Without a comprehensive mastery of it, life as an Adventurer will be tough…if not short. Filtering runs on a spectrum. On one end, there’s force absorption and on the other end, there’s vanta. The state you see now is its force absorption form. Without this, Psi Steps wouldn’t be a thing.”

Jeff put some distance between himself and the board, then drew back his body like a spring, and after a moment’s tautness, he flung the blade forward with all his might. Upon colliding with the board, all the knife’s momentum was killed in an instant before it dropped straight down and landed with a ping.

Jeff returned and tapped the barrier. “This form is the one you’ll use most frequently, and truthfully, you can get by with just knowing this form alone…but if you want to be a competent psionic, learning the other forms are a must. To explain, the other forms, it’s better to move all the way to the other side of the spectrum, the vanta form.” Following his words, the see-through board suddenly became completely black.

“That thing… it’s so weird to look at,” Ralf said as he squinted at the object before him.

Jeff nodded. “It is. Kind of looks like a hole in space, right. That’s because no light reflects off this material. The vanta form is very special. Sound, heat, electromagnetic waves, telepathic Psi, Psi Scan… this material blocks out everything.”

“Everything, really?”

“Yeah. It’s spectacular. And unlike other forms of Psi, it’s incredibly hard to detect, as hard as a Clairvoyant’s Second Sight even. For this reason, it’s perfect for sneak attacks or assassinations.” Jeff walked over to a corner of the room. Using the items present, he built a small little tent which created a shadow in the room. He then entered the shadow and wrapped his figure entirely up in vanta.

Ralf stared at him in amazement, actual amazement. ‘If I didn’t know he was there, I might have missed him. That technique is something else…it’s a shame our rank is so damn low.”

Five seconds later, the black cloak covering Jeff was dispelled. He approached.

“This technique is perfect for assassinations. While wrapped in it, you’re pretty much undetectable. However, this form isn’t without its downsides. Just as it’s able to block everything from the outside world, the outside world is also blocked to those within. I had no oxygen or access to information inside that thing. Of course, I could poke a hole in it, and could still be hard to detect, but those with high Psi sensitivity will be able to pick up on my aura emissions. Another problem, even more damaging, is that it’s incredibly costly to transform your Psi into that form. As you saw, just materializing that small bit of vanta pretty much took all my aura to accomplish.”

Ralf nodded hard. Had it not been for the expensive conversion cost, he would have used it to coat his motorbike.

With the MPM he was working with, he could make the motorbike’s shape, but then he’d have to use the Flintstone method to get around town, and that wouldn’t be cool.

“Another weakness is that it’s incredibly brittle. Due to it being on the opposite end of the spectrum, its force absorption abilities are super weak.” Jeff demonstrated his point as he threw a right straight.

The punch using his above-average physical brawn shattered the board into particles. “See, just like that. So, while it has its perks, it has its downsides as well. Generally, people don’t use vanta for those reasons, instead, they use the forms that lie between the two extremes. The most common one is sound absorption barrier.” He recreated the board, returning it to its pure force absorption force state. Jeff then unholstered his pistol from his hip and took aim.

“In combat, the most common use is to stifle gunshots. Wrap it around the gun, then squeeze the trigger.”

Swish!

The bang was killed as it met the surrounding barrier, and only the bullet’s whistle as it cut through the air was heard. The bullet hit the barrier and like the knife, lost its momentum and fell to the floor. Jeff holstered his weapon and turned back to Ralf.

“Sound filter, heat filter, air filter, electricity filter; these specific barriers aren’t so easily arrived at like the other powers. A lot of experiments had to be done to determine these specific barriers. Luckily for you, all those experiments have been done so there’s no need to do it yourself. All you have to do is memorize the Psi signatures of these different barriers. This is the sound barrier, this is the heat barrier, this barrier blocks electricity, and so forth and so on.”

After flashing through them, Jeff reassured his client. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you time to learn it later.”

Ralf nodded. The duo was lacking in this department. It wasn’t something they could learn in isolation, at least not as quickly as they’d like. They had already learned the sound and heat absorption barriers thanks to their mother but there was still much to learn. Before he left, Ralf would copy the different filters.

Jeff continued. “Understanding and memorizing the filters are important and can be the difference between winning and losing a fight. For instance, a Telekinetic might have the barrier needed to block a grenade’s high-speed shrapnel, but fail to block the heat or shock waves that accompany it. Monsters are prime examples of this type of failing. There are monsters that can move at supersonic speeds and turn mountains into rubble with their attacks and still fall victim to electrical attacks delivered by a simple taser.”

“I see. Then, I’ll learn it well.”

Jeff nodded. “Do so, especially the sound barrier. In the past, sonic attacks had allowed low-ranked psionics to defeat elite powerhouses. However, in modern times, if you let a sonic attack hit you, neither heaven nor hell or the Great Aether will welcome you when you pass on.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah, for real.”

Having run through all a Telekinetic’s abilities, Jeff moved on to basic battle techniques.

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