A New Term (Force Training)

[Professor Mors]

***Pursuer-Class Patrol Ship Mudhorn, Sith Space***

It had taken the better part of an hour for Sa’ato to construct a makeshift training apparatus in the Mudhorn’s cargo hold, but it would surely prove worthwhile. His failed mission at Bogden had illustrated just how green he was in the wider world in which he found himself. Now, it was up to the Neti to fill in the blanks. Five hover targets and an aged combat droid were to test the professor’s matriculation in the Force up to this point. There would be no room for error and regression: only moving forward to what lay ahead.

[Begin Force Level 3 Application]

Sa’ato narrowed his eyes and called the Force to the right side of his body. Almost without thinking, the cruel tip of his fencing pen struck the center of the first three targets. With each thrust, the Neti felt his essence extend out through his sinuous fingers and along the blade: each impact registering in his mind as physical threads of the Force splintering and shattering through the force of his will. As the flimsy metallic icons fell away, the professor summoned his senses ahead and brought his weapon parallel to his body as a pair of larger two-dimensional dummies rose to meet him. Likening the walls of his spiritual essence to that of a molluscoid or ooze, Sa’ato bathed the faux-opponents with his thoughts as they jerked and flitted about with an electric whir.

The professor had installed a series of fast-moving rotating armor discs within the artificial duo, and it took some effort to keep track of their internal defenses even as they became submerged in his psionic sphere of influence. Widening his stance and exhaling, the academic kept his instincts primed as he waited for an opening on both targets to align, until at last he allowed the Living Force to surge through his mortal vessel and cleave the front of humanoid palettes asunder.

Pausing as he stood fully extended, the Neti then took a moment to register the small, rippling flames of energy invisible to all eyes but his: the metaphysical after effects of rousing duet between himself and the cosmos. While the near-alignment of the man and his psychic surroundings was perhaps too weak to be hailed a true disturbance in the Force, the color, the pressure, the feeling was refreshingly familiar. Smirking at this small conceit, the retired teacher allowed his weapon to clang to the floor, his eyes snapping shut as he scattered his stern emotions out before him in a ring.

Holding his hands out in a combat stance, the professor waited for a dormant combat droid to activate with a sinister beep, before a flash of red erupted in the back of his mind. The spider-silk thread of his senses emphasized this verdict, but Sa’ato calmly slid aside from a would-be wound and maintained his stance. The droid stopped to consider a follow-up, and in the second or so it did so, the Neti expanded his neural network further, such that he was fully aware of any attacks within three paces. When the automaton did move to lunge at blinding speed, the professor uttered not even a growl as he caught his foe’s sword just above the guard, and firmly struck one of the preprogrammed kill pads on its chest.

Standing triumphant, Sa’ato did not bother to observe his handiwork, and instead stood transfixed. Like a wroshyr in spring bloom, he could feel tendrils of pure energy wriggling and extending eagerly out from every inch of his body. Ready to progress, ready to grow, and develop further.

[End Force Level 3 Application, 495 Words]

[Professor Mors]

For his next task, Sa’ato was want to reproduce a psychic attack against the conglomerate of cells that composed his mind. To that end, the professor was forced to tinker with a particle beam emitter that he had appropriated from his old alma mater. While it would lack the nefarious focus of another Force user, the Neti had programmed it to spur feelings of powerful, almost feral aggression, bolstering his plant-like circulation and his own glucose-based variant of adrenaline. Standing at the ready, Sa’ato let out a sigh with some trepidation, and depressed the trigger to activate the machine. If he did not make the leap and begin the process, he might be too apprehensive to start later on.

[Begin Force Shield Application]

As the torrent of particle beams struck the Neti all over his body, it took all of his mental reserves not to holler out in frustration as radiation caused his frame to swell with aggression. First things first, he had to cut off his sense of hearing, or at least reclaim it. The pulsing radiation caused his facsimiled ears to throb and ring ferociously, and Sa’ato was forced to clench both fists for support as he summoned his energy field to the top of his head and let it slowly trickle down the sides of his face. The professor shuddered violently as he threaded fine strands of energy into the sides of his skull. His signature in the Living Force was the needle: the cosmos the thread. Yes, he required help to block his mind, at least at first.

Having pacified the psychic tinnitus for the time being, the academic then moved to quell the vortex of anger and primal fury born of his hormones running rampant. Cruel stills of the fire and the long years of nursing his partner flashed in the back of the Neti’s mind like artillery shells. He had to shrink them down, will them into a more manageable state. And then tie them, bind them. But not with any menagerie of a once-happy marriage. No, instead, Sa’ato called to mind the fruits of his research, the bloom of his garden, his formulas, the sacred arithmetic he so adored. As if digging through his own mind intravenously, the professor manifested each of these ideas and intertwined them with his presence in the force as one spins yarn from a thread.

The Neti then carried his weaving further, disseminating this invisible cloak and cowl down over his head and neck, and further still along his limbs and torso. And as more and more of his focus and dominion of mind returned to him, the tighter and larger the knots of his unseen garment grew. Indeed, lacking the vice and virtue of a centralized brain, Sa’ato had to work slowly and carefully to shield his entire frame, lest someone or something invaded his pseudo-neural network at a covert point on his person.

Somewhere along the line, the academic opened his eyes, and found that his head no longer ached, his vision and hearing undaunted. The nutrient veins in his body had slowed to a comfortable pace, and rather than swarming with myriad thoughts, his head fell quiet. With the textile labor complete, all that remained was a fuzziness in the center of his forehead. A relaxed hand, holding a sturdy curtain closed.

[End Force Shield Application, 434 Words]

[Professor Mors]

Lastly, in the event that Sa’ato was not the one beginning a shootout, it fell to him to prepare alternate defenses. Force-based defenses. Procuring a medical photon scalpel from a market on the holonet, and making use of his own sporting blaster, the Neti wired both devices to a remote-controlled power cell and rigged them with a simple harness. The idea was to build up in intensity and technique. One machine was guaranteed to be surgical and subtle. The other, if not properly tamed, could spell a crude end for the retired teacher.

[Begin Absorb/Scatter Energy Application]

Growling as the first of the enhanced medical lasers burnt and sizzled across his open palm, Sa’ato fought to go beyond calculation, and reached out for the specific pattern of the beam in the Force. Recording the laser’s metaphysical color and seismic timbre as it traveled through the stagnant air of the cargo hold with his thoughts, the Neti rotated his wrist and extended his fingers down toward the floor.

Feeling at the outer edges of his Force ellipsis with his mind, the professor radically reduced the fine strands of his essence, flattening their shape and mass until it was as if he held a perfect sphere in the ball of his hand. When the next laser discharged, the academic swatted at it head on, and while it did not graze his flesh, it did rebel and fragment off into small crimson lances like so much shrapnel. It was not enough to halt the volleys: Sa’ato would have to command how they rebounded as well.

Staring down at his hand, the professor shaped the crude ball of his mental energies into a sleek glove. Further still, he conjured the notion of magnetism, positive and negative charges, and calling on his feelings, chiseled those same values into the palm and back of his appendage. Glowering at the photon emitter, Sa’ato held out his digits at the ready, and growled with intention as moved to brush the next laser aside. And this time it did as he bade! Ricocheting cleanly off the base of his middle finger and railing harmlessly into the far wall. But as the retired teacher walked forward to exchange the simple scalpel with a blaster, he was not fully at ease.

To absorb, rather than repel a mortal blast would require a different set of tools. Dismissing his makeshift glove with a flick of the wrist, the Neti grimaced and scrutinized his right arm and side. A simple positive or negative would not serve here. More was needed. Sa’ato needed to turn half his body into a grounding cable, a pipeline to return the potentially lethal energy into the earth, or in this case, the floor. The academic shivered and growled from discomfort as he pipetted the Force internally up his fingers, through his arm, down along his torso, and out through his foot. All the while, his Living Essence altered, redirected, and redistributed electrons throughout his oaken flesh. A numbing situation to say the least.

And yet, when the warning tone buzzed, and a potent spear of emerald light came hurtling toward the professor, it was as if nothing had happened. In his natural panic, he had likely blinked. But looking down at his palm in astonishment, there were no burns, no damage to his epidermis. Nothing, save for a small, pitiful plume of dying smoke.

[End Absorb/Scatter Energy Application, 469 Words]

[Professor Mors]

***Orto Plutonia, Pantora System, Grid Coordinates P-19***

As soon as the hatch of the Mudhorn crunched down into the snow, Sa’ato almost immediately started to second guess his decision. He had to come to this desolate place to increase his connection to the Force, but only now did the very real threat of freezing to death seem to wear on his nerves. Clad with only a sturdy shoulder pack for basic supplies, the Neti figured he would appear harmless enough to the native Talz. No, it was not the locals that intimidated him, but the imposing geography.

[Begin Control Level 2 Application]

Stepping forward and leaving the last vestiges of warmth, Sa’ato felt the quivering bubble of his essence stretch and groan as the harsh Plutonian winds began to blast his frame. Not eager to be caught by frostbite unawares, the professor immediately funneled his mind through his limbs and torso. Already, he could feel the frigid air, more than that, the Force itself chewing away at his oaken skin, sapping the energy and dynamism from his myriad nuclides with each step. The academic had to keep himself heated. If he became even partially immobilized, there was no telling when the sun would free him.

Focusing his eyes on a snow-capped mountain far in the distance, Sa’ato sent a placid gust of icy breath huffing out from his face and began to surgically compress each of his cells with his thoughts. Despite the Neti’s fear of fire, at that moment, he needed to burn, literally. Calling on the Life Force spiraling through the atmosphere, thin as it was, the professor forced his chloroplasts into overtime. Shoveling multitudes of glucose through his system at a rapid pace, Sa’ato chuckled in spite of himself as his internal temperature grew to a more agreeable level. That would not last for long however: nutrients would become an issue before too long.

Manipulating and boiling his insides with the Force such as he was, the professor quickly realized his water levels would become an issue. But he could not afford to stop to deal with such an issue. The solution quickly came to the unlikely tourist. It would be feasible to transform the bottoms of his feet, to adorn them with spikes that could siphon fresh moisture from the snow-covered landscape. The trick would be to do it quickly, and for that, Sa’ato would have to warp his essence further, to send a yet-more complicated set of signals through his body. Altering the exterior was one thing, but as soon as the academic started to modify his limbs, a tense soreness shot through his nerves.

He had to focus! To not only visualize the change but recognize that it could be obtained faster through force of will- through his will in the Force! Sa’ato felt his head grow hazy and heavy as he spread his thoughts out even more thinly and sent them to his feet, the unseen walls of his elliptic field melting and drooping down over him like a sad parabola. And yet, slowly but surely, several spiked tendrils began to twist out from his flesh and into being. From there, the Neti worked to reinflate the boundaries of his energy field, coaxing the thin layer of fluids born from his heated steps up along the makeshift cleats and distributing it through his parched body.

Though it was a handy victory, this hardy solution presented a new problem: mental defense. The professor noted the compression and decline of his own energy field as he repeatedly exhausted the resources of his body and mind. Running a sort of diagnostic with his feelings and fleeting potency in the Force, Sa’ato came to understand that he would not be able to freely scan for danger with so many other concentrations tying up his thoughts. Centering his labored breathing, he allowed his psychic shell to flatten and thin out to where it ‘sat’ over his flesh as little more than a film.

At the same time, each precious centimeter of the Force that the academic could spare was directed down and out of his heels. The idea was to create two strings no wider than a hair that would swish and sway behind the Neti as he continued to fight the elements. If a pack animal fell upon him, it would likely attack from the rear. And though this shabby warning system could not provide a great breadth of detail, the sudden burst of an electric pulse would be enough to alert Sa’ato at a moment’s notice. So it was that the strained glow of the Force yet inside him gave the retired teacher a moment of relief. Unfortunately, it would not last.

As the professor progressed further through the frozen tundra, a sudden incline sprouted beneath him much to his dismay. Not only was he beginning to feel the effects of fatigue from his other hat tricks, but his balance was becoming questionable as he started the ascent to higher altitudes. Sa’ato recognized that he could no longer overextend the resources of his body. Rather, he reached the conclusion that he had to redirect that spark of life which was fighting to keep him going. Wincing in pain, the academic took the only route available to him, allowing the cells comprising his arms to slowly slide into a catatonic state. If his plan worked, they would not be called for.

Leaving his upper limbs to weather the elements at their own expense, Sa’ato closed his eyes and funneled the now-unused sugars and heat from those areas down through his torso and into his legs. To the naked eye, the aftermath of this gesture would have been missed. But tired as he was, the Neti grinned at his success. His footing felt more sure, and the power of each step was magnified as flailing strands of the Living Force fled from his hardening fingertips and forearms in search of a locomotive output. Some time passed, and in spite of his many gimmicks, the professor could tell that if he did not stop to rest, his body would decide for him.

Sitting down with muted glee, Sa’ato growled slightly as he mentally massaged his energies back up from the soles of his feet, returning what strength he had not reserved for his mind to his arms. Hastile procuring a UV lamp from his bag, the Neti remained in his meditative posture, and sought one last locus for survival. The lamp would restore any lost nutrients, and while he did not actively convert and consume fresh sugar, the blistering cold still threatened his continued existence. So it was that the ageless academic made one last request of the Force, and his own place within it, to bring his many itinerant neurons together into a patchwork nucleus in the center of his navel. ‘

Around this facsimile of a concrete brain, Sa’ato stuffed as much nutrition and processed CO2 as he could manage, physically and mentally retreating within himself. With his final conscious thoughts, he padded the cell walls protecting the shell casings of his mind, and eventually drifted off into a compact but comfortable sleep.

[End Control Level 2 Application, 1093 Words]

[Professor Mors]

Not expectedly, it was on the second day of Sa’ato’s arctic trek that he finally encountered the local Talz. On a system scarce of flora, first contact was understandable fraught with curiosity bordering on anxiety. Thankfully, the four-eyed bipeds were not as base as the neighboring Pantorans made them out to be. It took the professor a mere three attempts to decipher which trade language they best understood. In short order, the Neti was given every courtesy as a welcome guest, and was full glad to enjoy the roaming band’s crackling fire- from a safe distance at least. The academic soon learned that the group comprised a hunting expedition, and sought a most ferocious prey.

Their query was an alpha narglatch. The largest variant of the species. The particular male in question had failed to enter their second hibernation, and as a result had wreaked havoc on the Talz’s herds and a handful of their shepherds. So it was that the strongest and most cunning from the local village had been dispatched. Given the spiritual nature of his journey, and the debt of hospitality the Neti owed his hosts, he was remarkably quick to offer his services to the motley band. Donning his survival suit at last, Sa’ato basked briefly in the familiar, technological heat, before taking up a simple pike out of respect for his new peers.

[Sense Level 2, Begin Application]

Without hesitation, Sa’ato dropped the bulk of his essence down into his feet like weights. Stomping firmly on the snowy earth before him, the Neti forced the boundary of his signature in the Force directly ahead, as if it were a ping on an infinitesimally small radar. He took another step, and narrowed his eyes as he ‘listened’ for a reverberation in his thoughts. The Force was not some static, one-sided gust of energy. It was alive, and it left traces on all things, living or otherwise. And just as Sa’ato’s own footprints left a distinct imbalance across the icy plateau, so too would the tracks of the errant narglatch. That said, however clever an idea as it was, the model was far from perfect.

The professor was forced to differentiate several kinds of energy traces as the party continued on. Insects, harsh wind, and the occasional, negligible avalanche affected the landscape in their own unique way. And much to the frustration of his feelings and thoughts, Sa’ato was forced to carefully pick apart the distinct metaphysical minutia for each and every phenomena he came across. After much laboring, and measure of sheer chance, the professor eventually ran his mind over a larger, deeper indentation of the ground. Even before the shape of it became clear in his head, the Neti was struck by the phantom fragment of movement that had caused such a shape to compress into the snow. The echo of the Force was stronger, clearer to him. This was not the work of the wind, but a living thing, bound up in the Living Force.

So it was that the party continued on, freshly encouraged, before a new obstacle presented itself. A frozen lake stretched out before the Neti and his comrades for miles on either side. There could be no circumnavigation, and thus the professor would be forced to ford the frigid plateau. At first, the academic continued to siphon the Force from his body to register the stability and structural bonds of the ice below. Yet as cracks continued to pop and hiss in the unstable ground ahead and behind, Sa’ato was forced to scan the liquid glacial melt below. It took several minutes of absolute stillness for the retired teacher to meld his thoughts with the unseen current. Working to lasso the nature of its heading and speed with his mind, the would-be hunter carefully zig-zagged across the lake’s slippery crust while scrutinizing the tenacity of the water and ice in the Force with each mental sweep.

It was then that chance reared its ugly head once more. One of the younger Talz lost his footing, and Sa’ato heard the awful creak of the ice before his head had fully twisted round. Calling on his heightened sense of personal control, the Neti refused to count the seconds as he worked to rectify this crisis. As another flavor of energy, the professor reckoned that gravity would have its own recognizable tag in the Force just like anything else. Lancing his thoughts out from the crown of his head, the professor quickly grabbed onto the dynamic entity in question. But he could not stop there. Growling as he strained his mind further, the Neti burrowed the tendrils of his essence into the thick hide of the Talz. He needed biodata- what muscles were straining, whether or not the youth would try to roll to his right or his left. These things he sought, and like a living dataterminal, the Force steadily fed the wayward teacher the answers.

With all the necessary information gathered in the blink of an eye, Sa’ato groaned like a birch in the breeze as he bade his arms to extend and fly out toward the falling hunter. With one good shove, he pushed the inexperienced tracker onto a smaller rock that stood out amidst the immobile white tide. Though sore, the aspiring tribesman would not suffer a quick and icy departure. A short while later, the party was back on solid ground, and the Neti had picked up on another set of faded prints. This time however, a fierce gale picked up, scattering fresh snow on the landscape at the fore, and sending any hint of a scent traveling away from the wandering band. The professor was not deterred however.

Closing his eyes, the professor reached out with his feelings, and sought to find a violent positive to the otherwise negative calm of his being. It appeared first as a flicker. A red and amorphous thing some metres ahead. Sa’ato felt the erratic beating of the beast’s heart send illusory pangs of anguish through his system. There was a primal, base form of rage at work here. Though he need not do so, the academic dug further through the narglatch’s aura for the source. Exhaustion: a murderous, thoughtless mania born from one long sleepless night. It colored the creature’s presence in the Force. The Neti recognized how this state of errant energy and listlessness tormented the alpha predator, and how it drew a primal strength from this state of being at the same time. Creeping carefully at the head of the expedition, the teacher finally spotted the hind of the beast. Giving a shrill woop as instructed by his peers, the academic caught the brute’s attention, and soon the pair eyed the other warily.

Sa’ato did not bother to linger in the beast’s mind further: instead, he emptied his thoughts into its limbs. What a non-sentient consciousness could obscure, musculature would reveal, and so it was that the professor called on the Force to map out every ligament, tendon, and bicep he could find. Involuntarily, the Neti felt the nubs of his feet crunch into the ground as the narglatch flexed its claws and set its internal motors to work. When the first strike was made, Sa’ato could feel the speed and momentum behind the creature’s leap in the pit of his stomach, in the back of his mind. So it was that he evaded the blow with metaphysical knowledge, rather than precognitive foresight.

A subtle shift of the beast’s shoulders and its unconscious command of the Living Force also told the professor which claw to expect, and which to parry. What the academic was seeking was a willful overextension: keeping his mind pinned on the sphere of the creature’s own influence in the Force, Sa’ato watched without watching, and noted how the malevolent gale of energy swirled and waned around the narglatch’s body. At last, the Neti felt the beast literally bite off more than its body and reservoir of the Force could chew. Letting it gnaw in vain at the butt of his weapon, the Neti swatted at his query’s chin, before driving the head of the spear mercilessly through the crest of its spine. The aberrant carnivore toppled over in an instant. And as Sa’ato observed its panicked eye and the heave of its chest, he exhaled as sensed the Force steadily trickled free of the body, until it's mighty frame fell limp in the snow.

[End Sense Level 2 Application, 1177 Words]

[Professor Mors]

***Pursuer-Class Enforcement Ship Mudhorn, Sith Space***

Sa’ato sighed with apprehension as he hefted his training blade. His masters had at last offered some few times relating to lightweapon combat, and recent excursions had only increased the Neti’s desire to better arm himself. So it was that he had one of his older practice droids reinforced and re-equipped to better simulate the ancient art. The routine the professor had planned was simple enough piecemeal, but would require solid concentration for a clean execution. Starting on a defensive back-foot, the academic intended to inflict a superficial wound to the droid's non-dominant wrist, and utilize the moment of its counterattack to disarm it and go for the hypothetical kill.

[Begin Application, Lightsaber Combat]

As the droid sprang to life and went on the immediate offensive, Sa’ato immediately called the Force to his arms and set about swatting away each forceful strike. The deflections weren’t the prettiest thing to look at, but the professor’s increase in stamina born from psychic concentration gave him the speed to keep up. Still, like so many hairs, the edge of the academic’s energy field flared in distress as the automaton began to back him into a corner. Just as the Neti might have hit a literal wall however, he emptied his thoughts down into the sole of his right foot, and fiercely pushed off right into the droid’s guard.

Pumping fresh CO2 from his face, the retired teacher centered his aggressive feelings into his upper arm, and like lightning to the ground, the Force followed. Sa’ato subsequently sent an elbow crunching into the droid’s metallic breast, forcing it to take a defensive posture from the inner ring. Looking beyond his partner’s metal chassis, the Neti allowed his unconscious mind and feeling to take over as the pair clashed hilt to hilt. Like a flare in his head, the professor felt the exact moment to push off from his opponent’s training baton. Taking a step backward and leyting the Living Force weigh down his wrists, the professor snapped the tip of his faux-blade onto the top of the droid’s hand and completed the Shiim.

All the same, the wandering scholar hadn’t a moment to rest. As the droid worked to right itself, Sa’ato continued to drop into a crouch, and brusquely summoned almost the entire host of essence into the median of his torso. Letting the Force guide him, the professor twisted to an almost unnatural degree, before letting the pent up energy stored within burst free from his upper body. Rising to complete a modified Falling Leaf gambit, Sa’ato caught the droid in the middle of its overheard strike, and disabled its right forearm with a terrible crack of his blade. With the Cho Mai accomplished, Sa’ato took one more step backward, and threw the full weight of his thoughts toward the droid’s chest.

The Neti had set the droid to deactivate only if it received a proper Shiak at its midpoint, some two inches wide. Like the great tempest he had experienced on Korriban, the Neti growled and thrust both arms forward as the Force gusted through his body and drove his weapon home. With a pitiful thud, the mechanical trainer deactivated and fell to the floor. A promising start indeed.

[End Lightsaber Combat Application, 424 Words]

[Professor Mors]

***Yavin 4, Gordian Reach, Grid Coordinates P-6***

It had begun to rain upon Sa’ato arrival to the forested planet, and had not ceased raining as he trudged through the muck and grime that trailed the northern mountain range. Scouting around for a suitable ravine, the professor found what he was looking for on the eastmost slope. As thunder boomed in the distance, the Neti sighed and shook his head while glancing down below. Surely he had to be insane to attempt jumping off a mountain. At least, he would attempt it soon enough. For now, the academic need only focus on falling. And oh, what a simply charming idea that was.

[Begin Force Jump Application]

Mentally centering himself, the retired teacher sent his thoughts spiraling down into the soles of his feet. Calling on the Force to more freely alter his bodily function, the professor sought to unhook and disable the exterior nerves that would register the pain and intensity of a given impact. Once this had been accomplished, Sa’ato clenched his fists and beckoned his essence back up along his legs and to the midpoint of his torso, sapping each area of its natural energy and collecting the excess in his arms and chest. The idea was to create a negative space within, a void of momentum dominating the Neti’s lower body that would absorb the excess kinetic force of the impact.

Stepping off from solid ground, the professor embraced the feeling of freefall with his feelings, and put the particulars of his landing site in the hands of the Force. Adjusting the slight pitch and angle of his body only as instinct demanded, the Neti managed to touch down a sizable ledge with both feet firmly planted. A landing he immediately regretted. Howling and falling onto his back, the aged academic rolled and writhed about as the Force of the impact overwhelmed his senses. His preparations had been insufficient, and at that moment he could detect the boundary of his energy field groaning and stretching to what felt like the point of breaking. So it was that the wanderer lay still for a time, nursing his aches and formulating a new plan.

Thankfully, a solution was swift to appear. The teachings of the Force and other mystic sources alluded to energy entering the body at the head and departing through the feet. If Sa’ato was to succeed in landing, he would have to reverse the flow. Focalizing the host of his essence in the pit of where his stomach ought to be, the Neti did indeed experience nausea as he fought to rotate the direction of his energy flow as one flips over an hourglass. No one ever said the first leap was easy, or the second. Nonetheless, as the professor registered the subtle sensation of tectonics whispering up through his bark from where he stood, he exhaled and took that next step.

This time, when the normal force of the smaller edge below struck home, the gush of energy traveled as intended, following the sapped strings of the professor’s essence before bursting harmlessly out through the top of his head and showering down over his sphere of influence. Steadily catching his breath, the academic allowed himself a smile as the next piece of the puzzle became clear. If this was what it took to land, then to make a mockery of flight was simply the reverse of the reverse. Hissing as he rolled his mind’s internal flow right-side up, Sa’ato took a few steps back, and petitioned the Living Force to bolster his own field.

Like a pulley, the Neti roped more and more energy down through the crown of his head with his thoughts, working carefully to keep the excess bound up in his legs. Finally, breaking off into a sprint, the professor purged the borrowed, psychic stamina down and out, kicking off from the ground and soaring high into the muggy air. Now came the tricky bit. Filtering any nervous energy out through his head like a funnel, Sa’ato labored to construct an air of mental calm, and prepared to rotate the inner river of his essence once again. This time, owing to atmosphere or self-control, the academic deftly reconfigured his spiritual interior as easily as flipping a switch.

So it was that he hit the forest floor without a single troubled thought, and laughed softly as the otherwise-devastating energies of the impact burnt out of his mind unseen, in a brilliant plume like a flare.

[End Force Jump Application, 636 Words]

[Professor Mors]

Having reconfigured his combat droid and ferried it to the surface, Sa’ato shrugged his shoulders and hefted his practice blade from before. This time however, the professor also employed a smaller baton meant to emulate an auxiliary foil. The droid was conversely armed with the facsimile of a pike, and stood ready to challenge the Neti’s otherwise lackluster dexterity. The professor would continue to play to his advantage of strength, but he had to grow beyond his dependence on such tactics. That was where the second weapon came into play. One to spade oncoming attacks, and another to hammer his foes into submission.

[Begin Advanced Lightsaber Combat Application]

So it was that when the droid sent his lance barreling toward the professor, he funneled an excess of thought and instinct into his offhand to catch the blow while allow the Force to lighten his hold over his main sabre as he swung it at the droid’s shoulder in a feint. For all its programming, the automaton took the bait, but the power behind its follow up nearly robbed Sa’ato of his balance. Rather than fight the counter and lose his footing, the Neti flooded the left side of his body with the unbridled energy of the cosmos and spun with terrific speed.

All the while, he devoted a portion of his awakened mind to his digits, and in due course the Force handily reversed his grip as easily as breathing. Once again, the academic parried the lance with the smaller blade, but now at last he was undone by a harsh metal kick to his midsection. Falling backward, the Neti did offer so much as a moment’s hesitation. Altering the flow of his own internal energy, the professor let his instincts guide his hands behind him, and balanced harshly onto his knuckles. In that fleeting instant of partial landing, the professor then bade the Force to redirect up though his upper forearms and shoulders, completing an augmented kip-up and returning to the fray.

Exhaling gruffly and centering his mind when righted once more, Sa’ato poured ample thought and intention into his stocky legs as he altered his stance to bring forth a flurry of jabs. Keeping his eyes fixed ahead and beyond the droid’s chassis, the professor drew his unconscious mind to the forefront, confident that the Living Force was guiding each thrust, measuring out its speed, power, and point of attack. Time and again the Neti threatened the training droid’s inner guard, but all the same its servos refused to give ground.

Fortifying the breadth of his mental control, the professor began to twist his upper torso back at a forty-five degree angle, and enhanced the flexibility and locomotion of his movement with his mental energies. Snapping forward, Sa’ato forced the droid to retreat a step back in the wake of a wide, exaggerated Sarlacc Sweep. He then demanded more power seep down into his chest and shoulders, and channeled all of his aggression into an angled Twin Strike just above the trainer’s blade-guard. Naturally, the droid fought against the sudden locus of pure strength, but the Force was with the academic, and made him as sturdy and unwavering as a stone pillar.

Grimacing from the strain, Sa’ato finally roared with primal fury and swatted the blade-end of the spear away before smacking both of his own batons against the droid’s right shoulder and bringing Cho Sun to completion. As the artificial duelist’s arm fell limply to one side, the angry hue of impending danger flashed in the back of the professor’s mind. All the same, he smirked with contentment, and stepped back from a feeble follow-up kick. Even without the Force, this current program was perhaps a touch predictable. Stomping forward once more to catch a less-charged swing of the droid’s pike, the Neti allowed his strength to waver and let his guard hover just above the breaking point.

Instead of trying to out-muscle the droid a second time, Sa’ato emptied his mind of any distractions, and arbitrarily tossed his primary blade high into the air. As the baton flew overhead, the professor’s thoughts traveled with it, tracking its weight, speed, and exertion of gravity as dictated by the Force. At last, the wandering scholar snapped his eyes onto the droid’s photoreceptors, and caught the hilt of his airborne weapon such that its tip remained upright. With the natural and Living Force barreling down on his wrist, Sa’ato brought his weapon down into a full Falling Avalanche, smashing the blunt instrument onto the trainer’s head so far that it dented, and it fell yet again into a lifeless heap.

[End Advanced Lightsaber Combat Application, 663 Words]

[Professor Mors]

Sa’ato brushed two fingers pensively across the top of the artifact that lay on a small table before him. An antique Massassi leaf blade, roughly a millennia old. The Neti could not help but feel a sense of nostalgic affection and interest for those things which dwarfed him in age. What’s more, the historian in him knew superior craftsmanship when they saw it. This fine loan was awarded to the professor for his recent service in the hyperlanes. Bit by bit, his work was beginning to bear more valuable fruits for the purposes of his research. This particular sword, dating back to the New Sith Wars, was sure to have a storied past- and the academic had every intention to know it in intimate detail.

[Begin Psychometry Application]

Keeping his digits pinned to the curved Sith steel, Sa’ato bade his thoughts to cascade down onto the weapon and envelop it like a cocoon. Next, he exerted his feelings down onto the metalwork and hilt, like the many needles of an acupuncturist surgically impaling their client bit by bit. Every so often, the professor would detect the micro-hair of a gash or cut in the otherwise spotless metallurgy, and the hoarse echo of bygone anger rattled around in his mind. Penetrating the traditional sword more deeply, the retired teacher’s oaken skin pricked and numbed with the phantom embrace of heat: the baptizing fires of the forge, and the prenatal embrace of a mold.

But that still wasn’t enough. Taking the cruel instrument by its hilt and lifting it upward, Sa’ato forcefully crammed more and more of his essence along its beveled edge, and shivered as invisible pores, the wear and tear from centuries past, flecked off into his mind as he traveled further. It was insufficient to know how the weapon had survived. Rather, the Neti needed to discover the last time it had been actively touched by the Force. Finally, he received an answer. A luminous sliver of pure energy at the very heart of the sword pushed back at the professor’s probing.

Curdling with restlessness, the shimmering spike of displaced instinct and malice whisper feverishly in a voice the academic could not understand. Drawing the blade close to his chest, Sa’ato worked to invite the ghostly figment to meld with his own field of energy. To bond with something inanimate would seem an impossible thing- but the Force was not to be underestimated, nor the Neti’s own unconscious, primal mind. In time, he could not tell where he began and the sword ended. Neither was an extension of the other, but had instead attained a sort of synthesis. This did not last however, as Sa’ato hazily detected a shift in the ellipsis of his spirit.

No, not only a shift, but a metamorphosis, growth. The boundaries of the professor’s presence in the Force was stretching out a good meter and half above his normal height, and filling out his upper torso more than it had before. Then, a wave of darkness, and suddenly, the sensation of danger. Sa’ato was not himself, he could feel the Force flowing through him at such a divergent speed and intensity he thought he might faint. Looking down at his hands, it became clear: he was not himself. His fingers had become gnarled- more than usual! And he had but three! Furthermore, his flesh had seemingly become a harsh crimson rather than its usual burnt auburn.

Through the endless shadows a hooded figure then stepped forward, bearing a lightsaber of all things! Jedi! Before the Neti could speculate further, the Force pulsed through him once more, splashing harshly onto the top of his head and flowing south from there. But there was something different about this feeling. The influx of energy felt strange, hollow. Not-Sa’ato fought back, ‘their’ body snapping from stance to stance with the clear back of the Force and raw instinct. But the Professor himself could seemingly do nothing, not even as a brilliant green flash seemed to lay him low.

As if awakening from a long and unsatisfying sleep, the professor opened his eyes, and stared down at the sword. Without blinking, he summoned the Force to sharpen his concentration, and proceeded to mimic the fallen warrior’s set with pristine accuracy, as if he had practiced it for days on end. Sa’ato smiled and flipped the blade from side to side to study his weight, content with this milestone. The celebration was short-lived however. Coming to a standstill, the Neti closed his eyes, and prepared to reap new knowledge from his newest source.

[End Psychometry Application, 635 Words]

[Professor Mors]

The training course was simple enough. Sa’ato would begin in the belly of one of countless underground catacombs beneath the Eastern Massassi temple, fighting his way through the older traps laid out by the original battlemasters of the Sith. From there, tests of agility would ensue over a lethal field of stone spikes, before some minor target practice at the far end of the temple complex. As the ancient elevator leading beneath the stone structure thunked pitifully down onto raw earth, the Neti exhaled fresh dioxide from his pores, and stepped out into the all-encompassing darkness.

[Begin Force Level 4 Application]

Almost immediately, Sa’ato extended his thoughts out before him in a sweeping crescent. It was not the lay of the land he sought however, but the encroaching dangers that had already sent premonitions rippling through the extended field of his instincts. Finally, the psionic wail of a threat erupted in the professor’s mind. Letting his feelings guide his movement, the Neti snapped the tip of his training blade up to middle guard to catch a stray blast bolt, the steady flow of the Force enhancing his maneuver as if he’d practiced it countless times. His attacker was an aged, wall-mounted turret, and one that was clearly still functioning at capacity.

Channeling his focus and aggression into his arms, the academic parried another two shots, before his mind flared in warning once more. Another wall-mounted gun suddenly sprang to life, and sent yet another crude bolt toward Sa’ato. Thankfully, his senses served him. Creating an elastic net of energy in the palm of his hand, the retired teacher handily caught the would-be attack, and diffused it up along his fingertips with a muted hiss. Now the guns fired in unison, but the Neti was hardly concerned. Like water falling from high to low, the professor deflected another volley on the right, then reversed his grip, his weapon hand dropping more rapidly as he bade the Force to weigh it down.

He caught the second barrage on the upper end of his blade, and channeled the Force down further to his calves. Stepping forward with an enhanced burst of speed, the professor then extended both arms out, making a t with his body, and awaited the follow-up. Both turrets let fly another burst, and the Neti snarled as he addressed both fronts, overworking his mind as he fought to alter the flow and trajectory of both crimson bolts in a fraction of a second. As he willed the potent blasts to curve around his frame, Sa’ato likewise wound the Force around his torso like a sphere, encouraging the blaster fire to spin along the unseen railing like a marble caught in a track.

Succeeding with the greatest concentration, both shots took an unnaturally wide berth around the teacher, before detonating violently onto the opposing turrets, which became little more than dim torches to light the Neti’s way. Climbing a small stairway, Sa’ato arrived atop a stone outcropping, and surveyed a set of mechanically rotating platforms that hung over the vicious sea of spikes. Taking a moment to limber up, the Neti set off at a sprint, this time consolidating the Force in the very soles off his feet as if to bottle the froth of synthfizz set to explode. And so it came to pass that he released the energy all at once, flying high into the air as a result.

Tracing the rotation of the nearest platform with his eyes, Sa’ato was set to land with ease before his senses fell into turmoil once more. Mentally, the professor had readied himself before the hiss of air and pistons sent a crude lance jutting out toward his person from the nearby wall. It was simple enough for the academic to modify the angle of his fall and catch the arm of the spear. But once more, his feelings reared up at the penumbra of danger below. A set of spikes had sprang to life on the intended platform, the Neti was certainly, the Force had told him so. Yet he was falling- the weapon which clutched tightly could hardly support his weight.

And if he was to drop, the energy of the cosmos whispered at Sa’ato to do so facing forward. And so he did, plummeting down past the treacherous top of the platform until he brushed his feet along the stone pillar supporting it, and kicked off. Allowing all the reservoir of the Living Force trapped within his legs to shoot free once again, a psionic flood erupted powerfully from out the tips of the Neti’s manufactured toes; the feeling of his lower body growing faint as he ricocheted up at a diagonal angle, rolling on impact upon a stable ledge at the far end of the obstacle course. Now all that remained was the holographic targets lining a clearing off in the distance.

Recovering from his impromptu landing, Sa’ato took up a weathered, looted sniper rifle, courtesy of one Emic Lai. Wasting no time, the Neti infested the metal barrel with his thoughts, cramming his mind down through the firing chamber like a rebellious bullet. Reaching the worn trigger before long, the professor shivered about and detected the boundary of his own imprint in the Force writhe about as a tide of emotion bombarded his system. With the emotion came focus, fragmented images, and finally, the traceable husk of memories. Without pausing, the Neti locked the stock of the rifle tightly against his shoulder, and within the span of a breath began to deactivate the targets one by one, stopping only when the furthest, at 800 meters out, fizzled from existence.

Only then did he exhale, and momentarily relish in his success…

[End Force Level 4 Application, 852 Words]