Earth
Ottawa, Ontario
August 13, 2019
06:30 EDT

My alarm blaring woke me up again. I was tempted to turn it off and get some more sleep, but I was too excited to learn how to shapeshift. I took a very quick shower, got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast.

“Good morning…” I said when I entered the kitchen. I had been about to call Alexandra and Gabriel, mom and dad.

“Good morning,” they returned, one after another. Gabriel was reading stuff off his tablet, like always, and Alexandra was cooking breakfast.

I grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee, putting the pot back when I was done. I picked up my mug and then turned around and leaned on the counter. I thought about Alexandra and Gabriel. For as long as I can remember, and a lot longer than that, they’ve taken care of me. They’ve behaved like any of the parents of my friends. They celebrated my birthday and holidays over the years. They had come to sporting games, and we had gone on vacations as well. They were also supportive when I decided not to go to college right away, though recent revelations have me questioning that. All in all, I’ve had a pretty good childhood, and they’ve been awesome parents.

“I was thinking,” I started. “If I hadn’t learned about all that stuff yesterday, I probably would have gone for years believing both of you were my parents. There was no hint whatsoever that you might not be. I’d be happy to continue calling you both mom and dad.”

She stopped cooking for a moment and came over, giving me a big hug. “We were hoping you would feel that way,” she said. “I think your mother and father would be proud of the man you’ve become.”

She let me go so she could tend to the food and my dad took her place, embracing me in a near bone-breaking hug. I had to be very careful not to spill my coffee.

“Your mom and I are damn proud of you as well,” he said, after he let go. “You need to join Omar and myself for a chat and some Scyftan ale tonight. It’s the best you’ll ever have.”

“What is the chat about?” I asked, moving over to the table and sitting down.

“You, as well as your friends, are going to go through part of the Spectre training your mom and I went through when we were recruited to become Spectres. We can’t do all of it since it took us a little over three and a half years, but we can get most of the combat stuff done. Things like hand-to-hand, melee weapons, firearms. You’ll also be expected to learn some magic as well. It would be a waste to neglect the benefit us Scyftans get from our large mana pool. You won’t use it for shapeshifting all the time, and there will be times when a good spell will get you out of trouble.”

“Omar will be the one training you and your friends in hand-to-hand combat. He’s incorporated some human fighting techniques into the training program, though most of the techniques are ones that Scyftans have learned over the years. Your training program will be much tougher than the one your friends will be going through, since you have the ability to alter your form.”

“Why all the training?”

“Besides Egegal, who died trying to save over three hundred billion people, all of your ancestors have died to things they could have otherwise prevented, had they had certain skills or training. You saw that Precognition Skill Gem the Adventurer’s Guild is offering five million credits for? That’s for you. That skill alone could have saved your father and your grandfather.”

“With the training and skills we’re going to set you and your sisters up with, you’re going to be a lot harder to kill than any of your ancestors were. I guarantee that you and your sisters will have an attempt on you a few months after we deal with Kaldrus Dhir. Some people won’t want to give up the power they’ve acquired since Kaldrus took over.”

“How long is this training program going to take?”

“Probably a large part of the next eight months. Not all that time will be spent training. You and your friends will be able to pick three free days every week where you can do anything you want. Those other four days every week will be training. So you can have it so your weekends are free, and you train on weekdays, or you can train every second day. It’s totally up to you five.”

“The training will be broken up into four parts. Hand-to-hand will be the focus for the first two months, melee weapons for two months, firearms for two months. The final two months will be split between naval tactics and spells while we’re en-route to Scyftan space. When we get to the base this morning, I’ll have a few skill gems for you and your friends. You’ll be expected to level them up as much as you can each day.”

“Alright, that’s enough talk about that,” my mom interrupted. She brought over breakfast which was a huge platter with breakfast burritos stacked on it. “Whatever doesn’t get finished now can be taken with us when we leave. I’m sure Mason will still be sleeping when we get there. He and the rest of your friends can finish them.”

I grabbed a couple of burritos off the platter and dug in. Since I could eat with one hand, I took my phone out of my pocket and checked my stats page. I hadn’t really taken a look at it since the last time I spent my attribute points.

“Wow!” I said aloud. I know Abi said my attribute points would be increased by a percentage every time she leveled, but I didn’t think it would be so much so quickly. Scrolling down, I could see that I gained a 28% increase in all attributes, which already meant Abi was level fourteen.

“What’s that?” my mom asked.

I looked up. “I was looking at my stats and they’re quite a bit higher than they were when we left the dungeon yesterday. Thanks to bonding with Abi, I gain 2% more of each attribute for each level she reaches. My stat page says that I’m currently gaining 28% more of each attribute, meaning Abi has already hit level fourteen.”

“You’ll get a fairly substantial boost early on, and then it will slow down,” she said with a nod. “Abi went many years without leveling when she reached higher levels while bonded to your father. I don’t remember what level she was at when your father was killed, but it was pretty high. Abi would know.”

[I had reached level thirty-nine while bonded with your father. At that point, however, it would take me hundreds of years to reach level forty.]

[That long? Really?]

[Yes. At that time, your father didn’t have time to delve into dungeons. He wasn’t able to level anymore, meaning the only way his mana regeneration could increase was via items, auras, or skills. As I told you yesterday, as I level, it requires twice the amount of mana to level up and allow me to grow. Later on, that quickly amounts to billions and trillions of mana.]

“Abi said she was level thirty-nine while bonded with my father, and that it would take hundreds of years for her to level again. Still though, that would be a 78% increase to attributes.”

“Don’t go setting your sights too high,” my mom said with a laugh. “It took your father over a thousand years to generate enough mana for Abi to level all the way up to thirty-nine.”

“Oh, I won’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t start planning, though. I have a certain design in mind for when Abi gets bigger. Speaking of which,” I said, exiting my stats page and bringing up an image on my phone.

[Abi, what level would you need to be to grow into something like this, but without all the empty space? Measurements would be about four-thousand meters in diameter, and about fifteen hundred meters high.]

[Coincidentally, I would have to be around level thirty-nine to grow fully into that design. I could transform into a smaller version right now and grow over time. That would be about three hundred sixty meters in diameter, and one hundred thirty-five meters in height.]

I shook my head mentally. [Nah, we’ll hold off on that design for now. I think I’ll get this Warvyn family to design something for you to grow in later. It will be based off of this ship, though.]

[No problem.]

I put my phone down and finished eating. When we were all done, my mom asked where the food basket was. I forgot it in my truck, so I had to go out and get it. It was loaded with the remaining breakfast burritos, and a thermos full of coffee, and then we all climbed into my parent’s SUV.

Our first stop was Mason’s house. My parents parked and I went to the door. I knocked and was amazed to see who opened it.

“Well that’s a first,” I said in disbelief.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get a move on,” he said, as he walked past me to the SUV.

Mrs. Reeves had come to the door as well.

“What did you guys do yesterday?” she asked. “He never gets up this early on his own.”

I shrugged. “We had some fun in the dungeon yesterday, and then learned some things afterwards. My parents used to be adventurers, and they’ve agreed to train us. Maybe he’s excited for that? I honestly have no idea. I was fully expecting to have to go up there and wake him up again.”

“Well, whatever it is, keep it up,” she said with a chuckle. “See you later, Jonathan.”

“Bye, Mrs. Reeves.”

I turned around and got back in the SUV.

“So when are we going to tell my friend’s parents what is going on? I really don’t want to lie to them, or have my friends lie to them for the next six-plus months.”

“Your mom and I were thinking about having them over to the Adventurer’s Guild HQ this weekend. We can have them sign the same confidentiality forms your friends did, and then we’ll give them the whole story.”

“Ah. Not quite sure how any of them are going to take it. We’ll see, I guess.”

I looked over to Mason to see that he was already pigging out on a breakfast burrito, while holding the thermos between his legs. We pulled up to Ben’s house next, though he wasn’t waiting on the steps this morning.

I got out and knocked on his door. Michael, Ben’s father, answered the door.

“Ah, good morning, Jonathan!” he greeted, his usual jovial self. “Ben woke up a little late this morning, and is just eating breakfast. He should be done in a minute or two.”

“Thanks, Mr. Collins. I’ll wait for him to finish.”

He nodded, “So Ben tells me that you all finished the fifth level in that new dungeon. How did he do?”

“Pretty well. He’s not very powerful right now, but that will change as time goes on. He’s focusing on auras which are a pain to level up. Combine that with a low mana pool, and he can only keep auras up for a short time. The passive effects that his auras provide are pretty useful, though. Each of us gains a bonus of five health regen, and all our attacks do a small amount of fire damage. He did get a spell called Scorch that he can use to do direct damage though. That, combined with his bo staff will allow him to do a bit of damage on his own, as well.”

“Everything sounds good. I was originally against crafting him a Magewood staff, but it sounds like it’s working out well.”

“Indeed, it is. With the versatility he’ll provide to us later on, I’d say that we’re a pretty well rounded team.”

“Great! It sounds like Ben is done eating, so he’ll be here shortly.”

I couldn’t hear anything, but then again, I didn’t have the perk Enhanced Hearing like Ben’s father did. With it, it allowed him to hear anyone that might be trespassing on his land, trying to cut off a piece of their Magewood tree. Right on cue, Ben appeared beside his father.

“Hey, Jonathan,” he greeted.

“Hi. Ready to go?”

He nodded. “See you later, dad.”

“Bye, Mr. Collins.”

“Good luck guys!”

We both got into the SUV and continued on to the twins’ house. They were both ready when my dad pulled up, and they hopped in.

“Hey everyone,” the twins greeted.

We all exchanged greetings. The girls didn’t have time to eat breakfast since they woke up late, so they were both handed a breakfast burrito. We all made small talk while my dad drove the thirty minutes to the Adventurer’s Guild HQ. We went through all the security protocols, and then were in the elevator descending down to the portal room. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, I noticed that there were two new people on duty today.

“Ah, good morning. Bati, Tulon, meet Jonathan and his friends Mason, Benjamin, Anja and Sonja,” my dad said.

When everyone had met and shaken hands, we all continued on to the base on the moon first. I wanted to place Abi in her hanger and let her grow. I was pretty excited to see how it happened, and so was everyone else. Tich even joined us at the door that only I could open. I quickly went through the security process. Everyone walked through and stayed near the doors while I continued towards the middle of the huge hanger.

[Abi, when you grow, can you make the outside of the ship black, while keeping the inside white, though fully opaque? There wouldn’t be much privacy on the ship if the walls were as transparent as you are currently.]

[I can, though why black for the outside?]

[Black would make it harder to detect while in space than a white one, would it not?]

[It would, though I can change the exterior color of the ship at any time. You could keep the exterior white, and then have me change it to black at any time.]

[Oh, I didn’t know you could do that. I thought you could only change aspects of the ship when you were about to grow.]

[Nope. I can change anything about the ship at any time.

[Alright, cool. After placing you down, how far should I walk away?]

[Perhaps two hundred meters or so. I won’t grow very large, just yet.]

[Okay, here we go.]

I placed her down, and then walked back two hundred or so meters. When I turned back around, she started glowing. After about thirty seconds, she gradually started growing. It was a lot faster than I thought it would be. After about twenty minutes, the glow disappeared and there sat a white crystalline ship. I’m not sure how long it was, but estimated four hundred fifty to five hundred meters, and about sixty meters high. I’m not sure of the width, but I’m sure I’d find out shortly. Everyone had made their way over to me while she was growing. A short time after she stopped growing, a door in the side opened and we all walked forward.

Upon entering, Abi spoke to me.

[I’m going to download the current layout of the ship directly to your mind. Each time I grow, I will modify the layout in your mind to reflect it. This way, you will always know everything about the ship. How about you head to the bridge and we’ll go for a little spin.]

It felt a little funny, but when it was done, I turned to everyone else. “Follow me, Abi wants to take us for a test run.”

I started walking towards the bridge. Like Abi said, I now knew everything about the ship. I knew she is exactly 472.5 meters long, 135 meters wide, and 67.5 meters high. She is armed with sixteen beam weapons, them being split equally between the dorsal and ventral parts of the hull. There are also thirty-six laser turrets. Thirty-two of them are split equally along the port, starboard, dorsal and ventral parts of the hull. The other four are positioned in two clusters at the back of the ship. That’s all it currently has in terms of armament, but they’re incredibly strong. The laser turrets’ primary use is against lightly-armored craft and missiles, but they can do some serious damage to even a well-armored ship, if focused on one spot.

The ship is shaped almost like an arrowhead, with the front ending in a point and the back flaring out a little bit. The back of the ship has six thrusters formed into two triangle shaped clusters in the middle, and then the aforementioned laser turrets outside of them. It meant that any enemy ship that might be behind them would repeatedly get shot by those four laser turrets.

The thing I found most interesting, is that she doesn’t have a power plant in the conventional sense. In place of a power plant, she has what is essentially a massive mana crystal. She is able to collect all the ambient mana around her, as well as siphon off excess mana produced by the crew, and store it in the mana crystal for later use. The key difference between the mana core on the ship, and a regular mana crystal you might find in a dungeon, is efficiency.

A high end mana crystal might allow you to siphon off around eighty percent of the mana stored within it, for a twenty percent loss. So if you put one hundred mana in a high end mana crystal, you might only be able to siphon eighty out of it. The mana crystal within Abi doesn’t have that downside. She can use one hundred percent of all mana she has stored.

The downside of the mana crystal in place of a regular power plant, is that the amount of mana she has to power the ship is finite. That means that it will be very important to crew her with people who have considerable mana regen going forward.

The ship has eleven decks and can house around five hundred ten crew comfortably. The biggest reason it can hold so many people is that she doesn’t need a lot of room for fuel, ammunition, or cargo. She has a very expansive dimensional storage that will be able to store anything we might need.

The bridge of the ship is located on the sixth of the eleven decks, in the middle of the ship. The bridge was actually a lot smaller than I was expecting, and there weren’t the usual consoles that you associate with a bridge. Maybe I should have expected that though, since Abi IS the ship. She can probably manage the entire thing by herself. I do wonder if having specific stations would allow her to be more efficient. I’d need to find out. The main thing about the bridge was a central table-like object in the middle, which is a holographic projector. With it, Abi can display all sorts of information like differentiating friend from foe, and showing the exact positions of ships and objects around the ship.

The rest of the sixth deck held a ready room, officer’s mess, and staterooms for all the officers or guests who might be on the ship. There is a gym, mess hall and kitchen, lounge, and showers on the fifth deck for the regular crew. The small cargo bay takes up a small portion of the first, second, third, and fourth decks. The rest of those decks, along with most of the seventh through eleventh decks, are dedicated to housing the crew.

We finally arrived at the bridge and everyone filed up the steps. There was the captain’s chair, along with two chairs flanking it near the back. Besides that, all around the room were screens that currently display the hanger that Abi is sitting in. They went all around the room, allowing for three hundred sixty degree vision. Something I didn’t notice on the layout Abi downloaded to me was that there were actually consoles and crew stations. There are a number of chairs located all round the holographic projectors, with consoles in front of each one.

I took a seat on the captain’s chair and then told everyone else to take a seat wherever they wanted. The twins immediately ran over and sat in the two chairs flanking mine. Everyone else sat around the console and then we were almost ready to leave. Tich had to order the hanger doors to open before we could do that though. When he gave the order, the two doors which made up the ceiling opened up, and Abi slowly started rising.

I couldn’t feel us moving at all, but going by the screens, we were already out of the hanger. When we were clear, Abi started accelerating quickly.

[Where are you taking us, Abi?]

“We’re taking a short trip around the system, maybe do a few flybys of some planets,” she answered.

“You can talk now?”

“I sure can. I need a way to communicate with the crew, don’t I? Not everyone on this ship is going to know how to Mindspeak, so I need to be able to communicate with them.”

“Oh. Anyways, is there any way you can show how much mana you have stored? It would be handy to have that visible somewhere.”

“Certainly,” she answered. A moment later, one of the screens had a counter showing a little over one hundred twelve thousand, and rising at a decent rate. Either not much power was being used right now, or Tich and my parents were able to regenerate a lot of mana.

“Why is the amount of mana that she has important?” Ben asked.

“Would you like to answer that, Abi?”

“Sure. Contrary to other space ships, I do not possess a power plant. Instead, I have a very large mana crystal, called a Mana Core in its place. I am able to collect ambient mana, as well as siphon any extra mana from the crew, and store that in the Mana Core to power the ship. My current core has a capacity of six hundred seventy-five million mana when full, and each time I level, that will increase.”

“As you can see, right now my mana is increasing, even with the shield active, and the engines at about half power. If I fired the weapons right now, they would noticeably reduce the amount of mana I have available. The shield, however, is very easy to keep active, and only drains mana when it is hit by something. Essentially, the stronger the crew, the stronger I will be.”

“What happens if you run out of mana?”

“I would initiate an immediate hyperspace jump to safety before it got to that point. If a situation occurred where I wasn’t able to initiate a jump, then I would ask every crew member to channel their mana into the ship. That would fill up my reserves quite a bit, and allow me to continue fighting, or try to escape using sublight engines.”

By now, we were rapidly closing in on Mars. The holographic projector was displaying each of the planets in the system, and where they were in relation to the ship. The red planet was also growing larger and larger on the screens showing in front of the ship.

“We’re about to do a quick flyby of Mars. Afterwards, I’ll make a course correction and we’ll do a flyby of Saturn before returning back to the moon,” Abi explained.

My eyes, along with the eyes of my friends were glued to the screens around the room. It was really cool getting a close up view of Mars and Saturn. We had all seen images taken by satellites and drones, but this was the real thing. All too soon, it was time to head back. The course we had taken allowed us to slingshot using Saturn’s gravity, saving a lot of time. If we didn’t use gravity assist, then Abi would’ve had to flip end over end and fire the thrusters to slow down, and then start heading back towards Mars. This way, she would only have to flip end over end once, and that would be to slow down so we didn’t overshoot the moon.

She calculated everything perfectly, and we were soon gently lowering into the hanger. After chatting for a few minutes, they made their way to the exit of the ship so we could begin our training. Abi had me stay back for a moment, since she almost forgot to give me something.

While I was standing on the bridge, there was a small flash of light, and then a small round crystal appeared, floating in front of me.

[This is a Beacon. It has three purposes. The first, is a link to the dimensional storage aboard this ship. This is equal to several million tons of storage. If you ever want to store something, and the storage on your ring is full, you can put it in the ship’s storage.]

[The second purpose is it acts like a mana crystal. You can use it to siphon mana directly from my Mana Core whenever you need to, so you can refill your own mana reserves almost instantly.]

[The final purpose is perhaps the most important. As the name suggests, it is a beacon. While you hold it, I will be able to lock on to you and teleport you aboard the ship. Keep in mind that it will only teleport you. It won’t teleport anyone else. You can use it to get to the ship quicker, or to escape from something. Please don’t hesitate to use it in the latter case.]

[Thank you for this.] I told her.

[You’re welcome. You should catch up with everyone, they’re waiting at the hanger doors. They can’t leave unless you open the door.]

[Yeah, I’d better. See you later, Abi.]

I turned and quickly made my way out of the ship. When I was out, the door disappeared, and the hull was seamless. I ran over to the door, and pulsed my mana at the scanner so the hanger exit would open. We all left the hanger and Tich said goodbye. He, along with my parents had a lot of work to get done before those six hundred ships showed up.

The rest of us returned to the portal. The light was red, signaling it was active somewhere else. After pressing the button, we had to wait for a good thirty seconds for it to turn green, allowing us to walk through. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait when we got to the portal room, and we were able to continue on to the base right away.

Once there, my dad split off to go get some work done, while my mom led my friends and I over to a set of rooms.

“These rooms are similar to the ones you were in yesterday for your evaluation. Once inside, plug your phone into the socket and then stand in the middle of the room. The room will be sealed and then you can begin the training program by saying, ‘begin training’ aloud. When it starts, a list of available training programs will be available. Say, ‘Mindspeak training’ to begin.”

“Mason, Ben, Anja and Sonja, when the program begins, you’ll be asked to use the Telepathy Skill Gems you were given yesterday. After that, you’ll be guided through the training. It will probably take each of you most of today to get it down. Every three hours, the training program will be paused and you can take a break before continuing. You four can get started whenever you’re ready.”

All four of them quickly split up and each picked a room to go into, and then it was just me.

“As for you,” she said turning back to me. “The program will test you, and then teach you how to shield your mind. It won’t take you long. When you’re done, come see me and we’ll get you started on learning how to shapeshift. That can’t be done in one of these rooms. On a lower level, we have a small assortment of animals you can scan and shapeshift into, to start.”

“Awesome! I’ll get started right away. See you in a bit.”

I walked into one of the vacant rooms and plugged in my phone, then moved back to the middle of the room. The door was sealed and then I felt like I was cut off from the outside.

[Abi, you there?] I asked.

I didn’t get any response. Hopefully she wasn’t freaking out up there.

“Begin training,” I said aloud.

“Welcome, Jonathan Kidravia. Projected in front of you will be a number of different training programs. Select the one you would like to start,” a robotic sounding voice said.

“Mindspeak training,” I replied.

“Initiating Mindspeak training..”

The room shifted, and suddenly I was looking at a mirror image of myself.

“Your first objective is to send to your mirror image standing in front of you. To do this, picture a word or image in your mind, and imagine projecting that word or image at your mirror image. When you complete this task, we’ll continue.

Well, this would be easy. [Hello,] I sent to the other me.

“Well done,” the voice congratulated. “Next up is your second objective. Your mirror image will now send to you. Your objective is to block his attempts to send a message to you. To do this, imagine that your mind is completely surrounded by a shield. When you are ready, send ‘Begin’ to your mirror image.”

Well, time to start learning. Hopefully I’ll get this done quickly.

[Begin.]