The Wolves Ch. 010

"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, we made our way to the exit of the ship so we could being 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 it would open. We all left the room and Tich said 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, at 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.]