Jack followed Monty out of the room, hindered slightly by the mattress he had hoisted on his shoulder. He felt strangely content, for the first time in a few days he actually felt vaguely across everything that was going on.

  His biggest concern had been not overloading himself due to his amplification, now he could control his vortex and had a skill to use his mana, he felt ok about that now.

  Next on his list of issues was the retest, they had to find a way to make sure that he could pass the test like a normal person. If his amplification was too high he would get unwanted attention and all of the work so far would be for nothing. With Monty’s comments, he felt pretty confident that this was resolved as well.

  Getting a taste of the larger world and coming to an arrangement with Monty, he even had a vague plan for the future. All he wanted to do now was get this mattress back to his room and have a sleep, then he could get back to experimenting.

  When they got almost back to the Dormitory building they saw Turrel heading in their direction, as the man approached, he looked at the mattress with a look of confusion.

  “Do you not find the accommodations here to your liking Jack? We do have mattresses here with different firmnesses if you asked.” Turrel said.

  Jack stopped walking and looked at Monty, almost dropping the mattress as he did.

  “Wait a minute… did you know… you cheeky.” Jack admonished Monty.

  “You offered to charge as many gems as I wanted. It would have been rude if I had turned down the offer. The mattress is now yours so feel free to do what you like with it.” He winked at Jack.

  “I can buy about a dozen more with change with the gems you helped me with.”

  Jack shook his head and turned to Turrel.

  “So… how did the clean up go? Paperwork all good?” Jack asked.

  Turrel looked between the two men, deciding not to ask any more detail. He sighed and looked seriously at Jack.

  “Well.. Yes the clean up was fine, paperwork was ok. There were however a few issues that popped up and complicated things.” He pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “I never should have let you take him Monty… I logged the report about the machine breaking, which was fine. However they knew you were here because the transported logged connection to your vessel. When I logged the paperwork they checked the logs on the transporter and saw that two people left the facility right after the machine was reported destroyed.” He turned a very serious expression on Monty, who was looking a little confused.

  “This facility is currently only staffed by myself. Meaning other than me, who was filing paperwork at the time. There was only one other person in this facility.” Turrel looked at Monty as the realisation dawned on him and his face fell.

  “Ohh shit. How bad is it? I’m so sorry Turrel. I didn’t think.” Monty said.

  “It is fine, they were obviously confused but I simply told them that Jack required medical attention after the machine was damaged. You had no supplies with you to assist and took Jack with you to attend to him as soon as possible.” Turrel sighed as he waved them towards the building they had been heading towards earlier.

  “They have no reason to not believe that is the case, I have received a slap on the wrist but I insinuated that you insisted and it would have been rude of me to attempt to stop you given your current status.” He held the door open for Jack to drag his mattress in, no longer holding it on his shoulder.

  “They are not a little more interested in this situation though. They have a machine being prepared for relocation immediately, it will also be accompanied by someone from the center.” Turrel's expression was hard to read now.

  “This is going to limit our options for passing the next test.” He glanced at Jack.

  “I’m sorry Jack, I honestly do not know what we can do now. I thought we would have a few weeks to work out a solution and train. But the machine will be here with the official in the next day or two. We won’t be able to delay either with the Official here, they will want to do the test immediately.”

  Jack pulled the mattress through the doors, resting it partially on a shoulder as he plotted his course to avoid chairs and tables before getting to the next door.

  “It’s fine man, nothing you can do about it. Plus as far as Monty said we should be fine on the test, We worked out how to change up my amplification a little bit so the test should be ok.” Jack said as he started to move through the room.

  Turrel looked between the two of them and caught a look from Monty.

  “Okay, that is good news, Jack. I thought it might take longer to work out how it works but good work. Monty must have had you working non stop almost. I am assuming you are a little tired so I can have a chat with Monty to work out the rest. Here let me get the door.” Turrel said, grabbing the door as Jack pulled his mattress through.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Thanks man, yeah it was pretty full on, I only slept once for 5 hours so I’m a little drained. It was pretty tough learning that shockwave skill. The vortex stuff came pretty easy after that.” Jack made sure he was looking directly at Turrel as he mentioned the skill he learned. He heard a small snort of laughter from Monty at Turrell's reaction.

  Turrel’s eyes raised and he looked directly at Monty, waiting for something. Not getting it he looked back at Jack and closed his eyes while shaking his head.

  “So, two things. One congratulations Jack. That is an amazing accomplishment, really it is and I doubt he made a big deal out of it. It takes people weeks before they can start learning an intermediary skill like that. Months to have it recognised properly as a skill…” He paused for a moment as a brief look of shock passed his face and he did a double take between the two of them again.

  “Seriously? Guessing by the look on both of your faces and the exaggerated silence I would assume that you somehow managed to have it listed in your skills officially? We are going to need to talk about this in detail at a later date as that is honestly… Ahh well. That may actually become a problem depending on which official they send. He might be able to check your status with the Origin. It is a low chance as he is more likely to have a Mana sense trait to observe your amplification but still, I will need to consider that.” Turrel started to ramble as they walked.

  “Later later. Jack, that is great. However Monty, that was beyond reckless, immensely irresponsible and unacceptable. You know why we do things the way we do. He has a right to understand the risks he faces when attempting to learn these things and preying on his lack of knowledge is not acceptable, Shardlord or not.” Turrel said in a very emotional outburst.

  Jack leaned the mattress against the wall and placed a hand on Turrel’s shoulder.

  “Hey man, it’s not a big deal. I appreciate you standing up for me and my rights, I honestly do. Monty told me it would be dangerous and he made sure to keep me safe and he gave me a choice. I accepted any risk involved myself, I want to learn. It seems we have a unique chemistry with our abilities and if I can use that to enhance my training and speed things along, I will do that.” Jack looked at Monty and smiled.

  “I know he is using me as well for whatever his own purposes are. That's fine, I understand and accept that and we can move on. I didn’t have many options to start with and this seems like a good one for now. A mutually beneficial relationship you might call it.” Jack opened the door next to him and started to try to pull the mattress into the room.

  “If it's all ok with you, I would love to get this mattress into the room and on the bed. Then I want to sleep for at least six hours. Afterwards, we can use me like a guinea pig again while we work my amplification and how the testing will go and fill me in on what I should or shouldn't know or say to this person.”

  Jack dragged the mattress into the room. He took the pillow off the current bed and then dropped the new mattress directly on top. He dropped onto the mattress and from his muffled voice sounded out.

  “Could you close the door on your way out? Cheers.”

  Jack closed his eyes and drowned out any other sounds, falling asleep quicker than he thought he would.

  The next morning went much as Jack had suggested the day before. He woke up feeling refreshed after an unknown amount of time. He showered, admired himself in the mirror noting that his face had not been modified with the rest of his body.

  His eyes remained the same hazel hue as before, however in the whites he noticed a few almost lightning-like streaks of green racing towards the iris.

  He had walked to the cafeteria and started eating, Monty and Turrel joined him as he finished and gave him a rundown on what he was and wasn't to say around the official that was coming from the Origin. Basically it came down to some common sense stuff about not mentioning his amplification or any of his unorthodox training with Monty.

  Honestly he wondered what they thought of him that they even had to say that sort of thing, he wasn’t that impulsive, was he? They talked a little more about his vortex and how it felt as he tried to change its shape, Monty having given Turrel a run down while Jack was sleeping.

  They came up with a few more tests they wanted to do and then some “exercises” that Turrel wanted him to work on. While he was impressed with Jack’s progress so far, he was pretty adamant in wanting to make sure he at least had some foundational training. Something he said would help his other skills and also help his understanding.

  There was a little back and forth and Jack managed to agree to getting the “Theory” side of the new training put off until after the retest. This gave him as much time as possible to work on getting familiar with his vortex and how he could control the output.

  The next few days were filled with all sorts of experimentation and practice, with Turrel involved they even started recording his results. They worked on his fine control, recording the lowest amplification rate he could manage but stretching the shape as wide as possible. Then they did the same for his highest, with it compressed as much as he could manage.

  The lowest was barely noticeable as far as amplification was concerned, the maximum however was very different. The maximum was well over double, around 2.4 times the input amount. He could only manage it because Monty was there.

  A side effect they noticed through this testing that was only really picked up by Turrel looking at the results, was in regards to speed of amplification. It seemed that the higher his amplification rate was, the faster the mana moved in his system, essentially meaning it was being amplified faster. He said the difference was small but noticeable and would add up over time. There was some complicated math he went over but Jack zoned most of it out.

  Higher Amplification -> Faster Mana -> More Cycles -> More Mana.

  Pretty simple as fast as Jack was concerned.

  They worked with him testing how much he could increase or decrease and what levels felt comfortable. Monty then attached different strengthened healing weaves and they tested the thresholds for how much it could “Stretch” to maintain them. They found that if his amplification was higher than was needed to maintain a weave it wouldn't change shape at all.

  It was after they had decided to call for a break from the latest set of experiments that Turrel turned to him with a panicked expression on his face.

  “Shit. He’s early, Plan C. I’ll go now, get cleaned up and go to the cafeteria. Monty with me please.” Turrel turned on his heel and started back towards the transporter room. Monty glanced at Jack and patted him on the shoulder as he turned to follow Turrel.

  “It’s fine, don’t stress. It’s only the most important few hours of your life. You got this man.” He turned and left Jack alone on the path.

  Damn, Jack hoped he could remember everything Turrel said. If he forgot some weird cultural thing it wouldn't be that big of a deal would it?

  If you are enjoying feel free to throw a follow or comment down below so I know what to keep shorten or add more in to the story in the future.