Weight of Worlds

As Physical came to an end, all the students in their group were lounging about on the field. Ranvir wasn’t sure if his eyes stung from sweat running into them, or from tears of effort.

He felt more than a little disoriented, when the bell rang, seeming to shake the grass around him. He glanced around in a moment of confusion, before remembering what it signified. Their next class would soon begin. With a groan mirrored by everyone on the field, even Sansir and Grev, he sat up to look around.

Teachers had emerged onto the fields holding signs, that said ‘Obsidian-1’, or ‘Light-3’, or some other combination of element and number.

“Light-2 is me,” Grev said, getting to his feet. Ranvir noted the teacher holding the sign. He appeared to be young, barely thirty, if even that. His yellow-blond hair stuck out amongst the prevailing strands of gray- or outright white hair.

“That’s mine.” Esmund said, pointing towards another set of teachers holding ‘Warp’ signs, he wandered off without anymore acknowledgment. Sansir simply, nodded to Ranvir before heading off towards his teacher.

Ranvir scanned the line of teachers. This first week was space, but he didn’t see an- At the very end was a man holding a sign. It simply said ‘Spatial’ on it.

Of course, Ranvir thought, getting to his feet. A few other students had already gathered around him, so Ranvir quickly joined.

Another five or so minutes and the rest of the class had grouped around the man. They were barely more than twenty students in the class.

The teacher seemed to count them, before letting out a sigh. “The nobles do work quick, I guess twenty-three’s still pretty good.” Then continued in a louder voice. “Greetings class! My name is Teacher Floki. If you will follow me, I will take you to the fields where we will be training.”

One student raised his hands. Ranvir noted that he looked more than a little sick. “Teacher, will we not be studying inside?”

Floki seemed to pause. “No, not for the first six weeks, at least.”

As they followed behind the teacher, Ranvir examined him closer. Floki was a small man, even smaller than Ranvir. He was the only teacher Ranvir had seen that was distinctly unfit. He had a noticeable potbelly, was clean shaven all over, both beard and hair. He walked with his head low, avoiding the eyes of anyone he passed.

He took them to a small field, next to a shed.

“In there, you will find a small chair with a kit next to it.” Floki said, sitting down in a chair that was already sitting out. “Grab one each and set up in front of me.”

Some of the other students, clearly eager to please, hurried into the shed. There quickly formed a line going to the shed, that Ranvir somehow managed to get last for. Which was fine, he wouldn’t likely be missing much either way.

Floki didn’t seem the most… inspired of teachers.

When the first student emerged, he ran up to Floki flipping the chair open, the bronze hinges groaning worryingly as he threw himself into it. Ranvir noticed Floki’s exasperated expression, as the kid sat down barely a meter in front of the teacher’s bigger and more elaborate chair.

With a flick of his finger, space changed between Floki and the student. One moment, the student was sitting nearly on top of Floki’s feet, then the ground seemed to shrink underneath the legs of the chair. As the grass returned to normal, it no longer slid under the student’s chair, instead it pulled the chair and student away from Floki, leaving a more appropriate space.

Right, Ranvir thought. Can’t forget that each of the teachers are masters of their elements. How did he even do that if he wasn’t able to manipulate space?

Ranvir wanted to come up with a hundred different ideas, but he lacked the necessary knowledge to truly answer the question.

Soon enough, he’d gotten his own chair and kit, sitting down at the back of the class.

“Todays class.” Floki said, from his chair staring out over them. “Might run a little long. Before we get into the actual lesson, there’s something else you must learn. Something important to both the military and the academy. Open your kits.”

Ranvir looked down at the kit. It was made of thick, tough-feeling cloth, the button on the front keeping it from unfolding. The button was a little stiff, but Ranvir almost had to stifle a laugh as he unrolled the kit before him.

The first thing that popped out was a wooden handle, with a small lever on top. There were other items in it, like a small piece of highly polished tin, a strap of leather and a small container.

Picking the handle, Ranvir pulled the lever at the top back, revealing an iron shaving razor. The rings hung heavy around his neck as he examined the blade. The one his father had taught him to use was a bronze one. Iron wasn’t that uncommon anymore, but their blade had been passed down since his great-grandfather.

It didn’t have half the width of the iron blade in front of Ranvir, but it had a lot more memories.

“It’s important in the military to look the part. We can’t have scruffy teenagers running around with their half-grown untamed beards. Every few weeks, you will have the opportunity to go get your haircut. If you do not take it, then soon you will have the opportunity to get tied down and get your hair cut.”

Teacher Floki spent the next half-hour ‘teaching’ the students how to use a shaving razor. Ranvir among a few other students already knew how to use one, and they had to help him. He felt some annoyance at Floki, as the man spent most of his time sitting his chair in front of the class.

After explaining the basics, he simply had the others teach the required techniques. Once everyone had the basics down, and knew how to clean and maintain their blade, the kits were packed away and class could truly begin.

Finally, Ranvir thought, stifling another flash of red orange annoyance. Real training can begin.

“Now I can tell that some of you have already figured this out.” Floki began, standing up from his chair for the first time since beginning the class. “The first step to mastering space, is accessing your power.” He tapped a finger against his chest for emphasis. “You will likely need an aid to access your tether and through it your Goddess given power.”

Ranvir blinked as he glanced around, he hadn’t really thought too much of it, but now that he looked, most of the students were wearing too tight uniforms. Don’t tell me.

“There are a few generally accepted aids for accessing your tether. The first step in all of them is to search for the opening in your spirit. You should feel it like a crack, or small opening, usually, in the middle of your chest. These tricks are designed to ease your access to that place, though you should be careful to not become dependent on them.”

Ranvir leaned back in his seat, already starting to doubt whether he would get any useful information out of this class. Teacher Floki went on to explain the three different methods. Pressing constantly, tapping in rhythm, and slightly painful pressure.

Ranvir felt his attention fade quickly, as the teacher went on. The exhaustion of physical class catching up to him, in equal speed to his interest fading.

“I understand, that you don’t need this part.” Ranvir jerked from his half-asleep state, as a hand landed on his shoulder. “But I’m still going to ask you to enter your tether for an extended time.”

Ranvir blinked at the teacher who’d approached him, without him noticing.

“Y-yes, sir.”

“You’ve been very helpful today, so I’ll let it slide. Do you have any questions for me?”

Ranvir almost shook his head, before catching himself. “Yes, sir, actually. How did you push the student away? How did you shrink the ground like that?”

Floki let out a long breath. “It’s a bit of an advanced technique, but it still falls under generating space. I created space on the ground behind our eager friend. If you’d been looking, you might’ve noticed the grass stretching. That caused the space around my growth to condense. The rest was a personal trick, but I’d be interested if you figure out how to do it some day. Maybe we’ll have our first space manipulator master on hand.” He clapped Ranvir on the shoulder, before straightening and walking off.

Ranvir stared after his teacher, for a long moment.

Closing his eyes, Ranvir pressed against his chest, searching for the opening. It barely took ten seconds for him to find it. Inside, he found his tether, a few thin threads of power loosely braided together. They barely stretched into the space before unraveling.

To his senses the tether seemed to be moving. Twisting slowly around itself. He could tell, as he accessed the space, that something changed about the tether once he entered. What it was he had no clue.

He stared intently at the core of his power, his future. It was mesmerizing to watch. There was definitely a slight rotation to it, he realized.

The space started to push him out after a while, initially he struggled, but felt greater pressure and weird sense of weakness as he continued fighting against it. In the end, he was forced to relent and shunted back into the world.

He blinked, feeling even more disoriented than when the teacher had caught him almost falling asleep. The other students were still sitting around, all of them seemed to have had their clothes adjusted in size.

“There’s a little while of class left and everyone’s been shoved away from their tether, so let’s talk about space expressing. More specifically about generation.” Teacher Floki said, sitting in his chair once more. “The most notable effect of space you will likely see in the foreseeable future, is the very uniforms you’re wearing.”

Ranvir looked down at his uniform. He’d figured one of the elements had been used to make them. He hadn’t known which, maybe there was a special type of cloth that was related to one of the elements and stretched. Space made as much, if not more, sense than some the others.

“Inside your uniform, you will find many carefully placed copper anchors. These anchors each have a space attached to them. The anchors react when you access your powers by opening the space.” He lifted his arm out and pulled on it, more and more cloth continued to appear, until his sleeve was nearly half again as long as it was previously.

“These uniforms come in very handy, and I suspect that many of you will be spending quite the amount of time making them in the future.” He cleared his throat, then. “More importantly, some of you will be working on the front lines. With the bulwark, the storage shelters, or the barracks.

“There’s always work to be done for academy graduates with spatial abilities. And the alliance could use every single one of you.”

He was quiet for a long time, looking at each student. Ranvir remembered Pashar’s words on nobles picking out, or buying spatial students, from the academy, to work for them.

“We have a little time left.” Floki said, breaking the quiet spell that had laid over the class. “Let’s try a different exercise. When accessing the tether search for a feeling of pressure. Movement that wants to escape. Your power pressing against the border of the tether room.”

Ranvir wasn’t sure he could enter that space again, but apparently he’d only needed a little bit of time to recover. Closing his eyes, he searched for the sensation. At first he started around his tether, examining it for pressure that pushed outwards. Energy that wanted escape somehow.

Then he moved on to the space in general, after that to the borders, which was when the bell rang. He opened his eyes to find something had changed. More than half of the seats had disappeared, presumably back into the shed. There were still almost ten students including him, who remained.

“What happened?” One student asked, before hurriedly adding, “Teacher.”

“I let the ones that found the pressure out early.”

Ranvir frowned as he stared at the empty spaces. At least, he wasn’t the only one that’d struggled.