Xandrian Stone 4: The Academy Part 3 Read Online Free Page A

and knees burning and stinging my hands further and ramming my left knee into a rock that was a bit bigger than the rest. Ouch!
     
    This time I took my painful time to get up, still seeing nothing in the pitch black. A couple of deep breaths got my pulse into a more reasonable rhythm and myself calm enough to analyze my situation properly. Using sensor magic I realized that the light had not gone out, but my shield was matte black and did not let any light through. It was a sphere of about 2 meters diameter and I saw that most of the other cadets were watching me, while some shuffled slowly on. Healing my injuries slowly I took the time to scan them and learned that their shields came from the armbands they were wearing. Those sported some shield runes, activated by the magic of the wielder and the shield was rather basic. They were shielded from most of the heat, but none of the light and had therefore trouble seeing.
     
    While small stones fell out of my hands and clinked to the floor I focused on allowing some of the light through and my shield became just dark tinted, much like sun glasses. I lightened it more, until the light coming through was just a bit uncomfortable and expanded it to engulf all of us. That got a lot of relieved sighs and all the cadets came to me quickly. In a dense group, my shield well big enough to engulf us all, we started walking to the Brick which lifted off and flew a couple of meters away from us.
     
    Frowning, I wondered aloud: "Huh?"
     
    "Stop, everyone." That was a weapons cadet. "The captain told us that we need to make this march only with what we have to help ourselves." "Yeah." A sensor agreed. "Maybe Stone's shield is kinda cheating?" I entered the discussion: "Let's try and if they hop back another couple of meters I'll pull my shield back, then we try again and see what happens." That was answered by some moaning and a navigator speaking up: "We are part of the best 60. It is an honor that we may do this, and we might be happy for this experience in the future. You never know, so get your acts together and let's do this."
     
    So we walked a couple of steps as a group, which the Brick replied to by hopping back again. "Sorry, guys." I lightened the tint of my shield and pulled it back to surround only myself, imitating the size of the shields the others had. As we started walking again, the Brick now staying where it was, the navigator of before approached me: "No problem, not your fault. Why do you not tint your own shield, though?"
     
    "What you said before makes a lot of sense. I decided to man up and get through this on the same level as you guys are forced to." He clapped my on the shoulder, smiling and evidently approving. Then we marched in silence. Yes, marched as opposed to shuffled like before. The speech of the navigator had obviously inspired us all. I filed that away as a very valuable lesson for the future.
     
    Half a long hour later we arrived at the Brick. Fortunately the airlock was open, so we all filed in, happy to escape the mercilessly burning star. Where Eden's light was nice and cozy on Eden 3-1, weak and cool on Eden 6-1 it was merciless and blinding on Eden 2. That was a valuable lesson in and on itself.
     
    The Commander welcomed us at the door and directed us to the game room. There, the Captain spoke to us: "Cadets, this concludes your round trip. You have learned many things, I am confident that you all will become valuable officers of the Swiss Federated Space Navy. Now we will bring you back to Eden 6-1 to enter into your advanced training. You will please stay here, refresh yourselves and communicate with each other. Any lesson learned is that much more valuable if you share it. Prime Cadet Stone, with me."
     
    I followed her, but we did not go to the bridge. "Commander, take us to Eden 6-1 if you please." The Commander nodded and went to the bridge while we were headed to the mess hall. The Captain ordered 2 glasses of water and we seated at