Post by nicholas on Feb 14, 2012 17:43:26 GMT -5
Turning over the small, golf ball sized chunk of rough looking stone in his hand, Nicholas took yet another quick glance at the rather open yet empty area around him as he waited, simply standing with his other hand in his pocket and otherwise doing nothing by all outwards appearances. It was almost funny in a way - the regular classrooms, the ones where only the "basics" typically taught on any college campus were quite large and well furnished, while it was in the outdoor areas like this and the other, smaller private conference rooms that people like him who differed from the rest of society were taught how to control their abilities, either to the point of being able to use them or simply for the purposes of preventing some of the more dangerous students from accidentally harming those around them. It had been in one of those rather stuffy conference rooms that Nicholas had received the stone he now held in his hand, and been told only to make it into a single substance while keeping it in a single piece. It had sounded simple enough in theory, but in practice it had been anything but - the rock, while small, was made of granite, a mix of dozens of different compounds and minerals. Understanding that had only been the beginning - Nicholas had spent weeks afterwards identifying each mineral mixed into the crystalline mass, and from there he had to identify each and every element that made up each substance. Transmuting the elements had overall proved to be simpler and easier than deconstructing and reconstructing each mineral into a common substance with the elements already in the stone, but that had required Nicholas to test and push his ability (at the time) to its limits on test objects before he'd learned to do it lest he accidentally break the stone and fail the exercise - by the time that had happened almost six months had passed and the number of similarly sized rocks around the island had been severely reduced. Nicholas had to admit, though, he very much liked his handiwork - it might not have been at all pretty to look at since it lacked the luster and polish that a lot of the naturally occurring instances of the mineral had, but the small piece of hematite Nicholas held in his hand represented at least eight months of work, and it was a sign that he'd accomplished what he'd originally enrolled at the academy to do - learn to control his ability to a degree where it would stop acting of its own accord.
What he wanted to do from that point on, though, was what had presented the next problem. Nicholas had genuinely not thought out past that point, in large part due to his rather unusual ways of thinking - learning how to control himself had been top priority, and had dominated his mind until he had achieved it. The first and most obvious course of action would have been to transfer back to a school on the mainland, graduate, and find a job to support himself, but it was an option that Nicholas had found extremely distasteful for a plethora of different reasons. The second option, continue his education at Masada before leaving for the mainland, had been similarly rejected for the same reasons, leaving a small handful of other possibilities, first and foremost a career in the military (who would no doubt have found numerous different ways to exploit his gift), or to continue with his education at Masada, but begin taking the advanced classes meant for those who could control their powers to the point of finesse and more often than not practical application, although truth be told his own ability was flexible enough that it had any number of different uses even in its current state. Nicholas had decided a long, long time ago that he would not follow in his grandparents' footsteps in joining the military simply because he did not trust many of those who commanded it, and as such there had been no real choice to begin with - for the next year from that point on Nicholas had honed his ability to a point he did not think possible, made much easier by the fact he now actually understood how it worked to a certain extent. He'd made it faster, easier and more efficient in its use in every way he could think of, and it was only once he'd hit a dead end in terms of developing it that he'd finally signed up for the academy's advanced classes.
Placing the small dark silver-grey stone in one pocket, Nicholas pulled his smart phone out of the other pocket he’d been keeping his left hand in to check the time, replacing it from where he’d extracted it but this time keeping his left hand out. He knew he was early, but after already having stood in place for going on ten minutes Nicholas couldn't help but get impatient. Still, it wouldn't do him any good to fidget or show his impatience – stretching slightly, Nicholas took one last glance around the area that was often used for the older students when honing their more unpredictable or more dangerous abilities, noting with some interest that the ground itself was rather level despite the almost daily beating it took.