Star Wars : New Jedi

( Lightsaber Workshop )

It wasn't as clean as Kyle would have expected. If anything, it looked used. Not clean and perfect like everything else in the Temple that he had seen so far. There was just so much stuff!

Huyang made some space on a work bench, away from a few others who were working on their own sabers. Kyle could feel the trepidation in them, each of them worried in their own way about the need to use it in the near future. He couldn't help them with that right now, so he pulled out his saber. "You're not going to damage this, are you?"

The droid looked offended, it's echoing Coruscanti accent echoing the thought. "I would never do such a thing! I have seen every lightsaber constructed by a hundred generations of Jedi, and never once have I damaged one!"

"Sure, sure." Kyle pulled out his saber and held it in his hand. "So, how do you want to do this?"

"Just place it on the workbench, and I will conduct the scans required. Oh, this is so exciting! The chance to observe Lightsaber construction from someone who hasn't been under my tutalage!"

"Don't get too excited," Kyle said as he carefully handed his weapon over for inspection. He would watch the entire process intently, and if he got a sense for any form of duplicity, the droid would quickly be reduced to scrap. "A lightsaber is a lightsaber, no matter how it's built."

"But it is the how that I am interested in," Huyang replied as it examined the device carefully. "Yes, yes. Quite simple. Rugged. Robust. Not your first one. Fourth?"

"Third." Kyle said. "First two were hand-me-downs."

"Yes. I can see that. Three segments, allowing for alternate hand grips, plus the emitter. Very long." The droid mused as it rotated the saber around before its optics carefully, but with no sense of rushing. "Well used as well."

That drew no comment from Kyle.

"Why do you use a synthetic crystal?"

"Never had access to the natural sources, like Dantooine." Kyle explained, wondering if this was a follow-up to Windu's observation yesterday. "I hope that's not going to be a problem?"

"No! I even have a forge still around somewhere, but everyone has been using naturally formed crystals for centuries now. I must remember to dust it off every century or so." The droid handed the lightsaber back to Kyle. "There you go. Thank you."

Kyle examined it, but the droid never opened it up, instead just scanning it externally. "So, if I need a new saber, I can come to you then?"

"Of course!" The droid gestured around. "I, and my facilities are always available for any Jedi who wishes to construct a lightsaber. You may browse if you wish."

"Thanks, I may just do that." A lot of the sabers constructed back on Yavin IV were similar in design simply because they only really had a couple templates to work from, and no one was ready to start experimenting yet.

He wandered through the workshop, poking his nose into various places, seeing things he never thought he would before. Hundreds of parts that were there for the examination or use.

Losing time, he didn't notice when a Padawan approached him. Not until he turned around and the human was right in front of him. Kyle jumped back a step, "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"My apologies, Knight-Errant." The Padawan bowed. "You have been summoned. I am to escort you to the testing chambers."

Kyle nodded. "I was waiting for something like this. Lead on."

...

( Testing Chambers )

Kyle walked through the oversized portal, big enough to walk an AT-ST through if anything, and waited for it to close behind him. In front of him, this semi-underground chamber was a colossal mish-mash of... well... pillars. Bars, junk, rolling grounds of various types and slopes, it was a training ground right out of the worst the Academy could throw at him.

"Great," he griped. "Back to Basic Training."

"Quite," a cultured voice spoke out from behind a nearby pillar. "As a Knight-Errant, your Test of Skill will be administered by myself."

"Two questions," Kyle said, holding up the appropriate number of digits. "First, what is with that title you guys have given me, and second, who are you?"

The wisened human with tied back hair nodded in understanding. "Your second question first. I am Cin Drallig, Temple Battlemaster. I have asked to oversee these tests personally." Kyle stiffened at the familiar title, then relaxed a little. No one, not even him, got that far by being bad at fighting, and he was certain that the Jedi didn't need the Force to read his body language. No sense in being antagonistic. "And for the first, that is an ancient title given to Jedi not of the Order. It seems to have gained some traction." His voice showed that he was going to be patient with Kyle, unlike many others whom were reacting without proper thinking about the strange situation.

Kyle bowed. "Thank you for your guidance, Battlemaster Drallig."

The human male let a small smirk cross his face. "We shall see if your thanks are sincere. My students call me 'The Troll' for a reason, Knight-Errant Katarn." He beckoned for Kyle to come closer, and he did. "Today, I will test your general skill with the Force, and tomorrow you will face a set of challenges regarding saber combat. As your talk with Kenobi indicated, such things are needed in the now, and I will ask you to put your worth into measure."

"Yes, sir." Kyle responded as he would to any drill sergeant. Formally and with complete adherence to the rules both written and unwritten.

"We shall begin with the basics." Cin said, leading Kyle to a series of stone blocks. "Telekinesis."

Kyle didn't say anything as he took in test materials. Blocks of all sizes and shapes waited on a flat ground. "Any questions before we begin?" The Battlemaster asked.

"What to do about the viewers?" Kyle indicated the growing population of Jedi who where watching from raised platforms or well away from the testing going on.

"Ignore them, if you can." Cin said, following his own advice. "You will begin by moving this series of blocks from smallest to largest in order to test your limits in that regard." He indicated a series of cubes that ranged from tiny to far larger than Kyle on each side, and probably weighing more than a starfighter.

Kyle eyed them, and decided that only the last two could pose any problem, but did as he was asked, and started with the smallest, easily lifting and moving them around with the Force before returning them to their original space. As he expected, the second to last proved to be a challenge, as the simple cube was two meters to a side, and completely solid.

Sitting down on the ground, Kyle composed himself, and focused on the Force. It wasn't that hard to do in this place, and with it, he reached out to feel the block in front of him. "Do, or do not, there is no try" was something Luke had taught him which in turn, he had learned from Master Yoda.

What Luke had brought from that lesson was that the effort required to do something can be defied by the necessity of doing it. If that made any sense. He tried to elaborate by teaching that a person, including a Jedi could be stuck thinking of something in terms of purely physical activity, when in fact, the Force was beyond such things. While certain limits were still imposed by the physical universe, they could be reached by conceiving of the Force as something more, and different.

Kyle wasn't too good with the abstract stuff like that, but he still tried anyways.

With the Force, Kyle reached out and felt around the bottom edges, getting a sense for where the block met the ground. As he did so, he shrunk it in his mind's eye, eventually shrinking his perception of the stone edifice into something he could hold in his hands. Whether it was because he was getting bigger or if the block was getting smaller was a question best left to people who weren't like him.

But it was enough, and in the real world, Kyle raised his hands, and the block came with them, inching itself off the ground as Kyle fought with himself to do something he would normally find impossible. Once the image in his mind was sufficiently lifted, he started rotating it around, finding that easier than fighting gravity. He didn't move fast with it, focusing on his actions through the Force more than the physical reality of it.

He set it back down, then gasped as the exertion caught up to him. Opening his eyes, he took in his work, and cursed aloud. "Kriff!" he said as he realized that he had set it down on a different side, and that it wasn't lined up with the cradle properly. "Sorry," he apologized. "I'll move it back."

"That won't be necessary," Cin said. "I can set a team of Padawans to use that as an opportunity to work together." He indicated the last block, this one 8 times larger. "Can you do this one as well?"

"I'd say I would try, but 'Do or do not', you know?" Kyle said as he wiped some sweat from his brow. "Can I rest first?"

"If you desire." Cin said. "Would you like some water?"

"Please." At his admission, Cin pulled a canteen from his belt, and tossed it to Kyle, who drank some of the precious liquid without getting his stomach to revolt at the sudden influx. He tossed the canteen back to Cin with a "Thank you," and moved on to the last block.

This one, if the Force was any indication, hadn't been moved in a while. "First time for everything," he muttered to himself as he reached out with the Force again.

But this time, despite his best efforts, he could only lift it just a fraction of an inch, barely enough to put a hand under, if you wanted it crushed by over a hundred tons of stone. Letting it down with a ground-shaking 'boom' of displaced air, Kyle flopped over backwards, letting his muscles relax from the sympathetic tenseness they got from his effort.

"Not bad," Cin admitted. "But raw strength is not the only thing we test for. Now, endurance!"

...

AN :

I've had ongoing issues where my fanfic seems to get stuck at 50k views, and despite reaching out to support, the problem persists. This has happened to me before, and reposting has been the only way to bypass the issue. Hopefully, this will be the last time I need to do so.

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