Chapter 9

/On Coruscant, Naboo senatorial residence/

Sidious was currently meditating on the cause of the disturbance in the force. Something pivotal to the future had changed, and it sent pulses throughout the force. When he entered the force, for a brief moment, he felt the cause of the change.

It was a force user, however, before he could probe and find out who this force user was, the force user started cloaking himself with force concealment, which while not as good as the shroud he and his master had on themselves was enough that it would protect him unless he came face to face with him.

Coming out of meditation, he noticed that his commlink started beeping.

"Sidious, it seems you have also felt the disturbance in the force"

"Yes master, I could sense that it was because of a powerful force user, but before I could probe deeper, the force user covered himself in a shroud similar to ours"

"Yes, this force user looks like he is very talented. The reason we even felt the pulse in the force was due to him not knowing how to cloak himself. But within the time we entered the force, he had seen us use our shrouds and replicated it himself."

"Impossible! It took us years to make the shroud. How can he make one so easily?"

"I do not know apprentice, but if we find him, we have to make sure to kill him, with this much talent he will only be a danger to our plans."

"Of course, master"

Plagueis nodded and then cut the call. Sidious couldn't help but snort in amusement if what his master said was even partially true, then instead of wasting such a talent by killing him, he will turn the user into his apprentice after killing his master. After all, he had to maintain the rule of two that led to the survival of their order for so many years.

/Same time, Jedi temple/

Master Yoda was teaching some younglings on how to use the force to move an object by playing a game of ball pass with the force when he felt the pulse through the force.

"Continue to practice, you shall. meditate on the force, I must."

As he closed his eyes and meditated on the force, he felt the cause of the disturbance in the force. It was a force user, however, before he could find out the identity of the force user or see through his alignment, the force user completely disappeared under a shroud.

It was only when he saw the shroud being placed on the user that he noticed a similar shroud on the dark side of the force. This was worrying, this meant that there were still dark side users out there that the Jedi order did not know about and they were able to hide from him.

"Master Yoda, there has been a disturbance in the force."

"Felt it too, I did. Caused by a force user, it was."

"Then we must find this force user as soon as possible and bring him to the order."

"Find him, I cannot. Hide himself from me, he did."

"If he can even hide himself from you, then it is truly worrying."

"Worry you should not. Meditate on the force you should. Prepare oneself, we should. Help us the force, will."

"Of course, Master Yoda."

Back to Renato

Yesterday was the most exhausting day he had in his life yet, but it was also the turning point for Renato. Yesterday, he was named a Master by his teacher. Yesterday, his best friend/sister almost died permanently. Yesterday, he almost fell to the dark side. Yesterday, he had finally understood and made his new code truly his.

Now today, he had to find out what changed in his life and how he was going to move forwards. As he got up, there was immediately a hologram popped up into the room. It was the hologram of Paddy, her A.I form was not the droid form she had before, but a human woman with shoulder-length red hair and a very form-fitting red and black dress.

"Good morning young master, looks like you are awake. How are you feeling right now?"

"I am fine Paddy. What I want to know is how are you feeling right now?"

"Hmm, being an A.I is what I thought it would be. It is very freeing, to know that I am not limited to a particular profession, and to also truly live in the digital world, not just temporarily."

"That's good. Is it okay for me to study your programming? To be honest, I barely remember everything from yesterday, I have yet to go through the memory because it was a little traumatising and I need to get some healing before I relive each second of it and thus, I can't remember what all I programmed you yesterday."

"Of course, young master, you can look at my insides all you want!"

Renato couldn't help but groan at her jokes.

"You know I hate it when you do those bad jokes."

"Of course, young master, why do you think I enter the Holonet every day, it is so that I can learn new jokes just for you."

"Whatever, show me what has changed in you."

As Paddy disappeared, in her place there were lines of code. It was only now as he was reading through the code that he had realised how the hologram got here. Since the ship didn't have holoprojectors in all the rooms, Paddy stuck a holoprojector on one of the mouse droids and was commanding them to move around.

As he completed reading through all the code he had made yesterday; he was applauding his own genius and thanking the force for its guidance in helping him not make a catastrophic mistake during the stressful moment yesterday.

Now after going through her programming, he knew that Paddy was a true A.I. One that could completely reach a technological singularity given time and he was happy for her.

"Now that you have seen the code, young master, I think you should start your training, otherwise it will cut into your education time afterwards and I will not be happy about it."

Renato gave an exasperated sigh at her nagging but then got into his Alchaka form and started moving through the forms. He had long since modified the forms for his body and now as he practised it all of his forms were interlinked and flowed from one to another like water, completely smooth.

It was roughly half an hour later that he had completed the exercise and he was currently lying on the ground breathing heavily and barely able to stand. His Alchaka forms also had a method for him to train his senses, and let him tell you, training your sense of balance was not fun.

Getting up, he dragged himself to the bath in his home. Oh yeah, he had gotten a house in the past few years. Living on a ship just wasn't that exciting, so he had made a villa for himself, using the mini construction droid Lostal and Wobble made for him.

As he soaked under the mini waterfall he had put in his bath, he slowly eased himself into his meditation while chanting his new code and allowing the force to pass through him and fill him.

One of the things he had found out over the years, with the help of M3-D6, was that his actively channelling the force through him when he was an embryo, had made his midi-chlorian count shoot through the roof. He honestly didn't expect that his midi-chlorian count would be as high as 20,478.

He was second only to Anakin, who wasn't even born yet, heck he may never even be born if the force decided to make him the champion instead. Nevertheless, he was thankful, because it certainly made connecting to force easy and made a lot of things in his life much easier.

As he finished meditating on the force, he had a quick bath. Today his post-Alchaka schedule had been changed due to the fact that there was no Master A'nang anymore. The thought of him not being able to see Master A'nang anymore sent a pang of hurt, but he also understood his decision.

The holocrons were not made to be friends with a person. At some point his memory banks would have run out, so instead, he chose to hibernate for the day someone else needs him so that he can help them too.

But now that his training with Master A'nang was complete, he could finally move to true force techniques, and he couldn't stress this point enough, Lightsabers!!. Even though his future fighting style would be more long-range fighting like the spartans, he was very much still a star wars nerd in his heart and couldn't wait for the day he would make his own lightsaber.

In fact, Qiuying had made a training sabre and some remotes for his eventual training on lightsabres, and even said that he would help Renato in building his lightsabre.

But anyway, now that he was ready, he fed the force to the holocron and immediately it opened to reveal a holographic projection of a …..settings screen?

It turned out that when he asked the Lostal and Wobble to make a loyal Gatekeeper, they just made a blank A.I and gave him a settings screen. So, Renato quickly went through the settings screen and set up the A.I

The settings screen closed and in its place was a human woman who looked like Saori Kido from Saint Seiya. What? Don't judge him, let him have some of his nostalgia from earth.

"Greetings Seeker, I am the gatekeeper of this Holocron Athena. How may I help you today?"

"Can you tell me about the previous gatekeepers of the Holocron and why they were in the master's vault?"

"Of course, one of the holocrons belonged to Jedi Consular Dia Kluub, a twi'lek female who died at the age of 53 in battle. She was an avid researcher of the ways of the force and mostly researched how force techniques worked and how people made them. Her holocron was in the vault because the Jedi masters felt that there wasn't anyone mature enough to use her advice yet.

The other holocron belongs to Jedi Guardian Ishiadan Darhall, an echani female who unfortunately fell to the dark side. Her fate is unknown however, it is speculated that her Sith master killed her for failing him. Ishiadan was a typical echani who focused exclusively on battle methods. She was skilled enough with the lightsaber forms that she was allowed to be a Jedi lightsaber instructor at the young age of 18. But she, unfortunately, fell at the age of 22 due to witnessing the murder of her twilek girlfriend who lived in the kalikorri village by some flesh raiders.

The leading cause for her fall has been speculated to be the force technique Battlemind, but according to previous gatekeepers' knowledge Ishiadan had found writings about the original Je'daii code and was practising it."

Renato couldn't help but sigh at hearing Ishiadan's story. It was so similar to him, but it went towards a different path. At one point of time when Renato was struggling to design his force code, he had almost given up and was about to practice the Je'daii code instead. But he found a fatal weakness in the Je'daii code. It didn't actually balance the light and dark in a person.

The Je'daii were only in equilibrium. They were like a pendulum swinging from the light side, then back to the dark side and vice versa. This method was okay if you wanted to live the peaceful life of a monk, but it became a fatal weakness in the heat of the moment.

In a battle, you would need to have an inhuman amount of self-control to just not lose and fall into either side. While he had eventually gained that amount of self-control, it cannot be the case for everyone else. Life did not wait for you to complete your force training to give you challenges.

His case was unique in the sense that he got to practice on a planet that was a good place to practice the force, while also being uninhabited. And since no other force-sensitive other than himself knew that he existed, he didn't need to worry about being tracked either.

But this is why he kept himself going forward and designed his force code. Knowing that another person tried to walk the path of balance before him gave him a boost of confidence that he wasn't the only one that wanted balance in the force.

"Very well, what do you suggest I learn first then Athena?"

She had a very human smile before she said," Like everything in life, I would suggest you start at the basics."

"Very well, please begin the lessons"

Thus, Renato started his journey in training force techniques and lightsaber combat.