Chapter 86: Chapter 86 The Secrets of the Force

The Reincarnator's Tavern

Chapter 86 The Secrets of the Force

In the sand-filled desolate wastes of the planet Tatooine, Rayleigh stood before a stone cliff, sword in hand, adjusting his breath until he was immersed in a certain feeling.

Once that feeling reached saturation, Rayleigh slashed down at the cliff. Considering he was standing over a dozen meters from it and did not emit the slightest bit of sword aura, the cliff should not have been affected, but a wave of scratches accompanied the slash and washed over the cliff's surface.

This wasn't a form of telekinesis, this was using the sand as his sword. Rayleigh's goal was to turn everything in the world into his sword. If he actually succeeded, then the entire world would be his sword. This was the essence of his World Sword Style. And that was only the beginning. If he could use worlds, why not stars, galaxies, or the entire universe? Why couldn't he use everything as his sword?

Ambitious? Yes. But at least this path didn't have an end, like so many others did.

"Oh Master~ I've brought you refreshments."

Rayleigh glanced over to his approaching padawan, the edges of his lips twitching a little upwards. The bond between Master and Apprentice could not be forged without sincerity. The Master had to sincerely want to teach the apprentice and the apprentice had to sincerely want to learn from the Master. Of course, there were lots of ways around this, many of which included torture, but even those methods still required the Master to be willing to teach something, even if that something wasn't particularly useful, and the apprentice still had to be at least a tiny bit willing to learn.

The main effect of the Bond allowed both Master and Padawan to feel each other by opening themselves up to one another without any defenses in the Force. From the Master's side, they could use this connection to adjust their padawan's training to make sure they didn't stray down the wrong path. From the padawan's side, they could feel their Master's strength and have what was essentially a visible goal to climb up to.

Of course, the bond included more than just this. For example, Tails could now feel that Rayleigh was far from as oblivious about her approaches as he pretended and no matter how much he hid it behind a stoic mask, she could feel what her body did to him. This renewed her teasing.

Rayleigh did not particularly care if she could feel that. He wasn't the type to get embarrassed and if she went too far, he'd retaliate in equal measure and enjoy her reaction through the same link.

Tails brought a metal canister covered in precipitation that Rayleigh took with a grateful nod and downed in a few gulps. It wasn't water, but a salty fruit juice that was basically Gatorade.

In order to fully master the concept of Sand, Rayleigh hadn't used Tutaminis to regulate his temperature or taken any water for the three days that he had been standing in front of this cliff. Were it not for the abnormal biology he'd built for himself into through limit-breaking training, he would have died from sheer exposure from the sun or the sandstorm that lasted the whole of the prior night.

Still, the results were worth it. Sand wasn't just a pile of tiny rocks. Its presence in the air, especially when heated by the sun, caused even the slightest bit of moisture to evaporate, drying and dehydrating everything. By analyzing this process, Rayleigh was confident he could reverse it, essentially summoning streaks of water with his slashes.

This was possible because Rayleigh's training on the Sea Circle World let him train using rain, rivers, and the ocean, granting him lots of insight into using Water as his Sword. But he lacked such insights into using Earth. Before going to some world that experienced Earthquakes every hour, he figured he'd start light and master Sand first, and then move onto Stone and then Earth.

After finishing his drink, he looked over to his new Padawan and asked, "So do you have an answer? What is the Force to you?"

Tails had not been allowed purely idol time while Rayleigh trained. Her own training required her to basically summarize everything she knew about the Force into something concrete she could use as a base.

"The Force is a semi-gestalt consciousness that grants psionic abilities to those who interact with it, abilities that depend on the user and method of interaction."

Rayleigh nodded. That was a completely different answer than any Jedi or Sith would give, but the Players had an outsider's perspective, allowing them to see through more than what most would.

He said, "That's mostly right but there are two things that you are missing. Before we get to them though, what is the difference between the Light Side and the Dark Side?"

"The Light Side serves the Force while the Dark Side makes the Force serve them."

Rayleigh replied, "I'm not asking for the difference between Dark Side and Light Side users, but between the two aspects of the Force themselves. Also, please don't answer my questions using quotes from that Holocron."

Most Sith Players got a Sith Holocron on Character Creation, but they are not particularly useful since they won't teach anything good until you kill someone who trusted you and present their body to the Holocron to prove you are worthy of becoming a Sith. It was considered something of a ceremonial ritual that drove home the fact that you can never trust anything but your own power, killing the heart and ensuring isolation on the path of the Sith.

Tails huffed and said, "The Dark Side is using the Force for selfish means while the Light Side is using the Force for selfless means."

This textbook answer was a common belief shared among Players, especially those who got the Traits that granted them immunity to personality changes. Most barely saw any difference when comparing the two and plenty of Dark Side users were under the illusion that they could use both just fine.

Rayleigh said, "There's actually a few differences, but they are all at the higher levels of Mastery. First, let me clarify something. Force Training has two parts which can be trained at the same time or separately. The first is strengthening your connection to the Force, the second is strengthening your connection to the Light Side or Dark Side. Your connection to the Force determines your lower limit. Your attainment in either the Dark Side or the Light Side determines your upper limit."

He continued, "Most Players have the highest levels of Midichlorians, meaning that they can coast on pure talent and reach a decent level of strength without diving into extreme selflessness or extreme selfishness. But any level of talent does have a ceiling. Once you reach it, the only way to get stronger is choosing a path."

Tails interrupted, "So most Players don't even need to use the Light Side or Dark Side? After they max out their talent's level of connection to the Force, they can just use the Force for anything?"

Rayleigh answered, "Well, not for anything. Dark Side skills require Dark Side energy. Earlier, I asked you what the Force was and you said that it granted psionic abilities. This is true. The semi-gestalt consciousness, the Cosmic Force, grants Psionic Power to the living, which is also called the Living Force. But none of this is Dark Side energy. So the main difference between the Dark Side and the Light Side is that the usage of the Dark Side grants Dark Side energy to use Dark Side skills while the usage of the Light Side only further strengthens Psionic power. Since Dark Side energy can also be used to strengthen Psionic Power, Dark Side users can do a lot more than Light Side users."

Tails asked, "So what is Dark Side energy then?"

Rayleigh shook his head, "We'll get to that. First, I need to explain the difference between using the Light Side and using the Dark Side, mostly because I'm pretty sure your previous education on this was a little skewed."

Tails poked her tongue out at Rayleigh for implying that the Sith Holocron she paid good points for didn't teach her enough.

Ignoring his Padawan's sass, Rayleigh started off with, "First, although this would be heavily, heavily argued against in the Jedi Temple, any Force skill that does not use Dark Side energy is a Light Side skill which relies on the Psionic power granted by the Living Force from the Cosmic Force. The process of granting this power is very straightforward. The Force user asks, and the Cosmic Force listens. If the user's connection to the Force and the Light Side is high enough, the Cosmic Force will act, generating Psionic energies to perform whatever task or feat that the user requires."

"The Dark Side is actually very different. The user does not ask, they take. A living person's willpower, emotions, and lifeforce can easily taint the Cosmic Force. With just a slight bit of intention, this tainted Cosmic Force basically becomes personalized to the user. After personalization, the user can use this tainted Cosmic Force to generate Psionic energy or perform other feats without needing to ask the Cosmic Force. This personalized Cosmic Force is not considered Psionic energy, this is Dark Side energy."

Tails interrupted, "Wait, that doesn't sound so bad. I mean, the Force was letting people use it anyway. What's wrong with taking out the middleman?"

Rayleigh smiled and replied, "If you had a roommate, would you be okay if she stole money from you to buy groceries that only she liked, but justified that it was okay because you could have some since it's all in the shared kitchen?"

"Hell no! That bitch is asking for a knuckle sandwich and a trip to the ER!"

Rayleigh nodded. "I said earlier that there were two differences between the Dark Side and the Light Side. The first was that Dark Side skills use Dark Side energy. The second is more interesting though. First, let me ask you. If I presented you with two coins of the same size and shape, but different materials and weights, could you tell which coin was heavier just by lifting the coins using telekinesis granted by the Force?"

Tails thought about it for a moment before shaking her head, "I don't think so."

"That's right. Because Light Side uses of the Force go through an intermediary, the user does not receive any direct feedback from their skill's usage. Even if you lift something with telekinesis, you won't feel its texture, temperature, weight, or mass distribution."

Tails argued, "No, I can still sense the stuff I move, even when not using the Dark Side."

Rayleigh nodded, "That's because you're using a second Force skill to enhance your senses to wrap them around the object you're focused on. You can even sense the object with your eyes closed, but this isn't feedback from using telekinesis, but sensory data from a sensory Force Skill."

Tails asked, "Wait, since you can't sense the weight, could a Jedi lift a thousand ton boulder if he was told that it was hollow and only weighed a hundred kilograms as long as he believed it?"

Rayleigh tilted his head and replied, "Not really. Your ability to affect the target is also affected by how well you understand the target. Inaccurate information would increase the difficulty of affecting the target. Though belief is still a very, very large part of the Light Side. Without sensory feedback or sensory Force skills telling you that something is actually happening, the only thing a Jedi can rely on is his faith that it truly is happening. A Jedi who cannot believe that he can do something will never be able to accomplish it."

"Now, whether it is using Dark Side energy to generate Psionic energy or using it for something else, using it will generate feedback, confirming directly through your senses that what you are doing is being done, as if the Dark Side energy were a part of your own body. This is why many of the most complex feats a Force user is capable of can only be accomplished with Dark Side energy. So, why is such a good thing completely outlawed by the Jedi? Well, there are two reasons. The first is one they probably won't even admit to. The Cosmic Force can't control personalized Dark Side energy, so the more Dark Side energy is accumulated by the Sith, the less potential power the Light Side users have."

Tails stated, "Well, not including the Sith Players that probably haven't gone completely off the deep end yet, there's only two Native Sith right? The rule of two? Dooku's one of them. I doubt that they are using that much Dark Side energy."

Rayleigh let slip a mischievous smile before replying, "What would you say if I told you that the current Sith Lord likely has more accumulated Dark Side energy than the whole of the potential Living Force the entire Jedi High Council has access to combined?"

"What? How's that possible?!" Tails couldn't believe that one or two individuals could have so much power.

Rayleigh said, "It's a mechanism similar to that of One for All from My Hero Academia. A Sith accumulates Dark Side energy over his life and is killed by his apprentice who, through their master-apprentice bond, inherits the master's accumulated Dark Side energy. This is only my guess, but this should be the reason behind the Rule of Two. When a Master grows too old to fully use all that power, they are struck down by their apprentice. The Rule of Two has been going on for a thousand years. If the inheritance cycle never broke, that's at least a thousand years of back to back accumulation. If the current Sith Lord didn't at least have more stored Dark Side energy than the entire Jedi High Council, I would be deeply disappointed."

What he didn't say was that, because the more Dark Side energy you had, the easier it was to get more, it was actually possible that the current Dark Lord's accumulated Dark Side energy surpassed the entire Jedi Order combined. Not that it really mattered. Using someone else's Dark Side energy, inherited or not, would not be as easy as using your own. In a straight fight, the advantage would not be that extreme.

"In any case, that's the first and more boring reason to outlaw the Dark Side. The second reason is the good stuff. So, we've already established that the Cosmic Force is basically made up of dead ghost brains. The Cosmic Force does not directly give its power to the living, instead, it converts it into the Living Force, Psionic energy. Now, I'm sure that your friend in the Holocron probably said that the most dangerous part of the Dark Side was its addictive nature, or something like that, right?"

Tails reluctantly nodded, "Yeah. Those too weak to control the Dark Side will be controlled by it and lose everything."

Rayleigh continued, "Well, he left out a few things. First, let's go over that addiction. We've already covered that the Light Side provides no feedback while the Dark Side does. It's also very easy to personalize the Cosmic Force into Dark Side energy with emotions. But it is just as easy to personalize the Cosmic Force with existing Dark Side energy. So the more Dark Side energy you have, the easier it is to get more. And because you can feel yourself get stronger, it creates a positive feedback loop that becomes harder to stop the longer you continue. You can keep going until you reach the limit your body and mind are physically capable of using. At that point if you are not completely insane or brain dead, you might be able to adapt and accumulate more."

"That's how to use it and get more of it, but now let's settle the final point. Why is Dark Side energy dangerous to use?"

Tails leaned in a bit. The Holocron always directed the conversations away from tidbits like this, always trying to say that it didn't matter because as long as you were strong enough, you'd be able to overcome those side effects, but it never bothered to explain why there were side effects. Did they even know?

Rayleigh finished off, "The Cosmic Force is a collection of dead minds. As a collection of minds, it is normal for them to be able to generate Psionic energy. But what does a collection of the Dead generate? What energy has a corrosive effect on the bodies of the living while having a negative impact on the mind, amplifying destructive impulses while deadening everything that makes one alive? What energy grants Sith Lords a list of abilities that seem to exactly match the abilities and even the appearance of a Lich from DnD? What energy is perfectly safe for the dead to generate and use, but is pure poison to the living?"

Tails answered, "Wait, you're saying that Dark Side energy is Necrotic energy?"

Glad that he didn't have to completely spell it out for her, Rayleigh replied, "Pretty much. That's also why even using Dark Side energy to make Psionic energy is dangerous because you are pouring the energy of the dead into a living brain which will have side effects, none of which are good."

This time, Rayleigh did allow for his Padawan to digest this news. He could practically hear the sound of glass cracking through their bond as her world view shattered.

Once he was certain that she had overcome that little rollercoaster, he continued, "The Dark Side is selfishness and the Light Side is Selflessness. This is a poor summary, but it is somewhat accurate. A Dark Side user gets stronger by taking more and more from the Force, this is Selfishness. So how does a Light Side user get stronger? Well, going back to the roommate example again, being a Light Side user is like having a roommate that pays all the bills and buys all the groceries for you. In exchange, you do whatever he wants. The more you devote to the Force's will, the more Psionic power it grants. However, in this, the Jedi are rather hypocritical."

Hearing an insult about the Jedi, Tail's brain instantly rebooted back to full power so that she could hear the juicy goodness.

Rayleigh expected as much which is why he brought it up. He continued, "The Jedi advocate the Light Side, yet not a single Jedi, not a single one, is willing to give themselves completely to the Force. They are fully aware that the end of that path is a soulless husk that may die of starvation if the Force doesn't direct it to eat, yet they only allow every Force user in the Galaxy to walk this path while denouncing every other path as a path to the Dark Side."

Tails nodded, though was still upset. Not at the revelation, but that her plan wouldn't work. Her original plan was of course to seduce Rayleigh to the Dark Side or at least logically convince him to go full Dark Side since the Sith Lord in the Holocron said this would make her advancement in the Dark Side much faster. But now that she knew that using the Dark Side meant filling the body with the energy of dead people, she was completely disgusted. How was she supposed to continue her path now?! This was obviously all Swordsman's fault.

Tails demanded, "But you don't use either path right? I'm your Padawan, so you'd better tell me the alternative because I'm not going to become a shriveled lich or a bald monk!"

Rayleigh nodded, "That's right. Going back to the roommate analogy one more time, there are more ways to interact with a roommate than stealing from him or serving him. The strongest path is the one that is right for you, so there's no need to use mine when you can use your own."

"My own path? Like what? Tell me!"

"Well, how do you feel about a Seduction path?"

Tails raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. Obviously her entire character build was based on seduction. Obviously her path was a Seduction Path. But was he telling her to seduce the fucking Force? Those dead guys?!

Rayleigh nodded to her unasked question that was made obvious due to her expression and their link. He replied, "Yes. Seduce the Force. Now that you know what the Force really is, can you say that it's impossible? Remember, the Force is not a single individual, but a collective. However, you don't need to seduce all of them. Obviously that's impossible since plenty are alien minds that are attracted to alien features, but you can seduce a lot of them."

After considering it for a while, Tails asked, "How would that even work, and what are the benefits compared to the Dark Side?"

Rayleigh answered, "I'll show you exactly how to do it. As for the benefits, it would basically be like personalizing a large amount of Cosmic Force, but not actually doing so. The seduced Force would obey your will as if it was separated and personalized, but because it would not be connected to your body, there would be no negative side effects. At maximum potential, you might even be able to convince small bits of the Cosmic Force to sacrifice themselves for you. This would grant you access to Necrotic energies to curse people without needing to actually suffer its use yourself."

Tails only had to think about it for a moment before shouting, "Yes! Let's do it!" Unlike the Jedi or Sith paths that required either killing your soul or killing your body and mind to advance, this seduction path didn't require her to give up anything to advance, she just had to keep getting sexier and more seductive! Win win win!

Rayleigh nodded and said, "Then your next task will be to meditate for five hours."

Tails' smile faltered. "What! How will that make me sexier? Shouldn't this path revolve around making me more seductive?"

"Training in your Path and strengthening your connection to the Force can be done together. Besides, this won't be normal meditation. This will be super meditation that is far more effective."

"Oh? That's okay then."

Rayleigh continued, "First, let's talk a little about pain. What is pain?"

"Umm. This sounds painful already. Pain is your brain telling you something is wrong."

"And how does pain do that?"

"Umm, it makes what is wrong really obvious?"

Rayleigh nodded, "Pretty much. To put it another way, pain increases sensitivity to maximize awareness. So pain is not actually harmful. Sensitivity is harmful. Because we evolved in a manner to avoid pain, we unconsciously do things to stifle sensitivity. But sensitivity grants knowledge and knowledge grants power. For this meditation session, I want you to increase your sensitivity as much as possible. If you can reach the point that any sense becomes so strong that it is painful, you'll have completed this training. I know it sounds awful, but this training will heavily boost the effectiveness of all future training, allowing you to catch up to the other Jedi Players. If you want to give up, just remember that I believe in you."

Hearing that she could catch up to everyone else even though she had to remake her character a year ago once more filled Tails with motivation. As for his belief? She didn't believe that he believed, so it didn't matter.

The pair walked back into the parked spacecraft by the cliff, but Rayleigh didn't close the hangar doors. Instead, he got on the speeder bike. Between training sessions he'd gotten Tails to teach him how to ride one of these. The best part about Tatooine was that it had dozens of Pod Racer tracks that he could use for practice.

Of course, bolting through a Race Track only a dozen or two kilometers per hour shy of breaking the sound barrier was also a form of training. In order to perfect his high speed combat, he needed to test Babylon's ability to detect ahead of him while he was moving close to sonic speeds. Predictably, the first time he tried this speed, he outran his own En Field, so it took a bit to figure out the trick to prevent that from happening again.

As Rayleigh got on the speeder bike to head out and play around for a while, Tails walked back to her room to figure out the best way to train. A few steps short of her room she stopped dead and a massive blush filled her face. She thought to herself, 'Did that bastard just tell me to masturbate for five hours while thinking of him?!'

Already a few kilometers out, Rayleigh could feel his Padawan's outrage and embarrassment clearly, something he knew she knew that he could feel, which only made it worse. Obviously she figured out his little inside joke but didn't seem to appreciate it that much. Not that he actually expected her to do it. Again, they could practically feel everything from the other while on the same planet and no matter how she acted, she wasn't ready to completely give up her shame. At least not yet.

Unfortunately the Force was quite the killjoy when it came to sex. It wasn't even usable during the act. Rayleigh still considered the Force like a roommate, and it was one he did not find sexy. Using the Force during sex would be like asking your roommate to come over and play with your girlfriend's body. You wouldn't get any of the feedback of warm flesh under your palms or smooth skin beneath your fingertips. Plus, Psionic abilities tended to be endothermic, so moving something telekinetically would make it a little cold.

Sure, some might be into that, but Rayleigh was not.

Rayleigh spent the next few hours testing the speeder bike. Its only real limit was that it could not break the sound barrier since doing so safely required more parts than could fit on a speeder bike. Other than that, he was faster than a pod Racer and handled better than one as well. It could glide across the ground and fly through the air.

A few nearby locals tried to shoot him for shits and giggles but they weren't used to tracking something that fast and only got off a single shot that always missed before he was out of their range.

Plenty of the planet was sandy dunes, but just as much was rocky flatlands, canyons, and even tunnels that looked as if they might have been underground water reservoirs tens of thousands of years ago.

After driving for a while, Rayleigh sensed something. It wasn't so much something that grabbed his attention through Babylon, but more like the Force itself was pointing it out for him.

Rayleigh's path on the Force was to become so charismatic that the entire Force was willing to follow his lead. So instead of being the roommate's servant, it was convincing the roommate to be the servant.

Because of this, there were times when the Force would proactively point out something that benefited him. This was a boon that neither the Jedi nor the Sith could enjoy.

Rayleigh followed the feeling which led to a small, unremarkable town. There were only about a hundred or so buildings total, so it was practically a village of stone.

At the edge of the village was a large sign board, a common place for locals to post jobs and needs. In front of the sign board was a pair of aliens, an Ithorian and a Rodian.

The Rodian saw him and shouted in Huttese, "Hey there, you look pretty formidable. You got any hunting experience?" He was obviously judging him by the quality of his durable clothes and badass speeder bike.

HK-47 spoke a lot of languages and when Rayleigh got really bored while training or was on a rest day, he'd bring out the head and learn a language or two.

Replying back in the same language, he answered, "I've been on my share. What are you tracking?"

The Ithorian answered, and since their species had a strange throat and vocal cords, he could only speak his native language. Rayleigh couldn't speak that one, but he had learned it. "It's not what we are tracking, but what is tracking us. For the last three months, my village has been attacked by a Krayt Dragon. We've saved enough to hire the best hunters. If you participate, I can pay you up front or you can collect a share of the Krayt Dragon's pearls when the beast is dead. What say you?"

Rayleigh smiled. This was gonna be a good day.

*Author's note*

In case it wasn't obvious, I get a lot of messages about what the Force can and can't do, so I needed to throw this chapter out there to answer those questions once and for all. I'm sure some of you can guess the nature of those questions.

I quite like my theory on the force. it is not exactly perfect, yet matches canon usage pretty well. Hopefully this chapter explains how it works well enough for those interested in making their own star wars fanfics and gives directions other than Light or Dark. Please note that the Grey path sucks. At best, a Sith can master the Dark Side while overcoming its corruption, but there is no real way to effectively use both without multiple titles worth of plot armor. A Sith that only uses the Dark Side sparingly isn't using the Light and Dark Side together, they are using the Light and Dark Side badly, since a paths only grant real strength after completely abandoning all other paths.