As soon as I stepped into the dream state, I was faced with a completely different environment than I had encountered before.
This time I was not staring at just a display in front of me.
I was inside what looked like a building completely made of floating displays and all around them was listed various categories of what looked to be force abilities.
One of them zoomed and alined itself right in front of my face.
[ Welcome to the force-sensitive smuggler skill shop. In this shop you can be able to view, purchase and access all kind of available force skills regardless of whether they are affiliated to the dark or the light side of the force.
Once a skill is unlocked and paid for, it's up to you now to tailor it to your smuggling world.]
The screen then swooshed and buried itself among the layers of panels around me, leaving me to bewilder at the vast arrays of what was supposed to be force skills.
And indeed as I began to scan them one by one, I realized that almost all the force abilities that I had heard or encountered in Star Wars franchise, both canon and legend, were here.
They ranged from the completely deadly dark side skills to the most lethal light side tricks
All of them danced before my eyes.
I soon found myself scrolling through the layers fast enough, looking for specific abilities
And all those that I looked for , they were there. But soon enough I realized there was a problem.
All these skills were not unlocked.
I tried to tap at a bunch of them, nothing happened.
after a while I eased off and stepped back.
Maybe I was missing something here.
Sure enough, after a minute of monitoring the layers of skill panels, I realized that only the first layer, immediately after the system introduction panel, was unlocked.
It was a list of four abilities. And I soon felt my overwhelming excitement dampen a little.
The first skill that was glowing a rich green and with an unlocked beneath it was Force Sense.
From its description, Force Sense was the ability to perceive one's environment and events at a higher capacity than just what I had been doing previously.
But honestly, it did not bring any excitement to me.
Force Sense was just the same as normal Sense, although a bit more powerful and heightened. Because if you advanced well enough, you could detect even danger before it strikes, or life-changing premonitions before they happen.
while that might have been important in my day-to-day life as a runner, I did not see how it greatly impacted my mission.
I quickly moved to the next ability and this is where my heart began to pulsate with excitement.
I was looking at Force Persuasion.
Now this would be a game-changer if I attained it. Force Persuasion, from the description, was a method of planting ideas and suggestions into a victim's mind subtly enough that they presented them as if it was their own views.
This one was now a potent ability that could fit into my daily routine and longterm plan
With Force Persuasion, I didn't have to fret about crossing into a rival syndicate zone. So long as I could manage the first few enforcers that would come my way, I should be good.
That is if I could have mastered the skill strong enough to make sure that my persuasion was strong enough to hold into the victim's mind.
I knew that there were some species in Star Wars that were resistant to these type of abilities. So using them, you also had to be alert not to insist on a victim who portrayed resistance.
Next to it was something similar to Persuasion which was now the mind trick.
Honestly, from most Star Wars media, Persuasion had often been listed as similar to mind trick.
Here however, mind trick was explained as a more potent version of Persuasion.
This ability was less subtle Because mind trick did not seek to plant suggestion, it asserted opinions and needs on one's victim.
There was no choice to say them as your opinion and I could recall an instance I had seen Obi-Wan Kenobi use it upon someone.
I didn't recall whether it was in a new hope, but he had been trying to pay for their starship's repair using republic credits in tatooine ... that was one of the instances it refused to work.
just like Persuasion, there were species that were resistant to this effect.
The problem was that in Ord Mantel and in any underworld, those who were resistant to the abilities often soon enough realized that the users were either Jedi or Sith. Seeing that Sith weren't a popular thing and Jedi were highly sought after by bounty hunters in these shady worlds this skill just presented equal danger like just crossing to Syndicate's zone without any rescue.
After this, the last skill on this basic tab was Force Concealment. And now my previous excitement at the two former abilities paled when I saw this one.
Force Concealment was the ability to render oneself invisible to plain eye for short periods of time.
Now this was top-notch.
While the other two would require me interacting with the enforcers on rival zones, with Force Concealment I could just ignore them entirely and go on with my running duties knowing very well that they would not see me. And seeing that my duties as a runner often required me to do dead drops, which most times did not require interacting with anyone at all, then it did not matter if I could not be seen.
I could just cross into a zone, do my drop, then cross back, successful and unseen.
my excitement however faltered when I caught the Warning beside it. The alert said that a prolonged use of this ability would cause exhaustion and therefore the skill could break after a while, even in the middle of use.
Now that made it quite precarious.
If it was used for short periods of time and then it could break just in the middle of use, that meant it was like basking on quick sand...it could literally give in in the midst of life and death situation
Plus running was not something you did for a short period of time. It could take hours to get to a dead drop zone, then hours to get back. This made me turn back to the other two skills.
I did not have to use Persuasion or Mind Trick until I was prompted to, which in turn meant I could conserve energy when I did not need to use this force abilities.
So while I preferred concealment strongly, I found that Persuasion or Mind Trick was the best ability to begin mastering.
I automatically went for Mind Trick because it was the potent of the two.
Sometimes it was better just to command something rather than to ask, especially when one was in a speed to get in and out of hot zones.
as soon as I triggered the Mind Trick ability, the price tag popped up sending a shockwave through me, The skill required a whopping 2,000 credits.
What the fuck?.... like virtual credit or the actual stuff?
I stared at the words beneath it barely breathing .
[ To unlock this ability, you will need to make 2,000 credits.]
There was a dull black emphasis on the word make and I lowered my eyes beneath the explanation below.
[ Your 3,600 credits are not considered part of this quest because they were issued by the system. You will need to make your own money.]
Fuck... So actual credits then.
how was I supposed to get 2,000 credits when working for a slaving syndicate?
The system, however, did not seem to care about that problem. They had presented the price tag. It was up to me whether I could afford it or not.
It's when I realized that this place was like a force-ability supermarket. Everything was there, powerful and crazy. Yet it was like I was window shopping because all the prices here were crazy as fuck.
Slowly I pushed it back and triggered the Force Persuasion.
This one was a bit good because it required 500 credits.
still I did not know how I would make such kind of money while working for a syndicate that monitored our every move and kept us on an explosive leash around our neck, I still thought this was a bit more considerably priced.
I would have preferred mind trick but I would have to settle for Persuasion. now the glaring problem was where I would find the money.
The image of that thief Hato had smushed mercilessly to death chose that moment to resurface... Except this time, my mind had substituted the victim.
I let out deathly yell as Hato began to bring down the rod that I knew would split my head.
Then someone lashed out an even crazier slap on my face
"Jax, you have to shut up, you will get us killed"