Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles 1: Wizard Defiant by Rodney Hartman

wizard scouts have most of these abilities, their Power is attuned for a single ability. For instance, your TAC Officer Shatstot is a specialist in healing, while TAC Officer Myers is a diviner. He specializes in sensing Power. Do you understand so far?”
    “Yes, sir,” Richard said. He’d heard most of it before.
    “Good,” said Chief Instructor Winslow. “Well, your test scores indicate your Power is attuned equally to everything. It specializes in nothing, because it specializes in everything. As far as we can tell, that’s an Academy first.”
    Richard was confused, but he shook his head affirmatively as if everything his chief instructor said was making sense.
    “That’s not the most exciting thing,” said the male technician. Richard recognized him as the same gentleman who’d been in charge of his testing three weeks ago.
    “Go ahead and tell him, John,” said Chief Instructor Winslow with a smile. “I’m surprised you’ve been able to hold your tongue this long.”
    “Yes,” said the old technician. He looked at Richard and said, “It’s very exciting stuff, I can tell you, 832. Power collects in pools. We call them reserves. If a creature happens to be connected to one of these Power reserves, they can manipulate that Power to do things. That’s why wizard scouts, and even magical creatures, are able to perform their abilities. Understand?”
    Richard nodded his head.
    “Good,” the old man continued. “Now I come to the most exciting part. You’re not connected to a single pool of Power. You’re connected to twin pools.”
    “Possibly three pools,” said the younger female technician.
    “That hasn’t been proven,” said Chief Instructor Winslow, “so don’t get sidetracked.”
    Chief Instructor Winslow drew an oval on the computer screen built into her desk. She then drew a stick figure of a person with a line going to the oval. “This oval is a pool of Power.” She pointed to the stick figure, “This work of art here is you. This line represents your connection to your Power reserve.”
    The male technician, John, reached out and drew a smaller oval to the left and a little lower than the first oval. He drew a series of lines from the larger oval to the small one. “And this,” he said pointing to the smaller oval, “is a second pool of Power formed by the overflow from the larger pool. Do you know what this means?”
    “It means,” said the younger female excitedly, “that you have an opportunity to keep your primary Power reserve full while using the overflow pool to energize your healing ability.”
    “How can I use a second Power reserve if I’m not connected to it, sir?” Richard said. “And, I don’t have any healing abilities.”
    John looked at the drawing and said, “Oops!” He then drew a line from the stick figure to the small oval.
    “You haven’t demonstrated any healing abilities,” said Chief Instructor Winslow, “because I’ll bet you haven’t tried. Plus, you’re not trained. We will be changing that in the months ahead.”
    “Sir?” Richard said. “Why was I separated from my cohort? We’re supposed to be fitted for our battle suits today. With all due respect, I’d prefer not to miss that.”
    “Ah, yes,” said Chief Instructor Winslow. “Salina, maybe you should explain.”
    The younger female said, “You were separated from your cohort because you’re not being fitted for a battle suit today.” She pointed to the folded battle suit on the desk. “This suit is yours. It arrived yesterday. And this,” she said picking up the battle helmet, “is Nickelo. More accurately, I should say, the chip embedded inside this battle helmet is Nickelo. He is your battle computer.”
    “I’m confused,” Richard said forgetting to even say the word sir .
    “So are we,” said Chief Instructor Winslow. “Nickelo is a one-of-a-kind prototype battle computer. He has been assigned to you by order of …, well we don’t know by whom