Arson focused on the breathing exercise his Overlay walked him through. It was similar to the Endless breathing technique, and even claimed to be the true version of the technique within his Overlay.

Arson struggled with the cycled breathing heavily at first. He found the training lessons prompts and corrective directions jarring. While in his soul realm in a meditation, every wrong action was emphasized by a siren blaring back at him, or the instant ejection of his mind and will from his soul realm completely.

Once forced from his mind, images of what he should have done were presented, and he was given an option to attempt what he’d been shown before he’d been shown.

At first he’d felt he’d just been handed the perfect training tool by the system. Then after he’d been thrusted from his soul a dozen times merely trying to start the technique correctly, he grew frustrated.

You would have to perform the technique perfectly to be able to…

Arson cursed mentally at the realization that the techniques offered to be trained required perfection. Not that the same instructions given would be perfect for everyone, but they were at least structured for him. Thus what would be required would be perfect for him.

“I guess all I can do is practice,” said Arson. Time passed on the rooftop, and he found himself lost within the engineering section under the training tab of his Overlay.

“A break never hurt, right?” said Arson flipping through different styles of handles that could be constructed for his scythe. Three of the options stood out the most to him, and he considered them all intimately before he chose the simplest of the three.

Arson looked at the circular handle that would be centered within the shaft of his weapon if he was able to construct the rotating hand guard. The perfect circles one slightly larger than the other would allow Arson to spin the large weapon like a fan.

The outer circle was connected to the shaft of the weapon. Once completed it would look as if two halos had been bisected by the shaft of his scythe, fused perfectly between their centers.

The hand grip in the center when squeezed would retract the smaller circle it was connected to inward toward the wielders hand. This would cause a line of friction based runes that lined the outside of the smaller ring to separate from a set of gravitational runes that caused rotational thrust, that were placed on the larger of the two rings.

The inner ring even when compressed by the wielder’s grip still eclipsed the external ring. A hollowed concave pipe-like trim would line the outside of the external ring and create a latch and seal, the frame designed to ensure the two seemingly separate pieces remained connected.

The runes on the outer ring would be powered by Arson’s own mana, and only limited by how much power he could output and the durability of the weapon. He wanted to make this improvement immediately, but lacked an integral agent that would be necessary for the build.

“What the sparks is TitanSteel tree sap?”

Arson ended up spending much of that day trying to figure out what he could build with the ingredients he had on hand, and eventually found an area within his training tab that showed him exactly that.

He found the list to be odd. Mostly filled with potions, random small buildings, tools, and a few skills he didn’t understand the uses of yet.

“Potion of crystalline recollection, purge the mind of what dilutes the senses.”

Arson didn’t know precisely what all the potions did, their descriptions very vague, but the potion that had caught his interest had done so because of his current situation..

If this makes it so that I can roam the school without being affected by the formations built in to the campus or the headmaster’s abilities, that would be worthwhile,” said Arson in contemplation. Without a second thought, he started to pull the required tools from his watch's inventory to construct the potion.

Items collected throughout time and space surrounded him with the wave of a hand, and Arson smiled at the thought of crafting anything after what felt like a lifetime.

He’d been so lost in the trials, that he hadn’t tinkered with a single item since he’d left the orphanage or longer even. The only thing he’d made since then were his living hands, Jack, Jill, and Jane.

Jack was still in a hibernation of sorts, the sensation of a required sleep still pulsed through his connection with the construct. While Jill and Jane flew about him and provided extra hands.

Jill, held a brewing pot while flames poured from the constructs fingertips and palms. The large medicine ball sized pot was pushed to rotate slowly by the white tipped blue flames to ensure the contents were evenly heated through the entire brewing process.

Arson made sure to stir slowly like the visual guide that his training tab offered; Jane was able to drop ingredients to either side of his hand while he worked. The preparation of ingredients didn’t come easy to Arson so the first few potions were failures.

Hmm, I wonder…

Arson took time to prepare every step before he started brewing for his next attempt, and found the change in fluidity while he brewed had improved tremendously. After a while longer Arson read over the notification that signified that he’d brewed the potion to completion and smiled at the effort.

“Potion of crystalline Recollection, 75% refined, quality rank: D+. Purge of foreign, parasitic, and ethereal Univers elements, 33-37% toxin removal accuracy. Potential for mana poison assimilation of new elements, 0%.

“Well for a first success, I won’t be too angry, but I’m not drinking something with a failing grade,” said Arson with a laugh. The next few potions he completed were much of the same quality, with one exception, being rated a B-. It was this potion that he chose to sip from to see the effects on his body.

Here goes nothing… The liquid from the small glass vials he'd used to bottle his attempts touched his lips, and even as the refreshing taste of the juice-like substance washed across his tongue like water he was unable to focus on the delicious and refreshing potion while the world around him changed visually.

When he’d arrived early that morning, everything he’d seen had been pristine. The very image of perfection and luxury. Now though, a new reality could be seen beneath a view veiled by illusionary formations, and the nearly tyrannical power of the Headmaster of Adroit Academy.

Waterfalls were filled with trash, grime and debris. Sections of the wildlife and vegetation that was woven into every other aspect of the campus was either overgrown, on fire, or had visible signs of rot that infested the trees up from the roots all the way to the tips of the tree limbs.

The greatest of Arson’s worries came from the sections of flying buildings that had once looked like an advancement unrivaled in the industry of construction and architecture, while now the truth was seen. Most of the foundations that supported the large buildings housed mile long cracks. This was on top of the outright dilapidated structures that seemed to either have already fallen over, or were about to cave in on themselves.

This included the building Arson now sat atop, and if what he’d already seen hadn’t scared him enough, he started to take in the faces of those around.

Cultivators could be seen in every direction, either with a dead eyed gaze that reminded Arson of cultivators affected by demonic plagues, or with a drained visage that told Arson they weren’t far from appearing in the same state as their worse-off peers and companions.

The only other kind of student seen, were absolutely healthy. They were filled with life and vigor, an oddity that spoke directly to the wrongness of the situation, as they even seemed unable to see those around them with less energy than themselves. Almost as if the less powerful were unable to be seen by those who thrived in the illusionary environment.

Arson was on his feet, and amidst a slow spin when he realized that the school had recently been under attack. A field meant for war-games held a destroyed vessel that Arson was familiar with from a completely different realm, half destroyed by a crash landing. Another forest was ablaze and seemed to be in the middle of being consumed by an odd storm that dropped acidic raindrops the size of Arson’s head.

He had no idea how any of what he saw within the forest was possible until he noted a puddle exploded with flames after being struck by a random lightning bolt.

This is the once proud Adroit Academy…?

Arson knew now why the headmaster was so adamant about her students memories being tampered with. As one of the SunSpire realms most prominent institutions, this was no longer a place worth a trillion credits per class taken, but instead seemed to be a run down mountain that Olympians would never dare to send their children to, and may have been why his own mother seemed reticent to intrust his own development to its inhabitants.

“Anastasia, you can see how this place really looks, can’t you?”

“Yup!”

“I’m going to have to do something about this or I don’t think I will be able to attend, if this is what the top school is hiding, I can only imagine what my other options have hidden beneath the cloth…” Arson sighed and though his words had been rhetorical, Anastasia still responded, only making Arson’s underserved feelings of responsibility for the state of his mother’s alma mater settle fully upon his shoulders.

“Yup!”

…

“Hey, you seen that weird guy building the small shop on that random rooftop in the third halo,” asked one student to another as they rode the hover rail to class.

“No, but I heard a rumor about it, the guy up there seems to be selling some top notch potions to those who can manage to make it onto the roof over there though. Why? You're not interested in going over there, are you?”

“Not really, but a girl I know said that she ended up on the roof while she practiced the schools climbing challenge, and left feeling more revitalized than she had felt in months.”

“What made her say something like that? I haven’t been able to sleep since I got here,” joked the student, but both knew just how true the statement really had been. Both aware of the bags that grew underneath both their eyes.

“Something about tai chi, a massage with a life coach, and a potion, not sure what to believe here.”

“Sparks, that does sound nice. Want to check it out after class?”

“Sure, not like I have anything else planned.”

A few days passed and the two students hadn’t actually visited. Neither one had any real interest in the rumors at first, but now…

“Hey, I think today is the day we should go,” said one student randomly.

“Really, I was just thinking the same thing,” said the other, but before they could confirm their plans, the exact rooftop in question came into view in the distance; both students shocked by the mass of people on the rooftop even before the sun had truly risen in the sky.

Holy sparks…”

…

Troy walked through the portal to Adroit Academy, alongside the rest of the builders of godhood. All of them were blown away by what they saw there.

They all hadn’t been accepted as students, but were the equivalent to being enrolled as long as Arson attended classes there.

“So where are we supposed to meet the boss, this place is sparking huge,” asked Rob while he eyed the entrance to a large restaurant nearby. Troy shrugged, overtaken by the sudden want to run toward the school at an unreasonable speed and start to climb.

“Where is he going?” asked Xani with a point toward Khalif, who had taken off in a dead sprint toward a small set of buildings at the edge of the campus grounds.

“Wait, where are you going?” asked Jasmine as Troy also took off seemingly after Khalif, until she overtook him entirely and continued on.

“Should I put cameras on them,” asked Lane. To which Jasmine gave her a quick nod.

“yeah, we don’t know if they are about to get into anything that could be worthy content…”

“This place is so big. Is Arson still not answering his holo-calls?” asked Xani.

“No, and I doubt just asking for a tall guy with cool looking eyes is going to get us what we want,” stated Jasmine, but to all of their surprises, a nearby student turned around from the group he conversed with and waved at them. They all looked at one another, and Xani even pointed at herself confused by the sudden and unprovoked interaction.

“Yeah you guys, you guys wouldn’t happen to be looking for shop keep of the third halo would you?”

…

Arson was growing more and more accustomed to the thought of having to restore Adroit Academy to its former glory. He’d even told his friends to forgo coming to join him until he had a true sense of whether or not he’d actually be attending the school.

Since then Arson began to work toward things that he believed would be vital for him to complete the recovery task he’d assigned to himself. No he wouldn’t be able to restore the campus overnight, nor maybe even this season cycle, but his growing list of responsibilities left him more determined than ever.

Shouldn’t be harder than my life long goal of cleaning up the dump.

Though Arson knew he would be able to complete the tasks, the campus was incomparable to the dump in scale or scope by many magnitudes.

He’d started by reinforcing the roof he worked from with a mixture of sand and a molten mana compound. He’d seen many new Keepers lose their title and right to land ownership after constructing a new building atop an old foundation, only to watch their life’s work cave in on itself when maximum capacity was exceeded for what was said to be... functional.

Once completed the new solid floor that sat atop the once shaky roof, weighed down the structure beneath itself enough to stop the subtle sway Arson recognized after a day of being there.

The new floor also attracted many onlookers, who both stopped by and began to make regular conversation with Arson. Having had forgotten to give back the potions he confiscated from Rob, Arson also sold potions to those who visited him on the roof.

The majority of his free time was spent learning something called Tai Chi, which his training tab had a complete compendium on for offensive, defensive, and body refinement portions of the mana infused martial forms and techniques. This included a set of massages that could release toxins from the muscles, blood, and even joints, tendons and bones.

After being seen practicing the forms, cultivators had both asked to join him, for classes on the techniques that made black sludge pour from the bodies of those who led less toxin free lifestyles, as well as asked for paid massages that did the same.

After the first day of this, many had returned with complaints that though they felt better, removing the sludge seemed impossible, and many worried that they would end up ingesting the foul material once more slowly through their pores if something wasn’t done.

This hurdle plagued Arson for much of an afternoon, until he found a potion that could be used to bathed in, and that would eviscerate the sludge he now knew was unrefined mana, and materials known to be dead, that only aided a certain type of dark mana cultivator known as a Necromancer. Why the sludge was useful in their bodies and no-one else? He remained unsure, as his guesses all seemed unrealistic.

Luckily for Arson, the main ingredient of the epsom bomb potion required a salt that was commonly found in the seaside caves near to Adroit Academy, and after a few conversations with his new patrons, Arson gained access to a supply.

He now had both a way to help the students of the school feel refreshed and saw less and less haggard students within the third halo, but wondered how the other halos were and if his actions would effect the status of the surrounding portions of the school, as well as a new income.

Then the number of students that visited grew, and he gained new problems. One being privacy for those who needed baths after the work Arson did with them or to them. While another problem was manpower.

Arson could only massage an individual at a time, and the classes by the end of the second day had become so frequent, that Arson had to put a hard cap on how much time he could offer to those interested in Tai Chi.

While the students slept that night. Arson listened to music while he constructed a small pagoda. The spiritual building was said to offer certain perks to those who used the building, such as enriched meridians, or mana veins, in addition to restorative mana and life force effects that would be noticeable throughout the body after a few visits.

By the next morning, the building had been completed. With the help of hard light mana, Jill, Jane and Arson’s lack of the need for sleep, the small building of glass and refined sandstone was completed in a night. Only for Arson to be surprised by the words used in his direction when he opened the buildings front door for the first time to his first ever customers.

“Good morning, are you here for a class, potion or massage,” asked Arson as the sound of the doors runic wind chime went off and he turned around to see a curious young man an obvious question on his face.

“Ahh… no... I was wondering if you were hiring?”