Arson was surrounded on all sides by a swarm of students, completely confused. Apparently his knowledge on runes was not as basic as the trials had suggested. The thousands of symbols thrust upon him were tedious to memorize, yet had still been required for him to be casually accustomed to using.

 

“So you're saying this is not a convergence rune, but a binding rune, but how were you so easily able to determine the difference?” Arson turned to the young man who’d now asked him a third question about the same rune, from yet another angle.

 

“Binding runes will have binding points, or indicate a maximum number of things to be bound when used, or the rune itself will stay perpetually in standby until the necessary amount of targets make contact with the rune physically or spiritually, unless your talking about basic suppression runes, I’m honestly getting confused, your questions seem to be more a lack of an understanding of the basics than anything else though…”

 

“Holy sparks….” Another voice came from the back of the group that surrounded Arson. He looked up to see a familiar magnetism sub rune held in the palm of a young man’s hand. Arson knew it to be a binding rune that used magnetism and gravity, but also used the potential momentum a set of objects could create while under the effects of terminal velocity.

 

A detail the young man obviously wasn’t aware of when he connected two large tables absentmindedly across the room from one another. Arson moved.

 

A hand filled with golden white light slapped down on the palm of the young man and the room was snuffed out. Few crashes were heard as Arson stretched.

 

Arson extended one arm out and one leg out in the opposite direction. His long limbs easily stretched beyond the edge of the group, his body forming the equivalent of a balance beam stronger than steel.

 

The two station tables were stopped immediately by a flat palm, and the pad of a single foot. A rain of items fell through the air, either atop the tables already, or gathered during flight.

 

Arson didn’t remember summoning Sky from his watch, but still Jill and Jane used the weapon deftly to minimize the size of any shrapnel or large equipment that may land on Arson or others nearby.

 

Even as others screamed around him, he straightened and sighed to himself. The young man he'd saved looked at Arson in wide eyed alarm, when he took in the sight of the destruction and the two cracked station tables.

 

His alarm only grew when Arson lifted him by the collar into the air and spoke softly.

 

“What is the first rule before using any rune in the language of Univers,” asked Arson. The young man looked around for an answer, hoping any in the crowd of slowly retreating students could give him the slightest of clues. Arson’s gaze locked in on the young man in a way that told him he’d better have a good response after what he’d just caused.

 

“I don’t know sir, maybe to perform practice in a safe environment,” answered the student.

 

“No, but good guess. The first rule in performance of runes spoken, manifested mentally, or summoned physically, is to know everything you can learn about the rune by starting small, not by pulling multiple ton equipment through the air with the strength to flatten yourself into an early grave. Think before you use any rune.”

 

“Yes, sir.” What bothered Arson in that moment wasn’t that the young man in his grip was being overly respectful to someone he didn’t know, but why the words spoken by the young man had been echoed by nearly the entire class of students behind him.

 

“Why are all the students in this classroom asking me questions and calling me sir constantly?” whispered Arson to the young man in question.

 

“Your medallion sir. If you are the highest ranked individual in the room, and no-one can supersede your displayed knowledge on the subject, you get moved into an instructor position in the schools database for as long as you reside in that classroom.” Arson set the young man down, and nodded.

 

“So the group behind me actually does expect me to answer all their questions then, huh,” contemplated Arson aloud.

 

“Yes sir, pretty sure some of my teachers are in the group behind you, so I bet they won’t all be too bad.” Arson nodded at the young man, and turned back to the group now even more interested in Arson’s instruction than even before.

 

“You’ll have to give me a moment to get used to this, and will someone call for janitorial staff, we should get this cleaned appropriately,” said Arson. The class looked at him confused, and Arson remembered the group most likely couldn’t even see the mess around them a few moments after the destruction occurred. The schools runes hard at work on all their minds.

 

“Never mind, let's continue where we left off, but I will have to go back and reexplain some things, as I’m unsure the level of understanding we are all starting with.”

 

…

 

Amorra looked out at the changes that were occurring in Adroit Academy in the lower halos of the mountain from her room’s balcony. She was stunned by what her Arson was capable of even while his power was limited for whatever reason , she was unaware of his real limits when he’d help rebuild her own kingdom slowly, so could only imagine what he could truly do now.

 

Yet the changes seemed slow, and primarily completed by others. She didn’t know his goal, but wanted to show him her value in any way that she could.

 

“Incoming holo-call from a Vendor Zeal Kim, accept or deny the communication?” said the voice of the automated assistant. A system offered to the students of wealth and strong political backgrounds, students whose foreign ties could cause disaster for the academy, but Amorra knew it was merely a spy tool. One she loved to feed false information.

 

“Answer the call and let them know I’ll be in shortly,” said Amorra. She continued to watch teams in completely black hazmat suits work to restore vegetation on campus to a far more healthy level. A familiar black swirl told her everything she needed to know about who was restoring the campus of Adroit bit by bit. She already knew who for sure, but the why of everything, still eluded her.

 

“Maybe if I… No, Amorra let's not get too hasty, an abduction isn’t how we solve problems, right? I think I read that in a book somewhere…

 

“Hello Queen Amorra,” said Mr. Kim. The man’s hologram displayed the room he sat in, as if it were directly connected to the room she herself was in.

 

His lavish dining table, positioned attached to her own decently sized table. Amorra sat and a few attendants entered the room, and began to do her makeup and hair for the day.

 

“Hello, and who exactly are you, sir,” said Amorra. She knew, but wondered what the dirty business man would offer her in answer.

 

“I am Mr. Kim of Vendor incorporated, and I am here to extend my help,” said the man with a pleasant grin. Amorra nodded, and lifted a teacup the moment it was set in front of her.

 

“How exactly are you going to help me, good sir? Many spinmeisters and conmen begin their plots with honey rather than truth,” stated Amorra. Mr. Kim nodded, but his next words changed how Amorra thought of the man before her, and how she would move within all further proceedings with him.

 

“Well, my sources tell me that you are in the middle of splitting the mana monarch kingdom’s army in half, and either attacking two realms at once, or sending half your army to its potential death. Neither CloudLake nor Maelstrom are easily seized, no matter how large an army they face. Our new king and Emperor of three realms seizes most planets with supremacy alone. Realms worry about the loss of life that would be incurred if they were forced to face him, victory or not,” said Mr. Kim. The mouthful enough to silence Amorra completely. She had been about to test-attack both realms. This would have been an attempt to make sure she couldn't be forced herself into any dominant militaristic position, she would try to create the illusion she wasn't on any sides within the realms that had any claim to Arson.

 

“Let's say I were actually going to do either of those things, what would you have me do instead?”

 

“I would have you use your full army on Maelstrom, while I and my associates put CloudLake City back in its rightful place in a lower realm layer,” said Mr. Kim softly. The man’s words making Amorra wonder what kind of exciting individuals she may be about to involve herself with. She didn’t see why not, the realms themselves served no purpose to her. With Arson, the young man she suspected to be a Kingdom Builder, beside her, it wouldn’t matter the realm they lived in, as long as it was rich in mana.

 

“I see, and would you be able to ensure that, no matter what?”

 

“Why yes I can Queen Amorra. Not only am I a man of my word, I believe that depending on how quickly you can deploy, your troops, there may be a sizable… gift that can be offered to make this situation even more beneficial to you and yours.”

 

“That sounds promising. How quickly would I need to make movements for this… gift?” Mr. Kim smiled at Amorra wiping breakfast free of his mouth as he did so.

 

“Are you free now?”

 

…

 

Arson had begun to test his medallion with each runic classroom he entered. He’d eventually been offered a ranking system template that was sent to his Overlay, which unlocked the system rank utility, an apparent power gauge that could be used to give a basic analysis of individuals around the cultivator using the tool.

 

If the tool indicated Instructor when he entered a room, he left, and it took him a while before he found a classroom on the first floor with an individual considered more experienced with runes, which Arson found to be odd…

 

“Welcome young man, welcome,” said a nice face from the back of the classroom Arson stepped fully into. The pink haired woman had strands of silver in her hair like professor Lee did, and Arson still struggled to remember what Almarine had once told him that the physical trait was a direct sign of.

 

Arson gave the green eyed woman a nod, before he sat down, reading the name Vellum on her desk made his chest momentarily tighten, but knowing that family names were widespread and even more common as time passed, he pushed his thoughts aside and listened while the woman spoke.

 

“Univers is where the word universe comes from. It means the energies that connect all, many people forget this when using runes, and often lose the potential a rune can offer at its base,” said the teacher. Arson was surprised by what he was hearing from the woman, as he knew her to be speaking things he’d himself learned while in Endless. This didn’t mean to him that any and all words spoken by the woman would be accepted as valid, he just found comfort in the potential for there being more he could learn about one of his favorite topics, as long as the information being given retained a certain level of stability and accuracy.

 

“Why do we continue to archive runes if the list will forever continue to grow?”

 

Arson was also interested in this, feeling as if the hundreds of sub runes he’d already learned, were intensely situational, and found the more basic a rune, the better fit it was toward versatility and capability. Both in power the rune could channel, and how easy it was for a cultivator to learn.

 

“Efficiency,” started Professor Vellum. The woman seemed as if she’d had this conversation with students a countless amount of times before, able to lead them effortlessly from point to point.

 

“When using a basic fire rune to light a campfire, the amount of mana spent seems infinitesimal but could anyone tell me how much less mana is used for the same campfire if a Cultivator were to wield the rune for the cinder necessary to start a fire?” The classes murmurs and chatter died and even Arson remained silent. He had guesses, but none he felt that could expand on what was being asked without prompting a string of more questions. So he waited as others did.

 

“The answer is nothing, using the birth of cinders rune requires no mana when used properly, and yes yes, power like that seems astonishing to think of, but imagine a rune devoted to a campfire, now imagine a rune specific enough to symbolize the start of a campfire’s initial burst of flame, can any of you imagine what may happen, this is why every rune matters,” said the woman. Her eyes briefly landing on him before she gave him a wink and continued on. The brief engagement by the woman made Arson sit up straight, the gesture anything but peaceful coming from the woman who shared his once adoptive parents last name.

 

"Something tells me I have found who I need to speak with", thought Arson with a habitual sigh. He wanted to chase after Troy, and let her know that he missed her, but with the preliminaries for the tournament of scions being the following day, Arson knew he couldn’t.

 

The class ended and many of the students either left or continued to work on individual projects at their assigned station tables. The desks lit with a library of various symbols as far as Arson could see.

 

He gathered his courage and approached the woman’s desk. His shadow across her book enough to draw the woman’s attention and make her look up at him.

 

“You know, the look in your eyes says more to those around you than I believe you are aware of, child,” said Professor Vellum.

 

“What do my eyes say to you then?” The question slipped free of Arson without thought, his mind unbalanced by the potential connection to his past coming from what seemed like thin air to destroy his concentration before grand events in his life.

 

Couldn’t just ask what you needed and leave, had to go and ask the unnecessary question, push the limits until you die or there are none left right…?

 

“That you fear me for some reason, child, and I don’t know what I could have done in any lifetime that would give you any reasons to fear me.” Arson nodded, and thought of the best way to respond before he spoke up again, Professor Vellum waiting patiently for a response.

 

“I’ve been the highest ranked in most situations since I entered the first floor of this runic cluster of towers in the first halo, just felt a little overwhelmed and didn’t want to get in the way of instruction, probably seeing the aftermath of my nerves running high maybe,” offered Arson. The professor smirked and gave him a nod, only speaking up once she realized Arson was letting her lead the entire conversation.

 

“So what did you need, child? Anything important that you may need to present to me , or are you just saying hello?” asked the woman. Arson shook his head and took a risk, the information he needed still potentially dangerous to spread on campus.

 

“Do you think you could point me in the right direction of someone who could show me how to construct the cores found on the base of Adroit Academy's living land platforms,” asked Arson, closing his eyes as the professor's mouth opened slowly and her eyes widened.

 

“Well, yes of course, but not now, I have another class about to enter, come back this evening after dinner. I will be here. How does that sound?”

 

Arson’s eyes opened and he smirked. Not knowing if he was walking into some strange trap, or if he’d truly lucked into the resource of knowledge he hoped for.

 

“Sounds perfect, I’ll have my favorite chef work us up a fantastic dinner, and hopefully I won’t take up too much of your time,” said Arson with a bow, before he turned and strode free of the class.

 

Maybe I should bring Xani, might be better for me not to be alone with that one. Who knows if she knows runes that could end my life easily and from a distance…