Episode 4: How Could You Possibly Know?

Arson sat on the fire escape of the manor and watched the sunset. His night had been long, but he still felt ready for the day. He listened to music as he kicked up his feet and planned his day.

Even as he thought of what was next, his mind drifted toward the previous night. His conversation with Troy about his crown. His realization that he probably didn’t or wouldn’t need sleep for a very long time. As well as a handful of other things his status had no current explanation for.

Troy hadn’t seen Arson’s crown until Seven had left the locker room. Arson was confused and almost passed it off as coincidence, until he thought about how Troy had analyzed her opponent in the ring. A detail like a floating crown wouldn’t have been missed by her, and she said as much.

After a few moments of awkward silence, and some mental prods at what Arson felt to be his connection with his half-formed core, Troy noted that she could no longer see it.

“Was little Arson maybe shy and didn’t want me to see his new giant sparking crown? I mean, I can’t blame you, it’s cool as sparks but seriously intimidating to look at,” said Troy in an attempt to joke. Arson didn’t take the joke well, and he made it disappear.

He left it invisible as far as he knew, and then found it in his Soul Realm. Just above the sun at the center.

It wasn’t until he decided to meditate on the balcony after Troy fell asleep that he didn’t feel quite right. It wasn’t until his crown was touched once again by the light of the sun and stars that he felt what he assumed to be his new normal. Wide awake and with the sensation to work on something.

So instead of procrastination, he chose proactivity. He got to his feet and rolled his eyes as a dozen of Almarine’s famous quotes ran through his head.

“Procrasti—what—not in this nation!” Arson laughed to himself as he made his way down the fire escape then farther when the quote could be heard repeated throughout the grounds of the orphanage.

He smiled to himself as he made his way even farther out of town and toward the city of Maelstrom’s very own junkyard and dump combination.

Arson honestly chose the job because nobody ever did and he wanted to know why. He had heard rumors that the place was haunted, among other things. None of which he believed, but he would find out he supposed. Even more, he felt oddly excited.

“Hello?” Arson entered the dump and had to traverse a few kilometers of random waste heaps before he found the entrance to the junkyard and a large warehouse-like building.

“Hello?”

“Who are you?” said a voice just behind Arson. He jumped as he turned around to see a woman with long white hair, and a tattoo of mythical birds that looked lifelike as they seemed to fly around her arm, shoulder and neck. There was even a dragon that spit flames onto her face. Each piece its own complete artwork.

“I am here to work the job offered. I don’t know what exactly it entails, but I am willing to try if you are willing to train me. My name is Arson, and it’s nice to meet you.” Arson stuck out his hand and they shook.

“My name has changed many times, but you may call me by my title, Jade.” Arson felt a star light within his Soul Realm and made note to visit whatever memory seemed to flare up when the woman introduced herself.

“You seem familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?” said Arson. Jade shook her head and sighed.

“It’s a common name now kid, don’t think about it too much,” said Jade. Arson shrugged at the woman and followed as she turned to walk away. It was quite a while of roaming and aimless wandering before Arson felt he needed to speak up.

“Hey Jade, what am I supposed to be doing exactly?”

“We are almost there,” responded Jade. Not much longer and they arrived at an enormous hole.

The hole was surrounded on all sides by massive mountains of trash and debris. It was also so large neither the opposing side, nor the base of the hole could be seen. The smell that emanated from the entire place was unrivaled, but the hole itself seemed to spit miasma like fumes into the air, made visible by the density of trash and the sun’s heat. Arson looked over to Jade as the woman shook her head in obvious displeasure.

“Our city has found things as marvelous as endless energy to power itself, water systems to cleanse the most contaminated liquids, and some can even extend their lives outside of Cultivation. But trash is still trash, and no one sees the taint we leave behind to grow powerful while our foundations erode beneath us.” Arson wished he completely understood what the woman implied, but still tried to interact with her. He didn’t care much for trash, but he guessed that was exactly Jade’s point. No one did, and that was the problem.

“Makes me wish a strong Cultivator would just come and wipe all the trash away, give us more room to grow, right?” His comment made Jade laugh, but Arson didn’t know why she laughed so hard.

“Ahh, thank you for that kid, makes me feel young again, but even if that were to happen, how do you think it would occur? Incineration, disintegration, teleportation maybe?” Arson looked around and shrugged once more.

“I’d probably choose disintegration. Flames mean more fumes and ash will spread, while teleportation doesn’t really fix the problem, rather it makes it someone else’s problem, not like we could recycle everything here, right?”

Jade didn’t respond for a very long time. So long in fact that Arson began to believe he’d said something that may have been unchallenged when it came to idiocy. Then jade spoke up.

“Disintegration in this situation is nearly as bad as flames or teleportation, it was tried and this is what occurred,” said Jade with a point toward the giant hole.

“The amount of power and accuracy it would take to clean this entire area would require near divine intervention, so instead of fixing the problem, we patch it over and create new problems.” A shovel appeared in her hand from thin air and she handed it to Arson.

And so the first day of his job went. Arson shoveled piles of garbage into the giant hole, attached to the mountain climbing gear Jade left him with. Apparently the reason no one worked at the place anymore was due to a handful of workers disappearing after they fell into the hole. Arson felt bad for the loss of life, but raked in the benefits of being paid an entire crew’s pay. He made over 25k in credits on his first day.

The shovel he used to work was equipped with a sort of scale that could monitor how much weight was lifted, which determined his pay. Jade seemed surprised to find him still deep in his work each time she arrived to check on him. She assumed he would quit and she would return to find an abandoned shovel, only to come back each time with a more and more excited Arson.

“This place is a sparking treasure trove!” Jade’s eyes widened at Arson’s words.

“I have been here a long time Arson, and I believe that is the first time I have ever heard those words,” said Jade.

“I have found Cultivation manuals from before the ban on higher learning without mentorship, slightly damaged weapons and armor, literal sparking mana cores, noble clothing, dirty yes, but what were washing machines made for if not dirt,” said Arson. He held up a mana core the size of his fist, that didn’t seem to be empty at all, and pointed toward a pile of goods he’d planned on asking Jade for.

“I see. If you sell me the mana cores you find, I don’t mind you keeping the things you want to keep,” said Jade. The request struck Arson as wrong somehow. A full mana core should be a rare find in a place like this, but from Jade’s words, she didn’t seem to think so. Also, she’d said “sell” as in for credits or maybe something as mutually beneficial?

“That sounds fair I guess, but with you already paying me for my time, don’t I technically owe you the cores anyway?” Jade shook her head before she responded.

“You’ve been here for more than 16 hours kid, you technically only owe me 1 shift a day, three or 4 times a week until you are 18 or get another job, and a single shift is 4 hours,” said Jade.

Arson smiled as he realized he didn’t have to work a single second more if he didn’t want to that week. Then his mind did the math on how many hours he owed the woman and immediately wanted to know more.

“Two-thousand, two-hundred and ninety-two hours owed, minus the few I worked today I guess. Are there any restrictions on how many hours I can work a week? Also if I complete those hours early, does that mean my room and board are paid for until I’m 18 and I can still look for another occupation? How exactly am I being funded?” Arson would have asked all dozen questions on his mind all at once if Jade hadn’t spoken up.

“I don’t care how quickly you complete the hours owed. That may matter at other jobs tied to the orphanage, but not here, once your hours are clocked, they’re paid for. I’ll give you 50k credits for every mana core you find that size or slightly larger, and higher depending on how big you can find ’em.” Arson looked at the core for only a second before he tossed the glowing white orb to the woman.

“Is there any chance I could turn some of that credit money into a sort of food allowance? I’ve gotten hungry out here and know it will be a regular thing,” asked Arson. Jade only smiled at first, before she asked,

“How much of your budget do you want to use per core,” asked Jade. Then Arson’s stomach rumbled so loud that he felt his cheek burn with embarrassment.

“Come on kid, let’s go eat.”

So they did. Jade took Arson to the inside of the large warehouse he’d seen on his way to the hole and was shocked to find it empty.

Before Arson’s eyes an entire home appeared from thin air as Jade swept her hand in a random direction. She walked up the stairs and through the front door. Arson almost didn’t follow her inside, but she’d left the door open, and he heard her obviously sit down in a chair nearby.

When he walked inside he found Jade in front of a full table of what seemed to be a feast. A level of quality entirely unknown to Arson.

“Hurry up and eat before it gets cold, I don’t like it when people eat my food and it isn’t how was meant to be experienced.” Arson quickly sat down as the woman kicked her feet up onto the table.

“Why don’t more people work here if you can pay so much for the cores you think are out there?” Arson’s question was the first sound other than eating in the room and it took a moment for Jade to speak.

“Because of many factors, the smell, the physical labor, no one other than people who work for me know about the cores, amongst other things.”

“Am I to assume you want it to stay that way?”

“I don’t care either way, nothing you say or do will threaten my ownership of this place, and I only value the cores due to a promise I made to an old friend, not for personal use.” Arson thought to himself and nodded. The beginnings of a plan boiled in the back of his mind, but he would need a lot of help, and didn’t know why he felt the sudden urge to step in to fix the problem his city faced. Trash.

Trash wasn’t a physical source for him to battle and grow in Cultivation, but it was enough of an economic and environmental issue that Arson felt it worthy of a longterm goal. He wanted to clean his realm and make it beautiful, and he felt trash was a good place to start.

“I want to help out around here, and I don’t know exactly where to start, but I have a few ideas that with time I think could solve the issue of the lack of workers, the low income base for the orphans of Maelstrom, and maybe even the abundance of trash that is only going to grow.”

“I won’t get in your way, child. Just make sure that you don’t forget to work your mandatory hours each week, it doesn’t matter if you work 100 hours this week until you are paid off you have a three-hour a week minimum that cannot be missed, so no weeklong vacations,” said Jade. Arson smiled and they both sat back stuffed. Arson groaned as he came to his feet, and Jade stared at him quizzically before she spoke up.

“Headed home?”

“Of course not,” said Arson as he lifted his shovel and headed toward the front door.

“See you in the morning,” said Arson with a wave, but then he froze in the doorway and looked back at the woman.

“There will be breakfast if I work through the night, right?”