Arson now had three issues alongside being stuck in the trials.
The first was all of the techniques, skills, and abilities he’d learned, and barely been able to practice.
Normally he would gain something new, and have plenty of time to explore his capabilities. He felt he lacked most in martial combat, because he mostly found himself at a range.
He loved magic and what it offered, but knew that he needed to form his own style of combat for his many skills. A base to focus on. Or he felt he would become lost in learning new things, and never master one thing.
It would be nice to master all things,thought Arson to himself.
Once more he found himself worried. Worried about his limits. How much he could actually learn without a direct limit being found.
His system helped him keep things in order which wasn’t actually a lengthy list to compile.
Though his body was naturally capable of unimaginable feats, the system only deemed what he learned and used as actual techniques, skills, and abilities, after he’d perfected their initial use.
Which makes sense as to why Conductive Waters, and the Cloak & Mask of the SunTomes are the only things to be found in the offensive areas held in my Overlay, thought Arson. He’d been given visions of their uses, and even shown how to change them to suit him more personally.
Nowhere to be found in his overlay, were his regenerative abilities. His now two times over refined body, and the resiliences he’d gained from being poisoned as a child weren’t held within his Overlay at all, and many of the abilities or skills he taught himself couldn’t be found either.
What makes the System determine what is and isn’t a skill, asked Arson to himself mentally.
During his current trial, all his thoughts cycled from his plans to complete once he returned to Maelstrom, and back to his lack of a combat style.
“Trial 4001: Defeat the raid against the lost citadel of mana monarchs.”
Arson tested himself with every foe he came across. The surrounding landscape was a mess of blood and bodies, and his experiments with his abilities made many nearby give him a wide berth and area to move.
Arson wanted to play with his abilities. He wasn’t a killer, nor did he want to become one, but the level of combat achieved around him, made his actions more deadly, as without the threat of death to stop those nearby, Arson would soon find himself overwhelmed.
“What exactly are you even trying to do?” Arson glanced at his watch before he smiled to himself. He was happy that his mana was abundant enough to keep the device active, and had grown even closer to Anastasia over the last few hundred trials.
“I remember an image of the SunStorm Sovereign being able to wrap conductive waters around her limbs like armor, that could explode on contact with the enemy.” Arson lowered his center of gravity the moment he felt he was being charged from behind. His eyes were closed and his Closed Eye Dominion had been activated.
The symbol of a tribal sun flickered with movement like a living tattoo across his face while the ability was active. Arson was unaware of this, but it made his opponents even more wary to approach, which is why his foes seemed to only want to rush him from angles he wasn’t facing.
Conductive water rippled down his leading leg and with a powerful twist of his hips and a slight leap, Arson spun 180 degrees. The spin kick was powerful enough without the added power of conductive waters, but Arson knew he needed to improve.
He let the water spin around his foot, like a tornado made of liquid and filled with lightning, which caused the energy to erupt once the flat of his foot struck the man’s face.
This was the first time Arson had been able to pull off this technique with his skill. Every other time had resulted in an orb being fired from his foot like a rock from a improperly constructed slingshot.
With the amount of enemy combatants around, even his aimless attacks struck foes, or managed to explode near enemies and knock them from their feet. He wasn’t upset by the outcome, but without being able to direct the kicked orbs, his new idea worked far more easily.
Arson became a blur. He wasn’t even infusing mana into his body to move faster, but still was far harder to track.
The conductive waters that wrapped around his feet as he dashed forward and kicked his foes, also increased his speed of movement. Each kick more volatile than the last, as Arson’s mana control was almost non existent.
The trials had been an endless battlefield, and though he’d grown stronger by increasing the amount of power his body could use and manage, he’d realized that he was far more accurate with his skills and abilities prior to entering the runic skyscraper.
Even his closed eye dominion seemed to be controlled by his available mana. Mana he now had to suppress to be able to attack without killing the men and women around him, or hurting himself.
Through his test Arson had found that his body could produce enough mana to even cause his own body to deteriorate. Even Anastasia was shocked by the power displayed, but Arson still felt far from the version of himself that King Gestalt showed him in his vision.
Arson didn’t want to become what he saw, but he did want to become as powerful, if not more powerful. Arson didn’t see himself as a genius, or as an individual with talent or extreme luck.
Even if he had all of those things, his mind still kept him humble. He felt that he’d yet to face an enemy that would force him to confront the weakness that was his own mortality, but knew that it was only a matter of time before he would.
That chick with the wings could have killed me, so could both of the princesses I met, even if the second one was without experience, thought Arson to himself.
Arson’s tests continued and more days passed.
The landscape was a city large enough that Arson was incapable of seeing its edges, even if he flew thousands of feet into the air. He knew his objective was to stop a raid on the kingdom he found himself in, but Arson could barely tell what side he should be in support of. There weren’t uniforms to notate enemy sides, only carnage and bloodshed.
Normally he was thrust into situation with at least a few people he was able to interact with which he found convenient, as he needed to both gather information, and occasionally be aided in some way, shape, or form.
The problem was that he couldn’t get through to a single person he met. Arson began to wonder if the world around him was always in a perpetual state of turmoil, as if everyday life there was a society being conquered. He could see no rhyme or reason to the actions of those around him and eventually gave up on trying to communicate.
“You could always use the Wretches you left in the pocket apartment,” suggested Anastasia.
“What do you…?” started Arson until he trailed off. Arson opened his inventory to see his first ever creation. An object that he only now knew the true value of.
What he’d once thought to be a minor trifle, he now knew to be extraordinary.
His mother’s rune usage was unmatched. A skill she’d apparently learned from Anastasia. The two had often talked about Anastasia also teaching him, but she seemed worried that Arson’s grasp of the language of Univers wasn’t as high as it would need to be to learn from her quite yet.
He stared at the box and after a while found a quiet place on top of a building and opened the pocket apartment. The top of the box opened and Arson looked in the portal. He’d worried that he was going to see a building full of dead bodies and long rotted corpses. He’d been in the Runic Skyscraper for season cycles, which made him worry that the Wretches had long ago run out of food and water.
“Hey boss, long time no see, we thought it would be a full fortnight in here before we saw you again,” yelled the gang's leader. The girl waved at him almost the moment he stuck his head through the doorway to peek in.
Inside, many changes had been made. The orphan gang left inside had not aged by the season cycle as Arson had, which left him to believe that the pocket apartment was somehow locked to parallel the passage of time back home.
The group had been trained by Xani to use her rebuilders, and had been hard at work ever since. Arson wanted the group to help him with many missions he had planned from the safety of the pocket apartment, but was honestly more happy with seeing a friendly face in that moment over everything else.
“Woah, you’re a bit older aintcha?” Arson simply nodded. He refused to cry, but knew he would if he allowed himself to drown in what he felt within that moment.
“Hey, Micro, how is the work coming along?” asked Arson as he stepped inside. He couldn’t help but smirk at the girl’s widened eyes when she temporarily glimpsed the realm behind Arson as he stepped inside.
“Waaa,” was all the girl managed to squeak out before the door closed and the kingdom built from mana disappeared.
“Micro?” Arson said the girl’s name with an accompanied look over his shoulder at her. She hadn’t moved from the doorway, and he’d begun to wonder if she would.
“Life is never going to be normal again, is it?” asked Micro with a sigh. Her shoulders slumped and she turned back toward Arson finally to reveal a smile to his surprise.
“Depends on what you see as normal, I guess,” said Arson. He took in the ex-gang at work and froze. He wanted to take a break from the trials, but realized that if time moved the same within the pocket apartment as it did back home, every second within the place was a wasted moment he could use to get home.
Time moved far less quickly within the trial spaces. Or, whatever powered Arson’s travel from place to place, distorted time, but he hadn’t figured that aspect of his journey out yet.
“Hey Micro, I actually need your help,” said Arson with an idea on the edge of his mind.
…
Micro didn’t know where she was, nor why she had originally accepted Arson’s request, but she wished she could change her mind.
Her and a few Wretches were being scouts for Arson, and were now being attacked from what seemed to be every direction.
“How long have you sparking been here again?” Micro yelled. She tried not to get frustrated by the laughter that came through her new earpiece, but growled despite herself.
“Let’s just say a while. Have you come across anything noteworthy?” asked Arson over the comms the group had set up for their mission. Micro communicated more of the same and time passed.
Eventually Micro realized that time back at the apartment, and time with Arson, moved differently.
The time she spent with Arson was long and arduous, but what made it worse was how little time she got to rest in between each mission, for the trials as Arson called them.
She’d work for days as a scout. Or forced to guard a group of builders. Sometimes she even watched Arson’s back from miles away with a rifle, only to get a few hours of sleep in the apartment when she was done.
They’d eventually found the Citadel of the Mana Monarchs, and what unfolded there took Micro’s breath away. She’d only ever been in the slums of the CityNation of Maelstrom, so the sight that was the near ancient palace they’d found filled her with awe and even gave birth to Micro’s inner explorer.
Arson told Micro that they were in search of powerful runes to further advance his knowledge of the language of Univers. Once inside, they were forced to fight endless waves of mana constructs created by runic arrays and formations left by the mana monarchs.
During this time, Micro and the other Wretches, now officially BlackHole members, were trained by Arson. In combat, general education, manners, anything the young lord could think of to fill the time and give himself and the others something to look forward to other than endless battles.
Micro could see that Arson needed the interactions as much as she and her team needed the guidance. Not only did it bring the level of aid the group could offer Arson at any time to a new level, but Arson also seemed to work through a hurdle of his own as he trained the others.
“Incoming!” Micro and the group around her ducked, all while they retained their combat formation. Above them, the lord swooped down toward a large group of mana elementals. He spun as he dove, simultaneously he extended a leg and charged conductive waters down the same limb.
Arson roared as an armored leg guard made of storms wrapped around his leg, violent tendrils of power made to lash out and eat enemy energy spun and increased the effect of the new attack.
Arson’s leg collided with the vanguard in the same moment that Micro and the others were able to raise the mana tower shields they’d found inside the palace they were in. The group locked the defensive artifacts together and were immediately protected by a dome of ambient mana pulled from the environment around them. Micro worried that the shields wouldn’t work when they left this realm, but for what they currently needed to achieve, they were perfect.
Arson’s kick exploded and dozens of elementals were sent hurdling in every direction. The explosive boom, popped many of the elements like soap bubbles. While many of the other elementals that weren’t sent airborne, were slashed, punctured, or grabbed by the tendrils of SunStorm energy.
All of this occurred in a mere instant, but Micro and the others knew their leader's attack was far from over. As Arson followed through with the very same kick that had struck the now destroyed vanguard, the second phase of his new attack was triggered.
The space around Arson’s leg was converted into a spacial void made of his own SunStorm energy. The spacial void created an effect similar to the vacuum of space in regards to air, and pressure. Only this void was created by mana.
Micro’s jaw dropped open at the sight each time Arson performed this attack. A seeming black hole made of white light, pulled the energy without discrimination toward Arson. Untold amounts of power was pulled back through the air in a breath. The vacuum was so intense that their entire group was pulled forward entire yards with each kick he performed, barrier and all.
The shields managed to protect the group, but they didn’t dare drop the shield wall and barrier until all of the energy around them dispersed. Finally after days of fights, Arson landed and turned back toward Micro and the others.
“Looks like that was the raid we needed to stop, seems that enemies of this kingdom were overthrown by their own runic formations being turned on them,” said Arson with a simple smile. Micro looked around at the destruction they’d caused and wondered what their next move was, before she decided just to ask.
“Are we done here? What about the rune or whatever?” Arson’s smile broadened and he pointed upward.
It was then that Micro saw her first runic array, and at its center was a golden rune that seemed to glow with the intensity of the sun. The design found there, was so advanced and intricate it made Micro’s head hurt to merely look at it.
“So what’s next?” asked Micro as she met Arson’s eyes once more. Arson had managed to pull free the pocket apartment from his watch and open the door before he responded with a shrug and a few short words.
“Who knows? Probably more of the same.”
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