Chapter 77: Rebalancing

"Hmmm…" the headmaster of Adroit Academy pondered how to prevent what she knew to be happening from happening. She watched students that would normally ignore the many faults of Adroit Academy begin to point them out, only occasionally at first.

Yet the more time that passed, the more common the oddity became commonplace. Meanwhile, the son of her once disciple and acolyte of her own choosing, was collecting teacher’s licenses, to open refinement shops all over campus.

“It seems they’ve made a game of it,” said one of the head council of professors at the academy sitting with Max. The man watched alongside 11 of his peers, as Arson and Khalif lifted a hand to play a game outside of a seemingly random classroom.

“So they decide and what, the winner gets to challenge a teacher?”” Max nodded at another of the professors in confirmation.

“One of my other disciples said they have been doing this for three days straight now, and some of the faculty has begun to avoid going to the challenge hour to avoid the pair,” said Professor ZillenFree. The professor looked similar to Xani as if he could be her uncle, or elder brother, white hair and all. The foreign man sat just beside Max and seemed the least disturbed by the teachers losing to someone who hadn’t even completed the admissions process, and more by the following things he showed.

“The young man’s sidestepping of the requirements to teach at the school are within reason for his type, but the actions of his associates are semi alarming.”

The holograms on the table shifted to show Troy running straight up a vertical wall as if gravity was an afterthought. A hoot of excitement echoing through the air as she stepped off the next cliff ledge, using it like a launch pad. A cloud pierced through its center before she kicked off the air itself and changed direction. Max had thought the girl had learned to fly the first time she’d done it, and bet that many around her still believed the skill to be flight of some kind.

“If someone doesn’t stop her ascent she’ll set a record and be owed the grand prize,” said ZillenFree.

“I thought that that was a problem, but these next two individuals are quickly becoming pillars within the campus that would give us issues if they disappeared overnight as we suspect they will.”

The images on screen changed to show Rob cooking amongst multiple tiers of chefs all at once. An audience of students and paid guests celebrating as the young man continued to cook in a marathon event that set him against higher and higher tiers of opponents.

The first side to fail to complete cooking the orders for all the guests or audience they faced, lost, and Rob was on his third round of chefs.

Still under the effects of his constant water breathing potions. Many things began to change about Rob.

He no longer slept nearly as often, the glands within his mouth now attuned to pure water to such a degree that Rob’s body had begun to feed off the water mana it was constantly in contact with.

While additionally Arson believed Rob had begun to create a core within his soul realm, Rob held himself back from the thought. He knew Arson may be right, but didn’t want to become excited at the thought of becoming a Cultivator and in the end, the dream remain a dream.

“This young man is forming a core somehow, the process is foreign to any of our databases, but if we could learn, we may be able to offer many students that we’ve been incapable of pushing toward ascending the mortal coil,” explained the professor. Many of the men and women around in disbelief of what they were hearing.

Conversations continued and then Xani was shown on screen. She sat in the middle of the bottom floor of an engineering tower surrounded by mini mountains of broken tools. Tools which she repaired at an unimaginable speed with the help of her propeller palm drones, all while she inscribed durability runes into all of the once broken equipment.

Jasmine could be seen handing the equipment to teams of students and even others on campus attempting to become students. While Lane shot a broadcast, interviewing many of the students.

“How do you feel about the work being offered to help students pay their tuitions?” Lane smiled and the young man being interviewed smiled back.

“Shopkeep is the best. Don’t know what he’s going to have us doing or what halo he may need us in but because of how fast his shops pop up, we're probably just going to be building those, which is kinda exciting. We get three free classes and massages at the new shops, every fortnight just for working on his crews on top of our pay,” said the young man excited. The camera view turned back to Lane who smiled.

“Embers, guys, may have to get a job on a construction crew,” said the online hostess with a grin.

Professor ZillenFree stopped the feed there and sighed. And it took a while for silence to return to the room.

“I can see the issues with the others but the last one does nothing but help us in the long run right?” The question came from the end of the table and Max stepped in to answer.

“No, it inspires our students to work for a company we have no control of, or direct claim or connection to beside my acolyte, and he may be in charge, but our school is being mapped out by that girl and an army of drones. While my acolyte plays around and fights teacher after teacher, that young woman has become one of the schools largest information brokers within the school overnight. Half that line is for students interested in work, and the other half was to interact with a budding spy network within our halls,” said Max.

“Isn’t our formation grid supposed to stop these types of things asked another professor. A question to which both Max and ZillenFree nodded to before Max spoke again.

“Our own security grid is being overhauled slowly, the drones slip in, a mana pulse is sent out, and our formations go down temporarily, our system is then brought back online by foreign nano bots and then from that point on my acolyte and his team can no longer be seen on our live feeds or recordings. At best, we get smudge-like blurs when the drones fly through an area in mass quantities, or a random flare similar to how poor invisibility illusions spark in people's vision,” explained Max. Seriously contemplating giving Arson the oath he’d demanded of her, in hopes that maybe she could get him to slow down his actions on campus, or even hopefully stop them entirely.

“So what are we going to do about this group?” ZillenFree and Max shared a look before Max gestured for Zillen to speak.

“Campus reboot, purge the memory of this ShopKeep from their minds, erase the buildings, and flip the security grid all at once, quick and clean…”

…

Arson sat outside a classroom he’d wanted to check out for a long time. The teacher of a style called Jeet Kune Do, a supposed dead art like tai chi. Arson loved the dead art he was already learning, and decided to sit in on the class, rather than challenge the teacher.

He played around with his unfinished handle for Sky while he waited for the class to fill, and slipped in after the mass majority of the seating was taken.

“During today’s mid term, we are going to have a skill demonstration, I’ll be choosing randomly from the class to have test takers demonstrate their skill in the demonstrated forms thus far. Don’t worry if you are new to the class, you can and will be paired with someone more developed in the processes. Trust that this will bring you closer to understanding,” said the woman as she rose to her feet. The brown haired woman had strands of silver in her hair, which Arson remembered meant something important, but before he could remember, the blue eyed woman put on her black square framed glasses and continued.

“We will begin with defensive high, then middle, then lower, continue into offensive high, middle and low, then we’ll finish with duels,” said the woman walking onto the stage at the front of her classroom.

Arson lost track of time watching the dead arts forms to the point that he received his first notification in a while.

Dead Art Remnants Received: New training course unlocked. Would you like to turn on Overlay assist for this new form during practice bouts, Y/N?

Arson picked yes, and continued to watch. He had no idea what Overlay Assist was, but he figured giving whatever it was a try, couldn’t hurt, so turned on the function.

When he was called to the front of the class, Arson smiled and made his way on stage, a large young man in front of him bobbed on his toes as they both waited for their demonstration of the offensive upper as the teacher called it, but his Overlay had dubbed, Intercepting Drill punches.

Arson waved for his opponent to go first, to which many in the crowd showed outward surprise at, their gasps and whispered worries, making him grin.

If it were the teacher, I’d be in trouble, and maybe that random guy over there I can’t get a read on, but I’d say this shouldn’t be too bad.

Arson was wrong. The punches all hurt, even while he blocked, redirected, and diminished their impact with subtle rotations of his body on contact. He’d used these tactics on students before to stay as under the radar as possible and been barely affected. Yet now, the more students that visited his bathhouses, the higher the bar was raised both in how the students bodies developed, but also in how their refined bodies also became more efficient, which caused affinities to grow as a result.

Am I breeding a den of monsters. Arson grunted as a particularly hard punch landed in his gut, completely unblocked. Arson refused to slow his perception when fighting a single opponent, and often paid for it, but loved what he learned from fights when he had to rely on just his body and not his mana, nor the power of Uni-Vare.

“Your turn young man,” said the teacher, Arson only then noticed had a nameplate that said Lee centered on a nearby desk. He bowed slightly in her direction, and took a relaxed stance in front of the larger young man in front of himself.

“Thank you for this opportunity,” said Arson, then he began to inch forward. His feet sliding an inch at a time forward, before he started.

The first punch landed on the young man’s sternum. The next center mass. the next the young man’s wind pipe, and the next few were aimed between the terrible attempt at blocking that was given after Arson’s first strike, and landed, hitting vital organs.

“Stop!” Arson’s fist stopped mid air in front of the young man’s nose not an inch from causing a rearrangement of cartilage and bone.

Arson stepped back and the teacher pointed at another student in the crowd. The man Arson couldn’t get a read on when he entered the class in the first place and was squared off against a red haired young man who laughed when he got on stage.

“What’s going on, Teach?” asked the student.

“Vin, I need someone this newbie won’t smash to bits for me to actually be able to read him. Arson finally looked at the student he’d been practicing with and noticed that his knees shook, not in fear, but from the damage of Arson’s unpowered punches.

“You hit like a train for your size, little man,” said the student. Arson laughed.

“Haven’t been called that in a little while, but thanks means a lot coming from you, you hit like a sledgehammer yourself.” Arson extended a hand and the massive student shook it before moving aside for Vin.

“Don’t get too crazy Vin, this is practice. If he is able to even hit you once I will consider letting him duel—“ Vin snickered and threw a punch, That Arson intercepted with a punch of his own. The two young men lashed out with a dozen back and forth punches that most of the students in the room couldn’t even follow with their eyes, enhanced by their cores or not.

Professor Lee was a combat master and fully intended to stop Vin from beating Arson to death, then became worried that they both may end up dying as the fight progressed.

What had started as a simple back and forward, had dissolved in the outright practice of any form rather than the original requested form. The two kicked, punched and danced around one another at speeds professional fighters would be impressed with at amateur levels, and the Professor couldn’t help but realize, her newest student, was terrifying.

The young man was only using the forms displayed during that class, and she’d been far from pulling her best students onto the stage, until Vin had been elected.

She had no idea that her newest student was mentally trying to combine the newer form of precise punches, with the aid of his Living hands. A new combination of attacks he wondered the potential of against a real opponent, a Valkyrie with unfathomable power at the forefront of his memory as he contemplated.

I hope to never feel that helpless again, but know the reality of that is small at this point.

Arson’s mind drifted long enough, that Vin managed to punch Arson in the chin and sent him soaring across the room. He collided with a group of desks, chairs, and students alike, and the teacher’s jaw dropped, as the stage was supposed to have stopped either of them from flying out of the area, when she realized she hadn’t even turned it on. She’d never had to before, and now felt ridiculous for thinking she didn’t need to.

“Embers and sparks are you okay, boy?” Arson got up slowly and looked around. A huge smile on his face as he dusted himself off.

“I’m good. Sorry about that everyone. You’d think I had that daydream syndrome or something,” said Arson with a laugh before he looked at the teacher and asked.

“Is it okay if I come back tomorrow? I still want to learn the rest of the forms, but the challenge time for students and teachers is about to start and I have a short list I need to handle?” Arson stared at the teacher, who looked around and made sure all of the students were okay before she looked back at Arson, and gave him a nod with a furrowed brow.

He really doesn’t know all the forms yet…

“Thanks, Professor Lee. See you tomorrow.”