Arson stood lined up with the other orphans for adoption day. The masses of cultivators and mortals that showed up was normal to Arson, but what had changed was how many approached him.
Almarine normally accompanied him to the adoption days the orphanage was required to host, and had been less the wiser to her scowl warding off the interested.
Almarine had been locked on the roof since the previous day, and Arson felt odd without her protective aura. The powerful men and women that visited had auras of their own, but Arson could only tell now that Almarine’s own power could not be felt.
Arson didn’t know when he started to feel when those around him had more or less mana, but he often felt overwhelmed when surrounded by many different cultivators.
The mixture of dense mana types made his stomach stir in the same way the room full of various candles inside the orphanage did when he grabbed a new candle for Almarine occasionally.
Without her presence the majority of the Cultivators that entered the orphanage grounds could feel him. Arson’s body swelled with ambient mana unlike any mortal any of them had ever seen.
Less powerful cultivators couldn’t read the levels of mana another held internally, so none of the adolescent nor teens could outright feel a difference between themselves and Arson, but those gathered could.
“Hello young man, what is your name?”
Arson answered the questions that came his way as best as he could. He prayed deeply that his answers would disqualify him in some way, shape or form from adoption, but his luck ran thin after a particularly well dressed couple walked in wearing Graveyard casual-wear.
“Hello young man, you wouldn’t happen to be Arson, would you?” Once more the rain of questions, and before Arson truly knew what had happened he sat in a car with the young black haired green eyed couple, he now knew to be Mr. and Mrs. Vellum.
“We live in the silver sector of Maelstrom,” said Mrs. Vellum. Her husband laughed and rolled his eyes at his wife.
“He’s an orphan, we’ll be lucky if he knows how to hold the broom we need him to use,” said Mr. Vellum. Both laughed harder, and Arson stared back at the couple in confusion.
Am I not even supposed to know what district I’m from, or going to?
Arson decided to keep his mouth shut, but the feeling of absurdity that came from him knowing something so small being a problem bothered him. His furrowed brow enough to make his adopted mother speak up.
“What is it, boy? Are you angry about your forced idiocy? Trust me, you are not alone. I bet many bottom feeders wish for a better fate to be allotted to you and yours,” said Mrs. Vellum, her continued laughter started to make Arson's head hurt, but after a while without response or change in visage from Arson, she stopped and began to stare him down.
“What is it, boy? Speak your mind, your words can be no worse than what I will do to you if you continue to disrespectfully leave my wife unanswered.” Arson looked away from Mrs. Vellum and toward his adopted father. The man’s face as serious as the warning bells when a new dungeon was created by the land.
“I just didn’t see what was so special about the silver sector, beside the factories, wondered if I was missing something. I apologize, sir,” replied Arson. The man nodded until the answered registered fully in the man’s mind.
“What do you know of the silver sectors factories,” said Mrs. Vellum. The statement clear in her voice, as neither believed he would have a legitimate answer, and the youthful child was more than excited to share what he felt he knew.
“Seven percent of the city’s power and production capabilities come from the silver sector, I don’t know what that means exactly, but I know that percentages just mean portions, in this case the city’s power and production. It's those factors I’m not familiar with, something called a power plant in the silver sector grants an entire percentage of power and production. Do either of you happen to know what that means?”
Man and wife looked at one another in that moment, and back at Arson both curious. They knew much about the city, but how much energy was granted by a sector was beyond the scope of privileged information.
“What about the Raid Corps building in the bronze sector? Do you know how much power and production it brings to the city,” asked Mrs. Vellum. Her husband scoffed, but the woman beside him pat his chest softly and waited.
As one of Arson’s favorite buildings so far to place in the puzzle of Maelstrom, the Raid Corp tower sat at the center of a large lake, connected to land on four sides by building sized enclosed bridges. He knew the answer immediately and spoke to the best of his knowledge.
“Eleven percent of the city’s power and production is used, but twenty-one percent is generated there,” said Arson. The percentages were so close to the current statistics that Graveyard had on the organization, that the happy couple began to feel more and more interested in their current purchase. The thought had only come to them after overhearing a conversation had between their co workers, who’d also pulled what they felt to be their own in-house servant from the CityNation’s hands.
Mr. Vellum wanted his own mortal to place into the underground betting matches held within the silver sector. While Mrs. Vellum felt it was justified to have someone help around their home that they wouldn’t have to constantly pay.
Both reasons were selfish for entirely separate levels of greed and vanity, but their newest purpose for keeping Arson, eclipsed them all.
“What else can you tell me,” asked Mr. Vellum with a smile. The conversation between Arson and his adopted parents seemed without end. Arson doing his best to answer any question he received with what he felt he knew to be the truth.
The days with his new parents passed quickly. He was taught a lot by the couple. Not in regard to the ways of Cultivation, but the workings of social and societal standards.
He started to teach himself how to read through a series of holograms the couple was given for free when they adopted Arson as a reward for taking on the responsibility of a youth. His understanding of words was exceptional, and here began his want for the rarest of content available in their realm.
The Vellum family had a small library filled with even smaller books on the criminal mind, psychology, and an encyclopedia on cultivator life.
In between Arson’s impressive list of chores within the Vellum household, he managed to to read all the books the library offered in the first seven days. Mostly because the Vellum husband and wife both still slept at night, and Arson was able to read unbothered during the dark spans between days.
He was taken many places at night and ate many new foods he’d never tried before. His favorites the more exotic fruits from other realms.
Arson was equally glad to attach the real image of Maelstrom to the puzzle he’d built for as long as he could remember. He was far from experiencing a tour of the entire CityNation, but the areas and aspects he did uncover and explore firsthand filled him with excitement.
Underground subways that rose to heights above tall buildings. Gardens with floating platforms that held overflowing fountains, which watered the grounds with rains. Even a visit to a spirit beast breeding ground solidified the passion Arson felt from what his city had to offer its citizens.
The orphanage is big enough. Why can’t I just build more there for us… Arson trailed off mentally. His recognition of his new status as adopted, made him look over toward the people considered to be his parents.
Arson didn’t feel a connection to either of the Vellum family members, and wondered how he would feel after his own name was changed to fit the family he now belonged to.
Arson Vellum huh, that will take some getting used to. The couple led Arson down a street after a long day of sightseeing and he began to wonder when they’d all be going home. To his surprised they instead travelled into an alley and headed toward a small building with a set of downward steps.
“Ever seen a live dungeon ball game, boy?” Arson looked over to Mr. Vellum and shook his head.
“No, sir. I’ve seen highlights of games on the holo-cast,” said Arson.
“Ever thought about playing, or are you more interested in becoming a prized fighter like many of your fellow orphans have, I’ve seen some huge names come from that community, untrained or not,” said Mr. Vellum. Arson ignored how the man still referred to him as an orphan, even though he still felt like one, and thought for a moment.
“No, I don’t think I want to fight or be any kind of athlete, I just want to build things,” answered Arson honestly. Mr. Vellum’s face scrunched, and the look he gave his wife told Arson he’d said something wrong.
“Want to build ehh, we’ll see about that,” said the man ushering him and Mrs. Vellum down the stairs.
Once inside the entrance opened up to reveal the club all around them. Arson’s eyes went wide at the sights and sounds.
Inside the underground club was packed full of mortals being led around to different attractions by cultivators.
Arson immediately recognized that most of the mortals were between his age and the older teens that moved into the nearby apartments held within the orphanage grounds, either once they’d formed their cores, or reached the age of majority.
He grew wary of where he was, seeing that most if not all the mortals were cut, bruised, or broken in some way. He glanced between Mr. and Mrs. Vellum and both looked excited to interact both with the crowd and the games around them. Games Arson wondered if he would be involved with. Only for the next question asked, to be both what he didn’t want to hear, and give him everything he wanted to know about what was to come.
“So, where do you want to begin,” asked Mrs. Vellum. Her question directed at Mr. Vellum, and Arson started to feel an urge to run unlike any before.
An enclosed dome filled with holes shot medicine balls the size of Arson’s head at a girl nearby. The cage was surrounded on all sides by screaming fans. Her objective was apparently to survive inside the chaotic environment for longer than the time those around her bet she’d fail by. Arson quickly able to gather the inner workings of what he saw after growing up near Seven and many other gambling orphans.
Mr. Vellum looked at this game excitedly, and Arson knew that he’d be forced into that bone breaking game before the night was over. The man’s eyes glistened momentarily, but after a tug of his sleeve from Mrs. Vellum, her husband looked away toward another area she pointed out.
Arson looked at a tower in the distance. The shape reminded him of the multi tiered cake that Rob made for the adoption days.
Chairs lined each tier, and all around the base a few yards away from the tower stood many mortals of varying ages.
Music started to play and a fight broke out as most there began to charge towards the chairs. A few managed to make it up and onto higher tiers, which had fewer chairs, so the ones available were fought for with even more intensity.
Punches and kicks were thrown. A chair was used like a bat to knock a young man from the sixth tier back down to the fifth, but his momentum carried him the entire way down.
Arson lost himself in the violence around himself. Everything the mortals were forced to involve themselves with made Arson’s stomach turn. Unlike when he watched sports, this felt more wrong… than any type of competition or a battle of wills.
None but the cultivators that’d brought the mortals to wager on seemed to have their hearts in the spectacle of what occurred around Arson, and even some of them were obviously there more for credits and wagered resources than for amusement.
Then he saw her. A brown haired heterochromatic eyed girl stepped into a sparring ring in the distance, and Arson froze. The features of her face affixed in his mind were his first true and undistorted memory.
He smiled, and Mr. Vellum just so happened to look in his direction in the same moment.
“Interested in a few rounds to get yourself warmed up?” asked the man, but instead of letting him answer, Arson was pulled along by the arm toward a ring with younger fighters.
He looked back at Mr. Vellum only slightly confused when the man gestured for him to stand in line and wait his turn to be entered into the sparring ring. The man gave him a thumbs up and Arson returned the gesture.
He’d never fought a day in his life. He had watched and memorized countless numbers of martial combat forms by watching Cultivation prized fights, but practiced none. He normally ran from violence, but with a glance toward the brown haired girl a few sparring rings away stretching to get ready, he tried to look at his current situation differently.
“Going to need to learn how to defend myself sooner or later…”
He watched the brown haired girl fight the entire time he was in line, doing his best to prepare himself. She lost all seven of her matches, and Arson wondered why.
From what he could tell, she was stronger and faster than her opponents, but left herself open to attacks at the least optimal times. All seven matches ended in her being countered, knocked from the ring, or forced to surrender by tapping out, something that made the man and woman near to her scream in rage.
Are those her parents, maybe they are losing money or something? The man and woman yelled insults down at the girl and no one stepped in to stop them, some even joined the couple in their tirade instead.
Arson could no longer distract himself by the mistreatment of the girl, as he was a few breaths away from having to confront a new threat. His first opponent.
This can’t be worse than the wolves, right?
Arson stepped up the few stairs that led into the sparring ring he’d been sent toward by Mr. Vellum and looked back toward the man who sneered in his direction. A whispered bet received by one of the club's many attendants nearby was accepted, and Mr. Vellum gave Arson another thumbs up. Mrs. Vellum could be seen with the others yelling at the brown haired girl, and Arson tried to ignore the woman’s actions.
Maybe if I win, she’ll leave her alone? A soft bell brought Arson back into the situation at hand, and before he knew it Arson was on his back. A fierce eyed girl with her hair in a bun stood over Arson. One hand pressed against his chest to pin him down, and the other lifted back to strike.
“Hey, pretty boy, sorry about this, but it's time to mash up your face a bit…” Arson scrunched his brow, trying to catch up to what had just happened, his single question, the only thing he could manage before the stream of punches began.
“What?”