Troy found herself without a single moment to rest over the next few sunrises, and sunsets. After being told she was being trained by Jade; the training began, immediately.
BHC was in high gear after Jade’s words, and the changes being made to the Junkyard Dump were massive. Troy hoped to impress Arson when he returned. Both, in measure of power, in addition to their general quality of living, and even maybe bond with Jade.
“Where is your mind? Bring it back to the now,” said Jade. The forms she made Troy complete were fierce, but Troy’s natural flexibility due to the light element helped tremendously. She may have stumbled at first, but she was able to adapt even under duress.
“Faster…” The command came every time Troy managed to complete any new set of martial forms and Troy did so without complaint.
If this is the standard, wait no, a tenth of a standard she holds Arson to… It's no wonder that he grows as he does. I can only imagine what he is going through.
Arson had by this point in his journey set off a chain of events across many realms. Most of which wouldn’t effect their own realm, but some of the events already had touched even the CityNation of Maelstrom which was why Jade had chosen to make Troy as strong as possible, as rapidly as possible.
“I wondered if I could join you in baking his cake today,” blurted Troy. She was barely able to stand, and was grateful that the training had stopped momentarily. Although she grew nervous as Jade stayed silent and squinted at her with a analytical gaze that spoke of uncertainty.
“Have you ever baked a cake before?”
Troy shook her head and Jade rolled her eyes. It wasn’t long after that she found herself elbow deep in baking goods, and cooking products. The time she spent with Jade making Arson’s cake was pleasant, and Troy felt refreshed after they returned to her training. She hoped Arson returned the same day, so that she could be a part of his gift, as she felt the act of making the cake was personal to Jade, and didn’t know if she’d get another chance.
Then came her time to dungeon dive with Khalif and the other bodyguards, and she was once again nervous. The group had officially entered what Jade called a basic dungeon, twice already, and absolutely nothing was simple about the ordeal.
Before they could enter originally, Jade made the group fight a specific type of Olympian armor. All of which had aquatic features from head to toe.
Helmets with fins. Gauntlets and leg-guards with weapon like flippers attached to them. In addition to chest-plates and shoulder-guards with built-in rebreathers that filled the partial armor sets, and helmets with air.
Once Xani showed these features to Troy, she’d been worried, now that she was about to step into the ocean depths potentially, she was terrified.
Troy couldn’t swim. Not that she was necessarily being forced to, but the thought of not being able to take off her helmet to breathe in fresh air, was her worst nightmare come true.
She looked at herself in a wall sized mirror in her room and was impressed by the sight. She’d found a helmet developed from a divine naga. The white underwater dragons features were even more terrifying to Troy than the adventure she was about to force herself through; but she couldn’t help but enjoy how fierce the helmet made her appearance.
You all clean up well,” said Jade as she approached the group near the portal she’d summoned in preparation for their exercise. Troy nodded and smiled at the woman before she responded.
“You sure you aren’t trying to get rid of us, Momma Jade? I promise to make everyone more quiet on the local grounds if you promise me that we aren’t about to die,” said Troy. She knew how much Jade loved her peace and quiet, and hoped that being called "momma" would hopefully soften the woman’s intensity in their direction. Jade smiled and chuckled as she seemed to think for a moment.
“This is the only dungeon I can offer with enemies strong enough to give you a challenge, darling. Also, the environment is rich with light mana being emitted from the core of the planet you are traveling to,” said Jade before she simply dipped her hand into the portal at her side, which caused the portal’s gateway to grow.
“Anything else we should be worried about?” asked Khalif as he stepped beside Troy.
“No,” said Jade quickly. The speed of the response made Troy frown at Jade, which caused the woman to roll her eyes and speak up once more.
“You’re fine, it will be fine, you just may have to train a while before all of you are capable of moving freely at the depths you are about to experience,” said Jade with a laugh.
“Once your core body strength is developed enough, things should become easy, just keep on your helmets, and make sure not to panic, or try and swim to the surface.” Troy and Khalif shared a quick glance, and the strength of their friendship was obvious and much was clearly communicated, even though both remained silent.
Jade pulled her hand free of the portal and their destination came into view. The once swirl of white and blues, converted itself into a underwater landscape, with buildings made of coral, that formed a massive underwater metropolis.
The portal’s face was like a flawless pane of glass, that allowed the city of light and coral underneath to glimmer and dazzle all who had gathered there. Troy was afraid, but grew excited by what she saw in front of her. As she took a few deep breaths, she found herself even more revved up by the thought of what may happen.
“And what is it exactly that we are supposed to do in there again,” asked Khalif while he adjusted his armor and then he performed quick safety checks on the armor of those at his flanks. He was apparently as nervous as Troy, as he had already checked his own armor three times by that point.
“Other than survive and return more equipped to support Arson, nothing…” Both Troy and Khalif nodded once more at Jade and entered the portal without further delay.
Their surroundings could be felt immediately. The water was colder than ice, yet not frozen, and the pressure of the depths was three or four times the amount of normal gravity.
“Roll call,” said Troy through her earpiece. Those around her all stated their names to signify that they’d all made it safely through the portal, and the group checked on their individual statuses through their Overlay’s and the connection made to the cultivator system with their new armors.
“Nobody drowned, that’s a good start,” mumbled Troy underneath her breath; only to be startled by the voice that came from behind her.
“Mm-hmm, sure is…” Troy looked over her shoulder to see Jade crouched down just beyond the portal. Her stance was familiar, and Troy realized that the familiarity came from Arson having had rested the same way often when he thought.
“Momma Jade, what are you doing here,” asked Troy. Arson’s mother sat on her heels at the depths of the ocean without the need of the helmets that Troy and the others wore, and somehow scoffed audibly.
“Making sure you all don’t die, I haven’t maintained many of these habitats for centuries, it only just came to me that some of the life here may be a little too much,” said Jade. Runes in a circular pattern spun to either side of her mouth as she spoke, and Troy assumed that her lack of being affected by the water had something to do with the array, formation, maybe, she was unsure.
“I see, does that mean that you will be with us the entire time,” responded Troy as she struggled to turn and face Jade.
“No, of course not, darling, just until you all can manage to move freely down here,” said Jade with a chuckle.
“I’m already dealing with the enemies that may overwhelm you all,” finished the woman. Troy stopped trying to turn around, and instead took in the metropolis in the distance instead; only to be completely shocked.
The blood of naga saturated the depths with a fog-like haze. Jade killed seemingly thousands of the underwater humanoid creatures, alongside Kraken-kin, and even a form of mighty sea horse that served as protective mounts over their owners.
“Holy sparks…,” was all that Troy managed in that moment. Troy and the others watched as portals opened and closed halfway around their targets, which left nothing but dismantled and bisected body parts adrift just above the ocean floor.
“Momma Jade, isn’t this supposed to be an exercise for me and the others,” asked Troy. Khalif barely was able to nod his agreement in the depths before Jade snapped out of a strange fugue state that took her away mentally.
A massacre had taken place and Troy hadn’t even been able to blink. To her surprise, the metropolis in the distance, exploded with activity.
Although Troy and the others felt what they’d witnessed as a large loss of life, Jade, saw something else entirely.
The woman had decimated a portion of the population with a handful of thoughts, but Troy hadn’t missed how her eyes glazed over momentarily which made Troy wonder if Jade struggled with killing, which would explain a lot about the woman and her choice to own and operate a dump, rather than cultivate.
Cultivation required life energy, mana, or immortal energy manna, also called heaven’s life-force.
The only things that held these energies were the living or immortal species across all of existence. Uni-Vare, or the understanding of runes and mana’s inner workings, held an uncountable amount of ways to grow more powerful, but the most simple of them all, was killing.
“Practice your forms while you circulate your mana throughout your bodies from your head to your toes. I will be leaving a barrier that remain active for as long as you all are incapable of movement,” warned Jade. Troy nodded and tried to wave her goodbye in the older woman’s direction, but fell short when she noticed Jade had already vanished.
“Yes, momma Jade,” said Troy to herself. She didn’t want to disappoint Arson, nor Jade. So she began to focus on the movements that had been recently taught to her.
The entire group was a sloppy mess at first. Not only because of the pressure of the depths, but also the threat that would come the moment they could all move properly.
Many times the underwater barrier was struck by unseen creatures as they swam by, and even large tentacles that made Troy worry that Jade may have left prematurely.
“We are all going to die down here aren’t we,” asked Khalif during a particularly hard transition from stance to stance. Troy unconsciously nodded, but managed to move without stumbling as the others had.
“Just keep moving,” said Troy softly. It became harder for her to concentrate the longer they worked, but as they worked, things also eased.
Not on her mind, but her body. The weight of the environment lessened with each repeated movement, and after a while of work, Troy was able to look around at the others' progress more thoroughly.
Khalif was the only other person who seemed to have full use of his limbs. While the five behind him had only just gained the ability to lift their feet from the sealer.
"This is going to take a while," thought Troy.
…
Jade watched the progress of Troy and the group with her. She was honestly surprised that the girl was able to move already, as even she had struggled more with the experience in her own youth, but also had to remember that she herself had been a mortal until her teenage years, while Troy may have been born a cultivator.
Most of the orphans didn’t know about their backgrounds, and Troy had been one of them which made her suspect that the Orphan Mother, Almarine, may have had more to do with their pairing than she’d originally thought.
Troy was a light cultivator, and Arson was an Omni. Her son’s power grew from the strength of his bonds, even if he was unaware of the fact; while Troy’s power grew from her body's overall mana saturation.
Arson adored Troy, and though he was also unaware of how his body reacted to the young woman, he became the equivalent to a mana generator in her presence.
Whilst this occurred, Troy’s body fed Arson’s body with power. The young woman didn’t know that the mana her body drank in greedily came from Arson, but her subconscious did.
The two became more and more inseparable as they grew closer, which made Jade worry about a codependency that some cultivators formed during their foundations. She herself had done the same thing with Anastasia, and Jade couldn’t help but feel that she’d coddled her partner to the point that Anastasia ended up too brittle for the world around her. Jade’s world.
She wouldn’t let her son and the genius of a girl that she suspected her son would end up with, do anything but make each other more powerful, rather than become one another’s weakness which was an additional reason why she’d had Arson kidnapped initially. She hadn’t wanted her son to be targeted by his siblings and killed off easily, and had also wanted him to be able to defend himself against his peers at whatever institution he decided to join for schooling, but above all else needed to make sure that he could both protect what he loved, and never become a liability to what he loved either.
Troy may not see that she was going to one day be incredibly powerful, but Jade had, and so had Arson. Not that Jade felt he knew that the young woman could potentially become even a threat to Jade herself, but it was true.
As far as potential went, Jade knew her son’s was nearly unmatched. Yet, Troy, was being changed, changed so rapidly that Jade wondered, if Troy too, was Limitless.
“Show me what you will do by my son’s side, only your actions have worth in my eyes,” said Jade, while she wiped away tears, affected by another day's end without her son’s return.
…
Arson found himself in an identical situation to his mother. Once upon a time, Jade had attempted to learn the runic language through the many skyscrapers of Endless, only to realize that she wanted nothing to do with runes; so she left.
Arson now also wanted to leave, but for completely different reasons. Not because he wasn’t suited to runes as his mother felt she wasn’t. Or, because of the difficulties being faced through the trials, but because of the direct effect Arson now knew he was having across the realms.
“Legendary achievement Realm Breaker: through your actions the 17th realm of Uni-Vare, designated as, the mana vivarium, has had its classification changed from passive to active. All ripples caused by your actions in the Mana Monarchs kingdom are now considered acts of conquest. Further loyalty gained by you, from the inhabitants of the 17th realm, may cause a realm shift. Note realm shifts can often be violent cataclysmic events if triggered incorrectly.”
He read the achievement aloud the first few times he read it. Arson felt the words were important for more than just himself to contemplate. He had no idea what a realm shift could even be, but he didn’t want to cause a potential apocalyptic event, even if there were rewards.
His mother had mentioned to him that quests often came with loyalty-based systems that could aid a cultivator in numerous ways. Arson couldn’t help but feel cursed. The understanding that his actions could cause widespread harm, all for an ethereal currency, twisted him up inside.
“Aren’t we a couple trials short of five thousand boss?” asked Micro. The words startled Arson, who was deep in thought and struggled to pull his mind from his worries.
“We are, but this achievement makes me wonder if I should become a drop out, not like I haven’t been accepted into some of the best academies offered to young cultivators back home,” said Arson with a smirk toward Micro. Yet to Arson’s surprise, Micro shook her head with a frown before she responded.
“Sir, I would normally agree, but that would be if I was talking to anyone but…”
“Me,” asked Arson concerned by his friend's seriousness. Micro nodded quickly.
“Sire, you would regret leaving everyday and night, you expressed that you may not be able to come back if you leave early, so why leave early, it's only been 11 days back home and you could find out that our next trial is the last one,” said Micro. Her stare was direct, and she seemed adamant about what she said to Arson, even with how long they’d truly been away from Maelstrom.
“What about you, and the others?” Arson gestured toward Micro and the rest of the pocket apartment members of her gang, and finally Micro smiled.
“We are BHC now, across the limits of space and back. boss. We got your back.” A cheer rang through the air behind Micro and Arson smiled at her when she blushed. She hadn’t been much of a speaker before she met Arson, and still didn’t consider herself to be one, but those around her saw the change; and it was a change that Micro wanted Arson to witness if it truly existed.
Arson came to his feet at the banquet table he sat at, and took one look around before everything in the room changed. Arson hadn’t used the full scope of his abilities even after he’d formed a deeper bond with Troy.
He’d tried, and truly thought he had, but Arson could feel something new within, that grew with every rune he learned, but as well, the new foreign energy seemed out of touch. Inaccessible, even when he felt it push him forward.
Those gathered around Arson knew what was to come and took a combined step backward to give their young master the space he needed to perform. Arson clenched his fist, and spoke aloud,
“Gestalt…”