Lisa called Bath a while later.

"Can you come pick me up?" she asked, nervous sounding. "Like, quickly."

"What's the matter?"

"A group of people are chasing me, that's what!" Lisa fumed. "I finally got away from them. For now."

"How on Earth are you unable to outrun normal people?" Bath asked, his voice full of scathing amusement. He knew better than anyone else Lisa's new capabilities.

"It's New York! They walk at the speed of light," Lisa complained. "Moreover, when people see a giant crowd chasing someone...and then they realize that someone is the superpowered wonderwoman from the news taking credit for the appearance of dragonleaf..."

"Let me guess, they join in the chase?"

"Evidently. I have no idea what they're expecting to get out of me; I would mind manipulate them away except for the fact that I'd be manipulating so many people."

Bath frowned to himself. "You have a limit to the number of people in a group that you can influence?" Bath asked.

Lisa sounded insulted. "Of course not! Who do you think I am? No, I just have morals! I can't touch the shells of the group of people chasing me without influencing a few city blocks' worth of normal people."

Bath coughed. "Lisa, do you know how ridiculous that sounds, especially coming from you?" Bath could think of innumerable instances in which Lisa had frivolously abused her mind manipulation, such as that one time at the concert. She was hesitating to extricate herself from this problem because of some random New Yorkers?

"That was then. Now, I have to be responsible."

"Lisa, you said you're hiding? Does the Church hide from anyone, anything?"

Lisa was silent.

"You need to go out there and mind manipulate them into submission; that's just as much an ability you can flaunt as the strength I gave you. You're a kursi who's on the path to universal domination; you can't let your image of supremacy be tarnished so easily."

"You're so..." Lisa struggled for words, then sighed. She closed her eyes as she sat in the alleyway. She didn't like the idea of mind manipulating the people who were chasing her...didn't want their Church to have a policy based around "Might Makes Right." Just because she could manipulate everyone chasing her, she had a gut feeling that she shouldn't manipulate them if it meant drawing in others who were minding their own business. Bath was right: she had used her manipulation for frivolous things in the past. Back then, she didn't know about other kursi. She didn't know anything, actually.

Lisa felt light headed as she considered the fact that "back then" was less than a month ago. And yet, it felt as though everything had changed.

That was when Lisa suddenly thought of an idea.

"Bath. I'll deal with the people, but you still need to pick me up."

"I'll be there in a few minutes."

---

"New Yorkers who have followed me in pursuit of the Way of the Dragon, I now reward your persistence!" Lisa's voice boomed downward to a crowd of a few thousand. She was currently standing on a streetlight. "All here will be granted a single basic boon by the Church of the Dragon." As Lisa spoke, she touched the node that had reappeared about ten seconds ago on her ear. Bath was close, and would be able to hear the message if she opened up their line of communication.

"The boon granted...will be health. Any health problems will be eliminated."

"Audacious," Bath whispered to Lisa through a spontaneously generated mouth behind her ear. "This is going to rile them up."

Lisa smiled faintly. She had gotten these people concentrated in an area with few random bystanders. Now, she could influence their shells without worry. She currently was touching the collective shell of the group to make its contained people docile, receptive, and trusting. As a result, instead of questioning what she had just said or leaving without hope, the massive crowd stayed in place.

"Now," Lisa said calmly. "Stay calm. Envision the dragon." Though Lisa had no way of verifying whether or not people were envisioning a dragon or not, she had rendered the crowd extremely suggestive. She'd be very surprised if even a single one of them wasn't envisioning a dragon.

"Now," Lisa said softly, barely moving her lips. She heard a short, barking laugh sound in her ear just before Bath began.

Beneath the crowd of people wafted a wispy, whitish-blue substance. It moved as though following the path of a great wind, though the air was still and the many bodies blocked what little wind there was from the bulk of the crowd. After a few moments, the substance seemed to grow more opaque and began to tendril around each individual person. Finally, after most people were surrounded by a swirling strand of Bath's essence, the strand dissipated, becoming fully gaseous. Then, it flew into the mouths and noses of the people present.

The crowd collectively gasped as the mist entered each body at precisely the same moment. Coughing ensued; were Lisa not manipulating the shells of the people present, they would likely be in various states of panic. They could feel that their bodies were...changing.

Sure, Lisa has told them that they'd be cured of their health problems, but they hadn't actually believed her. Even if she supposedly had superhuman powers, that was just too good to be true. And she'd called "being cured of all health problems" a basic boon; no matter what a boon was, how could a basic one be so incredible?

In reality, Lisa was correct to call this a basic boon. After all, according to Lisa's hierarchy, no single societal position had a monopoly of "health." Under Bath, all people could technically be freed from their health problems and handicaps. The blind would be able to see, the sick would be healed, etc. Lisa knew that if Bath had his mind set to the task of curing all conditions of people on Earth, he could theoretically just spend about a week going everywhere and curing everyone within his range of influence.

But, of course, this was only in theory: she knew that Bath wasn't the type to spend his time doing monotonous things like granting people abilities and boons...and yet Bath-granted abilities and boons were the center of the new society Lisa had roughly sketched out. She actually didn't know how Bath was planning on implementing this vision based on her understanding of his capabilities.

It was something he'd have to figure out.

In the chaos resulting out of the health boon bestowal, Bath whisked Lisa away and quickly internalized her into his body. Then, he flew off for Alens.

---

Lepochim was watching the development of events around Earth with pointed interest. Bath and Lisa were certainly making a large impression. He had expected them to start things a bit more low key: slowly building up influence before finally making a grand entrance.

Regardless of how things had actually occurred, there was no turning back now.

Lepochim regarded the kursi and mind slaves that had been put under his control.

"Orange and red teams, the fight will commence in fifteen seconds. Prepare yourselves." Lepochim watched the two teams of ten from the Ritus mansion's balcony. He had a serious expression on his face as he regarded the two sides. Each of the teams was stationed on opposite shores of the lake. Lepochim was actually very far away from both teams; only his excellent vision and newly-installed speaker system allowed him to engage the teams from the headquarters itself.

In the beginning, the kursi would flinch and show expressions of abject fear when Lepochim had addressed them. Now, their faces remained serious and calm, reflections of his own, even as he told them the match was about to commence. They were growing stronger; with that growth came the realization that Lepochim's training methods, while brutal, worked.

The two teams quickly sprung into action once the timer counted down and Lepochim signaled that the match was on. A few kursi from each team moved forward around the edge of the lake, rushing to the raft Lepochim had installed one hundred feet out from the lower curve of the lake. Equidistant between both teams' starting points, a large determiner in who was able to use the raft's resources was each team member's range of shell manipulation.

The stronger the kursi--mentally and physically--the greater chance they had of seizing the assets on the raft and gaining an advantage in the coming fight. The ideal situation was to have such a large range that one could use shell manipulation as far away as the raft. If this was the case, physical strength wouldn't matter. As this was not the case, being able to run quickly to the raft was a large factor in determining who controlled it.

One of the orange team came within range of the people on the raft first, quickly utilizing mind control to force the people to row towards the orange team's shore.

This didn't necessarily mean that the orange team would win. In this match, however, the orange team was ultimately victorious.

"Good," Lepochim murmured to himself. Things were coming along. The human kursi were far below universal standards, but proved to be fast learners. They really were kursi of the 8th affinity level.

---

Bath relied on Lisa to give him news updates as they both worked on their school work. It had really started to pile up while they were gone; missing a week of school wasn't a laughing manner.

He could check the news himself, but found Lisa's commentary to be hilarious.

"They called me magical wonderwoman again," Lisa frowned. "I'm the Church, damn it," she grumbled. "Magical wonderwoman is even a hash tag on twitter now. #magicalww. Who the hell started calling me that?"

"Are you going to get any actual work done?" Bath smirked.

"Hey, how am I supposed to think straight when the world is calling me such a horrible name? Wonder Woman is already taken! I'm not Wonder Woman!" Lisa pouted indignantly. "You know what, wait a second..."

Bath left Lisa to her own devices as he continued to work. After about half an hour, Lisa sighed contentedly. "There."

"What?"

"I updated the website. Now, it has a page called 'Leadership.'"

"Shouldn't you be calling it 'Deities'?"

Lisa frowned. "The entire point of the Church of the Dragon is to not worship deities. It's to find self-actualization by following the models of the Church and the Dragon. We're leaders rather than gods."

Bath gave her a confused expression. "Then why aren't we just a secular organization? Why are we a church?"

"Because, people need something to believe in that's greater than themselves. Religion seems perfect."

"Don't people already have their own religions?" Bath pointed out. "Why would they start believing in the Church of the Dragon?"

Lisa gave Bath a rather annoyed look. "Well, first off, people don't need to renounce their old religions to join the Church of the Dragon. It's like...The Ba'hai faith," Lisa explained. "I haven't finished working out the whole theology yet."

"So what, you're going to make up something like all religions are branches of the Church of the Dragon?" Bath asked incredulously. It sounded pretty farfetched.

"No. I'm going to say that the Church of the Dragon is one representation of an infinite greater truth that has been revealed through other religions. In the universe, things come in pairs. The sexes, light and dark, being and not being. Things also come in trinities, generally things spiritual in nature."

"I've been doing a lot of research. There's actually an ancient Chinese religion that talks about both dualities and trinities in different contexts. Again, I'm still doing some research on this, but I think that this religion might be a good starting point for us to work with."

"Why?" Bath was completely perplexed. Why would an ancient Chinese religion help them?

"The religion revolves around the idea that all things are transformations of other things. It talks extensively about nonbeing and emptiness and about how there are many infinite paths in the universe that lead to greater truths and enlightenment.

"If we can talk about how all religions are slices of enlightenment, are valid and complete paths that people may follow, then it'll be easier for us."

"...And where does the Church of the Dragon come into this? You're going to say that we're simply one of the paths that people can follow, then?"

Lisa nodded. "Essentially. But based on the framework I laid out, where innumerable paths lead forward...why wouldn't people choose the Church of the Dragon?"

Bath shrugged. "I suppose I see your reasoning. What is the old religion this is all based on again?"

Lisa cocked her head. "Technically, it isn't a religion; it's more of a philosophy. But that's just because it's a framework. It lays down principles and talks about how everything is connected without telling people what to do about it. That's why I can't call it a religion: it teaches, but doesn't demand."

"Its name?"

"Oh. Daoism."

"Interesting." Bath resolved to do a bit more research later...after he finished all this blasted work he still had to do.

Suddenly, he received a notification from his phone. It was an email calling for him to meet with his Dean. Apparently, the Dean had looked at his schedule and assigned him a time to meet...today!? In an hour?

Bath hissed. "What kind of notice is that?" he was fairly certain that more notice was absolutely required. That was when he realized that this was actually the second message in the conversation stack...the original message with the meeting time had been sent four days ago.

Feeling a bit foolish, Bath coughed once, then looked outside the window of Lisa's suite. He had so much work to do...

---

One of the two currently manifested Bath's was in the Dean's office, the other with Lisa.

"Hello, Bath," Ellis' Dean, Dr. Greenberg, said warmly. "It's nice to see you."

"Hello, Dr. Greenberg." Bath was fairly annoyed that he had been called in to meet with the Dean. After all, he'd already met with her once before and then gone to see a school psychologist. What did the Dean want?

"You must be wondering why you're here," Ellis said as she crossed her hands. "You've been called back for a follow-up psychological review by Dr. Yin."

"Who?" Bath asked, frowning. He was certain that he'd passed the psychological evaluation. He hadn't said anything remotely worrying; moreover, he answered the questions on the test innocuously enough.

"The psychologist you met with last time, Betty Yin."

"Oh." Bath hadn't known her name. "Why; did I fail the evaluation?"

The Dean now looked a tad uncomfortable. "Technically, no, but Dr. Yin seems to think that you fabricated your test results."

Bath gave the Dean an incredulous look. "Fabricated my test results? Why?"

The Dean seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable as she beheld the seemingly distressed young college freshman before her. "She refused to say because of confidentiality. Either way, since you agreed to see a psychologist and get an evaluation, since the evaluation you took has been effectively voided..."

Bath sighed. Better to just get this farce over with. "Fine. When?"