Day three defied Bath's expectations in a fairly big way.

In trying to understand why, Bath came to one conclusion: He had underestimated the density of superhero fanatics that had dropped everything to come to Basalith in the hopes of obtaining super powers. Bath personally didn't see much artistic merit in the superhero franchise with its simple plots and character archetypes. Therefore, he never really considered how, or perhaps more importantly, why, the franchise enjoyed popularity, nor did he consider the ravenousness of its fan base.

Bath thought back to the origins of day three's insanity.

On day two, as soon as all the humans had been released from their training exercises sometime around 6 pm, chaos had broken loose. Utter and complete chaos.

Not that chaos was particularly bad; Bath thought that chaos, when directed in an appropriate direction, had excellent uses. This chaos, however, Bath had needed to step in personally to stop. Not even the kursi had been able to de-escalate the problem, much to his chagrin.

All of the professions had gathered in the dining hall together to await for the Advanced chefs to prepare food. While waiting, people shared information about their acquired boons and what they could do. As people learned about all the different boons, fights began to break out.

Or, they would have broken out if kursi hadn't intervened to manipulate the shell of the group. Bath hadn't given this a second thought, dismissing the almost-conflict as the side-effect of hunger and a long day in an unfamiliar place.

Fast-forward to day three. Bath was minding his own business working on his defensive city plant when Lepochim pressed the node below his ear ten times in rapid succession.

Because Bath found that he was close to finishing the plant, he had withdrawn all his consciousness from the outside and focused his attentions solely on the defense plant's design. As a result, he hadn't been aware of the storm brewing beyond The Anima's basement.

"Bath! Get the hell out here!" Lepochim had hissed. "There are two huge groups of people who are about to get into an enormous fight!"

And so, Bath stopped working on the plant and appeared next to Lepochim. The sour sapient was clearly expending a great deal of effort to contain a glare, the result being that Lepochim's eyes twitched as they fell upon Bath's own.

"Why aren't the kursi doing anything?" Bath asked, his demeanor calm. "I don't know what you expect me to do."

"They're trying!" Lepochim growled. "Usually to diffuse conflicts kursi will change the desires of a group. In general, because groups have diverse people with disparate motivations, controlling the mass group shell is easy. Unfortunately, these zealots," Lepochim spat the word out like it was poison, "are completely unified in their desires, at least those leading to this conflict." Lepochim sighed in frustration and crossed his arms. "The result is that it's much more difficult to influence the emotions of the entire group shell. Even five kursi aren't enough."

"What are they fighting for?" Bath asked, his interest piqued. He had never heard of this theory before. Perhaps Lisa's idea to create a church was a better one than he'd originally thought. If dogma and zealotry could make his forces more resistant to outside kursi influence, amazing.

"They've all decided that they want to have a 'superpower battle.' It's positively absurd. However, they've all been rushing at each other for the past hour with dragonleaf weapons shaped by the more-skilled of the land-shapers. It's that damned constitution boon you gave them," Lepochim said acerbically. "They're tireless; all of them are much tougher, like they don't even feel pain."

"I think that's just the pain tolerance boon," Bath corrected mechanically. He was focused in the huge brawl taking place just outside of the Central Marketplace in the large cavity left behind from where he originally lifted up the constitution-bestowal platform.

"You gave them all pain tolerance boons!?" Lepochim spluttered as he slapped a hand to his face. He took in a deep breath as though steadying himself. "Okay. Can you just stop this fight before they all kill each other?"

Bath gave him an amused look. "Why would I stop this?" Then, without skipping a beat, Bath launched forward and appeared above the crowd. "My very eager humans," he began, his voice full of playful humor. "How about we relocate this fighting somewhere else?"

Even though his voice was lighthearted, it was powerful enough to send shockwaves into all the people below. Since everyone was stunned, the fighting stopped.

"I don't care why you're fighting," Bath smirked, "but, as the Dragon, I approve. Let's say we go to the Arena."

Bath had made the Arena on the first day, though hadn't planned to reveal it for another week. He figured that it wouldn't hurt to unveil it now and give the chaos before him a suitable outlet.

He levitated all of them into the air, taking care to separate them a few feet apart to avoid any aerial conflict, then deposited them into the center of the Arena. He wanted them to see the Arena as he explained what he had in store.

"This is the Arena," he explained aloud in a grand, regal voice lacking any of its previous hilarity. "Here you will be able to test yourselves against one another in whatever ways you wish." Bath made a swiping motion with his hand, causing a giant slab of white to appear, upon which were written some rules.

"Challenges can be made at any time by anyone, to anyone. However, someone can choose to refuse all challenges by default, or they can filter what kinds of challenges they will receive. People may challenge each other on subjects pertaining to each of the professions. For instance, educators can compete in acting challenges since acting involves many of their boons. Contrastingly, ranged fighters can issue shooting matches in which they compete to see who can hit targets most accurately at set distances.

"These are only two examples of infinite challenges that you can think up yourselves. You need only design a challenge and bring it before one of the Arena supervisors before you may issue it to an opponent.

"Guidelines are written on this plaque outlining a few things you can and cannot do."

Having said his introductory statement, Bath watched as the people below began to unfreeze. He appreciated that they waited a full 48 seconds after he finished talking before deciding that they could once again move.

Only fifteen or so seconds was needed before the group split into two halves, each led by an incredibly vocal individual. Bath noted that both were of the adult educator profession.

The one leading the left group held out her staff-shaped dragonleaf weapon and pointed it threateningly at the other group. "You're on," she shouted, clearly responding to some challenge issued previously before Bath appeared. "Let me outline my plan for everyone here. If we all agree, then we can bring it to the supervisor.

"I propose that we hold a real-life LARP. Real weapons. Real armor. Real injuries. Real motherfucking powers!"

Bath narrowed his eyes. Did any of these people even have real powers? He personally considered all of his boons to be rather crude at and below the Expert level. For instance, nobody here could fly, nor did anybody here possess enhanced strength or speed. Why the hell did these people want to challenge each other to a battle?

Bath could only watch on in mild astonishment as the group brought the plan to a kursi that he dragged in from peacekeeping duty and proceeded to fight. The fight itself was actually quite bloody, with lots of people moving long after they should've been out of commission due to constitution and pain resistance. Bath thought that they were trying to squeeze the most that they could out of the two enhancements as proof to themselves that they had preternatural powers.

However, nothing could have prepared Bath for what happened after the battle ended and the man leading one group surrendered to the woman leading the other.

"Oh most glorious benefactor, oh most beneficent drake, oh most transcendent immortal, oh most beloved Dragon, may we make a request?" she asked.

Bath hadn't expected anyone to call up to him while he watched the goings-on below. He shrugged to himself; why not? The woman had even spent all that effort to butter him up.

"Speak."

The woman bowed her head in supplication before continuing. "Resplendent Bath, might we request the ability to form two factions, that of Dawn and that of Dusk, to represent the two times of day at which the sun creates the color of your banner?"

Bath would have raised an eyebrow in incredulity were he not pretending to be so serious. "For what reason?" He wondered offhandedly how the woman came up with the "Resplendency" form of address.

"Two factions, Resplendency, will enable us to compete against one another."

Bath thought it over for a minute. Competition did sound like a good thing...

"Fine. Your wish has been heard and granted." He felt like he should've given the request more thought, but didn't see the harm two factions could make. Moreover, if they proved problematic, he could always disband them.

All the people on the Arena field with the ability to move (which was, thankfully, most present) got down on a single knee and bowed. Then, the woman spoke again.

"Might we request the creation of two crests for the factions and matching tabards to wear over our garments?"

Bath frowned. "A tabard?"

The woman's eyes grew wide, fearful. "Resplendency, a tabard is a garment that may be worn over one's clothes. It's express purpose it to show allegiance to a cause."

In the time the woman explained the word, Bath used a computer back at The Anima to google the word. Since the first thing to come up with was a tabard from a video game, Bath felt that he had a pretty good idea why these people before him were asking for them.

"Sure," Bath replied to the woman's request. Instantly, two images appeared in the air. Each appeared to be a half circle, with one the circle's upper half and the other the lower half. Two tabards then appeared out of thin air, one white, the other black. Upon the white tabard was the upper half of the circle, and upon the black the lower half, both sunset-orange.

"These two tabards represent the duality between light and dark, incarnate in both the Church and myself. Which side claims black?"

The woman faced the man leading the other group. After a moment of staring, the man hesitantly raised his arm. "Resplendency, we claim the black."

Bath nodded, then generated black and white tabards upon the people of each side. He personally healed the injured before putting tabards on them since Basalith didn't currently have any doctors. That would be a post-Expert-tier caretaker path.

"Just tell any you recruit to your banner to say the words Dawn or Dusk, respectively, with an appropriate level of fervor. I will ensure that they, too receive a tabard."

---

By dinner time of day three, literally every single human in Basalith aside from Lisa and the kursi were wearing black or white tabards.

Every. Single. One.

A few hours after the factions had been established, Bath generated new tabards practically every second as he answered calls of faction allegiance.

Before the day was over, each faction had its own interior hierarchy and its own mythos derived from that available on COTD's website.

"This is a complete disaster!" Lisa had lamented as soon as she left The Anima and saw what was going on. "Why do we have two factions? Bath, these organizations are going to create hierarchies not based on anything substantial but on connections, just like in the current outside world."

"They really wanted factions," Bath replied hotly, feeling a bit defensive. "Anyways, I think we can use this to our advantage to create two orders of priests."

Lisa's mouth curved into a grimace as she processed his words. "We don't need people worshiping us. We aren't, you know, really gods."

Bath's eyes narrowed. "I think you're underestimating how much they need to worship us. People like to believe in things greater than themselves. They see us as the dual representations of their god, the deity of the Church of the Dragon. They want to worship us.

"I say, let them."

Lisa looked at Bath for a long moment, her face devoid of expression. "I don't like this," the murmured at last. "It feels...so false."

"Perhaps necessary," Bath said before explaining what he learned from Lepochim about zealotry's use in resisting shell manipulation.

And so, with Lisa's grudging acceptance, the actual church of COTD was formed.