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Chapter 431 – Heat Based Vision
Surprisingly, in an incident that had nearly 20 terrorists working in it, there were zero casualties.
The terrorists made sure that absolutely no one was killed until the royal palace responded to their demands.
If anything, the only ones that died were the terrorists, except for the one guy that Ning managed to save by making him give himself up to the police.
The police had come to him, later on, to question exactly what happened. Ning explained it the best he could and since the royal family's people also helped in the situation, he wasn't questioned a lot.
The owner of the zoo thanked him profusely and made sure to give some sort of compensation for what Ning did.
Ning didn't want anything in return, still, he was given some money for his troubles. Ning accepted it in the end and went back to the hotel.
He laid on his bed, remembering the events that took place today. "So there can be times when Aether is more helpful than my energy, huh?" he thought.
Using Aether, he could mimic the strong body cultivation he had previously with his other body. While it wouldn't be as strong, still the fact that he could have a very strong body whenever he wanted, would be useful to him.
"I will have to practice that quite a bit though," he thought. Spending many seconds just imagining a strong body before actually getting a strong body wasn't the best choice in a fight.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. He was confused. "Who's there?" he shouted.
"Sir, you have visitors," a staff spoke from the outside.
"I… have visitors?" he was confused. He stood up and walked up to the door. He opened it and was surprised to see the two people standing there.
"Lisa, Reever, what are you guys doing here?" he asked.
"Brother Ning, I heard you were there in the zoo today, during the hostage situation. Dear Alexis, that must've been terrifying, " Reever asked.
"Huh? Yeah, I was there. How did you learn about it?" he asked.
"We heard from Fiona. Thank you for saving my elder brother" Lisa said with a curtsy bow.
"Oh, it's alright. Come on in, we can talk inside," he said and opened the door fully. Lisa and Reever walked in and Ning tried to close the door.
Just then, he felt a gust of wind pass him in a very unnatural manner. His eyes suddenly got serious and he stepped back, looking all around him. however, he couldn't see anything.
His vision suddenly shifted, and he started seeing things in all red, blue, and green. This was a heat-based vision he had bought while working with the beasts in the zoo. He didn't want any beasts to sneak up on it, so he bought it as a precaution.
Suddenly, in his vision, there were 3 humanoid figures, all yellow or orange in color. Ning's vision shifted once more and he could see normally again. Except, one of the 3 humans was no longer visible.
"Who's there?" he asked. He suddenly grabbed a candlestick from the table and aimed it where the person should have been.
"Brother Ning?" Reever was surprised.
"Get back, someone is here," he said. "Reveal yourself or I will—"
"Alright kid, relax," a voice came from ahead of Ning. The air seemed to distort as a person appeared in it.
"You?" Ning asked when he saw Fiona pop out of the air once more.
"Oh, I forgot to mention. we had Fiona guarding us today," Lisa said.
"Eh? then why stay invisible? she could've shown herself," he asked
"Well, I had my reasons," she said as she turned towards Ning with a big smile. "Kid, how did you know I was invisible?" she asked.
"I felt the air move when you entered," Ning said.
"Oh," her eyes perked up. "And what about later? How did you know exactly where I was?"
Ning looked at her, trying to understand her intentions. Instead of answering, he asked, "how are you able to go invisible?"
Fiona's smile remained ever unchanging as she said, "That's a family secret of mine."
"Well, then how I saw you is a secret of mine too," she said.
"I see," Fiona said. She didn't seem to be angry with the response she got. "You said you wanted to be her highness's bodyguard right?" she asked.
"Yeah…" Ning said, wondering what she was going to talk about.
"Do you still want to?" she asked.
"I mean, yeah. Of course," Ning said.
"Do you want to become one right now?" she asked.
Ning was surprised. He didn't expect an invitation to come this easily, although that was part of the reason why he saved the prince in the first place.
Reever and Lisa were both surprised and happy, they looked at Ning expectantly.
"Don't I have to be a certified Aether Magister from the tower if I want to become a guard? That was what Mister Tim told me," Ning said.
"Who are you kidding, young man? You defeated an Aether king, 3 Aether Magister, and multiple Aether Grandmasters by yourself. If you had told Mister Tim you were this powerful, he would've never told you to leave at all," She said.
"So… I can join right now if I want to? Without having to be certified by the tower?" he asked.
"Yes," Fiona said.
Ning thought for a while and asked, "Can I join part-time?"
"Part-time?" Fiona was confused.
"You see… I got accepted in the Aether Tower, and I want to go there to learn more about Aether, so if it is okay with me only working half the time, then I can join right now," Ning said.
"You joined the Aether Tower, brother Ning? Congratulations," Reever said. Lisa congratulated him too.
Fiona thought for a moment to see if it was acceptable or not. She knew it wasn't. Having a guard that was missing half the time was just not possible to keep around.
But… she really wanted Ning to come under her.
So, she put her hands forth and said, "Welcome to the team, kid."
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Chapter 432 – First Day Of Class
Ning dodged a sword coming from the front. He twisted his incredibly strong physical body in midair and did a backflip to get out of the range of the short sword.
Jamie dashed forward once again to close the gap and hit Ning. Ning immediately turned around and imagined a rocky wall between him and Jamie.
The wall started forming from the ground, but before it could fully form, Jamie had already stopped and maneuvered around the wall to attack Ning.
The sword came at Ning's throat and stopped right before it could hit him. Ning had lost the match.
He sighed. Fighting with only Aether was really hard. "Good fight," he said to Jamie and wiped his sweats off.
Jamie nodded and sheathed his sword before walking away. The young man never spoke, or rather he couldn't. He was also a dud when it came to Aether, as in he wasn't able to use Aether at all.
Ning felt a little salty when he lost to someone with no Aether, but Jamie was seriously one of the strongest people he had seen on this planet.
Ning didn't doubt that if he was fighting against an Invoker that was Aether King, or maybe even Aether Emperor, he would surely win.
Since Enchanters could control the opponent's body, Ning wasn't sure how well Jamie could handle that.
He could've won his bout against Jamie just now, but he found that it wasn't very helpful during training since he would learn nothing.
He left the place to go take a shower before leaving the palace. After all, he didn't want to go to his first day of class with a sweaty body.
After wearing a robe-like outfit that only the people from Aether Towers wore, he left the palace.
It took him 20 minutes, and despite being able to use carriages, he walked his way to the tower.
Ning looked at the clock in his pocket to learn that it was 13:48 when he reached the tower.
The classes started at 14:00 and went on until 20:00 for 6 hours a day. He didn't know what he was going to learn, how he was going to learn, or anything else in between, but he was still feeling somewhat enthusiastic about it all.
Ning showed his new student ID at the gate and walked in.
He wasn't sure where he had to go exactly, so he went around looking for his class.
Along the way, he saw a statue of a female with a tall slender body, long flowing hair, a beautiful pair of eyes that only held majesty in them.
She held a wooden staff in her hand and wore a rather revealing set of robes. The statue itself held no names to it, or any denotation of when it was made.
All Ning could tell was that it was a beautiful piece of art.
He looked away from the statue and quickly went to find his classes. He couldn't do it on his own, he had to ask someone for help.
He quickly went to an elevator and rode it to the 5th floor where his class was being held.
He found his class soon enough and entered it. When he did, he was surprised at the size of the class.
It was very small. He didn't think the class was small when compared to the classes he used to teach in Kumia that could hold nearly 3 thousand different disciples.
No, this class was smaller than even the most normal of classes he could remember.
He looked around at merely 12 desks that could hold 3 students each, set up in a 3 by 4 row in the small room, facing a blackboard in front of them.
When he looked at the students in the class, he was even more surprised. There were about 30 students in there at the moment, and only 4 of them were barely any old.
The rest of the students were all kids that didn't even seem to be 10 years old yet. "No way, am I studying with actual kids?" Ning thought.
Ning walked in and went to one of the desks with one of the 4 older students and sat on it.
The one sitting there was a young girl with slightly brown hair. Ning looked around and saw that she was the only girl amongst the group of 5 adults.
"Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Ning," Ning introduced himself to her with a hand put forth for a shake.
The girl turned towards him but didn't shake his hands. Instead, she nodded a little towards him and said, "Hello, I am Rachel."
Ning put his hands down as it didn't look like he was getting a shake. He looked around at the classroom and was still confused as to why the kids were there.
"Sorry to bother you, but am I in the right place? I'm a new student of the tower and am starting today. Someone told me I was to come here, but I'm not sure if this is it or not," he asked.
"New student? Yeah, you are in the right place," the girl said. "I am a new student too."
The girl seemed pretty comfortable with speaking to him, despite not wanting to shake his hands. Ning wondered what that was about.
"Eh? Then why are there all the kids here? That seems really weird," Ning said.
"Huh? What do you mean the kids are weird?" Rachel asked. "It's us who are weird."
Ning was confused. "Sorry, what do you mean by that?"
"Do you not know much about the tower or what?" she asked.
"You could say that," Ning said.
"Oh, then I guess that makes sense," the girl said.
"You see, the tower's objective is to teach kids how to use Aether from a young age. They go around searching for capable kids and bring them here to teach them."
"Teaching us adults is not their primary focus at all.. That's why you see so many kids and so few adults."
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Chapter 433 – Sherry's Aether Lesson
Ning looked around at the room. The 25 or so kids there all looked way too young to be there, but he understood that the tower wanted to teach them young and had thus brought them here.
'Us adults are just getting a second chance at it, eh?' he thought. He then looked at the other 3 'adults'.
There were 2 men and 1 girl, all sitting on the same bench. They were on the 4th row of the 3rd column, meaning they were sitting at the corner of the room. He could tell that their age was upwards of 15 for sure, but couldn't tell their age beyond that.
What he could tell from their awkwardness was this was definitely the first they had talked with each other.
Meanwhile, Ning and Rachel were sitting in the 4th row of the 1st column.
He wondered why she decided to stay so far apart from them. Was she not a talkative type? That shouldn't have been the case. From how she talked earlier, he could see that she wasn't particularly unsocial, so he couldn't understand why she wouldn't sit near someone closer to her ace.
"So only 5 of us got chosen from so many people that came to get admitted huh? That's quite a low number. I would've assumed more would be able to get in," Ning said.
"The tower only has a quota of 5 people every 5 weeks. Just be glad that you had enough talent to get in. I heard that if you are rejected once, you can never go back to take the test again," she said.
"Yeah, I can see why that is. Since one can't possibly change their potential, it wouldn't make sense to get tested for the same thing twice. It's not like the result is gonna change," Ning said.
"Although, the potential isn't everything though. I wonder why they never bothered to check for talents," he spoke to himself.
"Why would they check for talent? What good is talent without potential?" she asked.
"I mean, potential helps a lot for someone, but that's not the only way to get stronger is it?" he asked.
"What other way is there?" Rachel looked at him with a weird look. "Unless you are rich enough to buy the occasional Aether ores that show up in the auction houses, it's pretty much impossible to get stronger without having the potential."
Ning wanted to explain how wrong she was in her thought. There were absorption techniques that one could use, even the ones with the worst potential, who could train up to become strong in due time.
Ning himself had never met anyone that did use the absorption technique, but he knew it worked because he had given it to Famir and Mavenna when he had first arrived.
He even used it himself. Heck, he was using it right now. With his automatic absorption technique, he was consistently taking in Aether from the surrounding, and when it reached a full, due to his incredible potential thanks to his new body, he would break through to the next level on its own.
Ning wanted to explain that, but he wondered if he should. Just as he was deliberating, a woman walked into the room.
She wore a dress of white and purple. Her hair tied in a ponytail behind her showed off her beautiful fair skin. She looked to be around 30 years old, but given how Aether also delayed aging, he couldn't be sure.
She was about 160 centimeters tall, so she was quite short in height, but her lean body made her look taller than she was.
She held a stack of books in her hand and walked up to the podium. She turned around to look at her new students, her sapphire-like eyes glistening with light.
She started pointing towards all of them one by one while mumbling something on her own. Once finished, she finally spoke.
"I see you are all here," the lady said with a gentle smile on her face. "Good morning! I will be your teacher from this day forward. You can call me teacher Sherry."
"Good Morning, teacher Sherry," the kids greeted her. The adults were a step behind, but they also greeted her.
Ning felt a little awkward during all this, but it was also fun in its own way.
"Please go around introducing yourself," Sherry told them. One by one, the kids started introducing themselves to each other, followed by the adults.
Ning learned the name of the other 3 students in their class to be Henry, Thomas, and Marie.
Once done, the teacher finally started the class.
"Since today is the first day of studies, I won't teach you many things, just the most basic of stuff," she said.
"Do you kids know what Aether is?" she asked.
Some kids nodded, some gave a confused look. As for the adults, everyone aside from Ning shook their heads to let her know they were not sure.
It wasn't that they were ignorant about Aether, but rather they weren't sure if what they had learned from the outside was true or not.
"Aether," She said as she walked away from the podium towards the students, "is a type of energy. To make something happen, you need energy, right? That's what Aether does."
Sherry explained to the kids what energy was.
"Although, don't confuse it with normal energy. It is very different from them all. Unlike normal energy like Heat or Sound, Aether cannot change to a different type of energy, and furthermore, it can be destroyed."
"Aether is also known to exist as a liquid in the purest of forms," Sherry said as she brought out a piece of rock. "It can also exist in a solid form or a gaseous form around us. "
"Other energies don't have form. Heat, mechanical, or any other type of energy, you can't find them in a physical form. At least we don't know of them having forms yet.. That makes Aether a one-of-a-kind energy that is truly unique."
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Chapter 434 – Incorrect Lesson
Ning listened to Sherry explain about Aether and couldn't help but shake his head at how wrong she was.
Aether was unique, yes, but the reasons she gave for Aether being unique was nothing but a lie. Or at least it was misinformation due to a lack of knowledge about the fundamentals of the universe.
Aether was a rare type of energy that could only be found on some planets in the universe. Ning didn't expect a teacher to have knowledge of this so he said nothing.
What he didn't expect her to be wrong on was that Aether could have Solid, Liquid, or Gaseous forms.
That was just plain wrong. Aether had none of those forms. Aether was just a type of energy. Like all the other types of energies, it held no physical form.
What it did do was find a certain solution of liquid, native to worlds like these and inhabit it. That small, violet liquid was what the world really knew as Aether, when in fact Aether was just energy that inhabited that liquid.
Similarly, for rocks, that same liquid was trapped in those ores that made Aether ores. As for being gaseous, it was small molecules of this same liquid flying independently in the air.
So, Aether, the liquid did have different forms as the teacher explained, but that was not really the Aether. The real Aether held no form.
Another thing the teacher said that was wrong was that Aether, unlike other energies didn't transform to different types of energies and only remained in one form. She also said that Aether, unlike the rest of the different types of energy, could be destroyed.
He could see why she would think that, but that was wrong as well. Aether followed all the rules of the universe. It was just that, the rules of the universe the teacher knew had some information missing.
Aether could transform into other types of energy, but it required something as a medium to do so. It couldn't do it on its own.
And that medium was the humans.
When an Enchanter used their Aether on something, the Aether in their bodies would change the property to become a different form of energy.
It would become mechanical energy if the enchanter wanted to move something or strengthen something. It would become sound energy if the enchanter wanted something to make noise. It would become heat energy if the enchanter wanted something to get hot.
In this way, the Enchanters were able to transform Aether to another type of energy.
As for the destruction of Aether, the most usual example given was an Invoker. An Invoker would create objects using Aether. However, after some time, depending on the creator's strength, that object would also be gone.
The people of this world took that as a roundabout way of Aether getting destroyed. However, that was not true at all.
When an invoker used their skills to create an object, they weren't just creating a physical object. They were also transforming the Aether in them to be part of whatever object they created.
The physical aspect of the object would be some part of the Aether, while the energy would be the other part.
At the end of the day, when the object disappeared, all the energy in the physical part of the object, including the object itself would return back to being Aether and disappear into the wind.
That was all. There was no destruction or anything. It was just Invoker turning Energy into different energy and physical object at the same time, which returned back to being Aether.
Ning knew that the teacher wasn't knowingly spreading misinformation, and wanted to correct her, but he didn't see the need to. In fact, he felt that this sort of revelation might bring up questions as to where he learned it or how he learned it.
He didn't want to deal with those troubles right now.
The teacher continued. "Not everyone in the world is born with the ability to use Aether, but they can acquire it if they were to be exposed to something rich in Aether. For example the ore I just showed you," She said. "Unfortunately, these items are incredibly expensive and not everyone can get them."
Finally, the teacher got something right. Ning nodded when she said it. He remembered back in the day when he gave Famir the juices of the fruit to awaken him as an Aether user.
"However, Potential and Talent is set from birth and it can't be changed at all. The most you can do is practice to be good at what you can do and stick with it," the teacher said.
Ning sighed, surprising Rachel who looked at him with a weird face. The teacher was wrong once again. Ning didn't want to think about it when he just had the same thing happen with Rachel.
He ignored his thoughts and listened to the conversation.
"You guys have some of the best potentials we have seen in a long time. Especially, you two there at the corner. I hear you are the cream of the crop this year with sky-high potential," Sherry said as she stared at Ning and Rachel.
"Now let's hope you can make good use of it."
Ning looked to the side in a bit of surprise. He remembered his results on the day of the tests, so for someone else to be called a genius alongside him, he was curious just how good Rachel was.
Rachel too was similarly surprised. She didn't think she would be compared with Ning and looked at him with a hint of shock on her face.
"The rest of you are not bad either. You are the best of the best, chosen from all around the country to be able to become proficient in Aether. Make sure you don't waste it," she said.
"Alright, let's move on. Since we are talking about Aether, let's continue talking about it. More accurately, let's talk about the user side of the Aether," she said.
A book flew from the desk and landed gracefully on her hand which she opened and read.
"Let's start with Enchanters."
Chapter 435 – Enchanters And Invokers
Sherry started teaching about Enchanters. Her tone, mannerisms, choice of words she used to explain the things she did, all told Ning that her primary focus while teaching wasn't the adults, but the little kids.
He understood that, but still listening to a teacher use child-like language to teach the rest of the class felt ridiculous to him.
Still, he learned quite a few things from her that he probably would have needed a lot of time to learn about.
The enchanters had it very easy. Their system of Aether was the easiest to learn and master, and it also had many different applications that an Invoker didn't have.
Enchanters could use their Aether as Telekinesis, or they could use it to strengthen something or to head something. To make something buzz. As long as one's imagination of something was accurate, one could do nearly anything.
The amount of Aether they used depended on the size, shape, material, intensity, and various other factors. So, no one could really quantify how much Aether would be used for just a simple task.
On the other side of the spectrum were Invokers. Invokers could only create stuff. They couldn't even manipulate what they created. Creating stuff itself was a difficult task to begin with as well.
Just imagination didn't help one while creating. Imagination was just there to turn a concept in the mind into a physical form. Invokers still needed to know the making of an object before they created it.
They needed to have interacted with something before or knew enough about it from just learning about it before they could make it.
This was why creating stuff required more time than just simply manipulating one. This was why Invokers were frowned upon during battle and were rarely accepted in military positions.
The amount of Aether used by an Invoker depended on the object they created, the complexity of the object, and so on.
Sherry gave an example of it. She had Marie, the other girl from the adult who was an invoker, create a block of ice for the room.
Marie seemed to have had practice before and in just a few seconds, she managed to create a block of ice about half a meter wide.
The little kids watched in awe. They were still young, so they weren't advanced enough in the ways of Aether and could only create small stuff. So when they saw the massive block of ice forming on the table, they couldn't help but be surprised.
Sherry put forth her hand and the block of ice floated in mid-air. She then placed it next to the door of the classroom and started heating it. Pretty soon, the ice turned into water, and the water into steam and flew into the sky.
The students were all very surprised at this. Even the adult ones were surprised because of how fast Sherry was able to make the block of ice disappear. They couldn't help but wonder just what her rank was.
Sherry looked back at the shocked class and smiled. She then looked at Marie and said, "I want you to create ice once again."
"Okay," Marie responded and looked in front of her to create ice there.
"However," Sherry interrupted Marie's thinking, bringing the attention back to her. "This time, I want the block of ice to look like me."
Marie was about to nod when she realized what was being asked of her. "Sorry, teacher. Do you want me to make an ice sculpture?" she asked with a confused voice.
"Yes," Sherry said. "That is exactly what I want you to do. Since you were able to create an ice block, you should be able to create that too right?"
"Um, I've never tried making a statue before, but I can try," Marie said. She looked at Sherry as well as she could to imprint the image onto her mind and then used that image to imagine an ice version of it.
Thinking of something that she had never seen before was hard, but since knew about ice, she really didn't have to imagine an ice sculpture itself.
White mist drifted from her hands onto the table that started to take form into a humanoid shape. The mist then started to solidify into ice.
At first, there was nothing to the ice but the vague shape of a human, but slowly it started taking better shape as details started to appear on it.
The tiny details were hard to remember, and Marie had to open her eyes multiple times to look at sherry in front of her.
In the end, after 5 minutes, with a head full of beads of sweat, Marie managed to create… a rather ugly statue of Sherry.
The details weren't all very accurate, and that could be blamed on the artistic talent of Marie. However, the time it took for her to make the statue had very little to do with her artistic talent.
She wiped her forehead and looked up front to see the smiling face of Sherry. "How was it?" Sherry asked.
"It… it was hard," Marie said.
"Good, and how low are you on Aether?" Sherry asked.
Marie focused on herself and her eyes went wide when she realized that she had lost half of her Aether already. That much aether would take at least a day to gather back.
"What? How?" Marie asked with surprise.
"Complexity," Sherry answered. "The more complex a task, the harder it is to create, and required more Aether."
"What I asked her to do was rather easy to do. All she had to do was create Ice and give it shape. But, imagine I told her to make the shape out of metal. And not one metal, but multiple ones."
"Make an arm out of steel. A leg out of iron. The head from bronze. The clothes from brass."
"She wouldn't have a problem with the shape, but now the material is adding to the complexity of what she had to create."
"Of course, it gets easier with time and you learn more and more how to create something efficiently.. But, the cost of aether forever remains the same."
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Chapter 436 – Alexis
The first class of the day was over. It was spent doing nothing but teaching the fundamentals of Aether.
Ning was really happy to learn a lot about it. He knew quite a lot about Aether already, but still learning the creativity with how people used it, or the socio-political aspects of Enchanters and Invokers, that was invaluable.
Ning was sure that if left alone, it would've taken him a really long time before he figured out there was something like that.
After the first class ended, Ning was really surprised to see Sherry leave, and another teacher walked in.
He wondered what that teacher was going to teach when he started writing numbers on the blackboard.
"Eh?" Ning and the rest of the 4 adults were surprised. They were being taught math.
It wasn't even difficult math either. They were being taught some basic addition and subtraction.
This was a class for children, yes, but Ning still didn't expect maths to be taught to them as well.
That was when the teacher turned towards them with a weird face and told them that they could leave if they wanted to.
The next relevant subject for them would be taught after the break. Until then, they could go hang out in the tower.
The 5 of them awkwardly stood up and walked out of the class. After lunch… that was at around 17 o'clock. Until then they were free to do whatever they wanted as long as they were on the premises of the tower.
Ning wasn't sure where he could go, so he asked the others. Thomas, a short-haired, square-faced man, told them where they could go.
He gave them 3 options exactly. First, they could go to the playing grounds on the 2nd floor of the tower where they could spend their time leisurely.
Second, they could go to the training grounds on the 4th floor and practice their Aether.
Finally, they could go to the 3rd floor, where the admission office was, and go to the library to read some books.
Ning didn't even hesitate when he chose to go to the library. There were a lot of things about this world that he wanted to know, that he wouldn't even begin to ask the system to tell him since he wouldn't know what to ask.
He walked down the staircase and went to the 3rd floor. The library was easy to locate with many people coming in and out of it.
As soon as he walked through the door, Ning could see a vast collection of books on the many shelves that were kept in the massive rooms.
He was like a child in a candy store and didn't know where to start. He randomly picked out a book from a shelf and read the title.
'Necessary precautions against Dysentry and Measles'
Ning put the book back. Maybe he shouldn't be picking out books randomly. He went around looking at the titles on the spine until he came across something interesting.
'The Religion of Aether'
"Religion?" Ning found a book that piqued his interest. He didn't know what it meant when it said religion, and he wanted to find out.
He picked out the book from the shelf. The outer cover of the book was made up of leather and was black in color, while the text on it was golden.
There was nothing else on the cover itself. No logo, no author name, nothing. Ning walked to an empty table just beside the shelf and sat down.
He opened the book and the very first thing he saw was a beautiful, tall female with slightly curly hair, holding a tall, walking stick.
Ning felt he had seen this somewhere before when he remembered what it was. "Ah, the statue from the ground floor," he thought.
The image and the statue were the same, with very minor differences. The hair wasn't really the same, and the figure was a bit different too. But somehow, based on the clothes and especially the staff in her hand, he could tell it was the same woman.
"How is this woman important?" Ning wondered and was about to flip the page when he saw some words at the bottom of the picture that wasn't very clear.
He got closer a little bit and was finally able to read it. An imaginary depiction of Goddess Alexis, it read.
"A-Alexis?" Ning's eyes narrowed because he felt like he had heard of this name before. "Where did I hear— Ah," he finally remembered. He quickly held his mouth and looked around, hoping no one heard him shout.
Fortunately, there weren't many people in the library, so he was fine.
"That's the god Alexis that Reever prays to sometimes right?" he thought. He hadn't heard of anyone but Reever prays to her, so he didn't know she had a religion behind her big enough to warrant a book on it.
Ning turned the page and read it.
Alexis, Goddess of Aether, is a figure known amongst the Aether users as the creator of Aether itself.
Based on that, there is a religion created with her as the face of it. The Religion of Aether.
Alexis was said to be a god that descended from the sky with a flurry of birds that are now extinct. It is said that with a wave of her hands, she created Aether onto the land, starting the Age of men.
Because of this, many men came to her to pray for her to bless them. The religion continued since then and has been one of the longer-lasting religions for a long time.
It has since then been proved that Aether is a natural phenomenon that no one created, but people still put their faith in the goddess they had never seen. This is especially common on the outskirts of the continent where education and development don't necessarily reach very fast.
Ning continued reading it.. He had expected the book to be a holy scripture for the religion, but it was simply an unbiased opinion of the author on the religion of Aether that held a figurehead Alexis as their god.
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Chapter 437 – Alexis' Grace
The book went into detail on a lot of things in the past that was related to Alexis. It recorded the many myths and legends of what Alexis apparently did.
After creating Aether, Alexis went around the land. In the process, she met two children, one boy, one girl, who she adopted because they were orphans.
She reared them for many years. The girl had an unruly personality. She didn't like the society of the time and wanted to see it change. She couldn't stand what was going on at the time, the war the differences, she wanted to change it all.
The boy on the other hand had the heart of an artist. He wanted to create, he wanted to make new things.
Since they were her children now, Alexis gave them the ability to do so using Aether.
The girl got the ability to change, while the boy got the ability to create. After they got the ability, they went on to do great things in the world, and in the process let the others know about Alexis.
Soon, Alexis gained many followers, all of whom viewed her like the deity she was. She graced each and every follower of hers by giving them the ability to use Aether so as they pleased.
That was how the people were able to use Aether.
Alexis used her powers to carve the waterfalls of Shalor. Alexis used her powers to create a massive division between the continent by making a forest in there.
Alexis used her powers to create a mountain at the center of the continent, that was said to be a gateway between life and death.
Ning read all of the things that Alexis 'did', and couldn't help but shake his head. "People still believe this?" he thought. He would've assumed that with the advent of science, the people's belief in the supernatural would've disappeared. Who would've known that it would still be there?
He closed the book, reading no further, and put it back on the shelf. He then went on to search for other books that interested him.
He found a few that explained some of the historical events of the continent. Like how the Serian Empire came out of nowhere and took over nearly half of the continent.
It noted the establishment of the Aether Tower in the Serian Empire many many years ago.
It noted how their internal struggle let the old Serian Empire break into 4 different sections that went on the become the current Serian Empire, the Principality of Losmana, The Freelands, and the 12 United Kingdoms.
The 12 United Kingdoms also went through some internal struggle and later had their kings overthrown, becoming a single massive land now known as the Republic of Embers.
It noted the deaths and destruction of the Peak of Afterlife. Ning felt a little guilty reading that.
It also noted Xandria's war with the beasts and how it nearly wiped out almost the entire Aether beast population on this side of the map. The battle of the Undying fort was something that the people wouldn't forget, and forever be in the debt of the late Emperor Kron Xanders.
Ning went on to read more books and before he knew it, it was lunchtime. He felt a little hungry, so he put the books back and made his way to the cafeteria.
He got himself a plate of the available food and sat down on an empty table.
Even as he did, a single thought ran in his mind. 'How did the information about the Aether absorption techniques disappear?' he wondered. 'Has it really been so long that information just disappears?'
From his perspective, it had been nearly 2500 years since the last time he had been in Vilmore. That was enough time for information to get easily lost.
However, with how important Aether Absorption techniques were, it was still a surprise to him that they disappeared.
"Oh ho ho! It's good to see you, my boy," A voice came from behind Ning and sat down at the bench beside him.
Ning looked to the side and recognized the old, chubby man with a bald head and gray beard.
"Oh, Vice President Ringer, good afternoon," Ning greeted the man. This was the same person that had given Ning the scholarship to study in the tower for free.
"I was worried you weren't going to come back," the old man said.
"Eh? Why wouldn't I come back?" Ning asked with a chuckle.
"Well, I asked the people to report me as soon as you entered the dorm, but I never got any report," the old man said.
"The dorm? Ah, I'm not staying at the dorm," Ning said.
"Huh? You won't be staying at the dorm? But that's the best place for a student to be," the vice president said. His face changed a little as he said, "are you worried about having to pay for the dorm? If you are down on money, you can take a loan from the tower."
"The students who can't pay always end up taking the tower and pay it back once they graduate. There is no shame if you need the money," the vice president said.
Ning was a little surprised that the tower acted as a bank for the students too. "That's not the case. I have a place to stay, so I don't need to be in the dorm," Ning said.
"Don't tell me you're still living in the hotel," the vice president said.
"No, no. It's a proper place," Ning said.
"I see if you say so. Right, how is the first day going? Are you learning well?" he asked.
"Yeah, it's alright," Ning said. "But… I feel like there is a lot of misinformation being spread around to the students."
"Misinformation?" the Vice president was a little taken aback. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you see," Ning said. "The teacher said that the only way to improve your Aether rank depends on the potential of the person.. But that's just wrong."
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Chapter 438 – An Old Scroll
"Haha, what's wrong with that?" the Vice president asked, clearly amused at the situation. "You don't mean to say that people can get better with talent instead as well, right?"
"No no. That's not what I meant," Ning said. "What I mean is, aside from just being born with the ability to gather Aether, you can also gather Aether with an absorption technique."
The vice president's face changed a little. "What's an absorption technique?" he asked with a curious look on his face.
Ning saw his face and got the idea that he too likely didn't know about it. He sighed and began to explain.
"It's a technique that you can use in your body, and soon enough, you will start gathering Aether on your own, even if you have no potential in your body to gather Aether naturally," Ning said.
The vice president's face got serious. "No way something so good exists, right?" he asked.
"It does," Ning said. "I use one myself."
The Vice president's eyes went wide. "You use an absorption technique?" he asked.
"Yes," Ning said.
The vice president thought for a while and asked, "where did you find it?"
"I didn't find it. It's… something that's been passed down in my family for many lineages," Ning said.
"Oh, what's your family name again? Ruogong? I don't think there is a noble family like that in this country," the Vice President said.
"Huh? No, I'm not noble," Ning said.
"You're not? Oh right, sorry. Can I see this absorption technique?" the Vice President asked.
Ning thought for a moment and bought a very simple technique that would make someone take about a year in Vilmore time to go from Aether Starter to Aether Student if they absorbed for 2 hours a day.
He made the scroll look rough and dirty, with parts of it torn apart. The Vice president looked at it with shocked eyes.
"This is the absorption technique?" he asked.
"Yes," Ning said.
"Hm, I don't really understand what it's trying to say, but I probably will if I read it a few times," he said.
"Do you mind if I take it back with me to study?" he asked.
Ning was fine with it since it was garbage in his eyes. Still, this world didn't have such techniques so he acted a little hesitant.
In the end, he sighed and said "Sure, vice president."
The vice president put the scroll in a storage ring of his and stood up to leave. Before he did, however, he got close to Ning and said, "this talk we had just now. Keep it between the two of us, okay? I don't want people to get excited about this only for it to turn out to be wrong."
"I will research it a bit and see if it is true. After I'm done, I will return this scroll back to you," the vice president said
"Okay," Ning agreed with a smile.
"Good luck on your classes, young man," the vice president said as he left. Ning smiled, watching the old man walk away.
As soon as the old man disappeared, Ning's smile disappeared as well. "That was… weird," he thought. "Why did the old man turn so sketchy regarding the scroll? Does he know more than he's letting on?"
Ning couldn't really understand what had happened, so he decided to not be concerned with it for now.
He got back to eating his lunch and decided to wait for the day the vice president returned his scroll and revealed this 'new' information to the world.
Until then, Ning would do what he said and keep quiet about it. After lunch, Ning went back to his class to hopefully learn about Aether and hopefully not literature or other things.
Fortunately, his wishes were answered. Unfortunately, he now wished he would rather do literature than learn this.
The class after lunch break had 2 teachers coming to teach at the same time. One was an Enchanter, the other an Invoker.
The Invoker teacher would teach them into creating something basic like a small stone. Everyone knew stone. Even if they didn't understand the different types of stones, or how a stone was solid and such stuff, they were still familiar with stone.
This made creating them very easy. Which was what the lesson currently was. The students were all made to create stones.
As for the Enchanters, they were made to hover the stones. Just that. The Enchanter teacher handed them a stone and told the students to hover them in the air.
Ning couldn't believe how basic the lesson was. Not only him but even the other 4 adult students were also left scratching their heads at the ease behind the task.
Ning had registered in the tower as an Enchanter, so his task right now was to hover this small piece of stone. This was too easy.
Since the tasks were meant for the children, they didn't bother to make the task as difficult for the other students as well.
Henry stood up and told the teachers that this was too easy and they would need to learn something else.
"This is for the children, so we will have to start from the basics. Besides, most of you are from the rural parts of the empire. It is unlikely that you ever received proper education on Aether itself. So, you will have to start from the very beginning here," was the answer they got.
Ning got bored, he would rather do anything else, maybe even learn math. He slumped on his desk, with his head resting on one hand, while his other moved the stone in the air.
"Excuse me, can you move away a little," Rachel said.
"Hm, oh sorry," Ning said and got a little further away from her. He looked at her curiously and then went on to smell himself. 'It can't be that I smell, right?' he thought.
The class ended, and the next classes were once more the normal ones for the children.. The 5 students decided to leave the class, and since there were no more Aether-related classes for the day, they went back home.
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Chapter 439 – Conspiracy
Ning left the tower once his class was over and returned directly to the palace. He was a little happy that he got to leave at 18 o'clock in the noon.
He went directly towards Lisa's room to find Reever.
Reever was in the princess' chamber, reading a normal book. The doors opened and Ning entered.
Reever looked to the side with a surprised face. "Hey, brother Ning. You're back already?"
"Yeah, it was a short day of class," Ning said. "Where's Lisa?"
"In the bathroom. She's getting ready because we are going to visit the city today for some shopping. Anyway, How was it? Your first day of school," Reever asked excitedly. He had always wanted to join the tower, and now seeing Ning return from there, he was curious he hear about it..
"It was good. I learned… quite a lot actually," Ning said.
"Aw, that just makes me sad I couldn't go there, brother Ning," Reever said. "Can you tell me what I would've learned if I had gone there?"
"Maybe it was for the better that you didn't go there," Ning said.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Reever asked with a confused face.
"Say, you don't know about absorption techniques right?" Ning asked.
"Absorption techniques? What's that? " Reever asked. He looked at Ning with a confused look. "I feel like you've asked this question before but never told me anything."
"It's—"
"Absorption technique? How do you know about that?" Lisa walked out of the bathroom, with her makeup done and a wig over her head.
She was wearing a yellow skirt and pink blouse and looked nothing like a princess at all, or even someone from a noble family.
"You know about it?" Ning asked with a serious face.
"Yes, I do," Lisa said. "Almost everyone in the noble families of those that are Earl and above, do."
"So, I was right," Ning thought to himself softly.
"Are you a noble too, Ning?" Lisa asked with a surprised look on her face.
"No, I'm not, but I do have an absorption technique. I was confused as to why Reever or any of the other people don't know about it but to think that it was a conspiracy of the richer folks to hide such things from the residents," Ning felt a little angry.
"No, it's not," Lisa said.
"What isn't?" Ning asked.
"The conspiracy you are talking about. It's not the noble's," Lisa said. "I mean they are part of it, I guess you can say it's their conspiracy, but they aren't the one who came up with the idea," Lisa said.
"They didn't?" Ning looked at her with a confused look. "Then who did?"
"The Tower," Lisa answered.
"Wait, wait, wait! What the hell have you guys been talking about for the last minute? Technique? Conspiracy? What is it all about? Can you explain me?" Reever asked.
Lisa turned to Reever and explained to him was an Aether Absorption technique was.
"What?" Reever looked at her with the most shocked look he had ever seen. "To think such an incredible thing existed, and us common folks never knew about it? Why? Do we not deserve to learn this thing?" he asked. "Are the nobility this scummy?"
"No," Lisa said. "As I mentioned earlier, it was the Tower's idea to slowly erase all knowledge of the technique. Since the techniques weren't that easy to acquire, to begin with, it didn't take very long for them to get rid of all evidence of it."
"When did they erase it? How could it be so simple as to erase the history of something's existence?" Reever asked.
"For over a 1000 years ago. Before even the current calendar began," Lisa said. "The tower was a behemoth back then as it is now, however, they were also scared of another such order coming out of nowhere and undervaluing their existence."
"So, to forever monopolize the Aether market, they got rid of the techniques from other places and made it a secret. The nobles who learned that they would be stronger than the common folks and would likely continue to get richer as a reason had no problem accepting this suggestion."
"Since then, only the nobles have been able to use the arts and forever keep it a secret from the rest of the world," Lisa said.
Ning knew none of this so he nodded his head in understanding when Lisa explained everything.
"Do you have an absorption technique?" Reever asked suddenly.
"Yes," Lisa said.
Reever felt his heartbreak. "You knew I struggled with having a low Aether rank, and yet you never taught it to me?" he asked, his face turning a shade of red. There was part fury in that face, but mostly betrayal was what he was feeling at the moment.
"No," Lisa immediately said. "I didn't teach it to you because of some stupid rule the tower and the nobility, or because I wanted to see you suffer. I didn't teach you because I myself have forgotten about it."
"Huh?" Reever looked up with a surprised look. "You have forgotten the technique? So you no longer use it?"
"I do use it," Lisa said. "But… it's sort of muscle memory at this point. When I use it, I don't even know what I'm doing since it's just a habit for me now."
Reever's expression got better. "Then… can you get one for me now?" he asked expectantly.
Lisa shook her head, however. "Not yet, it will take a while," she said.
"A while? Why?" Reever asked.
"In the royal family, only the emperor has the power to grant the absorption techniques to the other family members. He was who gave it to me as a child, and was made to learn it under a very strict condition to not reveal its existence."
"I had the thought of asking one for you last time we talked to father, but since I had just returned, I didn't want to make such requests," she said.
"Oh," Ning spoke from the side. "You guys already met up with the Emperor?"
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Chapter 440 – Getting Ready For A Day Out
"Huh? Oh yeah," Reever said. "We met up with the emperor a little after you left the place, brother Ning."
"Oh, good," Ning said.
"Anyway, I didn't want to tell you about this beforehand to give you hope for the technique since I'm not even sure if my father will agree with the prospect of giving you an absorption technique in the first place," Lisa said.
"You think he doesn't like me?" Reever asked.
"I don't know. I can never tell my father's emotion behind that stoic face of his," Lisa said.
"He did give us his blessing though, that should mean something right?" Reever asked.
"We will know once I ask it next time," Lisa said.
"You don't have to wait until next time," Ning said. He brought out a book from his storage and handed it to Reever. "Here, this is a technique. Read and learn it properly. In 2 days, you should be able to start absorbing Aether."
"What?"
"What?"
Both the husband and wife were surprised at the same time. Reever grabbed the book and opened it, but before he could even read it, Lisa snatched it and read it herself.
"It's real," she said with wide eyes. "How do you have such a thing?"
"That doesn't matter," Ning said. "Just let him read it. Actually, you can also read it and see if it's better than yours. It's quite a good technique, I promise."
"Give it to me honey," Reever said and took back the book. He excitedly started reading the book, but suddenly someone knocked on the door.
"Who's there?" Lisa asked.
"Your highness, senior Tim is here to meet you," a maid answered from the opposite side of the door.
"Oh, let him in," Lisa said.
Reever hurriedly stored his book in his storage necklace and acted as if he wasn't holding anything.
"Good afternoon your highnesses," Tim said and bowed as he came in. When he stood up, he saw Ning standing a little further away from him.
"Ning? What are you doing in the princess' quarters? You shouldn't be here," Tim said.
"Let it be, Uncle Tim," she said. "I told you that he was allowed to come here anytime he wants. He is the only friend my husband has in this place."
"They will start spreading rumors, your high—"
"I don't care what rumors they spread. I doubt they would stop spreading it just by me being civil," Lisa said in an angry voice. She calmed down a little and asked, "Why did you come here?"
"Princess Elina has learned about your trip to the market and wants to come with you. Will you be okay with that?" Old man Tim asked.
"Elina wants to go with us?" Lisa thought for a moment and said, "Sure, you can tell her it's fine."
"Great, I will go pass on the information," Tim said as he walked out of the room. However, before he left, he turned around and looked at Ning.
"You don't have anything to do right now, right? I will put you in charge of guarding Princess Elina," old man Tim said.
"Eh?" Ning was surprised. "Senior Tim, wouldn't it be better if I guarded li— Princess Elizabeth and her husband?"
"No," Tim said. "Since you are a guard in the royal family, you will have to be acquainted with the other family members too. No whining now, this is the job you chose. Go get ready. You will have to be ready for when the princesses leave."
Tim left after saying that and didn't add another sentence.
Lisa chuckled a bit from behind.
"Dammit, I don't want to deal with the other snotty princesses," Ning whined. "They feel way too pampered. I don't like being around them."
This time even Reever chuckled. "You guys laugh at my misery?" Ning asked.
"No, no," Lisa said. "I promise, Elina isn't as bad as she seems. She's pampered, yes… maybe even a little snotty as you put it. But if she gets overbearing, I will take care of her, don't worry."
"Sigh, if you say so. I will go get changed. You guys can leave when you are ready," Ning told the two and left.
Ning left the area and went to the servant's quarters where the maids, guards, butlers, chefs, and other various servants of the Royal family lived.
The area was on the back of the palace, and there were nearly 100 rooms just for the servants.
Ning went into his room there and got changed into a guard's outfit, which was just a casual black shirt and pants to help them dissolve into the crowd and not stand out very much.
Once he was ready, he walked out of the room and went out to the front of the palace, along with 2 other similarly dressed individuals, waiting for the princesses to arrive.
The other two guards were both men, and were in charge of Reever and Lisa, while Ning would be in charge of princess Elina.
Ning waited for them to come out and while he did so, he thought about how the day had gone so far.
He remembered his talk with the Vice president and how sketchy he was acting. 'That dude definitely knows about the absorption techniques. No wonder he asked me if I was a noble as the first thing after learning I had a technique,' Ning thought.
'Let's see how he deals with this situation then. It was smart of him to tell me not to spread this information so he could deal with it in silence, but he did promise to reveal it to others once he was done learning it,' Ning thought.
A smile crept on his face. "Let's see how long it takes him to 'learn' it," he thought. The door opened and the two princesses walked out, each equally beautiful.
One had a mature beauty while the other had a child-like beauty. By Ning's standard, she didn't look a day over 18.
"Let's go sister," Elina clung onto Lisa, and all 6 of the people there started walking out of the palace.
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