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Chapter 451 – Elijah Goldilock
After eating until he was full, Ning left the place and went to the area with the guards.
He went to find the two guards that were part of the Shadow Pavillion and made them go to Fiona to confess everything.
After that, he exercised for a bit to loosen his body before going to his room to wait.
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door. Ning opened it to see Fiona outside.
"Oh, hey. What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Did you do it?" she asked.
"Uh… if you mean about the assassins, then yes," Ning said with a smile.
"How?" Fiona asked.
"I have my ways," Ning said.
"Tell me how then," Fiona asked with an annoyed face.
"Will you tell me how you can go invisible?" Ning asked.
Fiona stopped speaking. "Are you a member of the Shadow Pavillion too?" she asked.
"What? No," Ning said. "Why would you even think that?"
"Because you know about the members of that organization," Fiona said.
"Hmm, did you not interrogate them yet?" Ning asked with a confused face.
"I did, at the police station and those two guards as well. I didn't know they had already infiltrated the palace," Fiona said.
"Well don't worry, those are the only two," Ning said. "So, from your interrogation, you should have learned that the Pavillion members have no idea who the other people are, right?"
"Unless they are forced to work together on a mission, they will have no idea," Ning said.
"Sigh, you're right," Fiona thought and shook her head. "I don't know how you did it, but good work. Thanks to you, tomorrow's event will be safe."
Ning simply smiled and said nothing.
"I have something to do right now, so… uh, can you…" Ning asked.
"Uh, yes. I will leave," Fiona said and walked away. She couldn't just keep the information to herself and needed to pass it along to Tim, who managed the guards and probably even the Emperor so that he was aware of it all.
Ning went back to his room and lay on the bed. He hadn't lied to Fiona to get rid of her. He really did have something to do. Only, he needed to wait a bit longer.
A man walked out of the train around the evening time and looked around. He was in his mid 30s, and was wearing a long overcoat with a briefcase in his hand. He had a black hat on him that seemed to disappear in the night.
He took out a cigarette and used a lighter to light it. His face lit up to show the thick beard that was on his face.
He blew out the smoke and started walking out. He looked around the dark city and walked towards a certain hotel.
"Hello, I booked a room," the man said with a rough voice.
"May I know what name you booked it under, sir?" the lady at the register asked.
"Elijah Goldilock," the man said.
The lady nodded and checked for the name. "It is there, sir. May I know how long you want to keep it for?" she asked.
"Just for tonight," the man said.
The lady took his information and registered the room under his name. The man took the keys and asked, "did someone leave something under my name?"
"Hmm, let me check, sir," the lady took out a record and started checking.
"Ah, yes. Here it is," she said and went to get a parcel for him. The man took the parcel and went up to his room
As soon as he walked in, he locked the door and found a chair to lodge under the handle. Once that was done, he immediately tossed aside his suitcase that was just there for a show.
The suitcase had random papers in it as a mislead in case someone checked it. He never came here with anything of importance in the first place.
He opened up the parcel and took out the bunch of papers. The papers were nothing but news articles, but none of the news seemed to correlate to one another.
The man started by making two different piles. He would keep the first and second paper on one pile, and the third on a different one.
Once that was done, he would only read the second pile with the 3rd paper, and even there, he would only use the single letter that was underlined. Furthermore, he would have to go through the entire list of pages to just list out the first letter, before moving on to the second one.
He took out a black piece of paper and started writing down what was being said. Soon, he got the information he wanted.
Princess Elizabeth will be donating food to the beggars and poor folks in the slum. She will have a lot of guards around her, one of which is understood to be considered very strong. Be careful of the person named Ning.
Our information says he is likely an Invoker Aether King, which was why you were given the job.
This job requires many people to be completed successfully, so you will have to work with your comrades. You can meet them in the Grapevine Pub. Ask the bartender for a whiskey with sweet ice in it.
The rest of the information will be provided by your comrades tomorrow.
The man immediately crumbled the piece of paper and lit it on fire. He then tossed it into the trash before tossing it in the other newspapers as well.
It seemed the job was a bit more difficult than he had first expected. The princess' guards might be more of a problem than he had thought.
Ning laid on his bed with his eyes closed, waiting for it to happen. Just then, the system spoke.
A person had entered the hotel room registered under Elijah Goldilock
"He's here huh?" Ning thought with a smile. He had been waiting for him ever since he learned that someone big was coming later that night.
"Alright, let's go see him."
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Chapter 452 – Visitor In The Night
The middle-aged man in the hotel took a shower. The water was slightly cold, just the way he liked it.
He wiped himself with a towel and walked to the bed to dress up. Once done, he looked around his coat's pockets to find his cigarette.
"You know that's bad for your health right?"
The man immediately turned around to see someone standing in the room. He side-eyed his door, but it was still blocked with the wooden chair. He then looked at the window, but it had metal grills on it.
He immediately pulled out a gun from his storage and pointed them at the person. "Who are you, Kid?" he asked in a rough voice.
"Nice to meet you. My name is Ning Ruogong," Ning introduced himself.
"Ning?" the man's eyes narrowed a bit. 'Was this the same Ning from the documents?' he wondered.
"How did you get into the room?" the man asked. He still hadn't figured out how someone could possibly enter a locked room.
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. That's not very nice now, is it? When someone introduces themselves, you have to introduce yourself too," Ning said.
The man cocked his gun and asked Ning again, "How did you enter the room? Answer me or you will die right now."
Ning ignored the gun and walked to the door before taking the chair. He placed it back in the room and sat on it with one leg perched on top of the other.
"Alright, listen, Elijah," Ning said. "Should I call you Elijah? Or would you prefer if I called you Sam?" Ning asked.
The man's face showed the purest shock he had ever felt in his life. Even his hands that never shook when he slit his target's throat started shaking a little.
"That's your name, right? Sam Wiseman? Born in the Odrain Empire to two duds, bullied as a child, but you got lucky and found a fruit sold by a merchant and accidentally got awakened."
"Your parents died during the coup in the capital and since then you've gone out of your way to kill any noble and royalty you can find. The Shadow Pavillion noticed your work and hired you 35 years ago, and since then, you've been one of the most successful assassins in the field."
"Quite an amazing resume you ha—"
BANG
The man shot his gun, but the bullet didn't hit Ning at all. It had veered off to the side and hit the wall behind Ning.
"That's quite rude you know? I was in the middle of talking," Ning said.
"Who are you and why do you know so much?" the man asked, while at the same time wondering why his aim was off. He tried calming himself and not letting his emotions mess up with what he needed to do.
"I have my ways of finding information about someone," Ning said.
BANG
The man shot once again. This time, instead of the head, he aimed at the heart. As the chest was larger than the head, his chances of hitting him would be higher.
"You really want to call the hotel staff, huh?" Ning asked as he pried open his clothes to reveal the place he had been shot at.
It was very close to the heart, but Sam couldn't tell if he hit the heart at all. After all, Ning was still speaking.
He was about to shoot once more when he saw the bullet wound pulse. The wound didn't bleed at all. When something finally came out, the man realized it was the bullet. Once the bullet was out, the wound went back to being fixed.
"Ho-How did you?" the man started freaking out.
"Alright, let's get to the point," Ning said. "You came here to kill the princess under the Pavillion's order, but that's not happening. All the Pavillion members have already surrendered themselves to the police, even the ones that weren't part of tomorrow's job."
"Wha—"
"One of your stupid members decided to enter the capital through the gate, looking like a beggar despite being a wanted criminal. So stupid. You can blame him for the mess… although he did kill himself already," Ning said.
"I came here to make you do the same— Can you put that thing away? You know it won't hurt me," Ning said. However, the man didn't listen to him. Ning sighed and continued.
"Anyway, I wanted you to go and give yourself up as everyone else did," Ning said. "However… I didn't expect the Pavillion to send an Aether Emperor to do the job. That changes everything."
The man couldn't even speak with just how much new information was being thrown at him. The kid— no, this thing couldn't possibly be a child. This man, this thing, he knew a lot. He knew things that Sam had never revealed to anyone, and he knew things that even Sam had forgotten.
Not to mention, he didn't die when a bullet shot his heart.
"What do you want from me?" the man asked, gun still pointed at Ning.
"I want you… to fight me," Ning said with a smile on his face.
The man got a little confused. "What?" he asked, not sure if he heard him correctly.
"You heard me, I want you to fight me," Ning said. When he still saw the confusion on the man's face, he proceeded to explain. "Well, you see, I recently entered the Aether tower, because I didn't know how to properly use Aether."
"It's been a few weeks and, well, it's been fun, but I can't do anything serious with what I've learned. So, I was hoping you could help me with it by fighting with me," Ning said.
"You want to fight?" the man immediately started using some Aether to use telekinesis on Ning.
"Uh… not here, you idiot," Ning said. He stood up, completely ignoring the man's control, and walked up to him.
"We will be fighting someplace else," Ning said and grabbed the man before disappearing.
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Chapter 453 – Fight In The Night
When Ning and the man reappeared, they were flying high up in the sky. Ning looked up in the sky while letting go of the man.
"AARGHHHH!" the man shouted in the pitch-black night as he fell from the sky.
"Sigh, so dark," Ning said as he looked up. "It's such a shame that this planet has no moons. Would've been great to have some light in the night."
Ning looked towards the ground and by now, the man had stopped shouting and had instead started flying.
"Not bad," Ning thought. Being able to realize that he was falling and then making himself fly at a moment's notice wasn't an easy task at all. The man had likely had training for flying for quite some time.
Ning stopped using 'Super Flight' himself and started freefalling just as the man did. Along the way, he focussed and got himself to start floating. Once he achieved that, he slowly lowered the counter gravity, so that Vilmore's gravity still had some effect on him, and he just ended up slowly drifting onto the ground.
The man was very confused right now. This had been the most confusing day in his entire life. What was happening? He was just in his hotel room and suddenly he was in the sky, falling to the ground somehow.
"What's going on?" he wondered and looked around. The only thing he could see was the starry sky while the rest of the land was pitch black.
'Where the hell am I?' he thought. No matter the place, it should have some light. But right now, there was none.
Just as he was looking around, he saw a light far in the distance. The light started getting brighter and brighter until he could hear the sound coming along with it too.
'A train?' he thought. He used the train's light to look at where he was. It seemed like a massive meadow with trees far away in the surrounding. Aside from that, he saw nothing.
Then, in the light, he saw something drop from the sky. With the bright light, he could easily recognize it to be Ning.
"What did you do? Where am I?" the man demanded.
"Well, we couldn't possibly fight in the hotel room, so I brought you here," Ning said. "I'm hoping you will show me some good skills."
The man didn't waste time and immediately emptied all of the bullets he had left in his gun towards Ning. He needed to kill him quickly before the train's light ran out.
Ning was prepared, so he managed to dodge 3 of the bullets from hitting him, but the final one hit him in the shoulders.
The man tossed the gun and ran towards Ning. He jumped with incredible agility and kicked at Ning.
Ning put up his arms to block. However, when he got hit, he felt his bones crack as he was sent flying away.
The train passed and darkness loomed over the man once more. He took a deep breath and looked towards where Ning had gone to. He couldn't see in the dark, so he was just looking for sounds of movement.
'Did he go unconscious?' the man thought.
"That was a nice kick," Ning said and he walked towards the man. Based on Ning's assessment, the kick just now had the force behind it was equivalent to that of a Level 25 body cultivator, or a Golden Core realm cultivator.
That was quite strong for a body augmented using just the Aether in the person.
"How… how are you alive?" the man asked. Ning could see the man not looking at him straight due to the darkness all around him.
"Let me help you a little," Ning said and created fire around him. He made a ring of fire on the grass that gave them light to see each other.
"So you really are the Ning from the report. But they seemed to have gotten your information wrong as they assumed you to be an Invoker Aether King. You are clearly at the rank of an Emperor like me," the man said.
"Oh, they think I'm an Invoker? Why would they— Ah, must've been those two guards from the palace," Ning thought. After all, he acted as an Invoker in the palace, and as an Enchanter in the tower.
"You are correct," Ning said. "They were indeed wrong to think of me as an Invoker Aether King. I'm not."
Ning ran forward and punched at the man. The man put up his palm to block the attack, but when Ning hit him, he realized that he had made a mistake.
The man had never been thrown this far away from a simple attack before. He landed on the grasses a few meters away and immediately got up to look at Ning in shock.
He looked at his palm that was red. Then, he looked at the fire burning around him. The man's eyes went wide.
"Dual Awakener," the said in shock.
"Yes," Ning said. "Nice catch."
"I have rarely seen a Dual Awakener," the man said, still in shock. "Yet, I've never seen one that is an Aether Emperor as well."
"Oh," Ning said. "I will take that as a compliment then."
"How did a monster like you become an Aether Emperor. Your skills, your ability to regenerate your wound, your ability to move to a different place. That's not something a normal Aether user should have," the man said.
"Oh, you're not wrong about the fact that I'm not using Aether for those things, but don't look down on Aether just because you don't know how to do it."
"With enough knowledge, practice, and imagination, anything and everything is possible with Aether," Ning said.
"Alright, let's get on with the fight. I don't have much time. I still need to sleep before accompanying the princess tomorrow. It's going to be a long and tiresome day," Ning said.
"Very well. I shall show you my skills then," the man said as he brought out two short daggers. He then got into a stance, ready to fight.
Ning smiled when he saw that.. The Assassin was finally going to use his skills. "Come!"
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Chapter 454 – Defending
Ning looked at the man's two daggers that were about 15 centimeters long and glinted yellow in the firelight.
They were so sharp and smooth that Ning could nearly see the reflection of everything around him.
Suddenly, the daggers started moving. They no longer looked so sharp or smooth and instead looked overly fuzzy.
'Is it moving?' Ning thought. That was what it seemed like. Like a fly's wing moving up and down, the dagger seemed to be moving up and down very rapidly. The assassin was making it vibrate.
'You can do that too, huh?' Ning thought in surprise. He really loved it when he saw the ingenuity of people in using their Aether.
Suddenly, the assassin moved like a hunter in the night. Ning couldn't even react when he flew past him. By the time Ning realized what had happened, he felt a bit of coldness in places he shouldn't.
He looked down and saw that his left arm had fallen off his shoulder.
"Woah! How did you cut my arm so fast?" Ning asked. He couldn't believe how quick the attack was.
"Aether Emperors really are on a different level than an Aether King huh? That terrorist leader was strong, but he was nowhere near your level," Ning said as he turned around.
When he did, he saw the Assassin move once again as he flew past him. Ning could feel himself losing all connection with his lower half, as his head started to slip through his neck.
The whole body fell onto the ground, while the assassin stood up straight in the fire looking at Ning with a look of disdain.
Now that Ning was dead, he needed to figure out where he was and how he could return to any civilization.
"Not so fast," Ning spoke. The man turned around and looked in horror as Ning stood up, neither his head nor his arms missing.
"Yo-You Freak! How are you still alive? I even cut your head off," the man shouted.
Ning looked a little surprised and said, "oh, I'm sorry. Were you under the impression that you could kill me? My bad, I should have let you know that there is nothing in this world that you can do to me and keep me dead."
His smile looked innocent, but the fear it struck on the assassin was beyond imaginable.
Ning saw the fear in the assassin's eyes too and laughed, "Haha, did you believe me just now? Come on, don't fall for such obvious lies. Of course, I can die too."
The assassin was a little taken aback and started to get angry at Ning. He felt like he was made fun of by a kid. However, he wasn't so easily dissuaded by his words.
He had seen for himself the head and arms get cut off. Not to mention the bullet from last time. 'How is he doing all of this? Is this something only someone that is a Dual Awakener can do?' he wondered.
He carefully thought of ways to fight him. There were some ways that he could think of. He wasn't sure if that was possible or not, but he would have to try to find out.
The first thing the assassin tried was cutting Ning into multiple pieces. He dashed forward with incredible speed with his two daggers that vibrated at a very high frequency.
He had come to learn that such vibrations could make it very easy for him to cut off anything.
Ning saw him start to move and put up both of his hands in time to protect himself.
The dagger struck his left arm again, but it only cut halfway through this time. The assassin was surprised to see how strong Ning's arm had become all of a sudden. 'Dammit! Just how much Aether does he have to make this strong of a body?' he thought.
He jumped back and started thinking of other ways to hurt him now that physical harm would likely not do it.
Ning looked at his arm too in surprise. He wasn't surprised that I was intact, but rather that it had been cut in the first place.
'A normal blade wouldn't have done that,' he thought. 'So there really is something beneficial to putting that vibration to the blade.'
Making it move back and forth like a saw would make any blade cut things easier.
The assassin put away his daggers before bringing them out again. Ning didn't realize that the assassin had switched daggers already. While using it as he did was beneficial to cutting, the dagger also got incredibly hot to the touch and would be uncomfortable for use afterward.
So, the assassin brought many pairs of daggers along with him during every journey.
He held the new daggers in his hands again. They looked the same as the previous ones, but these ones were a little special. The handle of these daggers was wrapped in something different.
The assassin strengthened up his body once more, but not to the same level as last time. Last time, he just needed to cut Ning. For that, he could move at the highest speed and not worry about the timing of the hit at all.
However, for this attack, he needed to be slow so that his brain could understand what was happening in front of him.
He dashed once again. Ning looked at him coming towards him and put up his arms again. However, he was surprised that the man didn't make his dagger vibrate again.
'Why?' he wondered. The dagger hit his arms once more, but it couldn't even break past his skin, let alone do any damage to him.
He was about to say something when suddenly he felt shocked. Actual shock. The dagger sparked up as electricity flowed through him, frying him from the inside, making him fall to the ground.
The assassin kept on him, letting as much electricity as he could produce, and passed it along. The daggers he was holding were wrapped in rubber, so he himself was safe from the harm.
Once he saw Ning stop moving, he jumped backward and kept his eyes open. He was sure that would hurt Ning a lot, but he wasn't sure if that could kill him.
Ning looked around with a bit of confusion. "Eh? Did he electrocute me?" he wondered as he searched for the assassin.
The assassin was standing a little far away, looking towards Ning as well.
'Aii… I didn't think this would be a problem at all,' Ning thought as he felt his body slowly regenerate back. He was currently looking around him using his energy vision, rather than his body's.
His body was effectively dead and would require a bit more time to get back to being alive. Honestly, he hadn't expected it to take so much time to regenerate after his cells were electrified.
It took him a full 30 seconds for his body to be even barely useful. He slowly stood up once he got control of the body back.
"That was quite good," Ning said while facing the assassin again. "I'm amazed by your skills, truly."
"You still aren't dead. Would you mind telling me how you did it?" the assassin asked.
"Uhh… it's quite simple actually. You spend 2000 years doing nothing but gathering energy, and then make yourself a body that never dies," Ning explained to the assassin.
The Assassin frowned. He thought Ning was toying with him again. He put his daggers back in and pulled out another pair of daggers.
"Are those different daggers?" Ning asked, but the Assassin didn't answer.
The assassins immediately threw the daggers towards Ning. Ning didn't bother to interfere with them as he wanted to see what they would do.
The daggers struck him in the arm with incredible force. Ning waited for something to happen, but nothing did.
"What was this supposed to be for?" Ning asked the assassin. The assassin grinned menacingly, but as time went on, his smile faded.
"Why aren't you dead yet?" the assassin asked.
"Hmm? Dea—" just as Ning spoke, he felt an intense headache that lasted for a few seconds before disappearing.
"Wooh!" he shook himself. "Yikes, did you try to poison me just now? I was expecting you to fight with Aether, not some measly poison. Come on, you are disappointing me."
The assassin's eyes were beyond shocked. 'What the hell is he? How the hell is poison not working on him either?' he thought. He had never met anyone or anything as surprising as Ning.
The assassin started truly fearing for himself. He brought out over 10 different daggers that flew in the air around him.
He then started sending all of them towards Ning. Ning strengthened his body a bit, but aside from that, he did nothing.
Ning watched as the assassin flawlessly controlled over 10 daggers at the same time while sending one after another to attack Ning.
The strength of the daggers wasn't anything to scoff at either. Each of them hit him hard enough to cut his skin easily. The daggers flew around him, making numerous cuts on his body.
Ning let the attack happen for a while before deciding to stop it. He suddenly sent out his Aether to gain control of the daggers from the assassin.
Seeing himself lose control of his dagger so easily, the assassin got scared.
Ning's wounds started to heal as he played with the dagger in one hand. "That was not a bad trick. I can see how you would be successful at assassinating unsuspecting victims," he said as he threw the daggers back at the assassin.
"Get ready," he said.. "I will start attacking now."
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Chapter 455 – Terror
Ning had quite a few ideas for the attack, and it became hard for him to decide what to use.
"Attacking physically is boring, so I will attack from the distance," Ning said.
The assassin got ready to handle whatever he would be attacked with.
Ning put his hands forth and concentrated. The assassin got scared. Due to Ning being both an Invoker and Enchanter, he didn't know how he would attack at all.
A chill went down his spine when he saw the precipitations around him start to converge on him. The droplets of water appeared out of nowhere and stuck onto him.
More and more appeared in a matter of seconds, and before he knew it, he was surrounded by water, unable to breathe.
He tried to move, but he realized that he was already floating in the water, and couldn't use anything to push himself around.
He immediately enchanted himself to move to the side, but the water moved along with him under Ning's control.
He was starting to get breathless and was going to drown when Ning let go of the water.
The assassin fell to the ground and spit out the water in his lungs. He huffed for breath while the fear of nearly dying kept him vigilant.
He saw Ning's left hand still in the air and wasn't sure what he was about to do.
"Dodge!" Ning said. Suddenly, a ball of fire appeared in front of Ning that flew towards the assassin.
The assassin used what little energy he had mustered after nearly dying and jumped to the side.
Ning shot more fireballs towards him and made him jump around. That was quite funny to watch.
Ning stopped again and started creating many rocks around him the size of eggs. He shot multiple of them at once towards the assassin, who used his strong enchanted body to block them.
Once the barrage of stones stopped, the assassin looked in fear towards Ning at what he was going to do next.
Ning put his hands forth and tried to do something, but it didn't happen. "Hmm… weird. Is it because I'm not very familiar with electricity yet? I will have to learn how it works later," he said out loud and proceeded to do something else.
The assassin suddenly felt his clothes grow hot. The water in them started steaming heavily, practically cooking him inside them.
Ning had enchanted the assassin's clothes with heat energy.
The assassin threw away his shirt and stood there in his undershirt. He was huffing really quickly and knew that if he stayed here for long, the mad man in front of him will surely kill him.
He immediately turned around, put all of his strength into his legs and ran off.
He ran as far as he could for minutes on end. He hit a few trees a couple of times, but he didn't let that stop him. Even when the tree broke in half, he kept running.
After close to 10 minutes of running, the assassin found himself in a dark place, in the middle of the forest.
He fell onto his knees and breathed very heavily as he used one arm to hold onto a tree for support.
"You run really fast huh?" Ning said.
The assassin's eyes went wide and looked above him to see Ning sitting calmly on the tree.
"How?" he cried out.
"Come on. I need to try out a few more attacks," Ning said.
"No, please no," the assassin cried. "Just kill me please. Don't make me suffer."
"What?" Ning exclaimed. "No way. I have been looking forward to this since I learned your Aether rank. You can't take that away from me."
The assassin huffed, trying to catch his breath, while his eyes darted around in the darkness, trying to look for a way to escape.
He couldn't see any. So, he chose to do the one thing he could to get out of this torture.
The assassin took out a dagger from his storage and stabbed himself in the heart.
However, when the dagger hit his chest, he felt no pain. He tried hitting again, but all he could feel was the dagger hitting something really hard.
Ning had enchanted his body to protect himself. The assassin also enchanted himself to increase his strength and stabbed himself. However, no matter how hard he hit the attack never pierced his skin at all.
That made the assassin realize the difference between him and Ning. He looked up with fear in his eyes as he spoke.
"They are wrong. Th-The Pavillion is wrong about your strength," he said. "They think you are an Aether King, but you are not, are you?"
"Hmm… oh no," Ning said.
"You… You are not even an Aether Emperor. You…" the assassin's eyes went wide as he even said the next few words. "You are an Aether Saint, aren't you?"
Ning smiled.
"I'm correct," The Assassin said in both shock and fear. Every country only held a few dozen or so of Aether Saints because of how much talent and resources it required to reach that level.
As far as he knew, the Shadow Pavillion, which was the best-known assassin group in the entire world, only held about 10 Aether saints.
And somehow, this kid, this freak in front of him was one.
Ning scratched his head and said, "honestly, I don't know what I am. I don't really feel a bottleneck and have been advancing in rank like a breeze. Which, by the way, was never my intention."
"Also, I haven't bothered to check what rank, so I don't know what it really is."
"It may be Aether Saint, or… it may also be the rank one step higher. Given the time I absorbed Aether, it's one of the two."
The assassin's eyes nearly popped out of his sockets. "A rank… higher?"
"You don't mean an Aether…"
"Enough talking.. Will you fight me or not?" Ning asked.
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Chapter 456 – Thanking
"Please spare me, brother. Just kill me if you want to," the assassin cried. "Please don't torture me anymore. I never torture my targets, so treat me the same way I treat them."
"Give me a swift death," he said.
Ning sighed. He still had one more thing he wanted to try, but he didn't want to use it if it meant the opponent wouldn't block it at all.
"Alright," Ning said and jumped down from the tree. "Are you ready?" he asked the assassin.
"Yes," the assassin said and took a deep breath to prepare himself for the swift death. "Thank you."
The assassin closed his eyes, getting ready to die. He felt Ning touch his head. 'Is he going to blow me apart? Electrocute my brain? Rip my head from my body?' many thoughts ran across his mind, while he waited for Ning to kill him.
However, nothing of that sort happened. Just as he was wondering what happened, he suddenly felt a jolt of energy enter his mind. Before he knew it, he started thinking of Ning as the person he should look up to and unequivocally follow.
Once Ning dominated the assassin's mind, he teleported the two of them back into the hotel room once more.
"Alright, since you don't want to fight, fine. I won't fight you either," Ning said. "What were your directives from the Pavillion?"
"To kill the princess, Master," the assassin said.
"That's it?" Ning asked.
"I was supposed to meet the rest of the assassins tomorrow morning in a pub, but you have them arrested already," the assassin said.
"Alright, go to the pub tomorrow morning and send a message to the Pavillion that you have no helper. If they tell you to still kill despite learning that you have nobody to help you, act as you tried. Shoot me at that time," Ning said.
"Yes master," the assassin said.
"Also, take this," Ning said as he gave a ring to the assassin.
"What is this, master?" the assassin asked.
"Put some Aether energy into this ring, and say whatever you want to say in it. I will hear it on the other side," Ning said.
"Like a telephone?" the assassin asked.
"Yes, but just one way," Ning said. "From now on, you will be my eyes and ears in the organization. Anytime, anything of import happens, you let me know, okay?"
"Yes, master," the assassin replied.
"Okay, I'll leave now," Ning said and left the hotel. He reappeared back in his room on top of his bed.
"Ning? Are you okay?!" someone was shouting outside.
"Huh?" Ning was surprised that someone was calling him when he had just returned. He took out his clock and checked the time.
'Who's calling me at 13 in the evening?' Ning wondered as he walked up to open the door.
When he opened it, he saw Fiona outside. His hands were in the air, ready to knock at the door.
"What's wrong? Why are you shouting?" Ning asked.
Fiona looked at him with confusion and said, "Why the hell did you take so long to open? I have been calling you for nearly 2 minutes now."
"Oh, uh… I fell asleep," Ning said.
"This early?" Fiona asked.
"Tomorrow's a big day. I need my full night of sleep, you know?" he said. "Anyway, what are you doing here? It's close to nighttime now."
"I came to thank you for helping with the assassins," she said.
"Oh, don't mind about those. I was really just helping the princess. You can save your breath," Ning said.
"No, let me thank you," she said.
Ning found it surprising that she insisted on it so much, but he just shrugged and said, "Alright, go ahead. Say it."
"No," Fiona said.
"Wha—" before Ning could say anything, Fiona pushed him aside and walked into his room. She closed the door behind them and looked at him.
"What are you doing?" Ning asked.
Fiona didn't speak and simply pushed Ning back onto his bed.
"Thanking you," she said as she unlocked her belt and threw it to the side. She then undid her pant button and started taking it off as well.
Finally, she took off her black top, standing there in her undergarments.
Ning was genuinely surprised. "This… this is you, thanking me?"
Fiona undid her bun and let the hair flow down to her lower back. "Of course," she said.
"Well, I am honored to think you would want to do this with me, but I will have to let you know that I'm not really interested in you. I already have a girl I love," Ning said while trying to get up from the bed.
Fiona pushed him back once again and said, "You aren't leaving anywhere."
Ning narrowed his eyes as he looked at her and asked, "if I'm not interested in this, and you still do this, you know this is an assault, right?"
"I don't care," Fiona said. "I've been attracted to that strength of yours from the day back in the zoo."
Ning smiled, "only my strength?" he asked. "Surely you don't think I don't know about how you like younger men right?" he asked.
"You know about that? That makes it easier then," Fiona said as he finally stripped off of her undergarment as well, standing in front of Ning in the nude.
Ning sighed. "Look, you're beautiful and all, and any man would be happy to get you, but I'm not that man. Please, dress back up, I really have no interest in you," he said.
"Then who?" Fiona asked. "It can't be the princess right? You do know that they will execute you if they find out you have feelings for the princess."
Fiona was now starting to try and blackmail him, and Ning didn't really like it.
"Sigh, you leave me no choice," he said. Suddenly, a tumultuous amount of Aether escaped from his body and started surrounding her, forcing her body down to the ground.
He walked up to her and stared at her straight in the eyes and said, "Do you still want to blackmail me?"
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Chapter 457 – The Slums
Ning controlled the air around him with his Aether as he pressed down on Fiona.
Her body uncontrollably shuddered as it fell to the ground. She gasped for breath, but none of it entered her lungs.
Ning was using his Aether to command his air after all. She looked at him with fear in her bloodshot eyes.
"Will you try blackmailing me again?" he asked. However, she couldn't speak. She couldn't even move from the air around her.
"I came here on a whim to help a couple who seemed to be having trouble. I stayed here because I wanted to help them survive the unfairness. Did you really think I was here because I fell in love with a little girl? Pathetic!"
Ning undid the air around her, letting her breathe once again. Fiona breathed heavily on all four. She was shaking a little as she looked towards him in pure terror.
"Get dressed and leave my room," Ning told her. "Oh right, about this little incident of ours, keep it a secret, okay? Don't go around telling people how strong I am. I want to live peacefully."
"You…" Fiona snarled. "You think I will keep quiet about this? I will tell the Emperor. He will deal with you."
"Oh," Ning said with a surprised face and looked at her. "You'll tell the emperor, is it? Go ahead then. Go tell the emperor everything, including all the lies you can concoct. Then you may see if I'm bluffing when I tell you that I will unravel this whole empire overnight."
Fiona's eyes went wide. There was no way what he had said could be true, but… those eyes, they held no fear of any consequence.
Either he was really good at bluffing… or he had the strength to back up his claims. Given the demonstration he had put on just a second earlier, she decided to believe he wasn't bluffing.
She quickly dressed and started to leave. Before she did, however, she turned around one last time and said "Sorry" before leaving.
The door closed behind her and Ning was left alone. "Sigh, what am I doing threatening a little girl?"
He laid back on his bed and collected his thoughts. He remembered Ely and thought, 'I wonder what she's doing right now?'
Ning had already learned that Kumia was safe, but beyond that, information of a planet so far away cost him way too much energy.
"What's her cultivation base now, System?" he asked.
Spirit Transformation 5th Realm
It cost him a bit of energy, but he was fine with that. 'It took her 300 years, if she cultivated in the Origin, then 3900 years to go up 4 realms in Spirit Transformation huh?' he thought.
That should have been the normal amount. Maybe she wasn't spending all her time in cultivation as well, and may not all years was spent in the Origin.
"Well, I'm just happy she's doing fine," he thought. "Alright, time to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
Ning pulled up his blanket and fell asleep. He cared not for what happened next. He didn't care if Fiona came back with an army to apprehend him.
He didn't really care about anything other than living a simple life until he could gather enough energy to go back to his friends in Kumia.
Very early in the morning, before the sun even rose, someone knocked on his door.
Ning woke up and walked up to the door. When he opened it, it was Fiona on the other side.
"What do you need?" he asked.
Fiona fidgeted a little as the words didn't leave her mouth at all. "W-we need your help," she said.
"My help?" Ning asked. "What do you need from me?"
"We need to go check slums and areas for any unusual activities before the princess is set to depart for there," Fiona said.
"Aren't the other guards involved in this?" Ning asked.
"Yes, everyone is," Fiona said, unable to maintain eye contact with him.
Ning sighed. "Is this something every guard is doing?" he asked.
"Y-yes," she said.
"Then why did you say you needed help? Just say there's an order to do that. Or did you forget that I'm still a guard?" Ning asked.
"I… I don't think I can give you orders anymore," Fiona said.
"Stop acting like that. I don't want people to notice anything wrong about me," Ning said and walked. "Let go on the patrol then."
Fiona nodded and quickly followed.
About 12 palace guards and quite a few soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes got out of the palace to check the slums.
They walked there separately and intermingled to not look very suspicious.
The slum was right outside the commercial district on the eastern side of the city.
Ning walked around alone in the slum, looking at the pure joy in the poor folk's faces.
'They are happy that they are getting to eat,' Ning thought. Such was the life of the impoverished.
Ning felt a bit bad when he saw the elderly, the disabled, the single mothers, the little children, all of whom had barely anything to eat or wear.
Their houses could barely fend off the sun, let alone wind and rain.
He wished he could do something for them, but… there wasn't anything he could think of doing without causing an upheaval that spanned the entire empire.
It wasn't just this empire either that had such people. He was sure there were plenty of other places with such a situation.
Ning shook his head and casually used his analysis on one of the people, and shook his head.
He then turned to another one and used it. 'Hmmm…' his eyes sharpened a little when he saw the same, or rather, lack of the same information.
He moved on to another person, then another one. And another one.
After analyzing through many people, he came to understand one thing. The people who were poor and looked beggarly all were similar to each other in one way.
None of these people were Aether users.
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Chapter 458 – The Feast
'Wait, didn't Reeves tell me that this nation didn't hold prejudice against people who didn't have Aether? Then why are these folks the only one begging?' he wondered.
It wasn't exactly only the non-Aether users that were here. There were also some Aether users. But they were simply an Aether Starter. And, if after many years, they still remained that, then they could be considered as good as a Non-Aether user.
Ning wondered if the nation secretly hated them by any chance. "Hmm, that's not right. Jamie is clearly a non-Aether user, but he's doing pretty fine," Ning thought.
He thought over it for a few minutes when he realized what it was that was causing all of this.
"I see," he thought. The Aether users, no matter how bad they were, as long as they had just the tiniest amount of skills, could find a job for themselves somewhere.
And as expected, a bad Aether user could always do more than a good non-Aether user.
So naturally, the non-Aether users, especially ones with no set of skills, or physically able to do something, would always end up in the slums.
"Aether… it all comes down to that again," Ning thought. "It's so easy to get it as well."
A thought came to his mind. "Maybe I should help them."
He walked off to a corner of the slum and when he could see no one, he disappeared.
Lisa, along with many of her brothers and sisters walked along with the slums with many servants behind her.
"Here you go," Lisa said as he handed a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup to a nearby child.
"Thank you, princess," the child said and walked up to his mom to hand her the food.
"Hey you, come here," she called the child again.
"Why did you give that food to your mother?" she asked curiously.
"Mommy always gives me her food, so I gave mine to her," the child said.
"Is that true?" Lisa said with a smile, but behind her smile, she felt pain for the child and his mother.
"Here's some more bread for you then. For being a very good boy," she said as she handed another loaf of bread and a bowl of soup that was meant to be his mother's.
The child's eyes shined with pure glee. He really had never seen this much food before.
"Thank you," the child said. If the first time was something his mother had told him to say, then this time it genuinely came from his heart.
"Poor child," Reeves said softly, a little behind the whole group. Ning was next to him as he listened to him.
"It's quite tragic to see so many people living like this," Ning said. He looked to the side to see two of the servants walking behind the princess.
He had given them a special job that he had asked for approval with Lisa. Although he hadn't told them the reason for it to her, so there was a good chance she would end up being surprised when she learned it.
"By the way, brother Ning, is my wife safe? I heard some rumors about assassins and such in the palace yesterday," Reeves asked.
"Oh, don't worry about it. She's safe. We captured all the assassins that were coming for her yesterday," Ning said.
"I see," Reeves said. "As long as she's safe."
He looked towards his wife giving food to the poor and smiled.
"Do you want to go there by any chance? To the desert?" Ning asked.
"Sorry?" Reeves was taken aback.
"The desert," Ning said. "It's been a few weeks, right? Those people must be looking forward to you by now. In fact, they must be desperate."
"To be honest, I haven't really given much thought to that," Reeves said. "After all, the only reason I cared about it was to earn money for myself."
"Although, I wouldn't really mind going back there once just to tell them all that they could do what I did on their own. If they become self-sufficient, it would be fine," Reeves said.
"Hmm, let's go there after this feast then," Ning said.
"Right after? Hmm, we might have to stay in a hotel for the night, but that should be fine. I will talk to Lisa about it later," Reeves said.
"Right, how's your Aether coming along? Have you broken through to the Grandmaster rank yet?" Ning asked.
"Oh right, Brother Ning. I meant to thank you so many times, but I keep forgetting. This technique is so good. Even Lisa said that she has never seen anyone grow up in rank as fast as me," Reeves said excitedly.
"It's alright. I'm glad you're improving," Ning said. His eyes once again moved to the servants who were behind Lisa.
Once Lisa handed the folks bread and soup and walked on. The two servants would go up to them and hand them a piece of fruit as well as a piece of paper.
The servants themselves didn't know what these were, and were prohibited from looking at them, so they just did what they were ordered to do.
Once they all moved on forward, Ning looked back to the people who were opening the pieces of paper and read it first.
The moment they read it, their eyes went wide in surprise and they suddenly gobbled up the piece of fruit before even touching the bread and soup that were next to them.
Ning couldn't help but smile. That was all he could do for them for now.
"Brother Ning?" Reeves called.
"Oh, sorry, you were saying?" Ning asked.
"Right, I was saying that since I have the Aether absorption technique, do you think I can learn how to use Aether in combats or other scenarios? I know I can't go to the tower, but I want to learn something like that," Reeves said.
"Hmm, sure," Ning said. "I can teach you th—"
Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot rang, and Ning fell to the floor with blood pouring out of his chest.
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Chapter 459 – Undying Fort
"AAAH!" People cried out when they heard the gunshot and saw Ning fell to the ground.
Reeves was stunned for a few seconds, not understanding what had happened. When he realized Ning was on the ground, he immediately got down to help him.
Ning was slowly turned around to reveal that he was shot in the chest.
"Urgh!" Ning cried out in pain in front of all the people.
Fiona's eyes went wide and immediately turned around to her guards. "Go find the assassin!" she shouted.
The guards ran away to look for someone in the direction where the attack had come from.
Ning showed an incredibly pained expression, but on the inside, he simply understood that Sam couldn't get out of killing the princess, so as he had told him, he had shot him.
'Dammit, that man. He could've just shot my arm or leg. How the hell am I going to explain being fine?' Ning thought. He was getting a little annoyed, but thankfully, he had prepared the fake blood in advance all over his body just for this.
"I'm okay," he cried out and slowly stood up. He put his hands inside his shirt and pulled out a metal plate with a hole in it.
"I was wearing armor on the inside just in case today," he said. That was the best lie he could come up with at the moment.
"But you're bleeding," Fiona said.
"It's just a flesh wound. I'll go get it checked right now," he said.
"Let me help you, brother Ning," Reeves said.
"Thank you, brother Reeves." Ning grabbed his shoulder for support and walked away from the crowd.
After walking a bit far away, Ning stopped relying on Reeves and stood up straight. "Tsk! My shirt got ruined," Ning said.
"Wh-what?" Reeves was surprised to see Ning acting perfectly fine.
Ning pulled out the pack of blood that he had put on his body. "What?" he asked when he looked at Reeves' face. "Oh yeah, this was fake. Don't worry. I had to act like I got shot so the assassin would run away."
"You planned all of this?" Reeves asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "We have to keep your wife safe, so we do what we can."
Reeves felt gratitude towards Ning that reached almost sky-high. He had done so much for them, and yet he kept on doing even more.
Ning took out a bandage from his storage and put it around his chest. "Let's wait here for a moment before we return," he said.
After a while, they returned back to the feast and saw that nothing had changed except for the security being a little tighter.
"I'm so sorry. We checked everything this morning. I don't know where the assassins came from," Fiona spoke.
"It's alright," Ning said. "I'm not really hurt. How are the princes and princesses doing?"
"They're fine. Although, the 5th prince asked to return back to the palace," Fiona said.
"I see," Ning said. The 5th prince was the last prince aside from Gillian and Elizabeth to have a claim to the throne.
Ning had wondered once that he might have been responsible for the assassins, but given how introverted and anti-social he was, as well as having an extreme love for arts and crafts, Ning gave up all suspicions he had.
So it really could just be the 2nd prince that was absent today.
The feast ended about 5 hours later around noon. On the way back, Ning used his analysis to check on the smiling faces of the slum folks and saw that they had indeed become an aether user now.
'That worked quite well. Now I hope they put it to good use,' he thought.
The group returned back to the palace. Reeves was now walking next to Lisa, along with the other royal family members.
Just as they were entering the palace, they stopped when they saw someone walkout.
It was a relatively young man, about 30 years old. He was wearing a military outfit, one that belonged to someone in high rank.
"Good Afternoon, your highnesses," The man bowed towards them all.
"Mr. David, what are you doing here?" one of the princes asked.
"I just came to give the report to the emperor," David said.
"Report?" the prince's face changed a little. "No way, is the Undying fort in trouble again?"
"Haha, no, your highness. My report was that there is no trouble," David said.
He then turned to Lisa and said, "I heard that you were alive, your highness. It's good to see that the news wasn't a lie."
"Thank you, Mr. David," Lisa said.
"If you will, I need to return back to the fort by sundown, your highnesses," David bowed a little and left them.
'Undying fort… isn't that the place next to the forest where the main war with the Aether beasts took place? Do they still wait there for caution?' Ning wondered.
"Who was that?" Reeves asked Lisa softly.
"That's David. He used to be a Vice Commander of the Defense army, but now I suppose he's the Commander of the Defense Army," Lisa said.
"Oh, a commander huh? At such a young age," Reeves said.
"Oh, he's not young. He just looks like that because he's an Aether genius. He reached a very high rank at a young age, so he kept his youth."
"If I'm not wrong, he should be around 150 years old this year," Lisa said.
'That's still considered young for an Aether user right?' Ning thought from behind them.
Once the group entered the palace, Ning waited for Reeves to come out of the palace again.
Reeves told Lisa what he was doing, so she gave him her approval without a single thought.
"Alright, brother Ning. Let's go," Reeves said excitedly.
"Let's go," Ning said with a smile. They walked out of the palace, and Reeves started looking for a carriage.
"Uhh… brother Reeves, don't tell anyone about this okay?" Ning asked.
"About wha—" halfway through Reeves' words, the scenario changed from a road and wall, to a desert.
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Chapter 460 – Duke Tremen
"—at?" the moment he finished speaking, his eyes went wide and he immediately looked around him.
"What? Where are we?" he started getting a little scared of what had just happened. "What just happened?"
"I teleported us," Ning said. "It's one of the things I can do. Don't mind it."
"Tele…port?" Reever was still confused. "Aether users can do that?"
"Yes," Ning said, not bothering to explain some more. "Come on. The village is just over there."
"Huh?" Reever looked around. "Oh, we're in the desert?" It took him some time to realize that.
Ning started walking and Reever followed. He slowly touched his ring and got a little confused. "Did you really use Aether?" he asked.
"Of course," Ning said.
"Hmm, then why didn't my Aether glow?" Reever asked. "It didn't even vibrate."
"Oh, that's because it doesn't register me when I'm using Aether of course," Ning said. He picked up a bunch of sand from the desert and made it move around him fabulously.
Reever was left staring at the amazing control Ning had come to learn in just a matter of weeks.
"Come on. We still need to go there, you know," Ning said and they walked to the village.
The villagers were beyond stoked to see Reever finally return after so many days.
Reever smiled and immediately started putting on a performance for them.
Ning watched from beside him. This time, the performance was much grander than the first time. 'He's really improving quite well as an Aether user huh?' Ning thought.
As he was watching the show that Reever had put on, Ning got a message directly onto his mind. It was a message from Sam, the assassin and it said 'Master, I have reached the Ordain Empire just now.'
'Oh, he returned already? This bastard, he didn't even apologize for shooting me and just left,' Ning thought.
Ning shook his head and sent a message back. "Next time, try not to shoot me in the chest, okay? You nearly caused me quite some trouble," he said.
Ning stopped talking and focused on the show in front of him with a smile on his face when a message came again.
'What do you mean, master? Why would I shoot you?' it said.
Ning's face changed a little because of the confusion. "What are you saying? You shot me today right?" he asked.
He waited for a while and another message came again.
'Shoot you, master? I didn't do anything like that. After I visited the pub today and saw no one, I told the Pavillion about what had happened.'
'After learning that I didn't need to stick around any longer, I took the first train back in the morning.'
'That's why I reached the capital of Ordain so fast, master.'
Ning's eyes narrowed. 'He didn't shoot me?' he thought. His slacking body straightened as he got serious.
"Brother Reever, I need to go somewhere. If I don't return back in time, just go to the City of Beginnings and wait for me there, okay?" Ning said.
"You're leaving, Brother Ning?" Reever asked.
"Yes. Something urgent came up," Ning said and ran away from the group. When he was out of sight, he immediately disappeared and appeared back in the slums.
"System, who shot me today?" he asked.
Suddenly, a few pieces of information were sent directly to his brain. He got the name of the shooter, his information as well as the affiliation he worked for.
"The Great Raiders group?" Ning was surprised. "Weren't they the terrorists from back then in the zoo?"
"First they came to kill the Eldest prince, now they came to disturb the princess' event?" Ning thought.
He asked the system and located the person who had shot him. "What the hell?" Ning read the information in surprise.
The person that shot him was hiding in a duke's mansion. 'A duke is responsible for this?' Ning thought in shock. 'Why was a duke trying to kill a princess.'
He wasted no time and immediately teleported out of slums and inside the duke's manor.
"Where am I?" he didn't know the layout of the Duke's mansion so he was a little confused.
The mansion belonged to Duke Tremen. One of the only 3 dukes of the Empire. The other two dukes stayed outside of the capital, so he was also the only duke of the capital.
A duke trying to kill a prince and princess… was a serious crime. If the Emperor found out about this, all of the Duke's family being hanged to death would be a very likely outcome.
'Where do I go now?' Ning looked at the information on the map he had just asked for from the system and walked.
He walked through the mansion, extra careful so that no one saw him. He sneaked past the servants, flew past them, and sometimes even teleported past them.
Finally, just as he was about to reach the terrorist, he turned a corner and crashed into someone that was trying to turn the corner towards him.
'Shit!' he thought and tried to scramble away from the place. But before he could do so, the other person stood up and looked at him in surprise.
"Master!" the figure called out to him.
"Huh?" Ning stopped right as he was about to run away. "Master?" he turned around slowly to look at the person's face.
In front of him was a girl in her late teens. She was wearing a very pompous looking dress and had a lot of make-up on her.
It didn't take very long for him to recognize the girl at all.
"It's you," he said with surprise clear in his voice. "You… what was it, Camie. Right? You're Camie."
"Yes, master," the girl said. "Why are you in my house, master?"
Ning looked around. "You are the duke's daughter?" he asked in surprise.
"Yes," Camie said. "I am Camie Tremen. The sole daughter of Duke Tremen."
"Ah…shit!"
He had accidentally made a Duke's daughter his servant.
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