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Chapter 471 – Stolen Scroll
The room had 9 people in total, not including Ning. 2 of them seemed to be guards, 4 of them were male teachers, and the rest were 3 female teachers.
Of them, the principal started speaking to Ning.
"We brought you here to have a little talk," Merilyn, the president said to Ning.
Ning looked around in suspicion and decided to act a little scared.
"9 people of high Aether Rank. Forgive me if I have trouble believing you, president Merilyn," Ning said. He took a slightly defensive stance against them.
"Oh please, you don't have to worry at all. These people are here just to witness the conversation we will be having," the Principal said.
"Very well, what are we talking about?" Ning asked.
Merilyn smiled and showed him the wooden chair in front of him, beckoning him to sit before they proceeded.
Ning pulled back the chair from the table and sat on it, while the rest of the people, aside from the vice president who sat next to him and the president who sat opposite him, kept standing.
"First of all, is it true that you are an Aether Emperor?" the president asked him directly.
Ning was a little surprised that they asked the question. 'Do they have a connection to the palace?' he wondered.
"Yes, I am," Ning said. "May I know how you came to learn that?"
"I think it's better if we keep that information to ourselves. The person did ask to be kept anonymous," the president said with a smile.
'The person? Is it Rachel?' he wondered. 'Did that girl forget that I'm stronger than an Emperor?'
"So you were that strong when you came to join us, huh?" the President said. "You nearly fooled us into thinking you were a beginner."
"I don't know what you mean by that, president," Ning said. "While I may have a high rank, I'm still a beginner in using Aether. I still have a long way to go."
"While it may be understandable that you still have a long way to go, do you really think we will believe that you are a beginner?" the president asked.
Ning smiled at the president. "I don't care what you believe. Do you think your belief will change the truth?" he asked.
"So you insist that you are a beginner huh? Well, I will believe that then, for now," the President said before bringing out something from her storage.
Ning looked at what it was and recognized the old scroll. That was the same one he had given to the vice president to see how he would react at the time.
The vice president had told him that he didn't know about absorption skills and that he would practice it on his own for a while. Ning had let him take it under the condition that he release its info to the world.
"Changing topic now, may I ask where you came to obtain this from?" the president asked.
"That's a technique that's been passed down my family for a long time," Ning said.
"Do you happen to know the origin of this scroll?" the president asked curiously.
"No," Ning said. "I only know that it has been passed down our family for many generations."
"I see," the president said and brought out a thick book from her storage bag and slammed it on the table before her.
"The vice president came to me a few days ago, showing us that he got something amazing from you. When I went to check it, I realized that I had read about it before," the president said.
"Oh, you read about it before?" Ning asked curiously.
"Yes, here," the president flipped the book and turned it to a page that read about an absorption skill that existed in the past that was stolen by someone, and since then it had been lost.
"Look at it, the marking is the same as well," the president said. "I believe that this scroll was stolen by an ancestor of yours very many years ago and that in fact, it actually belongs to us."
Ning was dumbfounded. He couldn't believe that they actually forged a document to 'prove' that the scroll actually belonged to them. He had actually never seen this much of a farce anywhere else.
"Is that really so?" he acted surprised. "Are you trying to say that my ancestors were thieves?"
"No, of course not," the president quickly tried to keep the situation from exploding. "We don't know how the scroll went on to get lost. It could be that your ancestor just happened to find it someday."
"What I am saying is that this scroll belongs to the tower," she said.
"How am I to know that this document hasn't been forged and that the scroll of yours you say to have been missing is a fake one?" Ning asked.
The president smiled. She seemed to have been ready for this line of questioning. "That scroll is not the only piece of information about our tower that is recorded in this book."
"You can read everything about the history of the tower and judge for yourself if it is true or not," she said.
'So they prepared well for this, huh?' Ning thought and picked up the book.
He touched the page that held the information about the scroll. It certainly looked legit, but he knew it was fake.
He looked back at the president once before turning back towards the book. 'I see, an Invoker Aether Emperor. She must be quite talented to create something so intricate,' he thought.
He continued flipping the book to the earlier pages and realized that most of this information was actually true. The president was using truth to further legitimize her lies.
Finally, Ning flipped it to the very first page of the book and read to himself what was written on it.
When he did, his eyes suddenly went wide.
It read "The Aether Tower was first established in the Serian Empire, founded by the brother and sister duo, Famir and Mavenna."
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Chapter 472 – Threat
'Famir? Mavenna? Those two kids started this tower?' Ning felt a sense of pride when he realized what they had succeeded in doing.
Ning was a little hesitant asking about their life when he got to Vilmore again, so the most he had asked was how long they had lived, which the system had told him were 359 and 455 years for the brother and sister respectively.
Learning that they had lived so long, he had simply assumed that they had lived a good life. But, to learn that they actually started an organization that would go on to become the towering figure they were today.
Thinking about all of this, Ning couldn't help but feel… angry.
'These damn fuckers are trying to ruin what those siblings created, using it to further themselves when it was supposed to help the others,' Ning thought.
The siblings, especially Famir knew hardship from a young age. Living in a small village, taking care of his only sister, he knew how hard the average person had to work to meet the week's end.
Ning could guarantee that when the tower was created, neither of those siblings had any intention of keeping something like Aether away from the normal folks.
Yet, the people that came after them had twisted their beliefs, turning what they cherished into something that actively impoverishes the average human.
Ning closed the book and placed it back on the table.
"You can see that the scroll initially did belong to us. However, we won't ask you to return it to us for free. In exchange for returning the scroll, we will give you a high-ranking position in the tower. That way yo—"
"Enough!" Ning shouted. He was truly angry right now. " High ranking position in the tower? What a joke. You have kept this farce going for long enough."
The people in the room were startled at the sudden shout from Ning.
"What do you mean by farce, mister Ning," the President asked.
Ning did not answer her and instead turned to his side to look at the vice president. "How high in the organization do you have to be to learn about the absorption techniques?" Ning asked.
"We don't know about absorptio—"
"I know about your damn treaty with the nobles. I know you keep the techniques for yourself and give them to the nobles only. So just tell me how high do you have to be in the organization?" Ning asked.
The vice president was stunned. He hadn't expected a student to shout at him like that.
"Mister Ning, please understand who you are speaking to. He's the vice president of the tower," Merilyn said from the side.
"And what is that role supposed to mean to me? Is it supposed to be something I should admire? Is it supposed to be something I respect?" Ning asked.
"I admire none of you. You all lost my respect the moment you decided to throw the common man under the bus to further establish yourselves," Ning said.
"How dare you talk to us like that," the president said with a serious face. "Not only did your ancestor steal from us, now you say such rude things in front of us?"
"Hah! Steal? My ancestors stole what? I gave you a made-up scroll, and somehow you gave it a history of your own. You think that scroll that I would use to wipe my ass is of any worth at all?" Ning asked.
"I could shit out 1000 of those scrolls and you guys would all eat it like it's the most wonderful delicacy."
Ning stood up from his chair. "I will give you 2 weeks. In 2 weeks, I want to hear the common folks down by the commercial zone, by the slums learn about the existence of the absorption techniques, and be handed a copy of the scroll each."
"If you do not do that, I will give them scrolls of my own, and believe me, they will be much better than that scroll. With that, I will establish an organization of myself, and topple yours down."
The teachers and president that listened to Ning were in utter shock. They didn't expect the person they had brought in to sneakily join their tower would speak up in retaliation.
"Hah! Do you think your fake threats will work here? Do you expect yourself to be so good to create an organization that will topple ours? Just because you became a mere Aether Emperor, you must have let that go to your head if you seriously believe you have any power against us," the president said.
"You don't have to worry about that. That is my concern now," Ning said and walked away.
The two buff men stood in front of him, not willing to budge. Ning stopped and looked at them. "Move!" he ordered.
The two guards shuddered when they saw his eyes. Those were the eyes of a killer who would kill without hesitation.
They moved to the side, and Ning opened the door to walk away. Just before he was gone, he turned around one last time and looked at the president.
"2 weeks! Remember. I want everyone in the city to have a copy of that scroll," Ning said one last time before walking away.
While Famir and Mavenna cared for this organization a lot, he knew that it would be better to destroy this organization now that it had gone in a direction they had never planned to.
Ning walked into the elevator and pressed the button for the lowest floor. With what had just happened, he had practically expelled himself from the tower now, so there was no point in sticking around.
'Well, I hope the new students don't get indoctrinated into this system that benefits oneself at the expense of others,' Ning thought.
He was very much sure that his threat of toppling the tower would be seen as a joke by them, so to prove them wrong, he needed to think how he would go about it.
He needed to prepare a lot of things.
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Chapter 473 – Book Printing
Ning left the tower and directly went to the commercial zone of the city. He has asked the system and found out that it would cost him quite a lot of energy if he wanted to create books for all of the people in the city.
So, he was instead going to find a book printing company and have them work on it.
He went to the biggest one in the city and found the head of the company.
The head was an elderly man in his late 50s, and from the looks of it, he truly was in his late 50s, and not an overly old man that just happened to look like that thanks to Aether.
'An unawakened,' Ning thought with surprise. 'He will be easy to persuade then.'
"Hello, How many I help you?" the old man asked.
"I'm looking to print a small book that will be around 2-3 pages long. Or it could be a long scroll," Ning said.
"Oh, hmm. I don't know if that's printable here. We are mostly focused on large books with at least a hundred pages," the old man said.
"Oh, but this will be worth it. It will be your biggest venture to date," Ning said.
"Oh, you say so huh?" the old man said, clearly not believing him.
"Yes," Ning said. "This is what I wanted to have printed." Ning brought out a scroll that was about 3 quarters of a meter long when fully unscrolled.
The old man read the scroll for a while, not understanding what he was reading. It spoke of doing things in your body, that shouldn't be possible as a human being.
"What is this? Some sort of prank?" the old man asked.
"It's a way to increase your Aether rank by employing that technique once you have Aether," Ning said.
The old man was surprised to hear what the thing was. "No way such a thing exists. Are you trying to scam people? I must say, sir, I will help you in nothing that helps scam others," the old man said.
"It's not a scam, you can be sure about that. If you still have any hesitation, how about I let you practice with that technique for tonight and see if it works or not. I will come tomorrow to discuss our terms," Ning said and stood up. He understood that he couldn't rush things. Since he still had 2 weeks to spare before making sure the Tower didn't do anything, he could take it slow.
Ning then walked out of the room of the old man, but just before he left, he turned around. "I almost forgot," he said. "You are not an awakened Aether user, right? Here, take this fruit."
Ning tossed the fruit to the old man. "You can eat the whole thing or just a slice of it. Either way, you will awaken with Aether. You can give the rest to your family. Once that happens, you can try out that book," Ning said with a smile and left.
The dumbfounded old man stayed back in his office, wondering what the hell had just happened.
'Aether awakening? A technique to increase aether? No way any of these exists,' the old man thought. He looked at the fruit in his hands and started doubting that the fruit may also be poison.
'Give this fruit to my family? Is he trying to poison us all?' the old man thought. Fortunately, his grandson was born with the ability to use Aether, so he could see if the writing on that book was applicable or not, without making anyone eat the fruit.
More customers arrived soon, and the old man forgot about it all.
Ning made his way to the slum. He had expected everyone to get awakened as an Aether user, aside from maybe the mothers who gave their piece of fruits to their children.
Ning went around looking for such parents, as well as the stupid people who ignored his advice he had written on those pieces of paper and tried using the Aether art without having much Aether in them.
Ning was sure he would find a lot of such people lying around the slum, paralyzed and unable to move.
After all, that was one of the most common medical problems encountered on this planet.
For those that didn't take their share of the fruit, Ning gave them some more pieces of them as he had brought an uncountable amount of them from the forest.
As for those that were paralyzed, Ning first gave them a stern scolding, before giving them the pieces of fruits.
He practically ordered everyone there to not use any Aether arts until he himself told them it was safe to do so.
Since it would be impossible to teach them all, he would wait for the book printing company's old man to agree to work with him.
Ning went back to the city to find himself a hotel and settled in. He then started making plans on what he could do.
Once the books were out, the tower officials would have a fire lit under their asses, so he would have to make sure to do all the publishing in a short period of time.
He was also sure that the tower in other places would start looking out for him once he arrived there.
'The other countries have a worse situation for the non-Aether awakened individual. I should get there soon too,' Ning thought.
Once he had made some plans for everything he was to do, he collapsed onto his bed and went to sleep.
Ning woke up quite late in the morning since he had nothing to look forward to that day except for a meeting with the old man.
So, after he was finally up, he freshened up and left. He arrived at the book printing location and before he could even ask to see the old man, the old man himself came running up to him.
"Young man, you are here," he said in a breathless voice.
Ning smiled. "I see you tested it then," he asked, to which the old man nodded.
"Good.. Let us discuss the terms of the contract."
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Chapter 474 – Fraudulent
"Mom, where are we going?" A little boy of 8 years old asked his mother, who was rushing somewhere while holding his hands.
The speed was a little too fast for the little child, but the mother didn't seem to notice it and kept running while holding her son.
"We need to hurry, my son," she said. "Or we might be late." The mother rushed for nearly 5 minutes before she reached the location of the crowd she had heard so much about.
The location was in the commercial zone, a little south of the city center. The crowd had formed on the roadway itself, blocking passage for both sides.
People had already started claiming the road to be completely shut down for the next 2 or 3 days.
There were thousands of people gathered at the location with hundreds of people going in and out constantly. This was perhaps a bigger event than the feast the princess had put out 2 weeks ago.
"Please do not hurry. There is enough for everyone," the staff members shouted out loud, but people didn't dare to care for it.
What if they were wrong? What if it ended? They hurried.
"You can only take 1 scroll per family, and that is all that you will need. Please do not take the opportunity for someone else to get it by buying more than one," the staff screamed, but they weren't sure if anyone would listen.
The crowd was massive, but it converged into a single file, looked after by the other staff members to make sure there was nobody that tried to break the file.
The file lead to a paying booth where people would pay before getting their scroll.
The mother who had just come waited in line for a good hour before it was her turn. The staff members had already mentioned the cost of the scroll, so as soon as she arrived, she gave 2 Gols to the staff in the payment booth and went ahead.
She was still in the line, but she quickly noticed the line separating into two files a little ahead.
She reached the next booth which the staff members hadn't told her about and looked at the young man sitting on it.
The young man looked at her and pointed to the left life. "Tell them your son doesn't need it," he told her.
The woman was confused but didn't ask any questions. After a while, the line moved up and she saw a table with some of the staff on it.
"Both of you?" the staff asked.
"Sorry?" the woman asked.
"What did the guy say?" the staff asked.
"Ah, my son doesn't need it," she said.
"I see," the staff brought out a piece of fruit and handed it to the woman. "Eat it."
The woman looked at the fruit with a slight bit of confusion and took a bite. When she did, she realized that the fruit was rather tasty, so she ate it all.
She saw the line move up and walked forward with her son in tow. Finally, she saw it. The thing she had been waiting for.
The Scroll.
The staff member handed her one and she took it. It was there, with her. She looked in awe as the staff member pushed her away for the other similarly curious people to get their hands on the scroll.
When the scrolls were first revealed with a massive advertisement in the papers 2 days ago, nobody really came to them to buy them except for a few people that were truly desperate.
After that, once those people spread the word, more people had come yesterday. After those people spread the words, today was the most they had seen in the entire lifetime of the publishing company's book sale.
And more than likely, it would continue to grow for quite a while. Since it was a single scroll of paper printed, the group was looking at a lot of profit in their hands.
Ning had planned to use the profit he would get to make extra copies for the people in the slums.
He stayed in his booth, checking at the people, deciding whether to send them towards the left where there was a fruit or the right where it was only the scroll.
He sighed a little while sending the people in either direction. 'The fruits aren't gonna last after today. I will have to go find more in the forest tonight,' he thought.
He needed a more foolproof idea that didn't depend on going to find the fruit every day. With how many people there were all over the world, it would be better to go find the ores rather than the fruits.
'I'll think about it later tonight,' he thought and continued his work.
Just as he was working, he saw a couple of people appear in front of him wearing the tower's robes.
They didn't look like the top brass he saw 2 weeks ago, so he guessed they were here for the scroll too.
He showed the right direction, but they didn't bother with him and instead went around him in both directions.
'Sigh, here we go again,' he thought and stood up. "Please wait for a few moments. It seems we might have a problem soon," Ning said and walked back towards the group that was handing out the scrolls.
One of the men took out a scroll from his storage and unfolded it to reveal some writings on it.
He then started speaking. "What you are doing here is unlawful. Using a fake subtext of improving the public's Aether rank by reading a scroll is untruthful and fraudulent. You are hereby advised to immediately stop this and hand over all of your remaining scrolls."
The old man that was looking over the entire thing started getting scared. He walked in front of them to speak when suddenly Ning stepped forward.
"I am the one selling these scrolls. Are you trying to call me a fraud?" Ning asked.
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Chapter 475 – Broken Arms
There were 5 men from the tower, 2 on the table with the fruit, and 3 on the table without it.
The leader, the one on the table with the fruit, had a long face with a pointed chin. He looked at Ning with his slimy face and put on a serious face.
Ning was sure he had been instructed how to act, so he was waiting for the man to answer his question.
"Yes," the man said. "You are undoubtedly a fraud. You are giving the poor citizens false hope with your lies. People, don't fall for this trap. You are being lied to. There is no such technique as this that can improve your Aether rank."
The crowd started whispering amongst themselves. Seeing the most trusted source in their city calling the scroll fake, they started to believe them.
"I suggest you stop this unfaithful business right now and hand over the scrolls to us, or we will be forced to shut down this production house," the man shouted.
"Are you saying that the people who used our scrolls yesterday and the day before that are frauds too?" Ning asked.
"They are, without any shadow of a doubt, actors that you paid to rile up the crowd into buying your fake scrolls," the leader said.
The crowd was getting increasingly sure that they had fallen into some sort of trap and were now waiting to see retribution dropped on the schemer's head.
"Hmm, if you say I'm a fraud by selling these scrolls, then you can surely tell me what I have to gain from these right?" Ning asked.
"Of course. You are trying to earn a quick buck and disappear," the leader said confidently.
"Is that so?" Ning asked with a smile. The leader saw his smile and got a little worried.
"How about this then? If you say I'm doing this all for money, then I will give it to them for free. I will even return the money back to the people who already paid. Can I give them the scroll now?" Ning asked.
The leader panicked a little. He hadn't thought Ning would go in this direction with his question.
"No, we cannot let this lie spread forward. We have direct orders from the tower to stop your unlawful activity," the man said.
"Under what authority?" Ning asked. "I'm just selling a scroll here. Leave quietly now and let me do my thing."
"Under what authority? The authority of the tower, you bastard. It doesn't look like you will stop it willingly. Men, destroy all of the scrolls!" the leader shouted.
"Any one of you so as touches the scroll will find a bone sticking out of your arm," Ning said in the voice that sent chills down the spine of everyone looking.
"St-Stop listening to him, and just do it," the leader shouted.
The men immediately took the scrolls that were on the table and started burning them.
"You've done it now," Ning said softly. Suddenly, all of the men felt their bodies unable to move.
Even the invokers who were supposed to have some resistance against bodily enchantments were forcefully being controlled.
They floated in the air and moved forward violently to crash with each other in the air before dropping to the ground before Ning.
Ning grabbed the leader's arm and said, "I told you I would break your arm." With that, he stepped on it.
"AAAHHH!!" the leader shouted. As promised, his arm was bent in the wrong direction, with blood gushing out of it and a sharp bone sticking out as well.
Listening to the leader's cries, the rest of the men got frightened. They tried to run away, but they couldn't move.
Ning pulled their arms forward and started crushing their hands. Unlike the leader, he only broke their palm bones. Still, the bones were sticking out of them, and they were bleeding.
"Now get the hell out of my sight," he told them.
The men slowly stood up, red from the pain, and glared at Ning. However, the fear in their heart stopped them from doing anything stupid.
They walked away to leave, but just then Ning stopped them again. "Remind your superiors. They have 1 more day. If they don't do what I told them to do… they will have to start looking for a new job soon," Ning told the men with a smile.
The men nodded and quickly walked away.
The crowd stared in awe and fear, so did the staff members that were selling the scrolls.
"Ah, sorry about the delay," Ning said nonchalantly and went back to his seat to redirect the group again.
A lot of the people in the crowd hesitated, but after seeing Ning's strength, a few of them started to doubt if the tower was correct in this situation.
They could already see them trying to use their powers to stop this sale, so it only went onward to legitimize the current operations in their eyes.
Most of the people still believed the tower, but on the small chance that the scroll did work, they had to get it.
So, within minutes, the line started moving again. People were sold the scrolls and quite a few of the people even got to eat the fruit.
For the next few hours, they peacefully sold the scroll. However, that changed when the crowd saw a group of people flying through the air on what looked like a carriage from far away.
The carriage landed on the road next to the crowd and they watched a few figures in purple robes walk out of it.
Ning looked at them as well and smiled when he saw the group. Finally, the big players were here to stop his work.
"Welcome, President Merilyn, Vice president, and… I don't know who you lot are, but welcome," Ning said to the group of 6 that had walked out of the carriage.
The group directly walked up to Ning, but Ning suddenly put up a hand to stop them.
"I know you are people with a lot of fame but, you cannot cut in line like this. Please go back to the end of the crowd.. You will get your scroll when the time comes."
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Chapter 476 – Offer
The few people next to Merilyn tried to get physical after hearing Ning's words, but Merilyn stopped them.
She turned around and looked at the man whose turn was supposed to be next and asked, "Do you mind if we slip in here?"
The man shook his head before he even understand what the words coming out of Merilyn's mouth meant.
"Thank you," Merilyn said and then turned to the other people behind the man and asked, "do anyone of you have any problems with us slipping into this line?"
Not a single voice of opposition could be heard from the people behind her.
Ning smirked in response seeing how well respected these actual frauds were.
"Very well. Since there are 6 of you, give me 12 gols and go that way," Ning said while keeping the smirk on his face.
"We are not here to buy your scroll," Merilyn said.
"Oh my, is that true? I'm so surprised," Ning said. He crossed his fingers behind his head and put his feet on the table before slanting back on the chair.
"So, how may I help you with? And please don't give me the 'you are a fraud' bullshit. I will beat the crap out of you guys as well," Ning threatened them.
"You…" the vice president got angry. He couldn't believe that this was the same person he gave a scholarship to just a few weeks ago.
"No, we are not here for that," Merilyn said. "We are here to make a truce with you."
"Oh," Ning said as his right eyebrow moved up. "Go on, I'm listening."
Merilyn looked around and in a quiet voice said, "what will it take you to stop this nonsense?"
"WHATEVER DO YOU MEAN BY THIS NONSENSE?" Ning spoke in as loud a voice as he could. "Talk normally so everyone can hear you."
Merilyn's eyes narrowed in slight anger. "Fine," she said. "What will it take you to stop this farce?"
Ning smiled again. "How could you not know that after I have told you so many times? Share your techniques with the common masses and I will stop doing this, for Xandria only. I will still go to the other country and make them all do the same thing."
Merilyn didn't speak, however, Ning could feel her start to tap into her Aether.
"Be careful. You don't want to do something so stupid in front of the crowd right?" Ning said, his smile the most irritating thing on him.
"Alright, what do you want out of this then? Money? Power? Status?" she asked.
"I just want what my disciples created to go back to being what they envisioned it to be. If that can't happen, it's better to not have it at all," Ning said.
"What? Disciple? What are you talking about?" Merilyn asked.
"Forget about it," Ning said. "Tell me, what do you have to offer me, aside from threats, to stop me from selling these techniques?"
Merilyn thought for a moment and tried to come up with something he could want, but she couldn't think of anything at the moment.
That was when the vice president walked forward and said, "I have been meaning to retire for a few years now. You can have my position if you want."
"Sorry to break it to you but a mere vice president's position is of no interest to me," Ning said. "Even the president's position is the bare minimum since that way I can at least start the reformation process of the tower in Xandria."
"What I really want to do is own the Aether Tower itself. That way I can put it back onto its correct track and reclaim the honor my disciples left it with," Ning said.
"Hah! Own the Aether tower? You are really looking down on the tower, aren't you? Just because the tower is an academic place, you forgot that it is also the strongest military force in the entire world," Merilyn said.
"I know," Ning said. "But there is not a single thing your military can do if you have to fight the whole world itself, can it?"
"The scrolls have already spread, thousands of them. Are you sure you can track them down and destroy every single one of them? What about the people that made more copies of it in secret? What about the ones that already learned it? Knowledge of it is sure to spread to the other cities and soon the other nations too. Are you sure your 'Strongest' army can stop it?" Ning asked.
Suddenly, he felt Aether move towards him. He could probably stop the aether from entering his body with his own Aether, but he didn't. Something then grew in his mind. He didn't feel any pain, or rather he felt nothing at all. However, he could tell that there were parts of his body that were losing function.
"If you won't accept our suggestion, then you can try and fight us. You will see how sorely you have underestimated the tower to make an enemy out of it," Merilyn said and turned around to leave. There was nothing further to talk about for her since the person could no longer talk.
"Have a good day then, Miss Merilyn. I pray that you have a good time trying to explain to people why such techniques had been hidden all this time," he said.
"What?" she looked around in shock. 'How is he speaking right now?' she thought.
"Hmm, is something wrong?" Ning asked when she turned around.
"N-nothing," she said.
"Good then," Ning said. Just then, he gagged a little and spit out a small sharp metal piece out of his mouth.
He tossed the metal onto Merilyn, who moved away and let it drop on the floor. She could hear some sizzling on the ground as the metal melted onto the ground itself.
"Also," Ning continued as his face suddenly turned cold, giving the illusion of temperature dropping around them.. "Pull such a trick again and I will make you understand what they mean by the sweet release of death."
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Chapter 477 – The Ruins Of Afterlife
After that day, no one from the tower came back to stop Ning directly. Ning was free to do whatever he wanted, and that made Ning suspicious.
'What are they planning?' he wondered. However, they never did anything. They didn't even send the nobles to force him to stop.
So, Ning continued sharing his scrolls and fruits all over the city. Once he thought everyone got what they needed, he left.
He went to the other cities around the country and started doing the same things there as well. He got a local publishing company to start publishing and selling the scrolls as well as the fruits to the locals.
'Dammit!' Ning thought. 'The forest is nearly not large enough to have enough fruits for this place.'
By the time he reached the 4th city on his journey, Ning was starting to feel troubled with the fruits. There wasn't an endless supply, and he would have to find one if he wanted to continue with this.
'Hmm… I should go find some Aether ores,' he thought. There was one place in his mind that held Aether ores, but he wasn't sure just how many there were left.
So, one night, he disappeared and arrived at the southern pole of the continent. The place that held ruins of the peak of Afterlife.
Ning saw kids playing on the ground in the dim light of the sun far off on the horizon. Very few houses were in the city nearby and they were lit up brightly with smokes coming out of the chimneys.
The desert-likes landscape with a dry climate that had been previously what Ning expected, had now turned into a cold, winter land with snow all around him.
'Woah!' he thought."This place has changed quite a bit. Is the climate no longer just contained into the peak?"
Thinking of that, Ning looked towards where the peak used to exist. Now, it was nothing but a hill now.
Ning flew towards the destroyed mountain and couldn't believe that he was responsible for this. He felt a bit sad remembering so many people had died from the earthquake and debris.
'It seems the natural seal around this place has also been destroyed,' he thought.
He shook his head and went to the mountain to check if there were any ores left in the place.
The peak no longer has aurora in it with Qi no longer being expelled through the opening. So, Ning could easily stand on top of it and watch inside.
'Did it turn into a volcano?' he wondered when he saw the crusted land in the middle of the crater as well as the rather massive land around it that could only have been formed from a volcanic eruption.
"Sigh, that place must be buried now. How am I going to get in there?" Ning wondered.
Ning could only think of teleporting into the cave that was at the foot of the mountain, and so he did.
However, where he teleported to was actually on top of the mountain.
'I can't go in,' he thought. That means there was no free space for his body to teleport in there.
Ning scratched his head in confusion. "System, does this place even have Aether ores?" he asked.
There are some below you
Ning thought for a moment. He did gain one idea, but he wasn't sure how useful it would be.
'Damn, I hope it's solid as a rock and not clumpy like dirt,' he thought and suddenly changed bodies.
His body fell onto the ground, and Ning quickly took it back.
'Hm… this is quite large,' he thought.
'Wait… what happens if I teleport out now?'
Ning decided to try it out. He suddenly teleported and reappeared on top of the crater once more.
As the rock fell, he changed his body back to the human body. "Phew, that worked," he thought and went back to see the massive hole he had created.
"How deep are the ores?" Ning asked.
12 meters deep
'I should be able to collect them then,' he thought and went back to doing the same things over and over again until there were no rocks around that area, and the purple Aether ores were finally visible.
'Nice,' he thought and started scraping out the Aether ores with his own hands that were enhanced.
As he had expected, he couldn't just use his Aether arts on the objects that had heavily concentrated amounts of Aether.
After a few hours, Ning was done gathering all the Aether ores that were surprisingly still there.
He decided to leave, but then he remembered that the area around the peak was a place that didn't belong to any countries.
'There should be people here that would love to get some aether arts as well,' he thought and went over to the people to give them a piece of ore as well as the scroll with the information.
It didn't take very long to pass them all up. He didn't stay long enough to see if they believed him or not, but he just needed a single person to do what he said and from word of mouth alone the whole city would start using the technique.
Ning reappeared back in Xandria and continued with his task. Now, he had enough resources to awaken at least 2 more whole countries.
He went through many cities in Xandria, giving people hope and power. He was soon very famous in all the cities, and most cities had people waiting for him to visit.
By now, they had started calling him a savior and hope of humanity. They asked him who he was, but Ning never gave away his name to them, and instead simply told them he was someone working against the Aether tower to loosen their clutch on the normal folks.
He was soon given a name by the people.. Since he went around giving people the ability to use Aether, similar to what the legends said the goddess did, they started calling him the Apostle of Alexis.
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Chapter 478 – Apostle Of Alexis
In the Serian Empire, Headquarters of the Aether tower.
A woman rushed through the hallway and entered the elevator. She hurriedly hit the highest button inside the elevator and clutched the piece of paper she was holding to her chest.
After a minute or so, when the elevator door opened, the woman once more rushed to a grandiose door and knocked on it.
The door opened on its own and the woman walked in.
"Your highness, we have a situation," she said.
An old, decrepit man with long white hair and beard, sat cross-legged on the floor instead of the table. When he heard the woman, he slowly opened his eyes.
"Does this situation have anything to do with the Apostle of Alexis?" he asked.
"Yes, your highness. From our report, he is on his way to the Ordain empire. If we don't stop him, he will spread—"
"That's alright," the man said, interrupting the woman. "I will take care of it. Tell the others to not worry about it."
The woman lost all sense of panic and felt incredibly relieved. "Will you? Thank you, your highness."
The woman left the room and the door shut behind her. The old man stayed in the room for a while and contemplated what he had to do.
So, he stood up and walked to the desk, and picked up the phone. He hit a number he had remembered and waited for the other person to answer.
"Your highness, is it you?" a woman spoke in a raspy voice on the other side.
"Yigri, I need you to prepare something," he said.
"What is it, your highness?" the woman asked.
"I need your best work," the man said and waited for the woman to answer.
He didn't get an answer for half a minute before the woman replied, "I will need at least 2 weeks, your highness. Maybe even more," she said.
"I am fine with that. Let me know when you are done with it," the old man said and ended the call.
He then went back to sitting cross-legged and started his absorption technique once more.
Ning arrived in a city called Harnot in the Ordain empire. He walked out of the train and looked around the station. The place wasn't any different from back in Xandria.
Even the ethnicities looked quite similar. There may have been a few differences here and there, but overall, they looked the same as the Xandrians.
Ning was about to walk out of the station when he was stopped.
"Are you new?" a pair of guards asked at the pathway outside. Ning noticed that it wasn't just him that was being stopped, but others as well.
"Yes, I'm new," Ning replied.
"Perform an Aether art," the guards said.
"I said, perform an Aether art. Are you deaf?" the guard was a bit rude.
'What the hell?' Ning thought before creating a tongue of flame that lasted for a second at most.
"Wear this on your arm at all times," the guards said as they handed him a red armband.
"This is?" Ning asked.
"To separate you from the dud. If you are found not wearing the band when you are in the city, you will be penalized," the guard said.
Ning looked and saw that the guard himself too had a red armband.
Ning nodded and walked on after wearing the armband. He saw other groups of people wearing similar bands, and a few of them wore white ones.
'Is… that the band for the duds?' Ning wondered.
There were almost as many duds as Aether users in the city from what Ning could tell.
Ning walked out of the city and thought of what he needed to do next. As always, his first choice was to find a publishing company to print his scrolls.
After that, he just needed to find a hotel for himself.
Ning looked around, trying to find a ride when he heard someone shouting.
"You think I will pay 10 Sils for your shitty carriage," someone was shouting at a carriage driver.
"Sir, that is the price of the carriage ride for where you want to go," the driver said.
"You dare talk back to me?" the man suddenly slapped the driver in front of the whole crowd.
"What the hell?" Ning said softly. He expected the driver to hit back, but for some reason, he simply stood there with his head low while holding his cheeks.
Ning looked at the crowd and not a single person walked up to do anything. Even the 2 children and woman next to the man looked at the situation with no hint of shame in their eyes.
"2 Sils, that is all I will be paying you," the man told him.
"Sir, 2 Sils is just not enough. I have a family to loo—"
The man slapped the driver again. "You dare talk back to me? Have you forgotten your place?" he screamed at the poor driver again.
Ning couldn't keep watching this, so he walked forward.
"Brother, how much will it cost me to go to the Sweetpea street?" Ning asked.
"Who the hell are you?" the man asked. "I already chose this carriage, go away."
"But it doesn't look like you are going to use it. If you are, why don't you pay his 10 Sils price?" Ning asked.
"Hah, are you empathizing with a dud? You are one stupid idiot," the man said.
"You think he's different just because he has a white band on his arm?" Ning asked. Without waiting for an answer, he snapped his finger and the man's red band slipped out of his hand and into Ning's own.
He then turned around to the driver and gave it to him. "Wear this," he said.
"I-I can—"
"You can after you eat this," Ning said as he brought out an Aether Ore.
The driver's eyes opened wide in shock. He may be a nobody, but he knew what an Aether ore was.
"Wh-who are you?" the driver asked.
"I am the Apostle of Alexis, and I have come to this city to turn every single dud into an Aether user."
"By the time I leave, I will make sure there is not a single person here that can look down on you all."
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Chapter 479 – Vandalism
Ning lived in a small house close to the western border of the city.
This was not a house that he owned or one that he rented. It was a house owned by a dud couple that were going to be out of a few weeks, so they had decided to give him the house.
After all, he didn't have a proper place to stay after the hotels decided to kick him out all because he was the Apostle of Alexis.
These people that were born with aether couldn't stand seeing someone of slower status rising to the same ranks as them. The differences between a normal man and a dud was slowly disappearing, and they didn't like that.
Ning could only sigh when he thought that. The prejudice and hatred the aether users had against the duds was so deep rooted that they couldn't see the rise of the duds being anything other than bad.
Ning woke up in thee morning and pulled out something to eat. Once done, he walked out of the house and shook his head.
Once more they had trashed the place. There were trash all around the front yard, not a single place for him to set up his shop at.
There were also writings on the wall the called him words like traitor and waste of Aether.
'Am I going to have to not only help the duds get Aether, but also go around teaching why there should have been no distinctions in the first place?' Ning wondered. That was too much work. He would rather not have to do that.
He sighed as he looked at the outer wall with the large texts. 'I better clear this all before the peo—"
Suddenly Ning's hand moved behind him and caught a stone right as it was about to hit his head.
He pulled the stone front and saw that it was about the size of a chicken egg.
He turned around and saw that there were a bunch of young men there glaring at him. Ning looked at the young kid at the center, about 15 or 16 years old.
"Did you throw this stone at me?" Ning asked.
"Ptui!" the kid spit next to him. "I was only throwing stone at a pile of shit in the middle of a garbage. Didn't know there was a human here."
The bunch of kids next to him started laughing as if he had said the funniest joke they had ever heard.
Ning looked around him at the pile of garbage and smiled. "Did your parents ever tell you that why you should never throw a stone at a pile of shit?" he asked.
"Why?" the kids asked with a still smiling face.
"Because if you throw a stone at shit, it usually splashes back on you."
Suddenly a bunch of stones flew off from near Ning, accurately hitting the shin of all the legs that those kids had.
Not a single bone was broken, but the kids fell onto the ground and started crying out in pain.
People started to gather around his house and saw the bunch of kids on the ground. They didn't sympathize with the kids.
They were known troublemakers that ran around the city causing problems to the duds. Their parents had high status in the city, so the duds couldn't even do anything against them.
Right now, all they thought in their heart was whatever happened here, the kids deserved it.
Ning walked up to the kid and pulled up the leader of the group and asked him, "are you responsible for this?"
"Fuck off! Do you think I will answer you?" he shouted.
"You will if you don't want me to break those legs," Ning said as he grabbed at the same part he had hit the stone at and started putting incredible pressure at it.
"AAHHH!!" the kid started screaming in pain. "Answer me quickly or your bones will break in half."
"N-No!" the kid cried.
"Very well," Ning put more pressure on it, getting the bone to the point of snapping.
"Wait! Wait! Wait! It was us. We did it," the kid shouted.
Ning let go.
The kid immediately started massaging to red, almost purple spot on his leg where Ning had been putting pressure.
"You did it?" Ning asked. The other kids were fully terrified seeing what the main kid was going through.
"Yes, we did it," the kid said.
"Under whose order?" Ning asked.
"No, no one. We just heard the adults talking about you and came to do what we did," the kid said.
"Alright, you have 1 hour to fix this house the way it was before. If not, I will break all of your legs for sure this time," Ning scared them.
"Ye-yes!" the kids nodded quickly and stood up to go clear the garbage and the writing on the wall.
Ning didn't care how they would do it, he only cared that they did.
He cleared a bit of trash in one area, and setup his table there. People started gathering in a line in front of him.
There were people who hadn't yet gotten their share of ores and scrolls to become an Aether user yet.
So he spend the next few hours waiting for people to come. From what he knew, there shouldn't have been that many people left yet, and in a matter of days he should be able to leave this place.
The line was disrupted as a bunch of buff adults walked up to Ning with a bunch of sticks and metal rods.
They slammed his table the moment they arrived, smashing it into bits.
"What are you doing?" Ning asked.
They didn't answer and instead surrounded him and grabbed him by his arms, pulling him up.
A man appeared from the crowd with an almost obese body and a fancy looking suit.
"Who are you?" Ning asked.
"I am the mayor of this city, and I have come here to punish you for the chaos you have brought into my city."
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Chapter 480 – Killing
"The Mayor?" Ning looked at him with a curious face. "So you are Vandal Might, huh?"
"Yes, I am Vandal—"
The mayor looked behind Ning and saw the bunch of kids who were busy scrubbing away the words from the wall.
"You kids, what are you doing here?" the mayor asked.
"Uncle Vandal," the main kid seemed to know him closely. "Th-this man hurt us and forced us to work for him."
"You!!" the mayor got angry. "Not only are you causing chaos in my city, but you are also beating up the youths of my city as well. You really need to be taught a lesson."
"Calling yourself the Apostle of a goddess that doesn't exist, disrupting the society, you are worse than a criminal scum," the Mayor said.
"Can you stop talking please, and do whatever you came here to do?" Ning asked. "Because unlike you, I have a responsibility to improve this city."
The Mayor snapped. "Beat him!" he ordered.
The men at the side started striking at Ning's stomach with the metal rods and wooden sticks. Some hit him on the legs, some hit him on the chest, and some hit him on the shoulders.
Some even struck him on the head, clearly with the intention to kill.
He was struck from all sides for at least a whole minute before the mayor asked his goons to stop attacking.
The crowd gasped all around them, and some even tried to come to the front to save Ning, but the Mayor had people behind him guarding him.
"Is he dead?" the Mayor asked.
"Sir, he's not even bleeding," one of the men said.
"What? How can it be?" the Mayor got surprised.
Ning straightened his back and cracked his neck. He turned his head around to the back and looked at the kids who had fear and shock in their eyes from seeing a person being nearly beaten to death.
"You kids can leave now, run off," Ning said.
The kids looked at each other in confusion and didn't know what to do.
"I told you to run away, or do you want to keep scrubbing this place?" he asked.
The kids nodded and walked away.
Ning then turned to the crowd and spoke, "Take your kids away. They shouldn't see this."
The many parents in the crowd immediately searched for their kids and started taking them away.
They believed he was talking about himself being killed and even held a tear in their eyes for him.
Only if they knew what he was thinking.
Ning finally turned to the mayor. "You really came here planning to kill me, huh?" he asked.
"You bast—"
"Who was the one that hit me first? It was you right?" Ning asked one of the burly men standing to his right.
"So what if it was me?" the man asked.
The man holding Ning's right arm suddenly felt an incredible force throwing him upwards.
Everyone looked at the man being thrown high in the air, and at the same time, Ning used the free right hand to directly grab the throat of the man who had just spoken.
"You have one last time to take yourself and your children away from here," Ning said. The crowd finally understood what was going to happen.
Some left, but most stayed behind to watch. They wanted to see what was going to happen.
Ning looked back to the man and asked, "So what if it was you right?" He could see the fear rise up in the man's eyes.
The man suddenly struck the wooden bat right on Ning's head again, but as he did, his hands limped and there was no force at all on the attack.
Ning let go of his hands and watched the man fall to the ground with a crushed neck. Without a shadow of a doubt, the man was dead.
The catharsis of seeing people that had always looked down on them and treated them poorly getting hurt would feel incredible was what the people that stayed behind had thought.
However, seeing a person die so easily, even if they had hated them, made them feel a little sick.
Ning turned to the Mayor again and showed a devilish smile. "You see, I have a little rule for myself. Well, it's less of a rule and more of a restriction. I never kill people that have no desire to hurt me or the others."
His voice turned cold. "You guys are not it."
Suddenly a spear formed right into his hands. The men couldn't understand if he had created it, or taken it out of his storage bag.
Either way, it was too fast. Ning swung the spear towards his left arm, cutting the hands of the man that held him.
With the same motion, he stabbed upwards and pierced the man that was falling down in the shoulder.
He swung the back of the spear and hit another man in the face, breaking his jaw and cheekbones. He then stopped a rod swing from another man in front of him and cut the rod in two before stabbing him through the throat.
Ning remembered the people who hit him with full intention to kill and he only killed them. As for the others, he beat them until they wished they were dead.
The mayor fell down on the ground as he watched the big men he had brought to kill this so-called Apostle get beaten and die to his hands.
He wanted to run away, but his legs weren't working.
When Ning was done, half the men were dead, and half were unconscious after going into shock.
Ning walked up to the Mayor and stabbed him through the calves, making him scream at the top of his lungs.
"Did you think that just because I was single, I was an easy target for you?" Ning asked. "Sorry to say, but you poked the wrong beast today."
Ning pulled the spear out of the Mayor's calves and pierced it through his skull.
Ning finally looked up and around him at the terrified faces of the crowd.. 'It seems I cannot stay in this place any longer.'
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