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Chapter 481 – Perry Thatcher
Ning had already left Harnot city 2 weeks ago. He was starting to feel regretful about killing the mayor and the few other people.
He wasn't regretful because he killed, but rather because he was now considered a criminal, and this greatly diminished his influence as someone that was trying to do good.
"Tsk, I should remember this isn't Kumia. It's way more lawful," Ning thought to himself as he waited for people to him.
The empire had branded him a criminal, and he was finding it hard to do his Apostle work without people figuring out who he was.
He needed to think of ways to do that. One way was to give the technique to the publishing companies and have them do the work instead of him having to do it all.
That was likely the fastest way to go about it. After all, his primary focus for doing all of this was to bring the techniques to the normal folks that the Tower was trying to suppress.
The problem he faced now were the duds. He needed to give them something that wasn't simply Aether Ores so that he could keep hiding. He also needed something that could be mass-manufactured like the scrolls.
He would have to think about those later.
Ning took out a bunch of scrolls and laid them out in front of him on the bed in his hotel room.
'How many is this?' he thought and started counting. He had about 300 more scrolls.
"Alright, let's do this. System, teleport these 300 scrolls to every publishing company in all of this world," Ning said.
There are more than 300 Publishing companies
"Hmm, then just do it for the top 300 of those," Ning said. In his thoughts, even if just 3 of the 300 started publishing those scrolls, it would cause a big enough wave that the other 297 would soon join in on the action.
"Also, write 'Courtesy of the Apostle of Alexis' on the back of all of these scrolls before you do that, okay?"
Confirmed
The scrolls vanished at a moment's notice and were no more on the bed. Now, he would just have to wait and watch the Tower's ass be lit of fire.
'That makes me wonder. Aren't they supposed to be trying to stop me? It can't be that they gave up just because of what happened with Merilyn in Xandria, right?' he thought.
Just then, he felt the movement of air around him. His shirt flapped in the moving wind as his hair drifted to the side as well.
Not only the wind, but all the objects in the room were also slowly moving towards a certain point in his room.
Ning looked to his right and saw something black appear in front of him. It was a very tiny black spot in mid-air, but somehow the image of everything around it seemed warped.
The image warping with the pulling of objects around him gave Ning an idea of what that thing was.
It was a point in space that had a very strong gravitational pull.
Just as Ning was wondering what unnatural phenomenon was happening, the gravitational pull in front of him stopped, the winds and objects around him stopped moving, and in front of him, a man appeared.
It was an old man with long white hair, a white beard, and a very weak-looking build. He wore a dark purple robe and held a rather amicable smile on his face.
"Are you the Apostle of Alexis?" the man asked.
Ning looked at him in absolute shock. This man in front of him, he had just teleported there.
Aside from himself and Jha'Akim with his system, Ning had never seen another man teleport. However, he was sure that this man didn't use any system, instead, he used normal enchantment.
Ning knew about the possibility of teleportation using Enchantment. He didn't know how it could be done, only that it could be.
To think he would see someone teleport one day using only the energy of the planet… this was a dangerous man.
Ning could tell that this man was strong. Far stronger than he could hope to become in a short period of time.
The man looked at Ning for a while, and said, "based on your description of having a young face and quite a strong Aether rank, I can assume that you really are the Apostle of Alexis."
Ning looked at the man and used his Aether Analysis on him to check his rank. Suddenly, a sharp pain flared in his mind, making him stop.
He had only seen the person's rank and it had caused him mental pain. He had just now spent most of his mental energy trying to view this person's Aether rank.
This was dangerous. He was not a man Ning could fight.
"I am Perry Thatcher, the current Lord of the Aether Tower," he introduced himself. He then brought out a small glass bottle.
Ning didn't know what it was, but it looked dangerous. At the same time, he felt something in his stomach.
Ning looked at the bottle in the man's hand and for some reason felt his stomach where the bottle was.
'Shit! He's squeezing space again,' Ning thought and teleported out of the room.
The Lord of the Aether Tower remained in the room with a look of shock on his face. He looked around, but he couldn't see where Ning was at all.
'Did he teleport without using Aether?' the lord wondered. He wanted to learn how one could do that as well.
However, he sighed as he would likely never learn it now. He weighed the bottle in his hands, and as expected, the contents of it had already been moved over to a different location.
The location being the stomach of the Apostle.
Ning reappeared on top of the Ruins of Afterlife— that was the only place he could think of in the fraction of a second he had to leave.
He was about to take a deep breath of relief when suddenly, something started burning from deep within him.
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Chapter 482 – Attracted
Ning felt the burning in his stomach, and worse, it was slowly moving onto other parts of his body.
He did not feel any pain, so the burning was the only thing he could feel. If he had pain receptors, he was sure he would be on the ground, writhing with pain.
Suddenly he felt something happening. A rush of liquid came up his Esophagus, and he vomited it out.
Ning looked at it and saw a mixture of blood, food, and something that was destroying them both.
'Shit! Have I been poisoned?' he wondered.
Just as he thought that he felt his right knee buckled. He dropped to the ground and smacked his head on the ground.
"What the hell?" He thought and looked at his knees, only to find it fully rotten, with bones sticking out of it.
His skin and muscle writhed over his bones, trying to fix themselves, but the toxin kept his body had kept destroying them.
"System, what's going on?" he asked.
You have a powerful toxin in your body that is destroying your body from the inside.
"And my regeneration can't keep up?" Ning asked in surprise as he felt the other parts of his body start to tear themselves up as well.
Yes. The toxin is destroying your cells and using them to produce more toxins that continue destroying your cells
at this rate, the toxin will overtake your body until nothing remains
"What the hell? Will my body not regenerate?" Ning asked.
it will, but the toxin will destroy it again
"Dammit. What the hell did that guy do?" Ning thought back to the Lord of the tower's glass bottle. That was what likely held this toxin.
'To think such a powerful toxin existed,' he thought.
"System, can you remove it please," he asked.
It will cost you 52 Trillion Energy. Are you sure?
"Wait, what the hell?" Ning asked. "That's half of what I have right now. Why the hell is it is so expensive to fix it?"
The Toxin is really powerful, and removing it from your body not only requires the toxin to the removed, but also part of your body which has been eaten away by the toxin.
it is your body part that makes this task so expensive
if the Toxin alone were to be removed, it would only cost you 1.5 Trillion energy
'Dammit!' Ning cried out. He couldn't do that. He wasn't going to spend half of his energy on his body.
"Is there any other way?" Ning asked.
There is a cure you can prepare using the ingredients found in this world
"Oh, that makes it easy. Give me the list of ingredients and where I can find them," Ning said.
The system did what it was told and gave him a bunch of information. Ning looked through all of that information, but there was something missing.
"Hey, why does this Scarlet Blood Lily have no location assigned to it?" Ning asked.
there isn't one mature enough for use in this world yet.
"Fuck! When is the soonest that one will mature?" Ning asked.
5 years
"Oh, that's not bad. I can wait for 5 years," Ning thought. Without wasting any more time, Ning brought out his spear from his storage and switched bodies with it before taking his body into his storage.
With the time stopped in the storage, the toxin couldn't keep eating away at it like it was just now.
"5 years huh? I guess I will have to go back to the same routine as I did for hundreds of years before this," Ning thought.
"Although, before that, let's go gather all the ingredients I will need," Ning said.
After that, Ning teleported around the world, which mostly just led him to the forest that separated the continent.
Within it, he found many of the ingredients he needed. All except for the Scarlet blood Lily.
He found multiple of them as well, but not a single one mature enough to be useful.
When he asked why there were none of such flowers available even though it wasn't the rarest flower in the forest, the system had told him that it had to do with the lifetime of the flower.
After the flower blossomed, which was it maturing, the flower would only stay matured for about 5 days worth of time.
If not picked within that time period, the flower would then disappear and in its place, it would form a fruit. Unfortunately, Ning didn't need the fruit.
"So I just have to pick it up when it matures huh? That's simple. Let me know when that happens, okay system?" Ning asked.
Confirmed.
Ning decided to stay in the forest. He was still in his spear, so he told the system.
"I will go sleep. Wake me up when my energy cap has reset or if I am moved from this place," Ning said.
Understood
Ning slowly felt his consciousness leave him. As soon as it was gone, he felt it coming back.
Ning heard some rattling sounds from around him as well as an up and down motion on his body. He also heard sounds of horses neighing.
'A carriage?' Ning thought confusedly. He looked around him and saw that he was in fact in the back of an ancient-looking carriage.
He was currently being held by a woman to her left who looked to the back of the carriage.
The woman, if described as anything, was beautiful. That was all Ning could think at the moment.
Long slender arms that were barely hidden by the see-through fabric of hers. An oval face of fair complexion with skin so smooth that Ning thought it was a statue for a moment.
The woman blinked, her long eyelashes moving, further accentuating the beautiful, dark Purple eyes of hers.
Her long flowing dark auburn hair fell down to her chest, not a single hair gone stray from it.
Along with the rest of her body, Ning really thought she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen in his life.
And that… was weird. Whatever he was feeling was definitely weird. He had never felt this much attraction towards a person in all of his life, even when his emotions were amplified.
It was as if, the woman sitting in front of him, was supposed to be the epitome of what human beauty could be.
'No, something is wrong. I can't stay here,' Ning thought. He wasn't sure how he was here in the first place, so he decided to leave back to the forest near the Scarlet Blood Lilies.
With a thought, he disappeared from the location.
His scenery changed, but not all that much. All he had somehow managed to do was go from being on the left side of the woman to being on the right side.
'What the hell is going—'
Just then, he looked at the woman. She was looking back at him and smiling towards him as well.
"You can stop trying to leave me," she said. "I have been watching you for a while now. I know all of your tricks."
Ning felt scared and weirdly attracted to her smile at the same time.
"Did you really think that I would let you go after you go around claiming to be my Apostle?" she asked.
Ning's eyes went wide as he realized who she was.
The Goddess of Aether.. Alexis.
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Chapter 483 – A New Body
The carriage rattled for a good few seconds, making that the only sound in the carriage for that period of time. Ning was too shocked to even think and finally decided to learn a little more.
"You… You are Alexis, the Goddess?" Ning asked using sound energy through the spear.
"I believe that is the name I have been given throughout the eons," the woman spoke with a voice so beautiful that just made him fall for her even more.
'Don't let your thoughts go astray, Ning,' he told himself.
"Don't worry. Your thoughts won't harm me," Alexis said from the side.
'She can read my mind?' Ning thought.
"Yes, I can read your little mind," Alexis said with a little chuckle.
"Ahem, sorry about that," Ning said.
"Don't be," Alexis said. "You don't have to apologize for me intruding your mind."
Her beautiful voice with her gorgeous face was making it hard for Ning to concentrate.
"How… can you read my mind, though? Does Aether give such skills as well?" Ning asked. He had read quite a bit about Aether, but he never knew this was possible.
"No, I cannot read the minds of anyone else in this world. Only yours," Alexis said. "That was one of the reasons why you caught my eyes the first time you came here 6000 years ago."
Ning felt quite a shock. "You knew about me back then too?" he asked.
"Yes," Alexis said. "After all, not many people can come through the Peak of Afterlife. Although, you destroyed it, and I'm quite angry with you for that."
"Did you know how difficult it was to create a seal around that mountain?" she asked.
Ning felt another shock. "You created that powerful seal?" he asked.
"I… think so? At least that's what I remember," Alexis said. "My consciousness didn't fully develop until dozens of thousands of years ago."
'So old,' Ning thought.
"I am," Alexis said.
"I read about you in the library of the tower. How… much of it is true?" Ning asked.
"What did it say?" She asked.
"That you are the goddess of Aether, and that you came down from the heavens and created Aether to help men," Ning said.
"Is that what they think of me?" she asked. "Hmm, did I create Aether? Or did Aether create me? I don't know which came first, but it is true that I helped men with Aether."
"Men weren't making use of Aether, despite knowing about it, thinking it was taboo, so I came to them and helped them understand more of it," She said.
"I see," Ning said. "So… why did you show yourself up to me now? Do you need something from me?"
"Yes," Alexis said. "I want you to continue to be my apostle."
"Well, you will have to wait 5 years for that, unfortunately. Unless you can cure my body right now," he said.
"I can," Alexis said, giving Ning a bit of hope. "But I won't do that."
"Why?" Ning asked. "Won't it be better if you help me get my body back so I can continue doing the work I was doing?"
"It would, but I need a weak you right now. Not the strong you," she said. "I've seen you create things. So, you can create a new body too, right? Create a new one that has never seen Aether before."
"A new body?" Ning asked. "Are you going to teach me how to use Aether or what?"
"Yes," Alexis said. "I have seen you use Aether, and while it's… not bad, you still have a lot to learn. You also skipped a lot of ranks before learning to use Aether, so you ended up not understanding just how strong you can get."
Ning got a little curious. "Why do you want me to learn how to properly use Aether? Is there something you want me to do?" he asked.
"Yes, I want you to take over the Aether tower that has so much influence over the continent and use it to help everyone so that they can use Aether again," she said.
"For that, you will have to defeat the person at the top of Tower. The same one that poisoned you 10 minutes ago," she said.
"I have to fight and defeat that Perry guy?" Ning asked. "Hmm… if you really can teach me to use Aether in the most efficient way, then yes I may be able to help you."
"Alright, I will make a body for me then," he said. "Do you have any specifications?"
"Your previous body was absorbing Aether even when you weren't doing anything. Can you stop that?" she asked.
"Yes," Ning said. He just had to stop his Automatic absorption after all.
"And do make it a Dual Awakener," Alexis said.
"Okay," Ning said and quickly gave the specifications for a new body to the system.
The total energy required to make such a body was only a few dozen billion, so Ning was pretty okay with making it.
Bright white light appeared in front of him and a body that looked a bit different from his usual body appeared opposite to Alexis.
The body had the same height and build as Ning, except the face was a bit different. The nose was much pointier, the eyes a bit further apart, and the pupils of a slightly lighter brown color.
It was just enough to make Ning still have the same body, yet look completely different.
Ning switched to the new body, and at the same time, Alexis moved her hand to create a bunch of clothes directly onto the new body. She then looked at the new body and nodded.
"Thank you for accepting my offer," Alexis said. "You are the only one that can help me. Although, I won't be asking you to help me for nothing. I will give you an incentive to help me as well."
"An incentive?" the new Ning asked. "What is it that you can offer me?"
Alexis smiled and said, "I can give you the location of the place you've been so desperately wanting to find."
Ning's eyes went wide as he asked, "You know where the Origin is?"
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Chapter 484 – Freelands
"Yes, I know where the Origin is. And if you help me, I will take you there myself," she said.
"You should have told me earlier," Ning said. "Alright, I will beat that guy without any problem."
Ning had found a reason to work for the goddess. With the location of the Origin as an incentive, something that even his system wouldn't tell him about, he was going to be able to gather a lot of energy in such little time.
He simply hoped that the Origin had the same sort of time dilation that Kumia had.
Alexis looked at him with a gentle smile on her face, and Ning blushed a little when he saw her.
She was too damn beautiful. Ning wondered if she had some sort of skill that was making her so attractive, and used his Aether analysis to check on her.
However, just as he did, he heard a notification coming from the system.
Host is close to overexerting his Mental Capacity
Please take care
'Damn, I nearly lost consciousness,' Ning thought. That just went to show how powerful Alexis was in the ways of Aether. Simply looking at her first layer of Aether information, which simply gave her rank gave him a head-splitting ache that far surpassed the likes of even the lord of the tower.
"Are you sure you need my help? You seem like you can do what you wanted to yourself," Ning asked while rubbing his head. He couldn't believe it would hurt him this much so that he nearly went into a comatose again.
"I have enough strength to defeat anyone I want on this planet, but I am not able to hurt anyone. For some reason, my moral instincts tell me to not interfere with humans. Me teaching the humans was already me going against my own instincts, but I could force myself because I thought that was helping the people," she said.
"However, hurting someone is something I can't even force myself to do anymore. This is why I decided to go with helping someone again. You," she said.
Ning looked a little confused. There were things happening here that gave him quite a lot of confusion.
Besides all that, there was one thing he desperately wanted to learn.
'System, does she have a system?' he asked. That was the only thing he could think of that would allow her to be as powerful as he was, and do things that weren't normally possible with Aether.
No
'No?' Ning felt surprised. He was plenty sure that he had come across another system user. However, that didn't seem to be the case.
"What's a system?" Alexis asked confusedly.
"Uh, you don't have to know," Ning said quickly. He decided to change the topic quickly and asked, "So, um… are you really a goddess or just a human that has lived a really long time?"
"I do not know," Alexis said. "The more I think of the past, the more clouded by memories get. I remember a time when there were normal animals roaming the forest. I remember when they weren't Aether beasts yet."
"I remember when humans were barely coming to be in evolution. I remember these all, yet when I try to think back to it, I can't. It's a very weird sensation," she said.
"So you don't even know if you are a god or not?" Ning asked.
Alexis shook her head. "I am just… a being, I think. I might even just look like a human because I like how they look," she said.
Ning felt like he could in some sense understand what she was. An archaic being, that never died, has a fascination with a human body, so you make yourself one.
Was she perhaps an Energy at some point that got sentience? He wished the system would stop hiding information about energy. What was it so scared of them finding out.
What could it be hiding even?
Ning looked to the front of the carriage, which by now he had come to understand was nothing more than a normal cart being pulled by the horses.
He then put his arms forward and tried to create fire in his hands. He couldn't.
"I currently have no Aether. What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Become an Aether Starter," she said.
"Okay," Ning said. He let the automatic Aether absorption activate for a few seconds before closing it.
"Alright, done," he said.
Alexis looked at him and nodded. "Good, stay that way for now. I will start teaching you after we reach our destination," she said.
"Oh right," Ning said and he looked outside. "Where exactly are we going?"
The surrounding around him now looked like it was a small pathway in the middle of a canyon. He had seen a few carriages pass next to them and looked at them, wondering what such a old-looking cart was doing in such a place.
That reminded him.
"Wait, where exactly are we even at?" he asked. He had been so preoccupied with finding out that she was Alexis that he didn't even bother to learn where he was.
"We're in the Jesnal Canyon in the Kingdom of Shalor," she said.
"And where are we going?" he asked. The Kingdom of Shalor was an average place to stay at, but the Jesnal Canyon was not an ordinary place.
It landed right on the border of the Kingdom of Shalor, Principality of Losmana, and The Freeland. Since he was seeming to leave the Kingdom, he could only be going to one of the other two places. If he had to guess, it would be the Princi—
"The Freelands," Alexis said.
"The Freelands? Not Losmana? That is closer to the Aether headquarters," Ning said.
"We need to train you in a place where the Aether Tower has the most influence on the land. There you can show your skills and get pulled into the tower," she said.
"Since the Freelands has no monarch looking over them, the Tower gets the most authority in that place, and is thus the only place we can go to."
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Chapter 485 – Building A House
The Freelands lay in the mountain ranges of Yilal, so most of the cities and villages were either in the valleys or the mountains themselves.
After the originally massive Serian Empire came to its downfall, they could no longer regulate this mountainous area and had to thus give it up.
The other kingdoms didn't want to bother with land this treacherous to travel in and didn't take over it either.
So, the mountainous range that was free from any monarch's or government's rule came to be known as the Freelands.
The Freelands were a bunch of cities, that were ruled over by a city-lord, but that was the extent of the rule. Even then, the people were quite free to do whatever they wanted to.
That didn't mean there was no law, however. Since there were no monarch or government, the Tower had come to become the main law-keeping force of the place.
The cart rolled through a gravel road as it made its way to the bottom of one of the mountains.
"Let's go," Alexis said and got off from the cart that came to a stop. Ning got off as well behind her, and then the cart set off on its own, the horses dragging it to who knew where.
Alexis stood on the tall grass to the side of the gravel road, holding the spear in her hand as a makeshift staff.
Ning could see the familiar image of Alexis he had come to see in the statue and the book he had learned about her in.
"Come on, let's go get ourselves a house," she said and started walking into the trees that were at the foot of the mountain.
This area of land seemed to not have any humans living close by. The closest humans Ning could see was about halfway up the mountain, the path the gravel road led to.
Beyond that, the mountain was littered with houses. The city was up there and beyond in the valley behind the mountain.
Alexis walked until she came across a flat area without many trees around her. She closed her eyes and bowed her head in a sort of prayer.
Then, she opened her eyes and moved her hand. With that simple gesture, the massive trees all around her started getting pulled up from the roots.
Ning watched with wide eyes as controlling so many of the things at once was not that easy to do.
With another wave, the tree lost its branches, becoming a single, giant log. Those logs were then cut into 4 and planted around the area.
Alexis then moved her hands and the branches that were cut off started letting go of the leaves in them and they were put on the floor and to the sides of the giant logs.
Then, with no more items to use, Alexis started creating wood out of nowhere.
Ning watched with simple astounding as the house they were to live in came to fruition.
There was a small veranda at the front of the house, a 2 stairs staircase to lead up to the veranda, and a single door leading to a single-roomed house.
"This will be where we will be staying for a few weeks," Alexis said.
"Wow, you're amazing," Ning said. She really was. Ning wasn't sure he could make a house this quickly even if he were to ask the system.
Just telling the system the specifications alone would take him longer.
Ning walked up to the house, and up the veranda. He stomped on the wooden floor and realized that it really was quite strong.
He then walked through the doorless door and entered the house. The single room he was in was quite massive, almost 10 by 10 meters, but there was one problem.
Ning walked back out of the room and asked, "what are we going to do about the beds and furniture?"
"WE are going to do nothing. You are going to have to make the beds on your own," Alexis said.
"Oh, okay," Ning said and asked his system for a bed, who started asking him for specifics.
"And you are not allowed to use that little friend of yours that lives within you," Alexis said.
"Eh?" Ning was confused. "I can't use my system?"
"No, you will have to make the door, the bed, the chairs, and even the food, all by yourself," she said.
Ning understood what she meant. She was trying to get him to be self-sufficient, but…
"I'm only an Aether Starter right now. Creating even the most little things will cause me to go into paralysis," he said.
"Then you will just absorb a little Aether and go back to work," she said. She walked up to the house and waved her hand to create a small chair for herself to sit at.
"You better get to working now," she said. "The sun will set in a few hours, then you will have to work in the dark."
Ning didn't worry about the dark. After all, he had the night vision skill that could make it seem like a day if he wanted to.
However, the real problem would be the fatigue and hunger that came with this body. He couldn't work without any energy in him.
This body would likely die if he didn't do something quickly.
'I can sleep on the bunch of leaves if need be, so I don't have to worry about fatigue. I will need to think of food for now,' he thought.
He had a bunch of fruits in his storage at the moment, but he didn't want to use that.
Alexis was going out of her way to teach him Aether in a way that no other person in the world would be lucky enough to.
If he somehow ruined this chance, he would be the biggest idiot in the whole world.
"Right, I need to go find some food," he said to himself.
"One more thing," Alexis said from the veranda.. "You are only allowed to use your Aether for everything."
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Chapter 486 – Only Use Aether
"Only use my Aether?" Ning asked.
"Yes," Alexis said. "No using of hands or feet when it comes to the actual task you want to do. I will be able to tell it if you do."
"Sigh, okay," Ning said and walked off.
He went around the forest looking for some fruit. Very soon, he came across some growing on the top of the tree.
He wanted to teleport up there and grab it, but that wasn't allowed. He scratched his chin in confusion as using Aether didn't seem to be usable here either given how low his Aether amount was.
'That fruit is too far high. My little Aether won't be able to reach that location, let alone have enough force to pull the fruit off of the branch,' he thought.
He needed to think of some other ideas. He needed to think of some other ways.
"Hmm, if I weren't using my Aether, how would I get that fruit?" Ning thought to himself.
The first way he could think of was to climb up the side of the tree and go grab it. That was basically what he would do with Aether as well.
However, that wasn't possible right now. He was too weak. Then, the second way was to…
"Throw a rock at the fruit and hope it falls," Ning thought. Ning looked down at the ground and picked up a small pebble about a quarter the size of the pear-like fruit in the tree.
"I can only use Aether," he thought and the pebble started floating in his hand. He would then have to use his Aether to forcefu—
Ning lost all control of his body and fell to the ground. He had been paralyzed. 'Dammit!' he thought. 'Just that little use of Aether and I'm down?'
He had really underestimated just how low his Aether was right now. Having had so much Aether for so long, he had forgotten what having little Aether was like.
He used the Abyssal Absorption technique and got back his Aether a few seconds later. He didn't absorb a lot of Aether as that would have likely brought him to the next rank, Aether Student.
Alexis definitely had some plans with him as an Aether Starter.
Once Ning got back on his feet, he decided to do the same thing again. Only, this time, he didn't hastily use his Aether on the pebble.
He first decided to think about what he was going to do.
"Floating the pebble required gravitational energy and that emptied by Sea of Aether very quickly. I need to use something other than Gravitational energy. So… Kinetic energy?" Ning thought as he looked back up at the tree.
"Yeah, no other energy. Just a simple burst of Kinetic energy on the pebble that should propel it in the direction of the fruit.
"If I can get my aim correct, I should be able to get the fruit to drop," Ning thought. He was sure about it.
Ning got ready. With a single burst of use, he threw in all of his Aether onto the pebble to hurl it upwards.
He suddenly lost control of his body and fell to the ground again. Even as he was face down, he saw the pebble hit the branch next to the fruit and do nothing.
Ning's aim was off by just a few centimeters. "Again!" he thought and absorbed a bit of Aether to get back on his feet.
He knew what to do now, so he just needed to keep doing it until he succeeded.
It took him exactly 5 tries to get the fruit off of the tree. Ning gathered some Aether again to heal his paralyzed state and finally picked up the fruit.
He looked at the fruit with a little chuckle as he saw a part of it missing due to one of the time the stone hitting it directly.
'This likely won't be enough. Let's get some more,' Ning thought. He went to the other side of the tree to get some more of the fruit and in less than 30 minutes, he had about 4 of them now.
His aim improved a bit as well. Once he thought that he had enough for the night, he returned back to the small house.
"Oh, you returned quite fast," Alexis said. "It hasn't even been an hour yet."
"Yeah, I got the food," Ning said.
"Where is it?" Alexis asked.
"In my storage," Ning said as he brought out the 4 fruits.
"Remember what I said when you left here an hour ago?" Alexis asked.
"What?" Ning asked.
"That you are only allowed to use Aether," Alexis said.
Ning's eyes narrowed as he looked down at the fruits. "You don't mean to say that I can't store it in my storage either, do you?" he asked.
"That is exactly what I meant," Alexis replied.
"But… these will go bad if I don't store them," he said. "It's not even a cold climate. It's pretty hot out here."
"Then you will have to create something cold to keep it in then," She said.
"Damn, I should make ice to store it on my own as well?" he asked.
"Yes," Alexis said. "Although that can wait for later. Eat something if you're hungry and get ready. You have something else to do now."
Ning nodded and ate one of the fruit he had before asking Alexis what he was to do next.
"Go take one of the branches there and half bury it on the ground," she said.
Ning nodded and did as he was told to. He took one of the branches and half-buried it so that it stood like a stump on the ground.
"Alright, done. What now?" he asked.
"Now, step a little back and light the tip of the stump on fire," Alexis said.
Ning nodded and did just that. With a simple thought, a fire appeared on top of the stump, that burned brightly even in the day.
Ning nodded to himself and turned to Alexis. "Now what?"
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Chapter 487 – Training
"Put out the fire and try again," Alexis said from the veranda looking over Ning.
"Okay," Ning said and turned to put out the fire. As Alexis had made him understand by now, he was only to use Aether for everything.
He was about to use water to put it out, but he had to redo it again. If he used water, he would have to try extra hard.
'What was it? Oxygen?' he remembered the few books on science he had read for the last few weeks now. He hadn't gotten the chance to read much about it in the tower, so he had to try the books in the city.
Fortunately, they were enough to give him some ideas about it. To put out a fire, he just needed to starve it of oxygen.
For that, he didn't need water.
Some of the dirt on the ground moved up to the burning tip of the branch. Ning continuously absorbed Aether, so as to keep up his supply of it.
Once he brought up all of the dirt onto the fire and completely covered it, the fire went out.
"Phew! That was harder than I thought it would be," Ning thought. He really missed having more Aether, but having less of it right now was helping him understand how to properly use it.
He then used Aether to move away from the dirt as well as he could and started the fire on the branch again.
He looked at the fire before slowly turning back towards Alexis. "What do I do now? Put it out and burn it again?" he asked.
"Yes," Alexis said. "Only, you will take one step back each time you light it up and extinguish it."
Ning nodded and got back to his training. He took a step back and started putting out the fire again.
The dirt was easy to pick up this time now that he was sure what he had to do. Once he put out the fire, he burned it again.
It took Ning 2 whole cycles of burning and putting out the fire to see the purpose of the task. Now that he was about 3 steps away from the branch, the task of burning it started to get harder.
It was just too difficult to create fire at such a distance away from him.
Somehow, before the aether reached the branch to burn, it would dissipate along the way.
This meant that they couldn't properly use Aether at a distance.
Enchantment was easier to perform, and Invoking was harder. Ning had known for a while now, but due to his enormous Aether, it was hard to see the difference exactly.
Now he could. He had to focus very hard to make sure the Aether didn't disappear along the way.
'Maybe I should just create the fire in front of me and send it flying to the branch,' he thought.
He created the fire and was making it move towards the branch when suddenly it disappeared.
"What?" Ning felt confused. 'What just happened?'
"No mixing of Aether uses. Only use one of the two," Alexis said from the side. It had been her who destroyed the fire just then.
'How did she do it? I didn't feel the wind move or anything else appear there,' he thought.
"I created a vacuum," Alexis said. "A small point of reverse gravity that instead of pulling to it, pushes everything out. With nothing to feed on, your fire disappears. You will learn the skill soon, don't worry."
Ning got back to practicing. For nearly 3 hours, until the sun went down, he kept on doing the same thing.
By the end of it he was about 8 meters away from the branch, and completely exhausted.
It started getting dark, so Ning let the fire keep burning for light and left.
"I'm incredibly close to breaking through to the next rank," he said. It felt really weird.
His expensive body had no bottlenecks and he could consistently breakthrough without even knowing he did.
Now that he had bottlenecks, he was coming to understand just how hard it was for the common folks to grow as an Aether artists.
'I was really having it easy,' he thought as he walked back towards the house.
He walked inside to rest while Alexis still sat outside. Only after he entered the house did he realize that he had nothing in it to sleep on.
"Right, the leaves," he thought and went back out.
"Make sure to use Aether," Alexis said from her chair.
"What?" Ning got a little distressed when he heard that. "You can't be serious right? I'm already so tired."
"No, I'm serious," Alexis said. "Although, you may breakthrough to Aether Student before you do so."
Ning felt a little better hearing that. He quickly closed his eyes and started absorbing a bit more Aether.
Once he felt the bottleneck, he pushed past it and broke through. Suddenly, he felt a lot more invigorated.
With the newfound energy, he brought out a gust of air that helped him fly the bunch of leaves to the room.
He then went in and looked at it. Unfortunately, a bit of dust and small twigs followed the wind to come inside as well.
He spent nearly 10 minutes looking through it all.
"Do you want me to set you a bed as well?" Ning asked with a loud voice. However, he got no response in return.
"Alexis?" he asked as he walked outside.
The chair was there, but no one was sitting on it. "Where did she go?" he asked himself.
He went out to look for her, but he couldn't find her at all.
"There's no reason to worry about her," he thought and went back into the room.
She was a goddess, a rather powerful entity. Even if someone wanted to do something bad to her, they wouldn't be able to.
Unworried, he laid down on his pile of leaves and went to sleep.
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Chapter 488 – Changing Houses
"System, give me a skill," Ning said. It had been a long time since he had to ask for a skill from the system.
With how great his cultivation base was back in Kumia and how good his Aether rank had come to be in this world, he hadn't needed a new skill for himself.
But, now he did.
Alexis had just taught him a very weird but fun trick he could do with sound. Apparently, if you sent a certain strength of sound onto some object, you could destroy it, given you could supply enough Aether to create the sound.
However, the strength of the sound required was different for each object, and he wasn't sure which was which.
So, he decided to ask the system for a skill that would let him know.
Apparently, someone had already requested such skill as the system quickly gave him a skill.
The skill was called Resonance. Ning could use the skill to create sound at the same frequency as the object's natural frequency and destroy it.
While the skill used Energy, Ning only wanted to use the aspect of the skill that told him the natural frequency of the object and the frequency he was producing.
Once he got the skill, he went on to use it. He picked up a stone from the ground and checked its natural frequency.
Once he got the answer, he started creating sound energy directly from the stone.
He realized his frequency was really low, so he slowly changed it and started going higher and higher.
Finally, when he reached the same frequency as the stone's natural frequency, he lingered for a moment and started increasing the sound while keeping the frequency the same.
The stone started shaking so hard that in the next moment, it cracked into a dozen small pieces and fell to the ground.
"Phew! That works now," he thought. While it was quite unfortunate that he had to wait around for a while to reach the level of frequency to destroy the object.
'Surely things that are not stones will be easier to destroy,' he thought.
"Come on, let's go now," Alexis said as she left the house.
Ning looked back at the house. They were leaving this place today and he felt a little bad about it.
It wasn't that he had become attached to the house, but rather the things inside it. He had made a great bed for him to sleep at. A few tables, some chairs.
He had even made a place to keep foods cold that he was quite proud of.
Now, he had to leave it all because Alexis didn't want him to take anything with him so that he could start it all over again.
Ning felt a little salty about it all. Alexis didn't need to sleep, so she wouldn't know about the need for a good bed, but how was he to create the same bed all over again? It had taken him nearly a week to make it last time after all.
He begrudgingly followed her, complaining to himself how she would always leave at night time for some reason.
He had asked her where she went during the night, but she wouldn't answer it at all.
He had asked the system, but it would simply tell him that she hadn't gone anywhere. It would never explain beyond that.
The system really was weird when it came to talking about Alexis as it seemed hesitant to explain more about her for some reason.
The two of them walked up the mountain and finally went to the actual city in the mountains.
It had been weeks since Ning saw any human figure at all. That included him and Alexis as neither of them were human.
The humans around him noticed them walking top the mountain. 'Surely it isn't that uncommon for people to come to the mountains,' Ning thought for a while before realizing what was happening.
Alexis was walking in front of him and everyone was looking at her. As expected, he wasn't a unique case after all. Every single human on Vilmore was attracted to her.
However, Ning could see no lust in their eyes, only revere. They looked like people who had just seen a god, which they had.
They walked around the mountain and went down the other side. "Find an open area that doesn't have a house or is growing some crops," Alexis said.
Ning nodded. The Freelands was just such a place. Every piece of land was free for anyone to grab.
You could lay claim to the land as you wished and didn't have to pay any tax or anything for it.
The only rule to keep the land was that you have to grow some crops in it, or build your house in it.
If you claimed a piece of land and failed to do either of these things for a week, someone else could claim that land.
That was the only law-keeping people from hoarding land like in the other countries.
Ning quickly found a small piece of land that didn't seem like it was owned by anyone.
Even if it was, since they hadn't done anything in it, Ning could claim it and build something on it.
"We can use this area," Ning said. It was a small piece of land about 10 meters in length and 30 meters in breadth.
It only had some grasses growing on it, so he would need to find wood from someplace else to build a house.
He looked to the side and he could see the valley with the many houses down there and even a small tower.
'So the Aether tower is here too huh?' he thought. He had heard of them being in specific locations around the Freelands. He hadn't expected one to be this close by.
"Alright, you should make the house. I will go look for some food," Ning said.
"No," Alexis said. "You will be making the house."
Ning turned around. "Really?" he asked. "Dammit."
It was going to be a long and tiresome day.
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Chapter 489 - Announcemen
A few more weeks passed and Ning had safely gotten used to daily life.
He would start his morning when Alexis woke him up. He would then train for a while with Alexis on things he told him to try or do.
After nearly 5 hours of training, he would get something to eat, and rest for a bit before training for the next 5 hours.
After that, he would eat again and would use the next 5 hours as his free time, which he would use to go find food or check out the city.
After the 5 hour period was over, he trained for nearly 8 hours, and finally went to sleep.
The routine was exhaustive, but it was working. Ning was starting to get very good at using Aether in ways he didn't know were possible before.
It was early in the morning on a random day for Ning. The days had been monotonous so he didn't really know how many days he had been here exactly.
He was training with gravitational energy, to see what he could do.
He was training to crush a tree from the inside as he created what was practically a mini black hole.
He put gravitational energy onto the center of the tree and pushed in as much gravity on it as possible and soon, the tree started crumbling before being completely destroyed.
Ning stopped and the black hole disappeared, leaving behind a fallen tree that had half of its trunk missing.
Alexis nodded in approval. "Great, you can do that now too," she said. "There are a few more things I have still to teach you, but for now, you should go find a job for yourself."
"A job?" Ning was a little surprised. "We need money?"
"No, it's just a job that is suitable for you. Go to the valley today, to the City lord's manor. They are going to announce something today," Alexis said.
"Oh, what is it?" Ning asked curiously.
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"It would be better to find it out yourself. Go, you should be able to reach the place right as they announce it," Alexis said.
"Alright then, I'll go," Ning said and left.
He walked out of his house to the road and took the road all the way down to the valley.
He had been there a few times, but each time he had only roamed it and did nothing else as that was Alexis' order.
The further Ning walked downwards, the more houses he started seeing.
The valley was about 5 kilometers in radius, so it was quite big for a place that was considered to be one of the weaker cities in the Freelands.
A decent-sized river went across the city right through the middle, separating it into two halves, that had now come to be known as either the Lord's side or the Tower's side, because of the City Lord and the Aether tower being located in either half.
Despite being on the other half of the city, the City Lord's manor was next to the river, so it was still at the center of the city.
The valley was full of nothing but houses, and rarely could Ning see a place or two with food growing in it.
br/From what Ning understood, people did originally farm in this place. However, as they slowly stopped for some years and those lands got taken over by others who wanted to live there, the farmlands in the city started to dwindle.
Now, the farmlands only existed on the mountainside where fewer people wished to live in compared to being safe near the tower and the city lord.
Ning saw people moving, gossiping about something. 'Did the news of the announcement already spread?' Ning wondered.
He crossed the bridge atop the river and finally reached the Lord's manor.
The area was already crowded, so Ning was forced to say quite far away. He waited for a while, and finally, a short man with a cane walked out of the manor.
He had thick hair on the side, but barely any on top of his head. That look somehow seemed to suit his spherical head and body.
He was almost two heads shorter than the next man that walked behind him. This man looked younger, which still put him somewhere around 35 years old physically.
Ning could only guess his age physically, as his real age would be impossible to tell with analyzing him. After all, this man was an Aether expert from the Aether tower.
A few servants walked by the side and held out a metal speaker next to his face, waiting for the old man to speak.
"Ahem! So I assume you all have gotten the news about the announcement," the old man said. "I beg your pardon for trying to keep the announcement secret as even until this morning, we weren't sure if this was happening."
"Only a few hours ago did we finally get the confirmation and are now going to announce it," the old man said.
The crowd whispered amongst themselves, wondering what the announcement was about. Their city lord was certainly making it sound quite great.
"I will let brother Waxil announce the news as it pertains more to him than it does to me," The city lord moved backward.
The tall person from the Aether tower moved forward and took the speaker in his hands before speaking into it.
"As you all may know that some things have come to revelation in the last few weeks."
"Many of you may have even gotten your hands on it. Of course, I am speaking about the techniques that let people absorb Aether as they want to," Waxil said.
People started whispering again. They might have been a small city, but they had indeed come to learn about it all.
The city that lay beyond the mountains had printed tons and tons of scrolls that taught people how to gather Aether without being naturally gifted at it.
Many people from this city had gone to buy those scrolls for quite some price as well.
"Because of this, many talented individuals that were previously unable to increase their Aether ranks have now started popping up throughout the cities all over the world."
"This had become great news for many, but it has also become bad news because of some," Waxil said.
Ning listened to it all and nodded. He had indeed thought about this problem when he started spreading the scrolls.
But he couldn't stop improving the lives of the many because of a few people's bad thoughts. It wasn't like he could find out who would go on to becoming evil once they got stronger.
Humans were a fickle thing, and their emotions were more fickle. Some had a change of heart more often than they changed clothes.
"Because everyone is now strong, people are starting to disobey the law because they have the power to do so. And we, as the keepers of law are having a really hard time because of it."
"So, effective immediately, the Tower for this city will now hire 30 talented individuals to help us keep the law."
The crowd suddenly turned silent. Had they heard him correctly? Did they really just get the opportunity to join the tower?
Some people immediately started questioning if this was volunteer work or not.
"This is an actual job with great pay, and all you will need for it is a great understanding of Aether as well as having a high Aether rank," Waxil said.
Somebody shouted out loud and asked, "We have no knowledge of how to become a lawman. Do we still join?"
"Do not worry if you don't know much about law and such. You can learn plenty about it after you join the tower. You will go through an extensive course in the law and fighting tactics once you join."
People started getting excited. Earning money was quite hard in this place where people got their lands for free and could grow food by themselves easily as well.
Aside from that, the tower was the strongest organization in the world. Being a part of it meant that they would get status and protection like none out there.
"Since there will be quite a few people amongst you that will join, we will have to put you through some tests to see if you are capable. So, get ready for that," Waxil said.
The crowd got nervous and excited at the same time.
"There is one more thing," Waxil said to intervene into the crowd's joy, turning them silent. They intently listened to what he was about to say.
"This information comes directly from the headquarters of the Aether Tower over at the Serian Empire. If there are any of you that are exceptional in the ways of Aether, the tower is willing to take you over to the headquarters to rear you as one of their own."
"If you are able to do that, there won't be anything in the world for you to worry about."
Waxil put aside the microphone and left the stunned crowd.
Suddenly, the crowd got rowdy. They rushed forward to try and be the first to apply for it.
Ning stood where he was with a curious look on his face.
"I had thought the Tower would lose influence once the people learned about the existence of absorption technique. But somehow they are using this opportunity to strengthen themselves. Not bad," Ning thought.
Credit should be given where it was due. Ning chuckled a little to himself and walked forward to apply for it as well.
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Chapter 490 - Terran Forn
Ning applied for the job. He named himself Terran Forn, just a random name he asked his system to come up with.
Terran Forn was born in the Kingdom of Shalor and had moved to the Freelands about a dozen years ago. He was 48 years old at the moment and had reached Aether Magister in rank as an Enchanter.
Being in the Freelands, he didn't have any identity on himself to prove his identity, and for some reason, the Tower didn't seem to care if you put in the wrong information.
Once done, Ning left the valley and went back up the mountain. He had a week before he had to go to the tower to see if he was even chosen for the first test that would narrow the number of people even further.
'Surely Aether Magister isn't so easily come by amongst these people, right?' he thought. 48 years was beyond the range of someone that could enter the tower normally, but Aether Magister was strong enough so that he could make them feel they had missed someone.
Also, since Enchanters were so highly sought after in any battle-related job, Ning had decided to go with it, even though his skills as an Invoker wouldn't pale in comparison during an actual battle.
Ning could only hope that Terran got chosen by the next week.
There was more to this, however. He couldn't just be chosen. He needed to be the best amongst the people who joined.
After all, his primary target was to enter the headquarters of the tower and make his way up in ranks to fight the president.
However, he could do that by showing off the skills he had come to learn in the last half a year.
'I should tell Alexis that our plans will have to be moved forward by a couple of years,' he thought. However, he suspected she knew it already.
That only made him wonder more about who she was, or rather what she was.
God… was a weird concept he couldn't understand. Normally, he would expect it to be a normal person or beast that was so powerful and wise, that everyone else took them to be something better than themselves.
However, Alexis wasn't that. She wasn't human for sure given that she existed for such a long time when humans could only exist for about 500 years in this world.
Also, the fact that she seemed to be omniscient about almost everything made it impossible for her to be anything more than a system.
"But she doesn't have a system," he thought. This was starting to get confusing.
What was a system even?
There were way too many things that he didn't know about that the system wouldn't help him learn about.
He didn't mind. After all, he had eternity to learn about it all.
Ning went back home and found Alexis sitting on a small wooden chair in the front yard. He was surprised she stayed around, doing nothing during the day when she would disappear each night to go someplace else.
'Why doesn't she simply do what she needs to do at night right now? Surely she is just wasting her time here, right?' he thought.
br/Alexis smiled towards him. She had heard his thought and chose to not say anything.
Ning walked up to her and asked, "What do we do now?"
He somehow knew the answer that would come out of Alexis' mouth before she even spoke.
"You train."
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A week passed in the blink of an eye. Ning was in the middle of his morning training, which included shooting a gun at something behind Alexis while she stood in front of it.
At first, Ning wasn't sure how he could do that. After all, a bullet moved way beyond the speed of a normal human's comprehension to change its direction mid-air.
Also, if he wanted to change the direction, it had to be mid-flight of the bullet. His Aether couldn't move fast enough to reach a bullet that was on its way to the target.
So, changing the direction of a bullet by directly changing the kinetic energy in the bullet was not a choice.
He started thinking about what other possible routes he could go through. That was when he thought of using gravity to direct the bullet away.
Ning aimed towards Alexis but obviously at an angle that was aiming just outside her shoulders.
He would have to shoot that area while simultaneously flaring the gravity on the wooden post behind her to pull the bullet towards it.
That was exactly what he did.
It all happened in an instant. Alexis stood still with no movement to her, while he heard the post behind her get destroyed.
'It worked,' he thought.
The moment he had shot, he created a massive gravitational pull at the center of the wooden post that had pulled at the bullet.
He happily moved to the wooden post to see the result. When Alexis moved aside to show the result, his happiness dwindled like to almost nothing.
It had indeed worked. But it had done more than just work. Using gravity, he had pulled the bullet towards the wooden post, but at the same time, he had pulled everything around the post, including the post itself.
That couldn't be counted as success at all. If this was a true situation with a woman as a hostage and a criminal behind her, he would have not only shot the criminal but destroyed him from the inside.
At the same time, he would have pulled the woman onto the criminal, killing her with the massive gravitational pull.
Alexis had only survived because… she was Alexis.
'Given the wooden post magnetic energy wouldn't work either, would it?' he thought. While Magnetism worked on far fewer objects than gravity, it would still be strong enough to destroy the wooden post, while pulling at the iron in a human body around them.
"You seem to understand that simply using Aether arts won't help you," Alexis said.
"Now, you need to start focusing your Aether onto a single direction, rather than all."
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