Reincarnated As An Energy With A System

by Legrev

Personal reading of Reincarnated As An Energy With A System. The first part is at Stayrr and this is the continuation since he didnt or coudnt finish it

1. 497-520

Chapter 497 Unfortunate StoryAn hour later, the fighting finally came to a stop.

The area surrounding the tower became a ruin like any other battleground.

There had been about 20 people in the tower when the fighting broke, and maybe 15 more arrived to help after they learned of the situation.

Of them, 7 had died, and 12 were heavily injured. Ning got to helping the heavily injured folks first before going for the ones that were mildly injured.

The people were surprised to see his medical skills, but they weren't in a mood to show it.

Once Ning was done with the lawmen, he moved onto the convicts. There had been about 120 criminals in the cells below the tower, but most weren't strong enough to fight their way out.

So, about 70 or so were either immediately caught, or never even bothered to leave at all.

Of the remaining 70, they had managed to capture about 40 of them through sedating them. About 8 of them were killed without other actions being possible, and finally, 2 had managed to escape away.

Fortunately, none of the civilians were injured… except maybe one.

Ning watched the corpses get taken away, both the lawmen and the criminals… as well as the lone civilian. The man who had died while under his hold.

He hadn't gone through with the process to become a criminal, so he could still be counted as a civilian.

His words still floated in Ning's mind. Words like injustice, cowards, helping the rich, boot lickers.

And then the words about revenge. Revenge against who? For what? Ning felt curious.

So, he decided to look into it. He pulled up the man's information from the system and read it.

The man's name was Rejiro. He lived with his sister with no parents. From a young age, he had started working in the steel mill to make what little money he could.

He wasn't really good at farming, so he never bothered with getting land for himself.

Working in the mill, the boss saw his ability to lift steel bars better than any of his other men. So, he started making the boy do more work.

As he did, he also started a farm once his sister was old enough.

They were happy. The boy worked on the farm during the morning and evening, while working in the steel mill during the day.

They weren't earning a lot, but it was sufficient.

As the boy grew older, he got stronger. He was passively enchanting his body, but he didn't know.

The boss, however, knew and made the boy work a lot more than usual while keeping the pay the same.

Then, tragedy struck. His sister came down with an illness that could not be cured easily.

He needed thousands of Gols worth of medicine, something he could never hope to have within his lifetime.

He tried asking his neighbors for help, but they didn't have the money. He asked his boss, but he refused to give him any.

In fact, the boss even cut his pay during the days when he stayed at home, looking after his sister.

Still, the boy couldn't do anything but watch his sister die. Once she was dead, he cremated her body and took her ashes to the place where he had heard legends of people being taken after death.

The peak of Afterlife.

It was a few weeks-long journeys, but he took it and gave a proper farewell to his sister.

Finally, he returned back home. The first thing he did after coming back was going to the boss to tell him where he had been for the past few weeks.

However, when he got there, the boss told him that because of his disappearance, the mill had lost money and that money was docked from his pay that he had yet to receive. In fact, if he wanted to work again, he would have to work a couple of more weeks without any payment to pay back for the loss.

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The boy left the place angrily and went back home. He didn't need to work in such a place. He now knew how to farm, so he would be fine.

However, when he returned to his farm, he realized that it was not there anymore. The farm he had owned since childhood with his sister was now owned by someone else.

When he went to find out who it was, he was stunned. It was the boss.

The boss seemed to have been eying the land for quite a while, so when he saw the chance after the boy and his sister stopped working on it for a while, he took it.

Anger flared in the boy's eyes. Not only did the boss take away his pay, but he also took away the only other thing that his sister cared about.

So, in his anger, he went to kill the boss.

If Hans wasn't accidentally there, he would've likely succeeded in killing the boss.

However, life wasn't so fair towards the young boy.

Ning sighed once he read through the information. 'No wonder he thought of us like that. To his eyes, we were just like the boss, using our powers to hurt him,' he thought.

However, whatever the young man thought, he didn't deserve to die.

Ning went to the boss and captured him. He made the boss confess everything to the tower, and before long sent him to the prison where the boy was supposed to go.

"So that's what happened huh?" Hans said as he learned everything as well. "That's quite unfortunate."

Ning nodded.

"Well, his is not the only unfortunate story," Hans said, looking around at the empty desks where the others used to sit.

"They died too, they got hurt too," Hans said. "If the prisoners weren't strong, if the bad guys didn't get stronger, this would've never happened."

Ning was about to nod when he realized where Hans was going with his train of thought.

"If only that bastard that called himself the Apostle of Alexis never publicly revealed how to get stronger with Aether, we would've never gone through this trouble."

Chapter 498 PlansNing fell silent. He didn't know what to say.

At some level, he realized that this was all partly his fault. He had known that revealing the absorption technique to the world would have some level of negative effect, not he society with people being drunk off of power.

However, that was just a distant thought for him at the time. It was like learning about a car accident on the news.

You would feel a little bad for the ones that got into the accident, but not think for a second more.

However, if the accident were to happen right in front of you, that was when you felt the horror of what an accident was like.

To Ning, the problems his scrolls would cause were simply part of daily life. Something that was bound to happen.

However, when he saw it first hand, he truly realized that his actions had consequences.

He had been so focused on taking down the Tower, that he didn't stop to think for more than a moment if he really should have.

"He's dead now. There's no point in cursing a dead man," Waxil said as he walked by Hans and Ning.

Ning looked up and he could see the slight trauma the man felt from killing an innocent person.

"It's dark outside. Your shifts have ended. Go back home and rest," Waxil told them and moved away.

Ning finally looked out, and realize that the day had already turned to evening. He didn't realize where the hours had gone by.

He slowly walked back home, his mood a little better, but the guilt was still there.

He knew that it wasn't him that caused most of what had happened. But… the small part that was his fault made him feel bad.

He returned to the empty home, Alexis already gone somewhere.

Ning didn't have the heart to train for the day, so he went to his room to sleep. It had been a long day.

He lay on his bed for nearly 3 hours unable to sleep. The events of the day still played in his head.

"I brought this to the world," he thought, his face somber. But then, his face changed with resolve appearing on it. "Then I will fix it."

He stood back up from his bed and started thinking of how he could fix it.

Plan 1. Remove all knowledge of the Aether absorption technique from everyone's head.

"No, that won't work. I don't have nearly enough energy for that," he thought. He remembered erasing just a little bit of memory of the Emperor back in Xandria for not a lot of energy.

But multiplying that amount by nearly 4 billion of this world's population. That would give him a heart attack.

Plan 1 was all he could come up with for the moment. He needed to think some more.

The system wasn't helpful either. It wouldn't tell him much about Aether itself, but he could learn more about using Aether.

So, he bought higher-tiered knowledge of the Aether knowledge he already had and used Aether in other ways.

One of the things he learned from this new set of knowledge was how to create a storage item to keep things.

Surprisingly, the way to make them was something he had never would've expected it to be.

'You can do that?' he thought. However, while the knowledge was interesting, he skipped it for now since that wasn't very helpful to his current situation.

Plan 2. Teach good people how to fight so that they can protect themselves against the bad ones.

There were flaws in this plan as well. Not only was it very hard to teach a lot of people, but it also had the same problem that teaching everyone the scrolls had.

That being Ning could not tell who was good and who was bad. More importantly, he couldn't tell who would turn bad after learning it.

Besides, it would take years to teach people all over the world.

Plan 2 was a no-go.

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Plan 3 was gone before it was even formed. He wanted to do something like make formations, but that was impossible with Aether.

Only Qi could make formations… as far as he knew. There were dozens of different extra energy in the world that could also make formations, but Aether wasn't it.

As for Plan 4… Ning had no idea. With midnight falling over the world like a veil of darkness, Ning returned inside to sleep.

He woke up in the morning and saw Alexis outside the house on her chair. He could never tell when she came and go.

He walked up to her and decided to ask the goddess the question.

"Don't be sad," she said before he could even say anything. The goddess always somehow knew what he was thinking.

"I know you feel like you've done the world a terrible disservice by introducing the scrolls, and while the crime rate had indeed increased by over 300% in the last 10 weeks, there is also the fact that you have empowered a lot of good people too."

"As evil rises, there will always be good that rises along with it too to vanquish it," she said.

Ning nodded. He needed to hear it.

"Is there a way to repel Aether from an area?" Ning asked. That was the Plan 3 he wanted to do with formations before he remembered formations didn't work here.

"Repel?" Alexis asked. She knew everything he would ask and think before he did, but she still liked to act like she only just heard what he wanted to ask.

"Yes, repelling Aether," Ning asked. If anyone knew anything about it, it would surely be the Goddess of Aether.

"Unfortunately, there is no way to repels aether," she said.

Ning felt saddened when he heard this. Was there really no way?

"But… repelling Aether is not your objective, is it?" she asked.

Ning looked confused. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Alexis smiled a brilliant smile.

"There are ways to achieve what you want without Repelling aether. In fact, you just have to do the opposite."

Chapter 499 AttractionNing frowned for a moment. 'Opposite?' he thought. 'Not repel? How am I supposed to keep Aether away by not rep— '

He understood what she was trying to say. 'I need something to attract Aether away from a location,' he thought.

"Hurray! You got it!" Alexis said from the side.

"How?" Ning asked.

She smiled again. "That's for you to figure out. Now go on, or you will be late for work."

Ning had the urge to skip work for today to make the goddess answer his questions, but they needed him at work today.

Ning sighed and left the place. He wouldn't see Alexis until tomorrow morning now, so unless he could come up with answers today, he would have to ask her again tomorrow after 36 hours.

Ning made his way to the tower with million thoughts in his mind.

'If repelling is not the way, but attracting is, what attacks Aether?' Ning wondered.

'Should I use Gravity at one point to pull every— No, that pulls everything, not just Aether. That won't work,' he thought.

'Attract… Magnetic energy? Magnets don't attract Aether at all,' he thought.

What other ways were there?

He asked the system for ways, but the system said that the information had something to do with the Origin of this planet, so it didn't help him.

'The origin of this planet?' Ning thought with surprise. He didn't think the answer would be common, but he didn't think it was so uncommon.

'What could it be?' he thought.

He soon got busy with work and couldn't think about it for much longer.

He had to go through the funerals of the dead and then return to the tower to help with construction.

The civilians came to help them as well, which was quite surprising to Ning. However, they needed every help they could get.

After about 5 hours, the tower was back to looking as good as new.

Ning went back to his table to stay and got back to work. Just then, a man walked into the tower.

He stood at the entrance and looked around until he saw Ning. Then, he limped his way towards Ning.

"Officer," he called out to Ning when he got close.

Ning was busy thinking about the thing to help with his Aether problem, so he didn't notice the man get close.

Only after he was called the second time did he realize someone had appeared in front of him. When he looked up at the man, he realized that it was the same man from yesterday who he had caught stealing vegetables from a neighbor's farm.

"Oh, you came on your own?" Ning asked with surprise.

"Officer, you said this could help me… right?" he asked. He was still not sure if this was the right thing to do, but if what Ning had said was true, he needed this.

"Yes, yes," Ning said and took out a form to fill.

He asked the man some basic questions about himself and took a statement of the crime he committed.

Once he was all done, Ning gave him a punishment of 30 days in prison.

He took the form to get the approval of 5 different officers in the tower.

There was no judge in this city, so instead, they just needed the approval of 5 other officers to give out punishment.

Once Ning got it, he took the man to the cell and put him there. He looked at the other people there that were either sad or injured from yesterday's event.

Some of them had killed people, and would likely get the death penalty for it. There was nothing Ning could do about them.

However, he could stop it all from happening again to someone else.

Once his work was over, he returned home. As expected, Alexis was missing again.

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He sat down on his bed, not sleeping. He felt the bottleneck he was stuck on and knew that he needed to break through now as it was the perfect opportunity.

Ning started breathing in and out slowly as he felt the aether in his Sea of Aether slosh around while being nearly full to the brim.

He absorbed the Aether just a little realized that there wasn't much Aether in the surroundings to help him breakthrough.

So, he teleported to the Aether forest where there would be a lot of it.

Once he absorbed enough, the Aether went into his Sea, and he used that sea to push through his channels to breakthrough.

He was now an Aether King.

Ning looked at himself in surprise, his eyes so wide that they were almost circular.

Ning didn't need to be shocked for reaching the Aether King realm. That was easy. With how much Aether his automatic and manual absorption technique collected, it was simply a matter of time.

However, what did shock him was the fact that he had learned of the thing that attracted Aether.

Yes, humans could collect aether with a good absorption method and that would work in some cases, but not all.

What he was shocked about was the thing he has collected in his Sea of Aether just now.

Not the Aether, but rather the liquid that contained Aether.

He either needed to make something that collected Aether, or… he needed to make that liquid itself to collect Aether.

Ning returned home and waited for Alexis to arrive. He waited for hours on end when suddenly, he heard, "it seems you figured it out. And it didn't even take you a full day. I can't lie, I'm a little proud of you."

Alexis had once more returned without his knowledge.

Ning quickly walked outside to see Alexis on the chair. "So that is it? The liquid?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "Just get the liquid and the Aether will always more towards it."

Ning excitedly asked. "How do I make one?"

"You can't," she said. "But I can show you how to get some."

With that, the world around Ning shifted, and he found that both he and Alexis had teleported.

Chapter 500 Origin of VilmoreWhen Ning reappeared, he was in the middle of what looked like a really foggy region. however, it was way too hot to be foggy. There was a massive sun in the sky, but that was likely not the reason for this fog. which lead him to believe that he was actually in the middle of a bunch of steam.

Suddenly, he lost all feelings of gravity in his body as he started free falling.

He immediately caught himself and started flying normally. He looked around to catch the sight of Alexis flawlessly floating through the air, the water vapor parting around her, not daring to taint a single spot on her body with their moisture.

"Let's go down," she said. The two of them floated down until they were atop a small piece of land.

Ning looked around in shock. The land looked like nothing but an island with a single volcano on top of it.

The brown, rocky piece of land was really warm. Ning really believed a volcano would erupt at any moment here.

Most of the area was covered in dense fog and was hard to see.

Alexis took him and walked towards the mouth of the volcano. Ning walked along with her and slowly ascended the mountain.

"Is… this the Origin?" he asked. He had wanted to come here for so long, and finally, he was here. To top it all off, it was the goddess who had brought him here.

Ning took a mental image of the location and tried to find it on the map he had, but he couldn't find it.

'It must be in a folded space as well,' he thought.

"Yes, it is," Alexis said. "Not only is it in a folded space, but there is also a seal around the place as well."

"You might think you will come back here when I take you back, but you won't," she said.

"Eh? A seal?" Ning asked with a bit of surprise. "And you can open this seal?"

Alexis smiled at him. "Of course. I put the seal here after all."

Ning's eyes threatened to bulge out of its sockets. "You put a seal around this place?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "I don't really like it when people come in here, so I made it impossible to get in using any method."

Ning looked around. He wondered if this was the source of her godhood and that was why she didn't want anyone to come here.

"I learned my lesson pretty well last time," she said, almost absentmindedly.

"Your lesson?" he asked.

"Yes," Alexis said. "I had another seal prepared where I didn't want anyone to go to. However, preparing a seal where no one could enter cost me a lot of power. So, I had decided to skimp out a little and let some flaws there."

"I ended up making a seal where no living being could enter," she said.

"And the flaw?" Ning asked, and even as he did, An answer came to his mind.

"Yes," she said, reading the answer in his mind. "Since no living being could enter, people entered using dead people. I was quite distraught when I realized that."

"But the seal was already made, and I couldn't really change it," she said.

"You made the seal around the Peak of Afterlife?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes, and you destroyed it," Alexis said with a hollow voice

Alexis said nothing and continued walking. Ning started thinking about what he had just learned when he realized he had reached the top of the mountain and was now looking into the mouth of the vol—

It wasn't a volcano. Ning was wrong.

"The hell?" he asked in surprise as he tried to peer through the upcoming waves of steam to see what he was really looking at.

Alexis waved her hand and a gust of air took away the steam at the bottom of the crater.

When it went away, Ning could finally see a large pool of shimmering white liquid at the bottom of the crater.

The pool reminded him of the liquid Qi pool in the Origin of Kumia. However, while that was a pool of Qi, this one… wasn't a pool of Aether at all.

There was no energy in that pool aside from a bit of heat to turn it into vapor and…

Ning finally saw it. At the bottom of the lake, there was a large hole that looked like a portal, the same as the one at the bottom of the lake in Kumia.

That was the portal to the world of Energy where even he as an immortal had a very high likelihood of dying.

Ning subconsciously took a step back in fear, but still stuck his head out to look at the slightly purple color of just a small section of the lake.

"Aether is coming from there," Alexis pointed and said. "But… you knew that already, didn't you?"

Ning nodded.

"You keep surprising me with your knowledge," she said. She looked back towards the pool and continued explaining.

"That liquid right there is nothing but water, mixed with a special mineral that can only be found on this mountain."

"The mineral dissolves into the hot spring down there, which then becomes the liquid that absorbs Aether. From what I know, there are many other minerals out there that can make the Aether Liquid, but only this mineral is available on this planet," Alexis said.

Ning nodded as he came to an understanding. "So it the mixture of water and that mineral that makes the liquid that absorbs Aether, huh?" he said.

He would need this liquid to make the things that would stop people from collecting Aether.

"I don't necessarily need the liquid, do I?" he asked as he looked at the side of the mountain. "I just need the minerals."

"Yes," Alexis said.

"Depending on the amount of mineral in the liquid, it may or may not have a really high capacity of carrying Aether. If you want a liquid that gathers a massive amount of Aether, including the one from other Aether liquid already in the air, you will have to make a really concentrated liquid."

Ning nodded while listening to her. He looked at the bottom of the pool once more and realized that the Aether liquid that was supposed to be purple wasn't really purple at all.

"Go and get as many as you can from anywhere on this island," Alexis told him.

Ning nodded and left the place to get the minerals.

It took him no more than a few minutes to realize that the entire land was made up of the same mineral as the one in the crater.

Someplace had a higher amount and someplace had a lower amount, so he went on to find locations that had a lot of it.

He started digging in the rocky ground that was soft as a cake under his Aether King enchanted body. The shovel dug into the rock like a knife entering a bread and easily pulled out the contents inside of it.

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Then, he stored the minerals in his storage.

In just a matter of minutes, he had enough mineral to make that pond's worth of Aether liquid of the highest concentration.

He walked back up to the top of the mountain with Alexis still waiting there.

She looked solemn, with not a single smile on her face.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked.

"So beautiful," she said as she looked into the shimmering lights beneath the pool of Aether liquid.

"Don't go in there. That is very dangerous," Ning cautioned her.

"I know," She said. "I've touched it and felt it try to devour me. I won't make that mistake again."

Ning tried to ask her what it was like, but then he saw a teardrop from her face. He stopped.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

As if that were the key to the sea, the floodgates opened and tears streamed down both of her eyes.

"I'm dying," she said. "I have been dying for a while now, and I can't stop at all."

Ning froze. At first, he thought he heard her wrong. How could a god die? Weren't they gods because they couldn't die?

He wasn't a god, and even he couldn't die, without special circumstances.

However, he knew he could trust his hearing and thus the words he heard coming out of Alexis' mouth.

She was dying.

"Are you sure?" Ning asked.

Alexis nodded. She nodded while the tears streamed down her face constantly.

"I don't know what to do," she said. "I have been losing my mind a lot of the time recently. I can't even stay awake a whole day anymore and have to disappear to gather my consciousness before returning back."

"I don't want to regress back to the time when I couldn't think at all," Alexis said.

Ning tried to comfort her. "I'm sure we can find a way around this," he said.

"No, there is no way. I know everything, and therefore, I know that there is no way," she said.

Ning didn't want to believe that. He had never been in a situation where there was no solution to a problem.

Most of the time the solutions were horrible, and the worst choice, but they were still solutions.

"Do you know what is causing you to regress back to this unconscious state then? If we know how it is happening, then maybe we can fix it," Ning said.

Alexis nodded. "I know the reason," she said.

Ning smiled and asked, "What is it?"

She turned towards him, with red eyes full of anger, and said, "YOU!"

Ning felt the insides of his body lurch, and before he realized it, he was teleported away once more.

However, Alexis didn't return with him this time.

"YOU!"

The words replayed in his mind over and over. Alexis had been dying, and if he were to believe her, he was the cause.

"I am killing her?" he thought with a blank face. "How?"

How can a man kill a god?

'I'm not a man. No loner,' Ning thought. There were many times when he would forget that.

He sat down on his house's porch and started thinking about what Alexis meant.

"YOU!"

Ning felt like this was going to haunt him soon. He looked back towards the chair on the porch where Alexis used to sit all the time during the day.

She really wasn't back. 'Is she just angry for a while? Or will she never come back?' Ning wondered. He liked Alexis' company. Having someone that was more… immortal than him made him feel normal, as normal could be for someone that needed to worry about nothing.

'Immortal,' he thought. She wasn't immortal. She had lived for tens of thousands of years, and yet somehow she was dying because of Ning.

"Do you have any idea what I am doing that is causing Alexis to die?" Ning asked the system. He knew the system wouldn't answer anything regarding Alexis, but he still just wanted to shoot a qu—

The system is prohibited from revealing any information regarding Alexis or others like Alexis

The system finally said something that wasn't total silence.

"Prohibited?" Ning's face narrowed. He had come to assume that Alexis had information about energy that the system didn't want Ning to learn yet, but it seemed something was different about this.

"Prohibited by… the creator?" he asked.

Yes

"So it is not only about the energy that I'm not allowed to know about. There are other things as well huh?" Ning asked. "Does that mean I can never rely on you to know what she is?"

The system is only allowed to explain about entities like Alexis after the host comes to learn about them on their own

'Well, she is god,' Ning thought. The system didn't seem useful for now, so he decided to think about other things when suddenly the system spoke for one last time.

The system can tell you this

The cause of Alexis' regression is indeed you, and there is no way to stop the regression now

Ning looked shocked. "There is no way to stop it at all?" he nearly screamed out loud.

He refused to believe that. He would never believe that there were no solu—

"Believe," Ning thought of the word. "Belief… faith."

"Is Alexis losing her godliness because people are losing their faith in her?" Ning asked, but and got back silence as a response. He wasn't looking for a response anyway.please visit panda(-)N0ve1.co)m

'Don't gods get their divinities from their follower's faith and belief in them?' Ning thought. He thought he remembered learning something like that.

Ning started believing that it was something he did that made people lose their faith in Alexis, which then led to her slowly dying.

'I did go around claiming myself to be her apostle. Was that the cause?' he thought.

He asked the system if his little act had caused people's faith in Alexis to die down, but he got a weird answer.

Their faith in Alexis had in fact increased after what he did. "That's what I would've thought happened, but then why is she dying?" Ning tried, but he couldn't figure it out.

In the end, he decided to not think about that. As the system said, he wasn't going to understand about it, until Alexis explained it herself.

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So, he pushed that to the back of his mind and went to the tower for his work.

He wanted to immediately work on the minerals, but that would need time.

After a long day of work, Ning asked for 2 days' leave and went back home.

It was already nighttime, so Alexis wouldn't be here now. 'Was she gone during the night because she was dying?' Ning wondered.

He shook his head and went back inside.

'She said that the concentration matters, right?' he thought. He brought out a metal bowl and filled it with water from his house.

It was water that flowed through the mountains through the farms and houses.

He took out a bit of the dirt in his storage and looked at it. It was red, like the color of bricks.

"Can you give me a composition of this dirt?" Ning asked. For some reason, he had been so used to the system not answering him that he didn't even expect an answer.

However, when the system gave him everything without any hesitation, he was surprised.

"You are telling me that? I thought you couldn't before this," he said.

Since the host has gained the knowledge of the mineral solution being the container for Aether in this world, the system does not need to keep it hidden

"Okay," Ning said with a smile. "So, which one is the mineral?" he asked. The system had given him nearly 20 names just now, and it was hard to understand which one of those 20 was the thing he was looking for.

The system gave the name 'Alpurite'. Ning didn't know what this mineral was, but now he was going to use it.

"Can you separate all Alpurite in my storage from the rest of the dirt?" Ning asked.

Confirmed

Ning used his inner eye to see what was happening inside his storage and saw the dirt get separated into pure red, almost crimson powder, while the rest of the dirt remained on the other side.

Ning brought out the Alpurite to see what it was like. There was about 20 KG worth of Alpurite in his storage, and he had only brought out a spoonful of it.

However, the moment the red mineral got out, something happened.

Chapter 502 Experimenting The dry red mineral changed into moist purple sludge of sort in less than 2 seconds of appearing in the air.

Ning was surprised for a bit as to what had just happened, but it didn't take him long to understand it.

The Alpurite had immediately reacted with the moisture in the air and turned purple.

Suddenly, Ning felt a violent vortex of energy around him that threatened to destroy him. Energy from all around him and maybe even further away came rushing in towards him.

Ning got scared and instantly sent the powder back into his storage, and the massive airflow it had created finally stopped.

Ning breathed heavily as he looked around at the mess he had created. The bedsheet was all mangled up near him. The room was littered with dirt and leaves that had entered the room after the door had opened wide.

The chairs inside had also fallen from how strongly the airs were being pulled.

More than anything, Ning felt the extra dense Aether floating around him. More than just creating a lack of aether around him, the little incident just now had instead got him more aether.

'That's not right,' he thought. 'This is way too dense probably. I need to lower the concentration a little more.'

He got to experimenting like he had wanted to.

He looked at the metal bowl full of water, the one he had prepared before, and put about a gram worth of Alpurite in it.

It quickly dissolved in the water, and it slowly started turning purple.

However, it wasn't fast at all. If not for Ning feeling the slight flow of Aether, he wouldn't even be able to tell that the water was turning purple.

He could only see the change in the shade because he wanted to see that.

'This is too slow,' he thought and tossed the bowl of water outside. He then refilled the bowl for another try.

He could've just added another gram of the mineral, but that would hamper the test since the water had already gathered a bunch of aether.

He needed to continue from the start. For a split second, he brought out the sludge of purple powder to immediately attract a lot of Aether before putting it back in.

That would help restore the Aether in his house. Then he put in the 2 grams of mineral.

Ning spent the whole night experimenting with the liquid when at one point he finally reached a moment when he was successful.

Finally, about 22 grams of mineral onto the bowl's worth of water gave him the exact amount of the liquid mixture to gather Aether at such a speed that the refilling Aether would be gathered before it could linger around.

"I did it," Ning said and kept the bowl into his storage with a proud smile on his face.

He had come up with something after all that experimenting.

He sighed in relief and took out the purple sludge to restore his Aether once more. However, that was when he realized something was wrong.

Even when he took out the sludge, no Aether came flowing into the room as it would normally.

Ning got curious as to why that was and walked out. When he did, he finally realized what the problem was and nearly laughed out loud like a maniac.

By experimenting all night, he had ended up absorbing all the Aether in the mountain and the city. Ning slapped his face in embarrassment.

"I need to change location to try these out."

Ning spent the next 2 days of his free time going around the world at different spots to test out the liquid.

He not only tested with different amounts of Alpurite but also different types of water from different sources.

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Finally, he successfully figured out what he had wanted to figure out.

The best mineral to water ratio was 0.76 grams of Alpurite per gram of water.

Also, the best water was pure water, with no minerals and other stuff mixed in it.

Meaning, Ning couldn't just use any water out there and had to either get distilled water from someplace or have the system create it.

He also learned not to make the liquid in a metal bowl, or a ceramic one either, and instead needed to use glass for it.

Ning made a small glass marble that was hollow on the inside of about a centimeter in diameter.

If he were to fill that marble with the solution of the distilled water and pure Alpurite in the ratio as he figured out, it could clear the Aether in the area in about 4 minutes in most places and would keep it that way for… well, he couldn't test that.

In the last 8 hours since he had figured it out, the glass bead showed no sign of stopping at all. Instead, he was now lacking in Aether in his house, so he had to keep it in his storage.

However, if the system were to be believed, as it always could be, that small bead would keep a place Aether free —or at least very low to the point where most couldn't absorb any in the surrounding— for at least 2 years in a place like the Freelands.

In places like the Serian empire where there were more people constantly absorbing the Aether, it could even go as long as 3 years.

This also came with an added benefit that Ning didn't even realize when he was in the process of making it.

Every 200 or so years, one could break the glass bead to release the purest of Aether liquid that would go on auctions for hundreds of thousands of Gols.

Here he was creating it from almost nothing.

Ning couldn't wait to get this to the general masses, but he might have to wait for that. He didn't want to create the same problem he had created from the scrolls he mindlessly distributed.

'I should consult with people,' he thought and went to the tower.

Chapter 503 DiscussionAs soon as Ning reached the Tower, he immediately went to find Waxil, the head of this city's tower.

"Oh Terran, you're back," Waxil said. "I hope your 2 days off were useful."

"Yes, brother Waxil. You have no idea," Ning told him. "I have come to consult something with you, do you have some time?"

"Uh, I'm free for the hour. What is it?" Waxil asked.

Ning took out a small bead of glass and placed it on the table in front of Waxil. The bead was about the size of 2 centimeters in diameter and was completely transparent.

Waxil looked at the glass bead for a few seconds with questions on his head. "What's this?" he asked.

"Just wait a minute, brother Waxil," Ning said and sat on the chair to wait for the minute to pass.

Waxil was curious as to what the genius of his tower was making him look at.

'Did he bring back a souvenir from wherever he went in the last 2 days?' he wondered.

As he watched, the bead slowly changed color to reveal that it wasn't completely transparent, nor was it fully made of glass.

The bead was hollow with the glass only making about a quarter of a centimeter in thickness, leaving the inside hollow to be a centimeter and a half in diameter.

And the color it was changing to… was purple. Waxil's eyes narrowed and he got closer to look at the bead, while simultaneously staying so far away that he didn't accidentally nudge it and disrupt whatever it was going.

"You can touch it," Ning said and picked the bead up before tossing it towards Waxil.

Waxil caught the bead and looked at it closely with wide eyes. "This looks like…" he couldn't bring him to say it. There was no way that was possible at all.

Ning, however, knew it was possible and decided to finish his words, "yes. That is Aether. The purest form of it."

Ning saw no need to make the distinction between the liquid and the energy yet the people of this world had come to assume the liquid itself as the energy.

"You found this?" Waxil asked.

"Better," Ning said. "I made this."

Waxil's eyes went wide. Someone had actually made Aether. "Are you sure you're not lying?" Waxil asked.

Ning chuckled a little. "I would let you break that to prove that it's real, but there is another method," Ning said. "You have an absorption technique too, right brother Waxil?" he asked.

Waxil nodded. As a Head of the tower, he had received an absorption technique the day he took over the position about 20 years ago.

"Use it," Ning said.

Waxil nodded and used the technique, but suddenly he realized that he couldn't absorb any Aether at all.

"What… what's going on?" Waxil looked surprised.

"To explain what is happening, I will have to explain what Aether is," Ning said. Waxil stayed quiet and listened.

In just a matter of a minute, Waxil felt his whole world had turned upside down, and everything he had learned until now had been a lie.

His mouth hung wide open in shock as he asked, "Then what we are collecting is not Aether?"

"No, it is Aether, but the Aether needs a vessel to stay in your body. Also, when you have to use Aether, you may have noticed that your Aether boils, this loosens the bond between the water and the mineral, and makes the Aether in them easier to use."

"You can go on thinking that Aether liquid is just Aether and nothing will change. However, if you were to want to start making these, then you better understand the theory behind it," Ning said.

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Waxil's eyes moved around aimlessly as he was less focused on looking at things and more focused on thinking.

"So, here's the main reason I made this for," Ning started explaining. He explained how this would help keep Aether users from drawing in more Aether while they are in a public location.

This could also be used to removed Aether from people whose rank was lower than Aether King.

A different Aether concentration would have to be used for ones that were strong than that, but making such changes was easy.

"So? What should I do?" Ning asked. "How should I mass-produce it? Should I even mass-produce it? Do I reveal this piece of information to the world? Is such a thing may be a bad idea? Can it be misused? Should I be earning money from it?"

Ning asked a lot of questions in his mind that he wasn't confident he could come up with the right solution himself.

Waxil thought for a moment and said, "I don't think I have the knowledge, capability, or even authority to give you suggestions on what to do."

"Oh, then what should I do?" Ning asked.

"Keep this thing hidden. Don't let anyone know it exists for now. I will contact the headquarters and tell them about this. I'm sure they will send someone with more ability in this in just a few days," Waxil said.

Ning thought to himself and nodded. "Let's do that. For now, I will go and set up this bead in the jail downstairs. Hopefully, the range won't hamper the officers upstairs," he said.

Waxil nodded and let Ning go. Then, he picked up the phone and called the headquarters.

Ning left the room and took the stairs to the underground prison. The prison wasn't very large, but there were many people in there. Some of them were going to die very soon as well.

Ning walked to the center of the room and already noticed a massive lack of Aether from the surrounding. Just having the Aether liquid out for a considerable amount of time had already drawn out the Aether in this place.

He flew up to the ceiling, hidden from the prisoners, and placed the bead in a small hole he quickly carved out.

Once the bead was there, he left.

Chapter 504 MerasiA woman entered an elevator and hit the button for the highest floor. Once again, she had news in her hand, one that could shake the entire continent.

She couldn't believe that she had to be the one to deliver that information to the lord.

The door of the elevator opened, and she walked out of it. She walked up to the door of the room where the lord of the tower remained and knocked on it.

"Your majesty, I have some news," the woman spoke from outside the door.

"Come in," a voice came from inside. The door opened on its own, and the woman walked in.

"What is going on, Lira?" he asked the tone of his voice a little anxious.

"We… we just got a report, your highness. A kid from the Freelands has apparently learned how to create Aether," the woman said in a rushed voice.

"What?" the lord looked surprised. Lira was surprised to see that look as well. The lord never looked surprised.

"Is that true?" the lord's booming voice woke Lira up from her thoughts.

"That's what the transmission said, your majesty," the woman said. "It came from the Marian region of the Freelands, and Waxil, the Head of the tower there sent the information."

"Creating Aether… how is that even possible?" the lord fell into thought. He just couldn't believe it.

"Your majesty?" the woman asked again.

"Ah right, uhh… which one of the Supremes is currently awake?" he asked.

"Lady Merasi woke up 3 years ago. She had yet to go back to sleep," Lira said.

"Merasi? Tell her to go there, but make her keep herself in check. Don't let her go finding other Saints and Supremes to fight when she goes there," the lord said.

"Yes, your majesty," Lira said. That was one thing she wouldn't have to worry about. A place like the Freelands would have no Aether experts that could get Merasi to want to fight.

But just to be sure, Lira would still give her the direct order from the Lord.

Ning returned from… somewhere. It wasn't that he didn't know where he returned from, but rather the place he had returned from didn't have a name.

It was just a spot in the middle of the ocean, or rather, at the bottom of the ocean.

If anything, he would call this place the closest place he could find to Origin that was sealed away in some folded space around there.

Surprisingly, Ning wasn't wet at all. Despite coming from the bottom of the ocean, not a single drop of water had landed on him.

Using reverse gravity upon himself to create a vacuum around him had been surprisingly successful. Although he couldn't breathe during this duration, if he focused enough, he could directly create air onto his lungs which he would then just have to exhale.

Exhaling without inhaling was a weird feeling that Ning thought everyone should experience sometime.

Although he would understand if people didn't want to go through the deathly experience he had been through not seconds later.

If not for teleporting in time, he would've likely had to remake another body and restart his Aether absorption.

That would've set him back a little.

It was early in the morning and he needed to go back to the Tower for his work. His plan to work his way up the tower to become the lord of the tower had because of his current findings, been accelerated by a very fast amount.

He was supposed to train for a year before even finding work at the tower to slowly make his way up position to fight the lord in 5 years, but… just half a year later he was going to come into contact with someone from the headquarters.

Ning expected it to be a random King or Emperor who would come to check his claims, but that was still having his name be known in the headquarters.

Ning made his way to the tower, with many thoughts in his mind. He thought about how to bring this whole situation to his advantage.

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"Maybe there are—"

Suddenly, he felt a gust of wind push him from behind. No, there was something pulling him from in front of him.

A miniature black hole, the size of a glass marble appeared not far away from Ning, right in front of the Aether tower.

Normal civilians were starting to get dragged into the pulling force of the black hole, and Ning had to use his telekinesis to stop them from getting pulled in.

Suddenly, the anomaly in space disappeared, and a woman appeared in front of him.

When Ning saw this woman, he could really only think of one word in his mind.

Muscles.

He felt like he was looking at Vilmore's strongest female bodybuilder.

Her hair was red like embers that were tied in a high ponytail. Her face looked tame, unlike her body which could only be described with the word muscular.

Her skin was so tanned that it almost looked dark brown. There were some white tan-lines that showed her original skin color.

She wore a Purple and black coat and pants, the dressing of someone from the Aether tower.

Ning gulped when he saw her. He had met many people in this world and all of them he could look straight in the eyes. But this woman… if he were to look at her straight on, he would be looking at her chest.

She was at least a head taller than him.

'Damn, is she close to 7 foot tall or what?' he looked at her in shock. Everyone looked at her in shock.

The woman ignored the people's gaze and looked around as if searching for something.

At the same time, Ning used Aether Analysis on her. Suddenly, his head hurt with massive pain. It wasn't like the time when he looked at Alexis' information, but definitely like the time when he looked at the tower lord's information.

He felt a little scared. This woman was above an Aether Saint.

She was an Aether Supreme.

Chapter 505 Explaining to MerasiThe people of Freelands had never seen or heard of someone teleporting. Most didn't even understand it as a concept.

So, when a tall, dark woman of ungodly proportion suddenly appeared in front of them through a hole in space and demanded that they tell her where the only Aether tower of this place was, it was understandable that the civilians would get spooked into running away from her.

"Hey, wait! I'm not going to… hurt you."

By the time Merasi finished her sentences, there was only Ning next to her, and everyone else had run away.

Merasi sighed with a dejected face but then noticed Ning standing next to her.

"You aren't scared?" she asked.

Ning shook his head and pointed behind her. "The tower."

Merasi turned around and finally noticed that the tower had been behind her the whole time.

"So small," she commented when she saw the 3 stories tall tower.

"It doesn't need to be taller than that," Ning said as he walked up to her. "Come on, you must be here for me."

Merasi looked at the back of Ning who was walking towards the tower. "I'm here for you?" she asked questioningly. "You don't look like a middle-aged man."

"Middle-aged man?" Ning stopped to turn around and look at her. After a moment of confusion, he realized that she was talking about Waxil.

"Ah, brother Waxil must be inside," he told her and continued walking.

In just a couple of footsteps, Merasi caught up to him and even threatened to go beyond him. Her strides were just too wide.

"You are not afraid of me?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer said, "You will be if you knew who I was."

Ning gave a wry smile. It wasn't that he wasn't scared of her, after all, she was on a level that was perhaps higher than his original body's Aether rank.

But since she was an ally, he didn't have to be scared of her.

However, now that he heard her questioning that, he wondered if he should be.

"You aren't afraid of me, huh?" she asked. "Then you much be really strong."

Ning was wondering where this line of questioning was going, when she said, "Hey! Do you want to fight me?"

Ning looked stunned. 'What the hell? Why is she suddenly asking me to fight? I'm 3 ranks lower than her,' he thought.

"I'm only an Aether King, I can't fight with you," Ning said politely.

"Haha, don't worry. I'm an Aether King too," Merasi said.

Ning's eyes went wide. 'This lying bitch!' he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was she a battle fanatic that would go so far as to lie about her strength to fight him?

Waxil walked out, after having likely heard of the commotion outside.

"Terran, what's going—" his eyes widened as the casual expression on his face changed to one of shock and worry. "Lady Merasi, why are you here?" he asked as he bowed towards her.

"Oh, you know me?" Merasi looked surprised

"Of course," Waxil said. "I had the opportunity to see one of your battles with sir Bastille."

"This Waxil welcomes the Supreme lady Merasi to his humble tower," he said.

"Supreme? Like Aether Supreme?" Ning acted shocked at the new information.

"Yes, she is," Waxil said. "Be respectful of her."

Ning bowed a little and said, "I, Terran Forn, am happy to meet Supreme Lady Merasi. Also, I am quite saddened that I nearly fell for her joke about being an Aether King."

Waxil looked towards Merasi, wondering what Ning was talking about. At the same time, Merasi looked a little panicked.

"Yes, yes, that was a joke. Ahem, let's go in. I'm here to check your claim, Waxil. If any of what you have sent is false, I will beat you myself," Merasi said.

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Waxil shook to his core. He had seen her fight before and knew that there was no way he could let her attack him.

As soon as they reached inside the tower, Merasi suddenly stopped. Her eyes went wide as she looked around her as if searching for something.

"Lady Merasi?" Waxil asked.

"What's going on here?" she asked. "Why is this place devoid of Aether?"

"Ah, right. That was why we called you here. It's because of the new Aether that Terran here discovered," Waxil said as he pointed towards Ning.

"Because of the Aether?" Merasi looked confused.

"Let me explain in private," Waxil brought Merasi to his office and closed the door.

Then, Ning started explaining the same thing he did to Waxil the other day. Merasi nodded as she listened, absorbing all the information she was given.

"Hm, hm," she made some sounds of understanding.

"So, the Aether liquid absorbs the Aether from other less condensed Aether liquid floating in the air, creating a vacuum of Aether," Ning finished explaining.

"I see, I see," Merasi said. "So it just works, huh?"

"Eh?" Ning looked surprised. "I mean, yes. If you have the mineral, then it just works."

"So, you said you discovered it when trying to find a way to take away people's ability to use Aether, right?" Merasi asked.

"Yes, for especially dangerous people who would usually be kept in prisons. Since most people are given death sentences to ensure they don't retaliate, I wanted to reduce that," Ning said.

"Hmm, and it works?" she asked. "What about people who already have a lot of Aether before being put into prison. Won't they be able to use their Aether?"

"For now, anyone under Aether King will lose the Aether in their body in about 10 minutes. For anyone above that, we will have to use a higher concentration of the mineral," Ning said.

"Hmm," Merasi thought for a second. Waxil looked at her as well, while thinking himself.

"That is not a bad idea, but just the fact that you have made Aether… uh, Aether liquid is probably the greater thing to know here," she said.

"So anyway, what is this mineral called and how can we find it?"

Chapter 506 BetNing looked at her with an awkward face and said, "I would rather not reveal that piece of information."

"Eh?" Merasi said with a bit of confusion, while Waxil looked at Ning like he had lost his mind. He couldn't understand why Ning would ever refuse to answer a question of a Supreme.

Ning stood his ground. "As I said, I did it all because of what the apostle did with spreading knowledge about the scrolls regardless of who it helps and who it hurts."

"I don't want to do that. I will first make sure that it only helps and then start spreading it. Even then, I won't tell anyone about the mineral itself," Ning said.

Merasi looked stunned. Her face frowned as she said, "But I came all the way from the headquarters for just this."

"No," Ning said. "You came here to confirm whether this exists or not right? Well, there you go. It's real."

Merasi wasn't convinced. She wasn't about to leave the Freelands without more knowledge on how to create Aether. This would be a large help to the headquarters to remain above everyone else.

Now that the Apostle had spread absorption techniques that were better than the tower's, there was a chance of someone strong coming up to create an Aether organization of their own that would far surpass the tower.

She couldn't let that happen. She had a duty to not let that happen.

She thought for a second and said, "Is there any way you can tell me about the mineral? I can't leave without learning about it."

Ning shook his head. He was adamant about not letting anyone know.

"How about a bet?" Merasi said after thinking for a while. "If I win, you tell me what the mineral is."

Ning's eyes narrowed. "What are we betting on?" he asked.

"Whatever you want," Merasi said. She was desperate.

"Ok, what's in it for me then?" Ning asked.

"What do you want?" Merasi asked him. She didn't really care as she was looking to win whatever they would do.

"Hmm, how about… you get me admitted into the Headquarters?" he asked.

"You want to be part of the battle force?" Merasi asked with a surprised look. "You can be part of it if you just tell me the mineral, you know?"

Ning smiled. "I want to join it without revealing the mineral."

Merasi thought for a while and saw nothing wrong with this request. "Very well, I will accept it," she said. "So, what do you choose we do for the bet?"

Merasi expected him to choose something that would clearly be in Ning's favor. However, when he said what they were going to do, she looked surprised, even shocked.

"Fight? You want to fight me?" she asked. 'Is this guy mad? Does he not realize the difference between Aether King and Aether Supreme?' she wondered.

She loved fighting and would fight anyone that she met, but this was too serious of a situation for her to care about that.

"Don't you like fighting?" Ning asked.

Merasi listened to his words, searching for some hidden meanings behind it, but she couldn't find any.

"You do know you can't win against me if we fight right?" she asked.

"Yes, but that's only true if you were to use Aether," Ning said. "We will be fighting without using Aether. You have quite the body that would make anyone feel inferior, but is it even of any use?"

She could see him try to get on her nerves, but that didn't mean it wasn't working.

Anger flared on her face and a smirk appeared on it. "You want to fight? Very well," she said.

Ning smiled. He was finally going to go to the headquarters, making part of his plan move forward.

Merasi stood up and walked. "Come," she told Ning who followed her outside.

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Once again, she became the focus of everyone's gaze, but she ignored them and focused only on Ning who came up to her.

"Are you sure you want to fight me?" she asked once more. She couldn't understand how Ning could ever hope to defeat her, especially if she wasn't using Aether.

Waxil cleared up the area, pushing back to the crowd to give the two fighters space.

"What counts as a win?" Merasi asked.

"As long as one of us surrenders or falls unconscious, the other one wins," Ning said.

"Okay," Merasi said. "What about weapons?"

"As you wish," Ning said as he brought out a wooden staff with no design or texture on it.

It was a simple staff about 2 meters long and 5 centimeters wide. He wanted to bring out a spear, but… he decided not to. A staff would suffice.

Merasi saw the staff and put her hands forth. Around her fists, two pieces of metal appeared that slowly changed their shape to become a metal gauntlet that snugly fit into her hands.

Then, she metallic chain mail appeared around her, as well as a helmet. Aside from some joints here and there, she had covered all of her body parts in some sort of armor.

Ning hadn't expected this.

'A dual awakener,' he thought. He hadn't expected her to be one of the rare Dual Awakeners in this world. The fact that she made it to Aether Supreme as a Dual Awakener meant that the tower must have put a lot of resources into getting her there.

He had thought she would have just fallen fall for his bait and fought him recklessly to give him the opportunity to become a part of the Tower's Battle Force, but it looked like he had underestimated her.

'I judged her based on her body and personality,' he thought. 'Anyone who can make their way to Aether Supreme wouldn't be a reckless fool.'

"You look unsatisfied. Am I not allowed to have my own set of weapons and armor?" she asked.

"Yes, you can," Ning said. What was done was done. He needed to move on.

"Alright," a smile showed through Merasi's helmet as she said. "Come!"

Chapter 507 Fighting Merasi

Ning looked at Merasi, with her full clad armor and dashed.

His body had no strength aside from the slight physical empowerment that everyone got with their increase in Aether rank.

At best, he was at maybe Level 2 of body cultivation, which would be equal to the 2nd realm of Qi condensation on Kumia.

Still, it helped him enough to enhance his speed to the point where Merasi could barely put up her to protect herself.

BAM

A rather loud sound rang from the staff hitting the side of her right gauntlet. Aether stirred inside Ning, trying to do something, but failed.

In the same way, a world with Qi would allow for intents add to the damage of one's strike, the Aether tried to do the same and failed.

It was understandable. Aether wasn't Qi.

Merasi tried to punch with her left arm, but Ning slipped back. One thing he knew about fighting someone bigger than him was that he couldn't let them get close.

Once he was back, and Merasi was somewhat off-balance, he dashed back in.

He wanted to use the staff like a spear, but without the spearhead, it was a little hard to do.

So, Ning used one technique he knew that used the spear as a staff. The Revolving Spear technique.

He dashed back in to close the gaps and swung to her left side now. Merasi decided to go on the attack, not bothering to block at all.

When Ning slammed her left shoulder, she felt a slight force pass through her armor, but there was no pain at all. She barely even felt the force.

She then swung her right arm at Ning. Ning brought back his staff, while at the same time spinning around the incoming fist, barely dodging it.

At the same time, he brought the staff to hit her right shoulder. Aether stirred within him once more as that was what the technique demanded, a power source.

But Aether couldn't provide it. So, the power compounding effect of the Revolving spear technique was nowhere to be seen.

However, what did remain was its ability to gather momentum.

Ning spun the staff once again and hit Merasi's left shoulder, barely dodging the incoming left arm.

Then, he brought it back around and jumped as a swooping right foot came to attack his leg.

At the same time, Ning accurately turned around, using all of his momentum to swing his staff one last time and hit Merasi in the head.

The hit sounded like a gong in her head. The force of the impact, the sound is produced and the position she was already in, all came together to make her dizzy enough into falling to the ground.

Ning propped the staff on his shoulder and looked at her, struggling to get up. "Did I knock your head around too hard?" he asked.

Waxil and the surrounding crowd looked with shock. They had thought the big woman would win, but somehow, she had been beaten to the ground like she was a punching bag.

Not a single of her hit managed to land on the young man in front of her.

Merasi shook her head. He had knocked her head so hard that her brain had likely dislodged from its place for a moment or two.

Her blurry vision came back to focus and she finally stood up.

"You're not bad," she said. She felt a little disappointed in herself when she said that.

Ning looked like he had half his body weight, but somehow he had hit her hard into dropping to the ground.

"Can you continue?" Ning asked.

"Of course," Merasi said as she stood up once more.

"You can attack this time," Ning said, his staff unmoving from his shoulders.

Merasi felt a little angry, but she didn't contradict him. She was happy to get the chance to attack first.

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She dashed forward with incredible speed, despite the amount of metal covering her body.

Ning dodged to the side, his staff moving to hit her stomach area. Then he dodged another attack to dash backward, out of her range.

She followed him, trying to catch him, but she couldn't. Ning weaved in and out of her range, attacking each time he did, like a mouse fighting an Aether beast.

Merasi felt like she was significantly slowed down by her armor, but that was the only thing keeping her from taking a lot of damage.

Now that she was backing out of the fights when Ning was gaining momentum as well, she didn't take the same damage as she had earlier with the first bout.

Ning frowned. With Merasi realizing what not to do, his chances of winning had significantly lowered.

'Well, time to win by another method,' he thought and propped up his staff again.

He pointed it directly forward and charged at her. Merasi put her left arm in guard while punching with her right arm.

However, unexpectedly, Ning didn't attack her. Instead, he threw his spear at her visor.

'Does he want to block my vision? Why get rid of his weapon?' Merasi wondered, but not for long.

Her left arm mored slightly and grabbed the staff. Then… she felt her arm go numb.

Her left arm had grabbed the staff, but she couldn't feel her right arm. It was like a shock went through her entire right arm, and now she didn't even know if it was attached to her.

She put down her left arm and looked at her right arm in front of her only to find it dangling beside her without any control

She wanted to move it, but all she felt were pinpricks suddenly appearing all over her right arm.

"Don't worry," Ning said with a friendly smile from a bit far back. He had moved back there at some point. "The nerve will heal itself in about 5 minutes."

"What did you do to my arm?" Merasi demanded.

Ning's smile widened. "The same thing I'm going to do to the rest of your body."

Chapter 508 The ResultMerasi laid down with her back to the ground, thinking back to what had just happened. Despite her hard work, her muscles had been useless in her fight.

Ning had rushed towards her, with no weapon aside from his two fingers straightened like he was holding a dagger.

He moved with normal speed and hit her with a little bit more force than a normal human would.

But as soon as he did that, Merasi would lose control of part of her body. Ning hit her on the elbows where the metal didn't fit together, on the knee where there was a gap in the armor, and finally on her neck, making her lose control of everything below her as she slammed on the ground.

She looked with wide eyes as she realized that during the entire fight, she hadn't managed to land a single hit on him.

"How?" she asked, unable to understand what had happened. At first, she thought he was using Aether, but even she couldn't do something like that with aether.

Also, he was hitting each of her body parts before they went docile.

Ning walked in front of her and said, "you lose."

Merasi said nothing. She knew that she had lost. The winning condition was if the other person surrendered or was incapacitated.

She couldn't think of a better example of incapacitation than what she was going through.

"You can stand up, right?" Ning asked.

"Yes," Merasi said as Aether passed through her entire body. While she still had no control of it directly, she used Aether to control it.

She slowly stood up and with a thought, destroyed all of the armors in her body, revealing her muscled body to the masses once more.

"What did you do to me?" she asked Ning once more.

Ning picked up his staff from amidst the pile of broken metals as he said, "I hit your nerves to stop them from working for a few minutes."

"You can do that?" Merasi asked with a bit of surprise. "How do you even know where my nerves are?"

"I'm a doctor," Ning said. "These sort of things are second nature to me. I don't use it as much since using Aether is easier, but it does come in handy from time to time."

"You defeated me so easily," Merasi said. As much as she loved battle, it seemed she didn't like being beaten so overwhelmingly.

"I would've defeated you a lot more easily if you had decided to go with a weapon, instead of armors. I only hit your nerves because they were the only parts exposed to me for now."

"There are a lot more places on your body that I could hit to end the match in a single instant, but you got wise enough to put on armor. That helped it drag on to 5 minutes," Ning said.

"So… you lost the bet."

Merasi looked at him with awe. She had thought that she would have a great chance at winning in a battle, but… it seemed she was doomed to lose from the start.

"Where did you learn to fight like that? That staff technique of yours was amazing," Merasi said.

"Was it? It's one of my weaker techniques. The only reason I used it was because I didn't want to cut you with a spear," Ning said. "As for where I learned it… it was in another world."

Merasi didn't say anything. She assumed he was talking about a different place at a different time.

Waxil still looked at Ning with a face full of shock. Even after the three of them had entered the tower, he couldn't help but keep staring at Ning.

Ning saw that but chose to ignore it.

"So, about our bet. When do I leave?" Ning asked.

Merasi finally remembered the bet and said, "you wanted to join the Battle force of the headquarters?"

"Yes," Ning said.

"Now that you have shown me your ability, I can't deny that you will be a great help to us," Merasi said while nodding to herself.

"Alright, I will take you," Merasi said. Ning's smile widened to a grin.

"After 32 weeks."

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Ning's smile faded. "After 32 weeks?" he asked. "Why do I have to wait for a year and 12 weeks?"

"Well, that's how long there is until the next Battle Force recruitment," she said.

"Recruitment? Wasn't I supposed to directly join?" Ning asked.

"Yes, but you still have to wait for the day of the recruitment to join with the fresh recruits," Merasi said.

"It takes place every 2 years, so the last one already took place 8 months ago. Now, you have to wait for it like everyone else," she said.

Somehow, despite winning, Ning felt like he had lost today. He couldn't believe that he would have to spend another 32 weeks doing nothing.

"I will go and report what I have learned here today. I'm sure they will send someone to you to further discuss how to use the Aether you made."

"Until then, sit tight and don't let anyone else learn about this," Merasi said as she closed her eyes.

Her thoughts drifted to a distance and she latched onto it. Suddenly, Waxil and Ning felt themselves being slightly tugged onto by the space in front of Merasi.

The space warped to open a hole in it, that looked no different from a drain being opened under a pool of water.

"I hope to see you before I go sleep again in a few years. Goodbye," Merasi said and stepped forward.

Then, she disappeared.

Merasi had left as she had come, by opening a portal through space and walking into it.

It wasn't long before Ning could do it again.

He spent the rest of the day working like he normally would while occasionally thinking about the work related to the Aether.

Finally, once he was done, he left the tower.

He was in his thoughts when he came across someone sitting on his front porch.

Alexis was back.

Chapter 509 Breakthrough"Sorry for not returning sooner. I had a lot of things on my mind." That was all Alexis ever said to Ning after returning.

Ning tried to probe for more answers, but Alexis wouldn't give him any. She started acting like nothing had ever happened.

Soon, they got back to training again.

Time passed slowly. Ning continued his training while working in the tower. With his strength and expertise, he was making a small name for himself amongst the civilians.

At the same time, he worked with people from the headquarters to supply glass beads with the Aether liquid solution to distribute all over the world to the various law force at first, then other public locations that might need it.

In exchange, every once in a while, Ning let the tower have some of the liquid.

This way, he started earning quite a large sum of money too.

By the next 32 weeks, he had amassed a small fortune for himself, and also managed to hone all of his skills in Aether to the max.

Since tomorrow was the day he was to leave the Freelands for the Serian empire, he decided to break through once again.

Ning appeared in the middle of the Aether forest and checked the growth of the flowers that were supposed to help heal his body.

'Only 3 more years,' he thought and disappeared once again.

When he reappeared, he was in a different section of the Aether forest.

A rhino-like Aether beast with a body that glowed with purple veins in the night stared directly at Ning who had come out of nowhere.

It huffed in his direction and directly charged at him, thinking he was dangerous.

Ning grabbed the beast by its horn on the nose and threw it back towards a massive tree.

The beast hit the tree and fell to the ground. When it stood up, it no longer dared to attack Ning and just ran away.

Ning walked over to a patch of land and started digging on it with his bare hands. With his Aether Emperor strength, digging even in such hard land became as easy as sifting through sands.

Finally, he reached a metal box, which he dented with his force. He brought it out and crushed the lid open to reveal a massive bottle of at least a liter volume inside of it.

He took the bottle out and popped open the stopper. Then, he drank its content.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

The liquid slid down the wall of the bottle as if it had no adhesive force sticking it to the side of the glass, and Ning drank it all wasting not a single drop of it.

Then, he sat down.

The nearly 32 weeks old bottle that was constantly moved through the entire forest multiple times in a week contained some of the purest Aether liquid Ning had made until now.

A single drop of this liquid was enough to awaken someone to Aether and then send them directly to Aether Master.

A single drop of this liquid was what Ning could gather automatically every day with his skill that cost him trillions of Energy.

Now, he got nearly hundreds of years' worth of energy with a single bottle. He sighed.

'If only there was no cap. This would all be so easy,' he thought.

Ning closed his eyes and focused on absorbing the aether in his stomach. While it would mostly be automatic, there was way too much Aether in his stomach that would just leave his body on its own.

In fact, he even stopped breaking just so he didn't lose any. He ran his absorption technique to the fullest and slowly absorbed it all.

By the time the sun showed up, he had gathered it all and even advanced an Aether rank all the way up to the next level.

He was now an Aether Saint.

Now that he felt his strength, Ning realized that this was what his previous rank was as well.

His other body had also been an Aether Saint, albeit a lot closer to Aether Supreme than he was.

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But that would change soon.

Ning put his finger inside the bottle and suddenly, freshwater sprouted from it, filling the bottle.

Then, a chunk of red stone appeared in the center of it, and Ning immediately put back the stopper.

Ning had tried using his Aether to create distilled water, but it was a little hard. Not to mention, he could barely create Alpurite.

Even then, when he dissolved it, he realized that for some reason, since the solution was created using Aether, they wouldn't gather at all.

If Ning only created one of the two ingredients, then the amount of Aether the solution could absorb went down to half.

So, he initially assumed that he would have to make do with the Alpurite in his storage.

However, when he used his system, instead of Aether, to create the ingredients, they worked perfectly.

Perhaps because the impurities were non-existent, it gathered Aether better than any of the other solutions he had made till now.

Ning shook the bottle to dissolve the Alpurite into the distilled water and put it inside a new metal box before burying it into the ground.

He would come in a few days to change its location again. Keeping it at the same location was idiotic as the Aether-less surrounding would only slow down its absorption speed.

The bottle had already started absorbing the Aether in the area and even pulled on Ning's sea of Aether in his body.

However, he had a lot of Aether now to care about it.

Instead, he put his hands forward and focused on a single thing. Home.

A point of gravity appeared in front of him that only pulled a single point in space far away.

Space warped around the point, getting bigger and bigger until it looked like a portal.

Ning smiled and stepped in. When he reappeared, he had arrived back in his room.

He had, for the first time, successfully teleported using Aether.

Chapter 510 TravelThere were 3 days until the Battle Force of the Aether tower in the Headquarters recruited new members for themselves.

Ning was guaranteed a spot already, but he still wanted to be there in time to see its proceeding.

If he felt like it, he would go through the selection process as well. After all, he didn't really like the thought of his peers thinking he was a snobby, rich brat that might have entered because of his father's money.

After saying goodbye to Waxil, Hans, and the various other members of the tower in the Freelands, Ning got on a carriage with Alexis and left.

Alexis wanted to take the carriage and see the world, and Ning didn't deny her of that.

She was really dying, her nightly disappearance now lasted well into the mornings. Ning wouldn't keep her from fulfilling what could essentially be her final wish.

He was really grateful for her teaching him so many things throughout the last 2 years.

The carriage, which once again, was just a simple cart, drawn by 2 horses at the front, went up the mountain, and down it.

Ning watched the cart go through the dirt road of the Freelands for nearly half a day before it arrived at the Jesnal canyon.

However, instead of going through it, they took the other road to go towards the Principality of Losmana.

Like the Freelands and the Republic of embers, the Principality of Losmana was also part of the old Serian empire, before it broke off into the 4 regions.

The old Serian Empire had taken over nearly half the world. Even after breaking off, it was still the biggest powerhouse in the world.

Especially, since the Aether Tower originated from there and had its headquarters there.

Given how close the Aether Tower's creators were with the original royal family, it was understandable how they were so strong.

'I thought the brother and sister had done great, but that kid Zand outclassed them both, huh?' Ning thought with a smile on his face.

Zand, through the plants Ning helped him produce colors had furthered his income so much so that he was able to leave the small town close to the Peak of Aftermath, and went all the way to the then Pestonia empire.

When Pestonia and Kloako empire fought in a war, with the help of Famir and Mavenna, he further increased his standing so much so that he ended up being the person to end the war and unite the two empires.

Bringing forth the Serian empire.

Another half a day passed and they reached the Principality of Losmana. The horses kept on pulling the cart for the last 36 hours. Even if Ning had half a brain cell —which he didn't. He had at least 2— he would still have found it weird that the horses didn't need food, water, or break whatsoever.

Ning decided to do something that Alexis had taught him not long ago.

He focused his concentration and Aether flowed into his eyes. Raw Aether with no changes whatsoever.

When it reached his eyes, his vision slightly changed and a haze of purple appeared on his vision.

At the same time, he saw a purple glow around the horses as well. A rather stark purple glow.

'I see,' Ning thought. Those weren't normal horses, but rather Aether beasts.

Alexis had invoked light around the horses to create camouflage for the horse-like Aether beasts to look like normal horses.

"You can control Aether Beasts?" Ning asked her. She was the one who had prepared the cart, so he assumed so.

"No," Alexis said. "They are my children and they do what I ask of them."

"I see," Ning said. He turned to look outside of the cart. Many other carts and carriages moved alongside them towards the various cities in Losmana.

Most of them were merchants going around places to buy and sell the food that was grown in Losmana.

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Being in the plains, the principality had one of the most fertile lands in all of Vilmore.

Ning watched trains move along the train tracks far from him and wondered if he should take them. That way they could reach the Serian Empire in half a day.

But he chose not to. Even if it took 2 days, taking the scenic path was likely the better choice in his mind.

Half a day later, he went through the Vedel city, the capital of Losmana, and half a day later, he was close to the border of it.

Around dawn on the next day, he crossed over to the Serian empire and saw a massive change in the infrastructure of the society.

The roads were pitch black, houses tall and made up of all stones. Light posts were placed all over the city that lit up all the way until the sun came up.

Ning looked in awe at the city. Living for nearly 2 years in the Freelands had made him forget just how advanced Vilmore had come to be.

Ning could even see what looked like a car running through the streets. Although, he couldn't see if there was a person on the inside controlling it.

Ning's cart stood out so much in the modern street that most people couldn't help but check who it was.

When they saw Ning, they didn't think much. But when they saw Alexis, they couldn't help but wonder why such beauty was in such a desolate-looking cart.

"I will leave now. Go to the capital and do what you need to," she said and vanished from her spot.

Ning realized that she must have over-exerted herself by trying to stay with him for the last 2 days.

She would need some time to… recharge.

Ning absentmindedly stayed in the cart and even dared the sleep as the beasts took him along the smooth road all day long.

He only opened his eyes when night came along. He looked at the surroundings and based on the number of mountains, realized where he was.

Just a couple of more hours, and he would reach the capital.

Chapter 511 Damir CityEven before reaching the capital, Alex could see the giant black tower that dared to reach the skies. This was bigger than any towers he had seen in any city he had been to.

Not only was it tall, but it was also rather wide too. Ning wondered how many people the tower could fit.

The sun was just rising when he finally reached Damir city, the capital of the Serian Empire.

Damir city was a massive city that was half surrounded by Baylen Lake on one side, while the other side had a river that marked the start of the city.

It started with grassland, some suburban areas for people to live in then came the Flythorn River, and finally, Damir city lay beyond that.

Ning dropped out of the cart in front of the Flythorn bridge before lining up to enter the city. He watched the cart get dragged away by the Aether beasts to Alexis knew where.

The bridge had inspections going in and out, that seem to have been started by people in the tower.

As Ning walked up through the bridge, he noticed a significant lack of Aether in the area. It seemed the people had used his glass beads here as well.

With a show of an identification card that the Aether tower provided him, he was able to get into the city with ease.

He brought out a clock to look at the time. There was still a good 3 or so hours before the recruitment would start, so he decided to roam the city.

He walked amidst perhaps the most urban city he had visited in this world.

Ning saw men-powered carriages more here than anywhere else. There was also an electric train service that ran through the city called a Tram.

Did he have those back on Earth? He couldn't remember. He really needed to ask the system to restore his memories prior to getting the Eidetic memory skill on of these days.

He walked along the morning streets that were still somewhat empty, compared to what he thought it would really be once everyone left for their job.

The store signs were still lit up early in the morning, and Ning found a small diner nearby.

While having a high Aether rank improved his body quite a bit, it still didn't stop him from feeling hungry after a day.

He had eaten nothing but fruits the last 2 days, but now, he wanted something better.

He got into the diner and sat at an empty table, and ordered himself some breakfast.

As he waited for his breakfast to arrive, it felt like the city just woke up and suddenly everyone started moving at once.

Ning could see a massive number of people walking left and right from the window of the diner.

Many people also entered the diner, and before his food even arrived, it was getting crowded in there too.

Ning's food finally arrived and as he was about to eat it, he heard the loud voices of a few people that walked in.

Ning looked towards the door to see a group of 4 people, 1 girl, and 3 boys, who seemed to be quite young.

It was one of the men that was really loud, saying things like, "Why the hell do we have to eat in a place like this? Let's just go to a proper restaurant."

The man who spoke had long black hair that fell to his shoulders and wore flashy shirts and pants that showed that he might have been a noble from birth.

"You idiot! Restaurants don't open this early in the morning. Just thank your luck that there was a diner here, otherwise I would've just resorted to buying normal bread for food," A man of similar height, but not as much flashiness in his clothing said.

Ning stared at them with a slight shock in his eyes.

The men turned around, looking for a spot, and saw Ning staring at them.

Since Ning's table was the only one that could house them all together, they walked towards him.

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"Hey brother, do you mind moving to that table? We need a place to sit," the men said.

"There is plenty of room here. Why don't you just sit?" Ning asked.

"Please brother, we are in a bit of a hurry to go take part in the Tower's Battle Force recruitment. If we don't hurry, we will miss it," the third man with a long face said.

Ning smiled. "What a coincidence? I am going to the tower too. And I know that there is still a good 2 hours before the tower starts accepting the recruitments."

The man's face changed. He had wanted to use the tower's name to move Ning, but he didn't expect Ning to say he was going there too.

"Oh, is that true?" the noble-looking fella's eyes widened, and he sat down in front of Ning.

The other 2 men sighed and sat down as well. There were still two other seats, so the girl sat on one of them.

Ning's eyes followed her as she sat away from them.

"I am Banrod Wilkers, nice to meet you," the noble guy said.

"I'm Terran Forn," Ning shook his hands. He shook the other two men's hands as they introduced themselves as Harris and Peter.

When it came to the girl, Ning stopped for a second before deciding to offer her a handshake as well.

"Ah, brother," Banrod Wilkers just shook his head.

Ning made a confused face and dragged his hands back. But he understood what was happening. After all, that was his plan, to act like he didn't recognize her.

"I'm sorry. I am a germaphobe," the girl said to explain why she didn't accept his handshake.

"It's fine. Everyone is different," Ning said with a smile.

"Thank you," the girl gave a nod, her black hair falling before her. She pushed back her hair and introduced herself to Ning.

"Hi, I am Rachel."

Chapter 512 Headquarters TowerAfter reporting the evil person to the administration, Rachel had never seen Ning afterward and soon forgot about him.

Since Ning's name was never publicized beyond being called an Apostle, Rachel didn't realize that it was him that was distributing the scrolls around the Xandria Empire.

Not that she cared about the scrolls at all. Given how bad they were compared to her own ability to gather Aether with just a touch, she didn't need to use the absorption techniques at all.

After that, she spent the next 2 years on doing nothing but concentrating on her education and learning as much as she could from the tower.

With how well she did in both written and practical exams of the tower, the President decided to not keep her in a small place like the Xandria empire and sent her over to the Serian Empire.

So, about 2 weeks ago, she left to take the recruitment test for the Battle Force everyone and their mother wanted to get into.

She went from Xandria to Odrain, to Shalor, where she met the other 3 men in her group, and finally took a train from there directly to Damir city this morning.

Now, she was sitting in the diner, next to Ning, who she had no chance of recognizing.

Ning looked at her and the other men, and couldn't help but raise his eyes a little.

2 Aether Magisters, and 2 Aether Kings. This wasn't a random group of people.

Ning remembered Rachel being an Aether Magister back in Xandria over 2 years ago. It seemed that they had focused on her and helped her breakthrough during the last 2 years.

As for Banrod, he likely had his family's help in reaching Aether King before the age of 50.

The other 2 men were Aether Magister but that was quite a feat as well.

"Where are you from, brother Terran? I thought the Tower sent everyone through Shalor," Banrod asked.

"Oh, I'm from the Freelands," Ning said. "So I didn't have to go to the Kingdom, and instead came through the principality."

"Oh," Banrod said, not expecting Ning to be from the Freelands. As far as he knew, only poor people who could not afford their own land lived there.

"Does the Freelands even have trains?" Harris asked.

"No," Ning said. "I came in a horse-drawn cart."

"What?" Banrod shouted. "You came from Freelands to Losmana in a horse-drawn card?"

"No, I came all the way to this city in the cart," Ning said.

"What the hell?" the other members were stunned too. They were about to say something but kept their tongue. They didn't want to call out how poor Ning was compared to them.

Ning smiled since their thoughts were so plainly written on their faces.

After finishing their breakfast, Ning walked together with the group and roamed around the city for the next 2 hours to get used to how the city looked.

By now, it was 11 am in the morning, so the city had fully woken up.

The 5 of them made their way to the Tower finally. All 5 of them looked in awe.

The tower was in fact the tallest thing they had ever seen in their entire life. The tower went up nearly a hundred floors, making them wonder how it was even possibly standing strong.

The passerby looked at them and chuckled to themselves, immediately realizing that it was the 5's first time looking at the tower.

"Let's go in," Ning said and moved on. The other 4 nervously walked in with them.

The inside of the tower was not different from the other towers they had been to.

The ground floor was an open floor with only massive pillars blocking their views from seeing everything.

Ning walked towards the center where he could see some people sitting with a desk in front of them in what looked like a reception.

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For some reason, the area they were standing on was unusually bright as well, making Ning curious about how many bulbs they had to use to get such brightness.

When they walked over, Ning finally realized what it was. The middle section of the tower was actually hollow all the way to the top.

From the center, the tower looked like a set of flat cylindrical rings, stacked all the way to the top.

At the center of it, where the empty area lay, there was actually a massive statue that went up to at least 20 floors.

Ning looked in awe at the statue of Alexis.

Not only was the statue massive, but it also looked well kept. The reception area lay on the open area where the light shined through from the top.

"I wonder why the tower is so religious," Harris questioned from the side.

"Maybe the older people who joined the tower believed in the religion of Aether?" Peter asked.

"Don't worry about that, just get ready for the test," Banrod said and walked towards the receptionists to ask where the test was being held.

They were each given an id of a sort to hand around their neck before they went up to the 3rd floor to wait for the test.

When it came to their turn for them to check for Ning's, the receptionists frowned a little.

"Sir, it says here that you don't have to go through the test and can just go report as a new Battle Force member," the receptionist said quietly, as the other 4 were already walking away.

"It's fine. I wish to take the test anyway," Ning said.

"A-are you sure? You were recommended by Supreme Merasi, you know?" the receptionist said, wanting Ning to see how great of an opportunity he was missing.

"It's okay. It's my choice anyway, right?" Ning asked. The receptionists couldn't help but nod.

Ning then got them to get him a similar card to put around his neck, and he went up the stairs.

He reached the waiting hall where a lot of people were already waiting.

Just a few more minutes and the exam would begin that would make or break their future.

Chapter 513 TristanNing and the rest were brought to a giant room that seemed to be a training hall. In the middle of the hall was a 20 meters long and 10 meters wide metal stage that rose 10 centimeters off the ground.

Ning wondered how this stage even came to be. There was no way someone brought, what was basically a massive metal sheet, all the way up the tower.

Even in pieces that would be an impossible task.

So the only answer Ning could see was that someone had directly made it on this room.

Ning was sure he couldn't make this thing even if he wanted to right now. Even as an Aether saint, that looked like an impossible task.

An Aether supreme could likely do it, but that would require them to put a massive amount of effort into releasing all the Aether they had.

With how slow their Aether absorption likely was, Ning didn't think this to be true either.

So, the only possible culprit for bringing forth this giant metal sheet was very much likely someone higher than Aether Supreme.

A face floated into Ning's mind.

The Lord of the Tower.

Perry Thatcher, he had named himself. Ning looked around and nodded. If it was him, he could easily make this and more.

A short man with purple hair stood on top of that metal sheet, looking at all 100 or so new arrivals.

The man wore a silver robe that made him stand out a lot.

Tristen Grant, one of the 3 Supremes of the tower was tasked with finding the best of the best to be part of the Tower's Battle force. That was what Ning's Aether Analysis told him.

"You don't need to know who I am," Tristan said. "You only need to know that I am the person who will be the person that decides whether you can become what you came to be or not."

"Since you are all here to serve the tower and the world, I will give you all a fair chance at victory."

The men and women from the crowd looked with confusion, but no one dared question anything.

The man took one step forward and a gust of air sent him flying down to the ground, off of the metal platform.

"Alright. Everyone, on there, now!" he said, pointing towards the metal stage.

People didn't dare slow down and immediately rushed to the metal stage. As far as they knew, the test could have already started.

Once all hundred plus people were on there, Tristan nodded. He slumped back onto empty air, and a chair formed beneath him, catching him as he sat down.

A gust of air at first, and now a chair. Tristan had created 2 different things from what the participants could see, making them assume he was an Invoker.

However, Ning didn't get taken in by the lie. With his Aether Analysis, he had already seen that the man was actually a Dual Awakener.

If this trend were to continue, Ning was sure that the final Supreme of the tower was also a Dual Awakener.

Given how unknown this man was, Ning was absolutely sure that the tower hid information about these individuals as much as they could.

Which was why he hadn't even heard of their names yet.

The man lazily looked at the participants on the stage and gave a big yawn. "Okay, now separate and go as far apart as you can," he said.

Everyone did as they were asked, and now everyone was at least a meter away from someone else.

"Okay on the count of 3, you will fight until there are only 20 of you left. 1.2.3. Go."

"Huh?"

"What?"

"Do we fight now?"

A scream appeared from somewhere as one person was shoved off of the edge of the metal stage. Suddenly, everyone got more aware of their surroundings.

The fight had begun.

A person tried to follow what the first person did and push Ning off of the edge he was standing on as well.

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Unfortunately for him, Ning had eyes on the back of his head.

Ning quickly turned around and used a simple kinetic force of the man's outstretched hands to push them slightly to the side.

At the same time, he stretched his legs a little, over which the man tripped and fell off the arena.

"That's what you deserve for trying to sneak attack," he said and turned around to the rest of the fight.

He looked at the many fighters and realized that he massively outranked them in terms of Aether.

The best he could see here was an Aether Emperor girl who fought like a tempest on the battlefield.

Not only that, but she was also an Invoker who kept creating items one after another to help her fight.

One man tried to send out metal balls towards her, trying to hit her from Afar.

The girl saw it and instantly created an object on her hand that was immediately pulled to the ground for some reason.

Suddenly, the metals that were flying toward her fell to the ground in front of her, making the attacker shocked.

Ning whistled in surprise as he saw her create an object with massive magnetic energy. Now that the magnet was touching on a metal base, the whole metal base turned into a magnet.

People felt tugging from all over their surroundings. The metal cuffs, jewelry, and any other items they may have had on them were being pulled to the ground.

The battle nearly came to a standstill for a second. However, that all changed when Rachel attacked.

She suddenly slammed her palm on the metal base beneath her, turning that directly into a magnet, rather than through the connection of a magnet.

And the magnet she created had reverse polarity.

Suddenly, the strong magnet zoomed past the Emperor lady's head, nearly striking her, and flew out of the stage onto a metal plate on a wall.

She felt shocked by what was happening and looked around to see who had done it.

When she saw Rachel, Rachel was already glaring at her. Then, she smiled.

Finally, a worthy opponent had come up. Now, their battle would be legendary.

Chapter 514 Fair Ning looked at the girl that was fighting Rachel. She had light ginger hair that fell up to her chins on the side before pointing outsides.

Her eyes looked forever smiling, which for now was appropriate with how much she was laughing.

Ning snapped his fingers creating an outward-facing gravity around himself. The fire that was starting to burn on him was immediately put out.

At the same time, a point appeared in the space that pulled at the man who had just tried to burn Ning and was sent tumbling out of the metal platform.

Ning turned back to look at the girl.

The girl's height was short at around 160 cm, but not a single one of those centimeters could be underestimated right now.

Throwing objects at each other, making fire, disrupting them with sound, making each other's feet stick with magnetic force.

The two fought each other with some of the most unconventional tactics an Aether user could fight with.

Ning was surprised by how easily they were able to switch from one energy to another.

The other examinees had already left them alone, giving the two a section to fight on.

Ning's eyes flashed from side to side to look at this mess of a battlefield. He couldn't, for the love of God, understand how this could be fair at all.

The first guy had fallen out of the stage before the fight even properly began. 'If he wanted to teach them that the world was unfair by claiming the test to be fair,' he is certainly doing it correctly,' Ning thought.

Banrod seemed to be having fun fighting the people around him.

Peter and Harris on the other hand seemed to have already fallen out of the stage.

Heera, the girl with the ginger hair suddenly placed her palm close to the ground, bringing Ning's attention back towards her.

'What is she doing?' Ning thought. He knew that one didn't reach Aether Emperor without any help. The girl was certainly being treated by the tower like a princess.

Which meant, she had something that the others, even Rachel, likely didn't. That was the ability to become a powerhouse when she grew.

Her ability as a Dual Awakener.

Ning could almost guarantee that she was being groomed to be the next supreme of the tower. Which was why she had so much battle instinct driven into her.

They treated Rachel well enough for her to reach Aether King, but Aether Emperor would still take her quite a while.

Ning fought another guy as he used body enchantment to pick him up and throw him out, but his focus remained on the girl and her palm that was on the metal surface.

'Metal…' Ning suddenly realized something. Within a split second, he grew a few centimeters taller.

Rachel seemed to have realized as well and she grew a bit as well. Only she didn't grow the same way as Ning did, but instead by flying a little.

A massive jolt of pain shot through everyone's body for a split second, making them stiffen up and fall to the ground.

Heera shook her hand as numbness took over it as well. She hated the fact that she hadn't yet learned how to create electricity onto an object without using herself as a dummy conduit.

She needed to think of electricity passing through her to send it into the ground. However, she had done it.

She looked up with a smile to see everyone she had defeated, only to see a fist stop inches before her.

Rachel had been this close to punching Heera while she was distracted, but she had been stopped by someone else.

She looked to the side and saw the examiner casually put forth his arms to stop Rachel from attacking.

"Sigh, I didn't think you would be stupid to use an attack to bring down almost all of them," Tristan said as he looked at the groaning men and women who were struggling to stand up.

It would take them a while to get back to being fine. The other men and women who had fallen out off the stage already didn't know whether to call themselves lucky or not.

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They had lost the exam… but they also hadn't had to feel the electric shock that put them all in pain.

"Alright, you 3 win," the man said.

Heera's eyes changed, and Rachel looked to the side as well. Only then did the two of them notice Ning casually standing with a dumb smile on his face.

At the last second, he had guessed that Heera was going to create electricity directly onto the ground. Which was why he created an inch or 2 tall rubber soles beneath his foot.

Most of the others had been wearing shoes with metal soles, so they fell victim to the electricity.

'Well, that was easy,' he thought as he looked at the fallen victims. Then, ignoring them, he walked off the metal stage.

Heera and Rachel did the same, as the ones on the ground finally got up. Once they started enchanting their bodies with Aether, they started feeling much better.

"Rest for a bit," the examiner said and closed his eyes as if to sleep. The group didn't understand what was happening, but they did as asked.

They really needed the rest.

After 5 minutes, the man opened his eyes and said, "alright, back on the stage. Now!"

The ones that thought they had a chance now immediately rushed to the stage.

The man then looked to the side and asked, "Do you want me to repeat myself?"

"Eh? Didn't we already pass?" Heera asked with a surprised face. Rachel and Ning were surprised too.

"I only said you won, not that you passed," the man said. "I will keep making you people fight until you place in the top 20 for 3 times."

"So, if you want to pass, you will need to win 2 more times," the man said.

"I told you. I would be very fair with the test. Everyone will get multiple chances to prove themselves. What's fairer than that?"

Chapter 515 More RoundsRachel and Heera looked around them. The examiner had started the battle royale once again just as quickly as last time, but no one had gone for each other immediately.

Instead, they all held grudges toward the people that won the last round, since they were the reason why the others couldn't win.

So, the moment the round started, they started surrounding them.

"I offer up a truce for the moment. Let's join hands instead of letting them all fight us," Heera said with a sigh. She was strong, but not strong enough to fight 30 different men and women at once.

Rachel was a bit worried as well. Unlike Heera, she did have a way to win against them all, but that would leave the others injured most likely, so she decided to accept the truce.

"Alright, let's work together for now," Rachel said. Then, she turned around to Ning, who was looking around with a dumb look on his face.

"What say you? Wanna get in on the truce as well?" Rachel asked.

Ning shook his head. "You guys have fun. I'll be fine alone." With that, he left to another side of the stage.

The battle started when Banrod suddenly grabbed one man by his shirt and used his Aether King strength to hurl him out of the stage.

Immediately, everyone started attacking. Almost all of them target just the 3 of the previous winners.

Rachel put up a barrier of air to try and divert any projectiles. At the same time, Heera sent out pulses of Kinetic energy onto the attackers to try and throw them out.

However, most of them were using Aether on themselves, so it was a bit harder to influence their body with outside Aether.

Heera slammed her palm onto the ground again, and Rachel's eyes widened. She immediately flew a few inches off of the ground, knowing what was coming.

The others were startled at well and flew a bit to protect themselves now that they knew what Heera could do.

'Take off your shoes,' Heera whispered to Rachel who immediately pushed her shoes downwards, off of her feet.

Then, it happened.

Suddenly, a very strong magnetic force spawned from below everyone who was flying, pulling them back onto the metal stage through their shoes which had metal soles.

Some of the people with loose shoes, had their shoes come off, but most just got pulled down.

Then, She let the electricity zap everyone once again.

Nearly everyone fell to the ground, aside from the few who managed to survive.

"Phew! That really does take a toll on me, doing it multiple times," Heera said.

Rachel was full of sweat. If not for Heera telling her to let go of her shoes, she would have lost here as well.

'How is she so proficient in using electricity? Isn't it supposed to be one of the more difficult energies to create?' she thought.

"Tsk! Only 12 of you won this time. Can you stop defeating everyone at once? I don't want to be here for more than 3 rounds ideally," the man said with an annoyed look from the chair.

"It's not my fault if they can't defend themselves," Heera said while throwing her hands in the air.

"Sigh, 5 minutes rest and we start again," the man said and closed his eyes.

The people that were electrocuted slowly got up once more, and this time, they decided to prepare for the next round.

They took off any and all metals that would harm them, and some of them even changed to spare shoes they had with them. Others put pieces of clothes in between their feet and their soles.

They all regretted wearing their fancy shoes today, but they wouldn't stop it from defeating them any further.

Ning looked around, clearly amused by what was happening, and smiled to himself. He had nearly skipped out on this fun.

After 5 minutes, everyone got back up, and this time, everyone was going for Heera and Rachel.

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Somehow they had completely forgotten about Ning. He didn't like that. He fought a man or 2, but most of them weren't even looking at him. They were too focused on the girls.

With everyone focused on the girls, Ning had nothing to do but sit on the ground waiting.

The girls tried to fight off the mob, but hundreds of people coming after them were not something they could handle.

So, in the end, they were swiftly tossed off of the Metal base, their first loss in the last 3 matches.

"Finally," he said and stood up, waiting for the others to come after him. But instead, they started fighting among themselves. Not a single one focused on Ning.

"Damn you guys," he said as he put forth his hands and breathed out.

It all happened in a single moment.

Suddenly, the natural gravity that his body produced was amplified hundreds of thousands of times. And then, it was reversed.

He turned bright white for a split second, as if a star going supernova, as even light was pushed off of him.

Everyone that was around him instantly felt the effect of the reverse gravity on their body.

It felt like a car slamming onto them as they were pushed out of the stage in less than a second.

Chaos erupted as everyone turned back around towards the stage to see what had happened, and saw Ning stand there alone.

Even Tristan was a little surprised by what had just happened. Reversing gravity was something very few people could do. The only ones he knew that could do that for sure were him, his 2 peers, and the lord.

Tristan's eyes narrowed. "I thought I told you not to make me stay here more than I have to," he said.

Ning shrugged. "Well, at least I defeated them all at once, right? And they are not paralyzed like that girl. So you can start another round right away," Ning said.

"Everyone, back on the stage," Tristan said.

Ning smiled and went to sit beside him. He had become the first to win.

Chapter 516 Report to CaptainsAfter Ning was done, Heera, Rachel, Band, and 16 others passed after 3 more rounds to become a member of the Tower's Battle Force.

They were now the primary strength of the tower that would be called anywhere to fight off evil and opposition.

"Congratulations on joining the force. Go get yourself assigned to a team. Starting today, you will start serving the people."

Tristan left without explaining anything. Once he left, a group of men and women entered with medical equipment and started working on anyone that might have been injured.

Aside from a few twisted ankles and bruised muscles, everyone was surprisingly fine. Everyone had kept themselves from using attacks that would harm others in the long term.

Even Ning's reverse gravity and Heera's electrocution lasted a fraction of a second to not hurt them.

Once they were all healed, they were taken to a different room that looked like an auditorium.

A man by the name of Himer stood on the podium and started giving a speech.

"You are unlucky," he started, making everyone confused.

"You are unlucky in the sense that you will now have to do what no one before you had to do and no one after you will have to do."

"The world changed 2 years ago before the last group joined, but no one had yet to move with the changes. So, they were able to integrate into the force before the chaos erupted."

"However, now you will have to fight off the evils that spawn from this chaos, and bring order to the world before you even get a chance to see what your rooms look like."

"Such pity. How unlucky you are."

The man's eyes suddenly changed as pity switched to seriousness.

"Will you let the evil grow just because you aren't used to fighting it yet?" The man asked.

"No, sir!" everyone answered.

"Will you let your luck stop you from triumphing against evil?" he asked.

"No, sir!" everyone answered even louder.

"Are you going to act like a coward and bring shame to the force?" The man shouted.

"NO, SIR!" their screams were reaching a crescendo.

"Good, now go out there and don't return until you have made this world a little safer for the others to live in!"

"YES SIR!" they shouted.

The man nodded firmly, proud of the new recruits, and left the stage. A woman walked in his stead, holding a sheet of paper, and started speaking.

"Rachel Sterra, report to captain Osted in 3rd brigade."

"Vesa Markus, report to captain Himer in 8th brigade."

"Banrod…"

"…"

The woman spoke everyone's name and where they were assigned to. She spoke the names of the 19 different new recruits and stopped for a few seconds before putting her notes down.

"Who is Terran Forn?" she asked.

Ning rose his hands. The girl checked Ning for a bit and looked down on her notes.

"You are requested to not join any of the teams for now. The tower has yet to decide one for you," she said.

"Huh? Why not?" Ning asked.

"I don't know. You might be important to the tower for all I care. I am just letting you know what was sent to me on this piece of paper. If you want to learn any more, go ask someone higher than me," she said.

Ning wanted to say something, but there was nothing he could say.

'Damn these people. Are they trying to keep me locked up because I'm the only source for their Aether,' he thought.

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"Oh, he's here, is he?" a voice came from outside the door of the auditorium as rather resounding footsteps came closer to the group.

The girl on the stage frowned, wondering who was making such noise. However, when she saw the person walk in, she immediately put away the annoyed look and instead put on a smiling face that was ready to bow at any moment.

The new recruits wondered who it was and turned around to see the new person.

They were all immediately shocked to see who the person was. They didn't recognize her at all, but that hulking body on a female figure was hard not to get shocked by.

"Yo! Terran, you made it," Merasi said as she put her hands up in greetings.

Ning was a little surprised to see her here too. "Lady Merasi, it's good to see you," he greeted her back.

Heera's eyes narrowed as she immediately recognized who she was. After all, her dream was to be someone just like her.

As for the others, a few of them got gears in their heads turning after hearing the name.

"Lady Merasi, what are you doing here?" the girl at the stage came down to speak with her.

"Oh, nothing. I just had someone come tell me that he had arrived at the tower," Merasi said.

"Anyway, you in the Force now? Who are you under?" she asked.

"Yes, I just passed the test, but unfortunately, I don't seem to have a captain yet, unlike the others," Ning said.

"No captain? Why not?" she asked with a weird look on her face.

Ning simply shrugged his shoulders and turned to the lady at the side to speak.

Merasi turned to look at her too, and the woman felt all the pressure in the world drop on top of her.

"It's actually…" she got close to Merasi to say something. She tried to whisper, but she couldn't reach Merasi's ear at all, so Merasi had to lean towards her a little so she could speak.

After listening to her say something, Merasi nodded. "I can see why he would be afraid of sending him. Even though it is guaranteed to be safe, just on the off chance it isn't, the tower will suffer a bit of a loss," Merasi said, and the girl nodded.

"Yes, that just means that we have to improve his security by all that much," Merasi said with a mischievous smile on her face as if she was up to something.

"You mean…?"

"He will be under me from now on."

Chapter 517 Squad MembersWhile everyone went to report to their captains, Merasi took Ning away from the stunned lady who couldn't believe what she was hearing.

She had tried to argue that it was a direct order from the lord, but Merasi heard none of it.

Now, she had to go contact senior Lira to tell her of the situation.

Merasi brought Ning to a section of the tower that was on the north wing of the 14th floor. She told him that this section was entirely her own and her men.

"How many people do you have under you?" Ning asked.

"3, wait no, 4. Now that you're here," she said as she walked through the door.

In a common room, with multiple sofas all around were 2 figures seated on it.

One of them was a girl that was just a tad taller than Ning. She had short hair with dark skin and a well-muscled body. She looked like someone had tried to create Merasi from scratch, but lacked enough materials.

The other one was an old man with a wrinkled face. However, everything else about him made him look like a youth, instead of an old man.

Well kept hair and beard, fashionable clothes, a few jewelries, etc. He held a book in one hand, and some sort of wine in his other. He seemed to be enjoying his time.

The girl turned her head around towards Merasi, but they squinted her eyes when she saw Ning. That was not a person she recognized.

"Who's this?" she asked, her question bringing the old man's attention to Ning.

"Nice, you all are already here," Merasi said. "Let me introduce you to the newest member of our group. This… is Terran Forn."

The old man gave an indifferent look as he nodded towards Ning as a greeting and went back to reading his book.

Merasi walked ahead and kicked the old man's sofa, tipping him over, and getting his wine all over his clothing.

"You old fart, listen to me when I introduce someone," Merasi said angrily.

The old man quickly stood up and wiped the wine from his clothing. "Lady Merasi, that was uncalled for," he said.

"I'm introducing a new member, stop acting like you're somebody big," she said.

"Lady Merasi, I was merely reading my—"

"Reading my ass! Since when can you read? You illiterate old fart," Merasi said.

The old man's face reddened a bit. "Ahem, I don't need to know how to read to look at pictures, do I?" he said.

"And what's that drink? You can't even hold alcohol," Merasi said.

"Uhh… juice, of course," he said.

"Sigh, this is going to be your teammate from now on, Silvers Harken. He… likes to show off a lot, despite his old age," Merasi said.

"That is…"

"I am Mercy Kerr," the girl spoke on her own.

"Yeah, that's Mercy, my sister," Merasi said.

Ning greeted both of them. Mercy didn't show any respect while she kept glaring at Ning instead.

"Why do we suddenly have a new team member, sister?" she asked. "I thought you were sleeping right now."

"I was sleeping, but I woke up when I heard he had arrived. Do you remember that thing I told you nearly 2 years ago, about me losing?" Merasi asked.

Suddenly, Mercy's face changed, and finally looked at Ning with some curiosity.

"Was it him?" she asked.

"Yes," Merasi said.

"I want to fight him!" Mercy said suddenly. Ning was a little taken back, but when he thought whose sister she was, it made sense.

'Dear God, both of these sisters are battle fanatics, aren't they? They may just be able to kill me,' he thought.

"Later, Mercy. He's new here so let him acclimate to the tower," Merasi said. Then, she turned towards a sofa on the right-hand side of the room where no one was sitting.

"Right, and that right there is Alekor Bright, one of the tower's best Aether users," Merasi said as she pointed to the empty soft.

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Ning obviously didn't see him, so he let Aether flow into his eyes and his vision shifted to one of purple haze.

A weird glow appeared on the sofa in the shape of a human. Once Ning activated his Heat vision, he could say for certain that there was a person on that sofa.

"Hello," Ning said towards the empty sofa.

Mercy and Silvers looked at Ning with a confused look as they glanced towards the sofa.

"Is he really here?" Silvers asked.

"You idiot! You need to be more careful of your surrounding." A voice came from that direction as the light illusion disappeared and a young man showed up.

"Alekor? When did you get back?" Silvers asked with a look of surprise that didn't belong to the face of an old man.

Mercy looked surprised as well and turned around to Ning. "Did you know he was there, or just guess?" she asked.

"I knew," Ning said.

"Not bad, new kid," Alekor said as he looked up and down at him. "You are the one who beat captain, huh? You must be quite strong then," he said.

"Of course not. How can I be as strong as a Supreme? We merely fought without Aether," Ning said.

Alekor looked at the size difference between Merasi and Ning before saying, "That's actually more surprising."

"Alright, stop talking. Since I woke up, I might as well do something. Any new reports from Burning city?" Merasi asked.

"Well, where would you like me to begin?" Alekor asked.

"Just tell me if the reports are correct or not," she said.

"Yes. Yes, they are correct. In fact, I believe the seriousness of the situation might have evolved a bit," Alekor said.

"How?" Merasi asked with a quizzing look.

"I hear one of the Saint rank terrorists decided to aid them," Alekor said.

"Oh…" Merasi's eyes changed. "Saint rank you say. Ha-ha! Seems like I woke up just in time."

"Captain, do you…"

"Yes," Merasi said. "I'll go ask the Lord for permission."

Chapter 518 Mercy's DefeatAs soon as Merasi left to speak with the lord, Mercy jumped on Ning and started pestering him to fight against her.

Ning tried to refuse, but the pestering got too much, and in the end, he accepted.

Mercy quickly dragged him to an empty area with a padded floor, perfect for fighting.

Alekor casually followed them, while Silvers was quite interested in the fight.

"Hey, Alekor! How strong is he?" Silvers asked slowly. His vision changed slightly, trying to see the amount of Aether in Ning's body.

"Oh, he's actually very strong," Alekor said. "He may actually be an Aether Emperor."

"What?" Silvers said in shock. He then immediately lowered his voice once more. "Aether Emperor? He's as strong as me and Mercy?"

"Yes, although not very surprisingly," Alekor said.

"Hmm, why is it not surprising?" Silvers asked.

"Uh, that's a secret that if anyone figures out I know, then my head would be one a plate tomorrow," Alekor said and then stopped speaking.

Silvers pestered him a bit, but Alekor didn't give in. If anyone found out that he accidentally overheard the information about Ning being able to create Aether out of nothing, the tower would certainly execute him to keep the secret.

'That reminds me, how did he even get put into our squad? The tower should be doing everything to keep him from harm's way,' Alekor thought.

Ning stood on the stage, staring at the less buffed-up version of Merasi. She was certainly not strong enough to be his match, but since she insisted, he would show off a little.

"Are we fighting just like I did with your sister and not using Aether? Or do you want me to use Aether?" Ning asked.

"Hah? What's the point of fighting without Aether? That's just stupid," Mercy said.

"I… suppose that is," Ning said.

"I shall be the referee between you two," Alekor said.

"Oh, thanks," Mercy said.

"No problem. I would be the one to get beat down if either of you gets hurt anyway, so I feel like it's my job to be the referee," Alekor said softly.

Ning and Mercy got ready to fight.

"Start!" Alekor said.

5 seconds later, it ended.

Mercy lay on the ground outside the fighting area, staring at the black ceiling, unable to wrap her head around what Ning had just done.

As soon as the match started, she tried to enchant Ning's clothes. Since an Aether user's body was hard to control, she knew to go for the clothes.

However, the moment she had even grabbed a hold of his clothes, Ning suddenly appeared in front of her and hit her on the stomach.

She felt her body grow numb from the attack and the next thing she knew, she was out of bounds.

The only reason the fight even lasted 5 seconds was that Alekor was too stunned to call the result for the last 4 seconds.

Ning shook his hand a little. 'Dammit, I didn't mean to make contact,' he thought. He had tried to push her at the same time while pumping electricity into her.

However, he made a mistake and had the electricity flow into her a little too early. As a result, he too got zapped on the hand.

Fortunately, with his Saint rank enchanted body, the electricity didn't hurt him as much.

'I got influenced by that girl into thinking about nothing but electricity today,' Ning thought. 'At least that should help get rid of the urge.'

"You can already use electricity, huh? Not bad, not bad," Alekor said.

"Thank you," Ning said from the side.

"Brother, you might be stronger than me too," Silvers said as he brought out a small piece of cloth to wipe his sweats off.

"Wait, that doesn't count. I wasn't ready," Mercy stood up.

"Do we really have to fight, sister Mercy? I already won," Ning said.

"No, that shouldn't count. Let's fight again, I will show you my power," Mercy said.

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"Okay," Ning said. He had nothing else to do really.

Alekor sighed as he went back up to referee for them.

This time, the match lasted 5 more seconds. Ning took it slow and didn't immediately jump forward. Instead, he focused on strengthening himself to defend against Mercy.

At the same time, he changed the gravity for a small section of the ground that pulled a little too hard.

Once Mercy realized, she couldn't do anything to Ning without getting close, she ran ahead.

As soon as her foot stepped into the section with strong gravity, it buckled down as her entire body came crashing down.

The next thing she knew, Ning was right above her and he threw her out of the ring.

She lost once again. Alekor just shook his head as he declared the victory.

"No, once more," Mercy shouted as she got up. Alekor looked at Ning with a wry smile. He couldn't help him at all.

Ning simply shrugged. "Okay!"

They fought nearly 10 different times, and not a single one of them went above 25 seconds long.

Each time, Mercy would lose to either Electricity, Magnet, or Gravity. No matter how much she prepared, she couldn't stop those three things from interfering in her attacks.

Merasi walked in just in time to see Mercy demand another round and looked at them with a weird face.

"What's going on here?" she asked.

Alekor nearly jumped in surprise and turned around to see Merasi standing in the room. "Uhh, it's just a simple training session," he said.

"Training session? With Mercy?" Merasi didn't believe it. She knew her sister better than anyone.

"Did you ask to fight Ning?" she asked, turning to Mercy.

"Yes," Mercy said with a drooping head.

"Hah, well that was stupid of you," Merasi said with a chuckle.

"What? Am I not allowed to fight him?" Mercy asked with an annoyed look.

"No, you are allowed. That doesn't mean it's not stupid," Merasi said. "After all, in what universe could you possibly hope to use your Aether Emperor rank to beat someone that is an Aether Saint?"

Chapter 519 New Task"What?" Mercy exclaimed. "Aether saint? No way! But… but he's so young."

"Youth has nothing to do with it… not after what he… nevermind," Merasi said. She couldn't reveal that bit of information yet. That was very important to the tower.

"Oi Alekor! Have your eyes gone bad or what? You said he was an Aether Emperor," Silvers called from the back.

"I… made a mistake?" Alekor said, almost as if he couldn't believe it himself. Once again, he sent Aether to his eyes, trying to judge the density of Aether in Ning's body.

However… it still seemed like an Aether Emperor, not a saint.

"You can't see it," Merasi said. "He has his Aether wrapped around his core. He's only showing you what he wants you to see. If you really want to see it clearly, you need to have denser Aether than his."

"I… see," Alekor said. He couldn't have imagined that this new recruit was actually as strong as him.

Ning was quite surprised as well. 'I can't underestimate these people from the tower, can I?' he thought. It wasn't long ago that Alexis had taught him to use Aether to look at things to see the usage of Aether.

He had thought that this was an exclusive skill that only he knew. However, it seemed that it was a skill that the higher-ranking members of the tower already knew.

"Sigh, I guess I'm about to get dethroned as the second in command in the group," Alekor said jokingly. "Anyway Captain, what's the news?"

"Bad!" Merasi said, suddenly remembering her conversation with the lord. She crossed her arms and put on a pout, one that… somehow made her look cute.

"Bad? Why bad?" Alekor asked.

"If I want to keep Terran in my squad, I can't go anywhere dangerous," Merasi said, quickly adding, "he's a bit too important for the tower to lose."

"Eh?" Alekor exclaimed this time. "What about all the scouting I did then? I even found the terrorists that recently joined. I thought we were going to attack them."

"No we can't," Merasi said. "Not unless we… drop Terran from the squad."

"But my hard work," Alekor cried out. "What about we just leave him for now. He's new anyway."

"That… would be good, except I fought with the Lord to even keep him in the tower. If he finds out I left the tower without him, he will surely take him away. He's too good of a fighter to keep locked up in the tower."

Alekor couldn't deny that. Even Mercy who was angry at Ning couldn't deny that.

"Then what do we do, Captain?" Silvers asked from the side.

"We have a new mission. One that is… hopefully not as boring as it sounds," Merasi said.

"What is it?" Mercy asked.

Merasi took out a map and threw it in mid-air. The map unfolded to show a detailed map of the continent of Vilmore.

The map had the Serian empire at the bottom with the Freelands to its left, the Republic of Embers to its right, and the Principality of Losmana above it.

Ning looked at the map carefully. It wasn't as detailed as his mental map, but it seemed to have a lot of crosses and marks made on it.

"Here," Merasi pointed to a place on the map. The place she pointed to lay on the lower right side of the Serian empire, a city called Urandran.

"A nobleman by the name of Higen Callum died this morning in his house, in Urandran. It looks like a suicide, but the family suspects foul play," Merasi said.

"I see… but what does that have to do with us?" Alekor asked.

"We are to go and investigate," Merasi said. "To find if this was truly a suicide, or if someone actually killed him."

"That's great… but why us?" Alekor asked. "That sounds like a detective's job. How are we supposed to help?"

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"I don't know," Merasi said. "I'm sure the Lord is just trying to give us as mundane of a job as he can to keep us busy and keep him safe."

"Why would the lord try to keep him safe? It's not like he's the lord's son or something, is he?" Mercy asked.

"Haha, no. But he is important to the lord. Or rather, he is important to the whole tower. In fact, He is more important to the tower… than me," Merasi said.

"Why is that?" Mercy asked.

"I can't tell you. It's a Tower secret that not many know about," Merasi said.

Alekor tried to act as much in the unknown as he could. He was almost cursing at his unnaturally good hearing that he liked to employ every day to get in the habit of using continuously.

Silvers came and patted him on his shoulders. "Don't worry, your scouting won't go to waste. I'm sure the other squads will make good use of it."

"In fact, you should go tell them that there is a saint on the enemy side unless they send only kings and emperors. That would be a disaster for the tower," Silvers added.

Alekor nodded. He really should do that. "When do we leave, captain?" he asked.

"In half an hour. I don't trust the lord the keep his promise of letting me keep him, so I want to take him away while I can," Merasi said, then a smile crept on her face. "Hehe, now that he is a saint, he can probably fight me too. Can't you, Terran."

Alekor shook his head as if pitying a fellow victim. Then, he left to pass along the information before leaving.

"Go grab whatever you need," Merasi turned to Mercy and Silvers, who left quickly.

"Right, here," Merasi took out a pair of coats and pants that were dark purple and white.

There was a dark purple shirt to wear inside the coats. The coat itself had an image of a tower patched onto the side of it.

On the other side, there was a sword and staff crossed together.

This was the uniform of a member of the Battle Force.

Chapter 520 UrandranHalf an hour later, all 5 of them were prepared in similar clothing. They wore white coats and pants with occasional dark purple lining to them, as well as a fully dark purple shirt.

"Are you all ready?" Merasi asked, and the rest of them nodded.

"Good," she said and put her hands forth. Suddenly, space changed at a certain point in front of them as she connected the current space to a point far away.

"Enter," she said, casually holding such a strong squeezing of space open.

Alekor entered first, followed by Mercy. Silvers entered after her, and finally, Ning entered.

When he appeared on the other side, he suddenly felt all effects of gravity leave his body as he freely started falling to the ground.

He tumbled through the air as he tried to stop his spinning, and then started to fly.

"Oh, not bad," Alekor's voice drifted into his ears. He was using Aether to directly put sound energy into Ning's ear to speak at such height.

Ning nodded and slowly drifted to the ground which was about 300 meters below him.

He landed on top of an empty mountain, with hot air flowing towards him from the north. The land looked barren, but that was just the mountain.

North of the mountain was desert, like all the North in this continent. South of that was a forest, large and green.

Just beyond that forest was a city that looked halfway between modern and medieval.

There was a massive stone keep in the center of the city making it look quite medieval, but aside from that the trains and carriages made it feel like a modern city.

Merasi flew down, next to Ning and the others.

"Did he need help?" she asked.

"Nope. Within moments of jumping through, he got back his balance," Alekor said.

"Ooh, not bad," Merasi turned towards Ning. Ning nodded as if thanking them for the compliment, but on the inside felt a little weird about it all.

After all, it was so easy.

"That's Urandran, right? I brought us to the right place?" Merasi asked.

"Hm… the geography looks like it. Let's go and ask," Alekor said and started flying. The rest of them flew behind him.

"Now that you are a saint, you should start learning how to open portals too. It's a convenient way of traveling since you can go such far distances in a single step," Merasi said.

"I can indeed do that," Ning said. "But only to places where I have already been to. How do you open a portal to someplace that you haven't been to?"

"Oh, that's easy," Merasi said. "You don't. Like I did today since I don't know where Urandran is, I instead learn about how far away that place is, and then open a portal straight in the direction of the land, and in that distance."

"Almost every single time I arrive in the air for some reason. Why is that I wonder," Merasi thought.

"Isn't that because of the curve?" Ning asked.

"The what?" Merasi asked with a confused look.

"The curve… of the planet?" Ning said.

"The…curve?" Merasi thought for a moment and her eyes went wide. "Oh my god! That's totally why it is, isn't it?"

Alekor turned around with a wry smile on his face. "Captain, it can't be that you didn't know that right?" he asked.

"Hmm, what did you get, sister? Explain it to me too," Mercy asked.

'These muscle-brained siblings. Do they not care much about learning how things work?' Ning thought.

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Merasi explained to her sister what she understood, to which Alekor had to make some corrections before Mercy and Merasi both understood the science behind them teleporting in the air.

Minutes later, they arrived outside of the city and asked the guards if it was indeed the city.

Once they got their confirmation, they got the direction to the Callum households.

"Silvers, go let the local tower know that we have arrived. They will report back to the headquarters and the Lord will be happy we didn't leave to go fight somewhere else," Merasi ordered.

"Yes, captain," The old man looked towards the high rising tower in the distance and walked in that direction.

"Mercy, go tell the local constables that we will be taking over the investigation but their detectives are free to investigate themselves," Merasi said.

"Yes, sister," Mercy said and started walking in a random direction. She was likely going to ask around to find the constable's office.

"Alekor, keep your ears open. Let me know what the rumors are around the area. See if someone knows a little more than they should," Merasi ordered.

"Yes, captain," Alekor said and walked away.

"I would give you some orders too, but unfortunately, I don't know much of your expertise yet. Besides, if the lord ever found out I had you out of my sight, he would scold me to no end," Merasi said.

They made their way through the city to the Callum manor on the more secure side of the city.

It was starting to become midday, so there were not as many people on the screen like any other time of the day.

The Urandran city was also on the more northern end of the continent, so it was quite hot here by comparison.

Merasi didn't seem to care though. In fact, she seemed to relish to heat. Which was likely why she had such tanned skin in the first place.

"So from what I hear, the Callum house is one of the more prominent houses in the empire. The one who died seems to be the son of the current head of the family, Marquees Callum."

"Since they are so prominent, we will have to be careful not to get on their wrong side, okay?" she asked.

"Okay," Ning said. He didn't plan on doing that anyway.

"The tower's reputation is barely improving, and we don't want that hard work to disappear," Merasi said. "Although, you can punch him in the face if he starts talking shit to you."

:)