Chapter 541 The New President's DecreeNing thought for a moment, what could such a decree even do? Then, his eyes went wide.
Alekor saw this and realized Ning understood this as well. "Since only the noblemen had the treaty with the Tower, they were the only ones who could become great in Aether arts and thus become the president."
"Essentially, bringing the government back to the nobles' hands," Alekor said.
"And you agree with this? The tower should have seen through this, right?" Ning asked.
"They did, of course," Alekor said. "But the peace the tower had fought for the last millennia with the treaty would be destroyed in seconds if they let the tower's information be known."
"When that news spread, the whole world would be in turmoil," Alekor said. Rachel was seething in anger next to Ning. Ning wondered why that was the case, and if she faced any problems in the Xandria empire, but now was not the time.
"But they should have known about that 2 years ago, right? When the Apostle spread the techniques?" Ning asked.
"That wouldn't give them any information about that, would it?" Alekor said. "He only spread the techniques, not the information about the Tower's treaty."
"The knowledge that the tower was doing what it did is still in the dark from many places," Alekor said.
Ning frowned. 'Damn, I didn't get to spread that bit of information, did I?' he thought. He was only spreading the techniques and doing what he could to elevate the common masses during his time as the Apostle.
However, not a single time did he attack the tower. He didn't have any reason to. After the first confrontation in the Xandria capital, the tower had left him alone to do whatever he wanted.
The next direct confrontation was with the Lord himself. There was no need to spread the information about the treaty.
"Hang on, why is this rebellion for then?" Ning asked. He thought he understood what was going on, but that one piece of information threw him off entirely.
Alekor sighed. "Because the Nobility of this republic got stupid. They let their power get to their head and thought that they could do whatever they wanted."
Ning got curious as to what sort of fuck-up the nobles had done.
"The current president, after seeing that there were people amongst the civilians that were rising fast in the republic, realized that soon they would no longer be able to keep the position of the president open for themselves."
"So, in a hurry, the current president made another decree," Alekor said.
"What sort of stupid decree did he make?" Ning asked.
"He made a decree saying only people from the noble houses could become the president henceforth."
Ning smacked his own face with his palm. "So stupid," he said.
"I know right," Alekor said, not being able to hide the disappointment himself.
Ning shook his head as the thought of the stupid decree couldn't be taken out of his head so easily.
"The people protested?" Ning asked.
"Of course," Alekor said. "There's been protests for nearly 4 weeks now."
"And the president hasn't taken his decree back?" Ning asked.
"He did, not long after, but the damage was done," Alekor said. "You can't pass a decree yourself. You need the approval of the other members of the parliament in the government."
"Since the decree actually passed, the people realized that the top level of the government were all nobility and that there was no point in keeping them around."
"So, they keep protesting to disassemble the government entirely and rebuild a new one," Alekor said.
"And this rebellion?" Ning asked.
"An offshoot of the protesters who got unnaturally angry and decided to attack the government directly. Drunk with their newfound powers, they don't want to see anything other than destruction," Alekor said.
"But, I doubt they thought about it themselves," he said.
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"What do you mean?" Ning asked.
"Taskar, the terrorist the captains went to find, he is known to go around kingdoms and empires, to attack when it's most vulnerable."
"He rejoices in seeing the death of nobilities. So, I believe he might have been responsible for this rebellion from the start, and only just now came out to the open."
"I see," Ning said and put the name to his memories. "Alright, let me go see some patients. I will help however I can."
While Alekor roamed around the place doing his own things, Ning went around the tents, helping with medical injuries however he could.
For some, he helped stop blood from flowing out of the wound. For some, he helped bandage them. For some, he helped fix their dislodged bones.
He also helped some with massages to ease their pain or heal them entirely.
Little by little, he helped everyone that was wounded on the battlefield.
Rachel walked behind him, with an absolute shock in her eyes. Not only was Ning incredible in his usage of Aether as he easily produced bandages out of nothing, he was also a crazy good doctor.
His medical skills were top-notch, at least in the first aid department.
That made her feel a little bad about herself. Did she deserve to become a member of the battle force? All she had was a parasitic arm that swallowed everyone else's Aether. Was that alone enough to qualify for… this?
Her thoughts quickly disappeared when she heard someone else rushing over. Alekor came up to them, more exactly just Ning, and said, "They're here."
Ning looked to the distance, his vision zooming to impossible distance, and saw a group of people flying over.
Within minutes, the captains arrived at their location, with many people restrained next to them.
"There you go, the rebellion has been quelled," the female captain at the front said.
"Thank you, captains," Alekor said, walking forward. Despite not being a captain, Alekor garnered the same respect from the other captains who nodded in greeting when they saw him.
"Where's Taskar?" Alekor asked, searching for the terrorist.
The captain's face frowned. "Escaped," She said. "Opened a portal mid-fight and ran away."
Chapter 542 TaskarThe captains started settling down and the others handled the prisoners.
In the meanwhile, Ning escaped to the side. He had the system give him information about this Taskar person, and soon he learned everything.
He had a sea of information put into his mind, but he cared for none of it. He learned that Taskar enjoyed killing innocent people and hurting others for fun.
That was all Ning needed to know.
After getting Taskar's location, he vanished.
When Ning reappeared, he arrived in the countryside close to the outskirts of the Republic of Ergor.
Not very far from a desolate village was a forest that was currently fully dark. During the nighttime, there was not a shred of light. Not even the stars were visible on this cloudy night.
Ning looked directly into the forest. He knew Taskar had appeared here and was hiding in there somewhere.
With a single thought, Ning poured Aether into his ear, exponentially expanding every single sound while enforcing his own eardrums.
Sounds rang around him like explosions. The soft breeze sounded like a storm. His breathing sounded like a tornado sucking in everything.
His heartbeats sounded like drums. The trees sounded like they were moving.
And Taskar, he sounded like he was just in front of Ning. Ning looked in the direction of the sound and opened his Aether sight.
A purple haze filled his vision and soon the world became a shade of purple as well. And in that shade, he saw a bright, glowing purple figure trying to hide inside a massive tree.
Ning dashed forward.
He made some noise, but he was too far for Taskar to know anyone was there.
Ning waved his hand when he got close enough and a massive gravitational pull appeared on the tree itself, ripping barks and branches from the tree to it.
"What the hell?!" a man shouted from inside the tree and jumped out. He had enforced his body, so while he tumbled through the ground, he wasn't hurt at all.
He looked around him, but it was too dark to see anything. With a single thought, the broken-down tree started burning, giving light to the area, and finally, he saw Ning's face.
And Ning saw his.
The man was taller than Ning by at least a head and his shoulders were very wide as well. He looked like what Merasi would look if she was a male, but his body didn't seem to have as many muscles.
His fair skin was also different from Merasi. His scraggly beard was long and unkempt.
When Ning saw the mole on top of his lips, left to his nose, he was sure this was Taskar.
For a man who was an Aether Saint, he looked like a homeless person. His clothes too looked like rags sewn together.
The old man narrowed his eyes at Ning, wondering who he was. Due to Ning not wearing his Battle Force outfit, he couldn't be sure at all.
"Who are you, kid?" he asked. He was going to get angry but realized that the person in front of him was likely as strong as him for being able to destroy the tree he was in like that.
"Your death," Ning said and smirked. "How does that sound?"
Taskar smirked too. "Sounds like you're looking to die," he said.
"It does, doesn't it?" Ning asked, keeping his smirk. "Unfortunately for you, I can't die. Meaning, only you will have to die today."
"Who are you really kid?" Taskar asked. "I don't remember meeting you."
"You did miss me by a bit. If the squad captains had caught you, then you would have met me," Ning said. "But I guess those captains wouldn't keep you alive, so we might have never met. Shame, you even managed to escape, only to now die by my hand."
Taskar's right hand trembled a bit, and Ning saw that he was hiding it in his rag of a sleeve. 'So he did get hurt. He didn't manage to leave so easily,' Ning thought.
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"I take it you're from the tower then," Taskar's face changed and he finally looked angry.
"You're looking at the next lord of the tow—"
Before Ning could finish speaking, the fire spread from Taskar's left hand, targeting Ning's body.
Ning created a vacuum around his body, protecting himself from the attack. When the fire when away and Ning could see again, Taskar was missing.
Ning looked around for a few moments and realized that he had run away to some other place.
"Follow him," Ning ordered his system, and he disappeared.
When Ning reappeared, he was standing inside a barricaded room somewhere. It looked like an old school building, destroyed in a battle between two armies.
There were chunks missing on the wall which were covered with desks and benches.
Taskar was gasping for air where the teacher would stand, and when he turned left he saw Ning.
He startled and tried to move away, slamming his back to the wall.
"Aaah! How are you here?" Taskar shouted.
"I told you, you will die today," Ning said and slowly walked forward. He didn't immediately attack Taskar as that was not his plan here.
Taskar was known to enjoy torture, so Ning would show him what real torture felt like.
One of the desks close to the walls moved and with a swing of Taskar's hands, it came flinging towards Ning.
However, when it was about to touch him, a layer of reverse gravity stopped it, and instead flung it back towards the wall.
At the same time, Taskar started creating another portal. Ning could stop the creation of the portal, but he let it be.
Instead, he put his hands in front of him, and suddenly Taskar started choking.
Ning was filling his lungs with water, while he tried to create the portal. Taskar now had to choose between whether using Aether to protect himself or using Aether to create the portal and running away.
Chapter 543 I FiguredTaskar chose to flee. He could've chosen to stop Ning's water from drowning him in his lungs, but the water was already in there. Stopping him from making more would still drown him with what had already appeared.
So, getting away and saving himself was the proper way.
Thus, he crawled forward and jumped into the portal. When he appeared on the other side, he started coughing violently, even using Aether to force out the water in his lungs.
He coughed and coughed and coughed. Finally, after almost all the water in his lungs was gone, he opened his eyes, and saw a pair of shoes completely sprayed with his coughed out water.
The right foot moved and before he could prepare himself, it struck his face, sending him hurling away.
Taskar felt his face burn with pain and he splashed in some water. He had appeared on the riverbank of one of the locations he had been to during the last 3 days and remembered it well enough to come here.
Now, he was drowning in that same river.
Ning looked with a serious face and saw a section of the river sink a little before jumping back to level, and even spraying a bit of water.
He knew Taskar had opened a portal to another location. With a single thought sent to his system, Ning teleported again.
When he reappeared, he stepped on wet carpet, likely water from the river that Taskar had pulled through the river.
When he looked in front of him, he could see his horrified look of Taskar. When Ning saw this, he understood.
This man was a coward. He was someone who used his strength to fight the weak, and whenever anyone remote strong showed up, he ran away.
That was why he had no experience in fighting at all. Ning shook his head and his eyes shifted from Taskar to the other people in the white room.
Ning saw almost a dozen different men and women standing around what looked like a meeting of some sort.
He was curious now. Where exactly was he?
"Who are you?" someone shouted.
"Are you okay, brother Taskar?"
"How did this man appear out of nowhere?"
The men and women in the room immediately started speaking and shouting. Some of them pulled out guns in defense, while some were getting their Aether ready.
Ning was sure that had he worn the battle force uniform, they would have mowed him down right now.
"What are you waiting for? Kill him!" Taskar said.
'System, is anyone here possibly innoce—'
Before Ning could finish asking questions, attacks of many kinds appeared from the men and women who were in a circle.
Some used guns, while some threw fire at him. Some tried to spear him through the heart with a metal rod, while some tried to create gravity to rip his body apart.
Ning's body, which was protected with Enchantment, a layer of Aether, and finally reverse gravity working like a force field, could not be touched by any attacks at all.
Ning gave an angry chuckle. "I figured."
He put out his hands in front of him as everyone continued attacking, and looked towards Taskar with what he assumed was an evil grin and snapped.
POP!
Like a balloon filled to the brim with water and could not hold itself anymore, one of the men amongst the dozen or so popped into a haze of bloody gore.
Chunks of meat and sprays of blood landed on everyone around them who looked at the dead men with a horrified look.
They didn't have to work too hard to look at him for he was everywhere.
In the white room that was bloody, only Ning stood with not a single drop of blood on him.
Then, he snapped again.
POP! POP! POP!
One after another, men and women alike burst like balloons leaving sprays of red around the room.
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By the time Ning was done, not a single hint of white remained in the originally colorless room.
Taskar, who was completely drenched in blood looked with nothing but shock at Ning. He had come here to ask for help from his fellow brother and sisters who he had worked with.
But now, he realized he had only brought death to them.
Trembling hands tried to help him move back, but the slipperiness of the hot blood made it impossible.
"It's your turn now, I guess," Ning said and walked forward. As he stepped, the blood and bones parted themselves to reveal the white marble that was originally there.
Even then, he didn't completely step on the ground and hovered slightly on top with his reverse gravity.
"Don't kill me!" Taskar started shouting.
Ning simply shook his head. "If you know you are going to die, just shut up and let me be done with it," he said.
His single hand moved forward, and Taskar feared a snap, but Ning wasn't going to give him such an easy death.
No, instead, water accumulated around Taskar, slowly picking him up. Taskar tried to move out of the bubble of water, but Ning's Aether forced him there.
Even when he tried to use his own Aether, Ning's usage of it was far better and managed to keep Taskar there with no chance of escape.
Then came the torture.
Taskar was already having trouble breathing, but then he felt the temperature of the water increase.
With fear in his eyes, he tried to open a portal, but with a single gesture, Ning canceled the portal.
Taskar put his hands on his mouth to not let himself breathe in the water, but the water was getting so hot that it became uncomfortable.
At some point, the water started boiling, and Taskar enforced his body to survive it.
For minutes on end, Ning kept Taskar floating in a ball of boiling water until he was forced to swallow the boiling water and burn his body from the inside out.
Ning only let the man drop to the ground once he was dead.
Chapter 544 PrisonersNing didn't leave immediately. After learning that this was a group of terrorists' hiding place, he decided to help both the Xandria and the Odrain empire get rid of them.
Ning killed those that attacked him while incapacitating the ones that weren't aware of him. Once he was done, he opened a portal and said, "Enter!"
A moment later, a woman arrived and looked around in a horrified look at the bloody mess.
"What happened here?" she asked for a moment before turning to Ning who had brought her here.
As soon as she saw Ning, she immediately greeted him with terror on her face. "It's good to see you again, brother Ning," Fiona said.
Ning nodded towards Fiona with a face that looked like his own. He was using Aether to veil his actual face, not bothering to ask the system to change it, since it would be just for a while.
"This is a terrorist headquarters at the border near Odrain. Go get some people to deal with his," Ning said.
"Terrorists?" Fiona finally let go of the fear in her heart and understood what was happening.
Ning gave her the exact location on a piece of paper and sent her back before she could ask anything about where he had been all this time.
Once she was gone, he vanished too.
Ning appeared back in the forest near the camp and walked back. He saw the group of rebels captured and kept at the center of the camp with some sort of make-shift prison using the wooden bars.
There were captains in the area, talking about something and it looked like a heated discussion.
"We don't have the authority," one of the female captains said.
"But they will be killed if we hand them to such an unstable government," another male captain said.
"That's right, Channa. We have to at least save them until they can get a fair trial. If we let them be judged now, then they are going to get executed," another female captain said.
"I know," the original female captain said. "But that doesn't mean we can do what we want on foreign soil."
After listening to a few of the back and forth, Ning understood the problem. These guys were worried that the rebels will be judged harshly for trying to attack the government.
In a sense, they were terrorists who acted against the Republic, unlike the mostly peaceful protesters.
Ning wasn't sure what to do with them either. He thought for a while and suggested, "Why don't we send them back to this country's authorities, but ask them to treat them properly."
The captains who were discussing amongst themselves turned to look at him. Some had an angry look on their face, while some were curious.
"This is a matter between the captains, don't butt in," one of the men said.
The other shook their heads and turned around to discuss once again. Ning looked at them in surprise.
'Was I ignored because I'm not a captain?' he thought. That was it. Just because they didn't think of him on the same level as them, the captains ignored him.
'These bastards!' Ning thought. There were about 10 squad captains here, and they were all Aether Saints. Yet, it seemed that not a single one of them knew how to check other people's Aether Rank.
'These guys are worse than Alekor,' Ning thought. At least Alekor knew how to judge other people's Aether rank.
Ning sighed and took out a black glass orb. Inside the glass orb was a thin layer of glass separating water on one side, and Alpurite on the other. Only Ning knew of it at the moment.
Ning sent some Aether into the glass and shatter the glass barrier in the center, mixing the water and Alpurite immediately.
Alekor was close and saw him bring that out. At first, he was scared, thinking Ning had brought some kind of poison because of what had just happened.
However, Once Ning turned it around, and showed a ring attached to its side, Alekor realized what it was.
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It was the Aether removing glass beads that had been passed along through the world. It was still a secret to most people, but he knew how to listen to secrets and knew that this ball was absorbing Aether.
Very soon, the crowd noticed that the Aether in the area was shifting away, creating a zone of no Aether.
The captains were the first to notice and turned around. Ning ignored them and walked toward the prisoners before putting the bead on top of the wooden block.
He then turned around to the other tired members of the battle force who were keeping guard.
"This bead will stop them from using Aether arts soon. Once that happens, you guys can relax a little more," Ning said.
The guards, being members of the battle force, knew what the beads were, even if they didn't know how they worked.
"Thank you," Some of them said as they visibly relaxed. They had been forcing themselves to be alert and aware of everything happening around them and their mental fatigue was reaching its peak.
Ning nodded and turned around to the captains who were staring at him.
"You guys shouldn't refuse to listen to someone else's advice just because you have a higher rank. Makes you look small-minded and arrogant," Ning said.
"What did you say?" some of the Captains got angry.
Ning smiled as if mocking them. One of the captains couldn't contain his anger and was about to lash out when a voice boomed from above.
"Oh! Someone wants to fight huh? I guess I came at the right moment then."
The captains immediately looked up in the air to see a flying Merasi along with Mercy to her side.
As soon as the captains saw Merasi, they immediately humbled themselves and bowed saying, "We wouldn't dare, lady Merasi."
"Huh? Why not?" Merasi made a sad face. "Come on, let's fight."
Chapter 545 HobbyEveryone stopped doing what they were doing and greeted Merasi who kept saying she wanted to fight. Ning started suspecting that she wasn't doing it for him at all.
He had noticed her opening the portal and stepping through high in the air, but without the ability to magnify their vision as he did, they wouldn't be able to see her coming at all.
"Lady Merasi, this is not a place to fight," one of the saints tried to talk her out of it.
"Oh?" Merasi said. "But it looked like you were quite ready to fight my subordinate right now."
Mercy was behind her sister, excited that she would get to fight some captains probably.
The captains on the other hand turned to look at Ning, now completely surprised that he was a subordinate of a Supreme. That made them shrink back into their flesh, hoping nobody noticed them anymore.
Ning decided to ignore them. There was nothing he would gain by antagonizing these captains when they were already under pressure. Besides, he wasn't petty enough to want revenge just because they spoke a few words at him.
Ning turned to look at Merasi and Mercy and realized that they really were looking forward to the face. He had to stop himself from sighing in front of the entire crowd.
He changed the subject, giving the captains some room to breathe by asking what they should do with the prisoners there.
Merasi thought for a moment and said, "Send them back to their government."
"But they might get killed."
"The government is not so stable right now, lady Merasi."
"We should keep them."
A host of people started speaking that made Merasi scratch her head, not sure what to do.
"Uhhh…. Alekor," She called.
"Yes, captain," Alekor came from the side.
"Did anyone die?" she asked.
"Quite a few, captain," Alekor said.
"Do we know who killed them?" she asked, looking at the people who couldn't have possibly gone past Aether Magister.
"There were a few of the rebels who managed to land some hits on us from what I hear, but those people should have died in the battle already. Other than them, it was mostly the terrorist named Taskar," Alekor said. "He was the one responsible for the most deaths."
"I see, then take these prisoners to the authorities, but make sure they get punished for only what they did, not what they could have done," she said.
"Yes, captain," Alekor nodded and went on to gather the prisoners.
"Some of you go with him. He can't handle them all together," Merasi ordered the captains and a few of them stood out to go help.
Once they were gone, Ning spoke with Merasi for a few minutes, most of which was her just telling him how good of a job he did with opening a sustained portal.
Ning smiled for a bit and said some words before excusing himself to go help some other patients.
The injured had to stay around for a little longer before they were ready for spatial travel. Portals lurched a person in and out while going through it, so the doctors and medical experts wanted the injured to be as stable as possible before they were ready.
They were planning to take these people to the hospital, but that too was far away. And with nobody really working these days due to the protests, the hospitals would have likely not been a good choice.
So, they were all treated right then and there.
Ning walked through the patients, giving some medicine, changing the bandages for some, and even helping some get back on their feet.
"You have medical knowledge too?" Merasi asked with a surprised look on her face.
"I was taught to be a doctor from a young age," Ning said. "But, fate had different plans."
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"Well, fate or not, you are really good at it. Even if you never joined the tower as a battle force personnel, you would have likely entered as medical personnel," Merasi said.
Ning smiled at her and got back to work. Once Merasi left, he thought in surprise about how easily he was starting to lie.
He remembered the days when he stuttered whenever he was about to lie. The Ning of those days were gone.
'Guess that's what happens when you live for three thousand years,' Ning thought to himself.
Night fell soon, but bring lights were all around the area with batteries that were powered by Aether itself.
Some of the Aether artists, who could create Electrical energy were helping recharge the batteries.
Ning continued tending to the wounded, but the sound of cries was lowering quite a bit throughout the night.
Come dawn, only a handful of people could not travel by the portals. Rest were ready.
Merasi opened the portals this time, and one by one, people entered. Ning watched as the tired people gain some energy and walked through the portal with thoughts of finally sleeping in soft beds.
Once all the people that were leaving entered the portal, Merasi turned towards Ning and asked, "Are you not going?"
Ning shook his head. "I have some task in the Aether forest," he said.
"Oh, what task?" Merasi asked curiously.
Ning answered without hesitation. "I found potion-making to my liking so I'm thinking of taking it up as a hobby."
"I learned that it requires quite a few ingredients that are in majority found in the Aether forest, so I am going to go there before returning back to the tower in a day," he said.
"Oh, you found a hobby huh?" Merasi said with a curious look. "Alright, go. It's your free day today, anyway," she said.
Ning thanked her and watched her leave through a portal as well. When the other captains return, they would likely help the remaining few people go back, so Ning didn't have to worry about them.
Thus, he turned around and walked deep into the forest surrounding the camp. Once he was far away, he vanished.
Chapter 546 Gathering IngredientsNing walked through the Aether forest and found the location where he had buried his bottles.
He brought it out and looked at the content, only to realize that it could use a bit more time before it was fully done.
Ning put the bottle into his storage and walked on. This place had become devoid of Aether thanks to this bottle, so he would bury it at another place.
Along the way, he found fruits and other items that would be considered ingredients for the potion. Ning had asked the system to inform him about each and every ingredient that could work, along with their properties.
What he didn't let the system tell him were the recipes and methods to make the potions. Those he wanted to find on his own.
He picked fruit from one tree, and cut bark from another. From another tree, he plucked some leaves and in another, he tore off some flowers.
Wherever his eyes went he saw nothing but ingredients for potions
A normal person would look at this place and see a dark forest he needed to get out of. Ning looked at this place and saw a treasure trove untouched by humans for eons.
Even without the recipes, Ning was sure he would be able to make many sorts of potions. In fact, he doubted he needed to kill Aether beasts either.
Ning knew that Aether beasts could reproduce, but the speed at which they did was slow. With the Emperor of Xandria killing so many, their population was already down.
So, Ning wanted to make recipes with only the plants so that people wouldn't go out hunting these beasts.
After walking a little further away, to a location where Aether was quite dense, he buried his bottle there.
Then, he teleported to the next location. At this location as well, there was a bottle that he had buried.
He had buried all the bottles at the same time, so it had been close to 2 years, or a single normal year since he had done this.
When he uncovered this bottle, he was pleasantly surprised that this was very concentrated with Aether and could no longer make anymore.
Ning placed the bottle into his storage and moved away. He gathered some more ingredients and buried another freshly made Aether liquid solution in a place with more Aether concentration.
He kept on doing this all over the Aether forest, gathering so many ingredients that he would have enough to make tons and tons of options.
After a whole day and night of finding his Aether bottles, and as many ingredients as he could, Ning returned back to his room in the tower.
He looked at the time and realized that he only had about 5 hours of sleep time left.
'Well, that's something I guess,' he thought and after a quick shower, went to sleep.
The alarm blared in the morning, waking him up with a drowsy head. He fought against the drowsiness and stood up.
An hour later, he was back in the training room, fighting with Mercy again. Once the battle started, all of his sleepiness disappeared.
Merasi had gone back to the closed cultivation that she called sleeping again. Ning wondered why they didn't simply use the word cultivation, but they likely didn't associate rising in Aether ranks as growth for themselves.
Also, Aether was definitely worse than Qi, so it was likely they didn't think so.
After a session of fighting, a break to go eat some food and rest, and another session of fighting, Ning finally had the free time to go meet with the old woman Gaani.
So, as soon as he had the free time, he rushed out of the tower. After a couple of minutes of a walk later, he reached the old woman's house.
Ning sighed once again seeing the obviously horrid state of the house and felt bad for the old woman.
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Still, he walked to the top of the stairs outside the house and knocked on the door.
A minute or so later, Helena walked out in her normal strap-on pants and shirts. When she opened the door and saw that it was Ning, her eyes went wide and she immediately ran back into the house.
At first, Ning was surprised. Was she scared of him? Was he not welcome anymore?
However, when he heard "Grandma! That uncle is here" being shouted throughout the house, he realized that she had simply gone back to let her grandma know of his arrival.
He heard hurried footsteps as the old woman practically jumped down through the stairs and ran up to the front door.
Ning smiled and thought that she had been using her advancement to Aether King quite well. However, when she came to the front he realized that she hadn't advanced at all.
"Young man!" the old woman Gaani squeaked at him. "Where the hell were you yesterday? I waited for you all day long to come back, but you never did."
"Oh, you were waiting for me?" Ning asked with a bit of surprise. "I'm sorry. I had some work come up in the tower the other day, and had to spend the entire day yesterday out doing something."
"I'm sorry that I made you wait for me for no reason," Ning said.
"Hmph! That's fine. It's good that you are here now. You don't want to give this woman some heart problems you see," she said and turned around.
She started walking away but stopped for a moment to turn around. "Why are you still standing there?" she asked in a worried tone.
"Sorry? You didn't give me the permission to enter," Ning said.
"Forget about permissions. Just walk in," the old woman said.
"Oh," Ning started feeling happy. "Does that mean you've accepted my request to teach me about potions?"
"Yes, yes, I have," the old woman said. "You can also teach Helena about aether arts. I might be old, but I've not yet gone senile to know what a great opportunity I have come across."
Chapter 547 Back to the KitchenNing smiled and happily entered the house with Helena now even more curiously looking at him.
"Are you going to be my teacher now?" she asked.
"Yes, it seems so," Ning said with a smile.
Helena's eyes widened. "Then I will be able to fight as good as you?" she asked.
"Uh, not yet. After a few years when you've become strong then you will be able to fight as I can."
"Besides, you don't train in Aether arts to fight. You train to be able to protect yourselves, your friends and families, and the other folks who need your help," Ning taught her.
The girl looked with an amazing look and wondered if she should be writing it all down somewhere.
Ning chuckled. "Wait until I formally start teaching you in a few weeks. For now, I will have to learn about potions myself," Ning said.
Ning entered the soot-stained kitchen once more and nearly coughed when the spicy vapors entered his body.
He was able to enforce his body enough so that he didn't need to violently cough it out and instead just created enough air in his lungs to displace the vapor out of his nose.
"Right, right. Sit around for a few minutes. I'm concentrating on the potion," the old woman said.
Ning sat on a chair by the table and next to him sat Helena. While the old woman was checking the cauldron while preparing the next batch of ingredients, Ning decided to talk with Helena a bit.
"How long do you have until your classes start again?" he asked.
"Hmm… I think 3 weeks," the little girl said.
"Are you looking forward to your classes, or do you like spending time with grandma?" Ning asked.
"I like helping grandma," the girl said. "I don't like reading books."
Ning chuckled. "I remember I didn't like books very well either. And I struggled so much because of that. You should study your books even if you hate them," Ning said.
"I will try," the girl gave an impassive response.
"What about your parents? Where are they?" Ning asked.
"I don't know," Helena said. "Never met them."
"Oh," Ning said sympathetically. "Have you stayed with grandma forever?"
"As long as I can remember," she said.
"My son and his wife passed away in a landslide to the west. This child was only 4 years old at the time, so she doesn't remember much," Gaani said.
"I see," Ning said.
Ning asked a few more questions Helena to learn a bit more about her. If he was going to teach her, he needed to know her.
As he talked, a question came to his mind and he turned around to ask the old woman.
"Mrs. Gaani, why do you stay in such an old house?" he asked. He had more adjectives to call the house with, but he kept himself from saying anything more just in case.
"This is my house. Where else am I supposed to stay?" the old woman asked.
"I'm sure the tower will help you move to a different, better-looking house than this," Ning said. "I will be honest, this house looks like it will come crashing down any second now."
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The old woman stopped what she was doing and sighed. "I know, I know. It's not very good-looking and stands out in the neighborhood because of how bad it looks too," she said.
"But I have a special attachment to this house," she said. "This was the house my son bought with his own money and used to live with his wife. He asked me to leave Ember and come live with him here when this little girl was born."
"I was so proud of my son. After he passed away, I thought many times of leaving this place, but I just can't bring myself to do so. There are too many memories I have made in this place to just leave it," she said.
"I see," Ning said. "Then what about renovations? You can make sure it's not dangerous for you or Helena around here."
"I don't have the money for something like that," the old woman said. "What I earn is barely enough to survive already."
"Oh," Ning looked confused. "Does the tower not pay you?"
"They do, but not enough for me to do what you tell me to do. They pay me to make the potions, but since they are not confident I won't make a mistake, they pay me what they think is enough."
"And they're not wrong," the old woman said. "But it's also not easy to survive in the capital of the biggest empire in the entire world, is it?"
"I'm sure once my potions become eligible for commercial sale, I will start earning money. I just wish to earn enough so that this little girl won't have to live through her childhood in poverty."
The old woman was starting to tear up at this point, thinking about Helena's future. The little girl was looking down at her shirt, playing with it, not sure what else she was to do here.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Gaani. Now that I am going to be her teacher, she won't have any problems in the future," Ning said. He wouldn't even have to do that if he was to be honest.
All he needed to do was go tell the tower that he found a Dual Awakener and they would shower her with gifts so expensive that each one would cost more than this house alone.
"Enough nonsense from you young man. Leave the future for the future," the old woman said, but she couldn't help but hope that he was telling the truth.
She couldn't wait to see her daughter grow up to be a strong, confident lady.
The old woman checked back at the cauldron. "It's ready," she said and poured the finished potion into a jar before separating it into various vials.
"Alright, come. I will teach you how potions are made."
Chapter 548 IngredientsNing walked up to the old lady Gaani, standing next to her and looking down on the various ingredients she had laid in front of her.
He knew the name of all of the ingredients, except for the ones that had been completely peeled, unshelled, or made powder off.
For those, he could have to use his sense of touch, smell, and maybe even a little taste sometimes.
Ning looked at the bone fragments on the platter of ingredients and gave a disapproving look, but the old woman Gaani didn't see it, and neither did Ning want her to.
"To know how to make potions, you need to know ingredients first," the old woman said.
Ning certainly didn't need much help in understanding the ingredients, but he let the woman explain anyway.
"A portion, as you have seen before, is made by boiling these ingredients. There is no exact recipe for the potions aside from the measurement of these very ingredients," the old woman said.
She picked up a small flower and showed it to Ning. "These ingredients will help me make a potion that soothes a person's spirit and helps them overcome insomnia, stress, trauma, nightmares, anxiety, and even helps you fight through sleep paralysis demons in most cases to get a gentle night of sleep."
Ning nodded to her, thinking to himself that this was likely the potion that the Lord had ordered, the order of which he had seen in the small notebook she had taken out the other day.
"This flower in my hand is its main ingredient," she said. Ning looked at the flower in her hand and recognized it as a Night Crown. It had 5 white petals around a tiny green circle at the center.
From the center, many tendrils of white strings fell down even below the petals themselves. The flower had been plucked from quite a bit away from the flower, but Ning knew that it was only the petals and white strings which held the materials that would inevitably be dissolved in the water.
One could have a gentle sleep with just the Night Crown plants gathered around them with flowers blooming in them, but they had to be alive for that, and there had to be enough to fill the air with their essence.
Ning knew that it was not really possible for everyone that wanted a good night of sleep to go around finding these flowers.
A monarch or noble could certainly do so, but a normal civilian would have no choice but to buy potions if they ever wanted their nights to be sound.
"This is called a Night Crown flower," the old woman started explaining what Ning already knew. In fact, when the old woman ended, Ning realized that she didn't really know anything.
She only knew that the flower was what made the humans fall asleep.
She then put the flower down back onto the pile and brought out another one of the ingredients. This time, it was a pale blue colored thick strings of some sort.
Ning strained a bit to see what it was properly, and when he did, he realized exactly what it was.
"It's the tendon of a four-legged Aether beast with branching horns," she said. Ning understood she meant to say antlers, but this world had no deers so most of the words that would be common to most worlds were not available here.
"This tendon contains properties that help slow down a person's mind, making it easier for the other ingredients to influence it," she said.
Next, she picked up a small piece of paper with about 4 pinches of powder on it. "Ground up bones of the same beast as earlier. It helps make the blood circulation smoother and gives a calming sensation to the taker," she said.
After that, she picked up a half-cut fruit that looked closer to a half-cut bulb of garlic more than anything.
The old woman picked it up and started peeling it to reveal the slightly pinkish fruit on the inside.
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"Lotus Berry is just there to add a sweet flavor to the potion and can be ignored, but I do believe it is helpful in some other ways too. Although, I do not know as of yet," she said.
Ning nodded, and in the back of his head recalled the entire information of Lotus Berry that was nearly 20 pages long if he were to write it down.
When it all boiled down, the Lotus Berry was there to infuse vitamins into the potion, the lack of which might have been the cause of many of the disorders in a person's body that might have been causing them to lose sleep.
All in all, the potion was starting to sound more like medicine than some magical elixir to Ning now.
However, he knew that wasn't the only thing potions could do. There were some ingredients that could do things that could only be explained as being 'miraculous'.
One after another, the old woman explained the remaining 8 of the other ingredients and Ning acted like he was absorbing all of the information.
Even if he didn't want to, he couldn't help but have his Eidetic memory store everything that was happening for review in the future.
Once the old woman was finished explaining all of the ingredients and what they did, she then went on to explain the portions of those ingredients.
A single mature flower of Night Crown. A half bulb of peeled Lotus Berry. A meter and a half long tendon of the deer-like Aether beast. 40 grams of crushed bones of the deer-like Aether beast.
Roots, barks, eyes, fur, and the various other ingredients in front of Ning also had a portion assigned to them.
Once it was all ready, the old woman turned to Ning. "Once it is all ready and portioned, we dump it all into the water."
She gestured for Ning to do it. So, he nodded and made the entire set of ingredients fall into the boiling water.
Chapter 549 Rest of the training"Alright, now we wait," the old woman said. "In the meantime, I can teach you some more."
"Actually," Ning said. "Before that. Do you mind telling me what happened to the vial of Aether I gave to you? I saw that you didn't use it at all."
"Of course, it's in my storage," the old woman said and her face scrunched up in suspicions as she asked, "You won't be taking it back, will you?"
"Oh, no no," Ning quickly explained himself. "I was just wondering why you weren't taking it. You will rank up to Aether King, you know? Many people spend their entire life dreaming of reaching such a stage. But for you, it's in the palm of your hand."
The old woman sighed and shook her head. "I don't have such a dream. My only dream now is to rear this one child properly," the old woman said.
"I kept that Aether you gave me, and I will give it to this girl when she's of age," the old woman said.
"Can't you just take it, grandma? You won't have to struggle as much if you do, right?" Helena asked from the side.
The old woman said nothing aside from simply shaking her head.
She diverted the topic back to the potions and started teaching Ning about the various ingredients and what they did.
"I am not an all-knowing Potion maker, so if you want to learn it, you will have to experiment a lot of it for yourself," she said.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Gaani. I plan on spending all my free time for the next three years simply teaching your granddaughter and making potions," Ning said.
That was the amount of time he had until Alexis fully disappeared from this world. The goddess was dying and Ning planned to fulfill her final wish by then.
After nearly an hour of learning with the old woman regarding the various theories and recipes that were prepared by herself and her ancestors, it was finally time to refine the potion to just the liquid form.
Once again, she took out a clean set of white cloths that she put over a large bowl and filtered the hot water.
After that, she left the water to shimmer on the black cauldron again.
"Why do you use such an old cauldron? If you cannot afford new pots and pans, I can buy it for you," Ning suggested.
"Well, money is part of the issue, but it's more so my family tradition," she said. "Ever since I was a little child, I've seen nothing but only these black cauldrons being used by my mother and grandmother. So, I am a little sentimental towards these."
"Yeah, grandma really likes those cauldrons," Helena said from the side. "One day, I accidentally broke one of them, and she scolded me so much that I felt like my ears were bleeding by the end of the day."
"That was because I had told you to be careful, and you didn't obey me," the old woman said before turning back to the task at hand.
Ning put the yet to refine potion in the glass beaker that the old woman had brought out and let it boil away the excess water.
While learning some more about potion making, Ning waited for the simmering liquid to condense.
When he noticed it was a tenth of what it had been, he reckoned that this one beaker full of potion could be used for about 200 small vials.
However, when he told the old woman that it was time to take it off the heat, she had simply said, "The customer has asked for something strong, so we will let it go for another 5 minutes."
With such a low amount of liquid, in the next 5 minutes, the remaining liquid ended up being able to fill just 20 small vials.
The old woman took out the vials she had prepared and slowly started pouring the potion into them.
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Each drop shimmered in yellow color as if liquid gold. The old woman enforced her entire body so as to not have a moment of slight shiver, or unsteadiness when she poured it.
Ning was quite impressed at how easily she poured the thick liquid into the 20 small bottles.
She then packaged it up and handed it to Ning.
Ning looked at the vials with a confused look and asked, "Why are you giving me this?"
"You are going back to the tower, aren't you? That was requested by the lord of the tower, so give it back to him," she said.
At the same time, she brought out multiple other vials and handed them to him as well, letting him know which one was for who.
She wanted him to deliver everything to the tower for her. He chuckled a bit and accepted. He didn't really have to do anything after all. He simply had to hand over these bottles to the reception and those fellows would do the rest.
"Come back tomorrow at this exact hour. I will have the ingredients for this same potion prepared for you tomorrow, and will test you on how much you learned today," she said.
Ning nodded and thanked her.
"You don't need to thank me," she said. "Just don't forget about your promise regarding my granddaughter. When do you think you will start teaching her?"
Ning thought for a moment. He was planning to start a few weeks later, but it felt bad giving such hopes to a young kid like her and making her wait for so long.
"Practical training will take a while since most of my time will be spent on learning about the potions," Ning said.
"But… I will try to prepare books on Aether and how to use them. At least the beginner versions, so that when we start, she will be ready for the training," Ning said.
"Good," the old woman said. "Also, if you can't make it, at least let me know beforehand. This little girl will give you our number."
Ning nodded, thanked her again, and left the house.
Chapter 550 Self Potion trainingA few weeks passed by and Ning continuously went to the Old woman's house to train his potion skills.
By now, he knew quite a lot about potion making itself. If he were to guess, with his knowledge of the ingredients, he would be able to advance the potions to a higher level.
However, he felt that it was still too early. For now, he needed to act as he had just started learning.
Aside from that, he had also started teaching Helena. He gave her a strong absorption skill that he told her not to let anyone else know about.
With that, she wouldn't even need the Aether liquid that Ning was ready to give her.
Ning was currently leaning next to a white wall, in an empty room with foams to dampen the sound all around the room.
The room itself was quite large at around 20 by 20 meters, but that was only because they were in the basement of a large building.
That was the only place Ning could find in the vicinity of where Helena was. Her grandmother didn't want him to take her far away, so he had found a free underground a block or so away from her.
Helena was standing with her back to an adjacent wall, her black hair tied in twin tails beside her shoulders, and her hands outstretched as if focusing on something.
She grunted with a thought and a small blob of water appeared in front of her. It had appeared around 2 meters away from her, and she struggled to keep it afloat.
She had enough Aether to easily do what she was doing, but she lacked practice, and thus her imagination was yet to be on point.
The blob of water kept spinning around, bobbling to find a fixed shape as Helena focused her gaze on the small bucket that was 5 meters away from her.
Now that she had created the water, she needed to push it away 3 more meters back.
"Breathe," Ning said from the side, and she took a deep breath before focusing.
The blob of water slowly moved forward, threatening to drop to the ground. Until it really did.
The water splashed on the ground, just a few steps away from the bucket, and Helena couldn't help but put on a very sad face.
She had failed once again.
"Hey! That's pretty good," Ning said. "You got to nearly 4 meters in just a day of training. When I was your age, it took me nearly a week to do what you did."
Helena's frown twisted into a smile and she happily looked toward Ning. "Is that true, teacher?" she asked.
"Of course," Ning lied. He had started with creating water and moving water for Helena.
He would go from water to stone to fire in the process of teaching her, using them to go through the different energies.
He wanted to start with heat and fire, but teaching a young kid how to create fire didn't sound very safe.
After Helena learned a little more, he would teach her more advanced and dangerous stuff.
After training for a little longer, Helena managed to pour the water onto the bucket. When that happened, she nearly tired out from the fatigue.
Ning took her back home and went back to the tower for some training of his own.
Merasi was gone back to closed cultivation for a while now, and it didn't look like she would be coming out anything soon.
From what he had heard, sometimes these Supremes went to 'sleep' for more than 5 years at a time, doing nothing but eating, sleeping, and absorbing Aether.
Once his training with the group was over, he went back to the building, part of which he had bought for himself, and entered the 2nd floor where he kept his potion-making equipment.
Every single item in this room was made up of glasses, unlike the old woman's home, making this place look exactly like he was in a pharmaceutical lab or a place where they trained in chemistry.
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Ning started boiling some ingredients in a glass beaker to make a potion that was supposed to work as a pain relief medicine.
He waited for the potion to be created and even made quite a condensed batch of it.
He then took a deep breath while holding the potion in his hand. He knew for sure that this potion would definitely do something for his pain, or at least he hoped so.
But he wasn't sure as he only understood the ingredients and not how they worked together.
He let go of the breath he had been holding and closed his eyes to prepare. In a single gulp, he drank the entire vial of potion.
As soon as he did, Ning created a knife in mid-air and made a long slice on the back of his hand.
Immediately, he let go of the knife and clutched his left hand in pain. He waited for the pain relief to come, and it did, but along with it also came a sense of numbness that made him lose all feeling in his body.
Ning couldn't feel a single sensation of touch, not of the floor, not of his clothes. He certainly couldn't feel the pain anymore.
The Potion had worked, but not like he wanted it to. He would have to change the recipe a little more.
Now that his hand didn't hurt anymore, he stood up and waited to see how long it would take for this effect of the potion he drank to disappear.
It took him a full 10 minutes before any feeling returned back to his body. Then, it took him another half an hour before every feeling in his body returned.
And along came the pain.
"Heal it," Ning ordered the system, and in a flash of light, the wound vanished.
"I'm close, but not quite. A few more experiments and I should be able to make a pain relief potion that should last much longer than this."
As such, his potion experiments were going relatively well.
Chapter 551 NightmarePerry watched in horror as a man with a blurry face walked toward him in a blurry surroundings.
He tried to stand up and run away, but for some reason, his hands didn't move. No matter how much he flailed his arms around, they just wouldn't listen to him. Same for his legs which were like jelly at the moment.
Vague silhouettes of what looked like humans watched him from the side, standing in places that looked vaguer than them.
Was it a hallway of a palace? Or the streets outside of the tower? Or was this inside his own room?
Perry couldn't tell. The man with the blurry face walked closer and closer until he was nearly on top of Perry.
Perry was going to die now. He was sure of it.
Suddenly, a woman appeared in front of him. The familiar back of the woman with her long auburn hair made him feel a sense of security as soon as she arrived.
Now that she was here, Perry had nothing to worry about.
"He's trying to kill me, master. Protect me," he tried to say out loud, but his voice wouldn't reach her at all. Perry didn't know why.
He wondered if he should shout once again to let the newly arrived woman know about what was happening.
However, just as he thought that the woman disappeared into a hazy mist of multicolored light before fully going away.
Now that she was gone, the man was getting closer and closer to him. Even right in front of him, Perry couldn't see this man's face at all.
He knew who this was. This was his enemy, the man who he had tried to kill so many years ago, and the man who had vowed to kill him since then.
It had been so long that Perry couldn't even remember his face anymore. He could see many faces flash through his enemy's face, but none matched at all.
Then, the man took out a gun from his pocket and pointed it at Perry. Just before he shot Perry, his face settled to look like a single person he recognized.
BANG!
Perry woke up in his bed, drenched in his own sweat. His breathing was rough and his heartbeat was both fast and heavy.
The sensation of death in his dream… no, nightmare… lingered even as he was out of it now.
How many days had it been since he saw this nightmare? He had been plagued with the thought that his enemy would come to kill him anytime ever since he had realized that his master was dead.
Since his master had died, he hadn't gotten any information regarding his enemy, and since then his paranoia that he could be anywhere and everywhere had kicked in.
Every night of his was filled with anxiety and paranoia if he stayed awake, and a nightmare if he slept.
Perry drank the glass of water next to his bed and tried to calm himself but the fear in his heart couldn't be taken away with mere water.
So, he opened the drawer and pulled out one of the many vials inside them. His hands shook in a hurry as he pulled the stopper out of the vial and drank the potion inside of it in quick succession.
Within minutes of drinking the potion, his fear and anxiety completely disappeared, and his heartbeat started to slow down as well.
Finally, he could breathe a sigh of relief.
"Dammit! I can't keep living like this," he thought to himself. "I need to do something."
With his anxiety and fear gone, fatigue was starting to take over him again. He lay back on his bed and tried to sleep.
Even as sleep took over him, he remembered the face of the man who had killed him in his dream.
"Terran Forn!"
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Ning walked out of Old woman Gaani's hope with her and Helena. Gaani looked back at her home and sighed.
This was going to be the last time she was going to see this home… at least like this.
In the past year, Ning had managed to learn about potions to the point that it had shocked the old woman.
In addition to that, he had helped the old woman by selling a lot of the potions that had been requested of her, while not taking a single penny back.
Also, he had helped her increase the price of the potions. Despite getting the ingredients from elsewhere, the knowledge itself was very much priceless for her to not sell it for more.
As such, in just a year, Ning had helped the old woman earn enough money to finally be able to afford the renovations of the house.
"Don't worry," Ning said from the side as he saw her melancholic face. "It's just a few months… err, half a year before you can return back to the new house that will be erected here."
"I know," the old woman said. "But I still feel very bad about leaving this house just like that."
"Also, the place you are taking use better be nice, I tell you, young man. But not so much that I feel like I don't belong there."
Ning chuckled. "Don't worry, Mrs. Gaani. The place is completely empty at the moment and you can redesign it however you want to," Ning said.
"What about our stuff, teacher?" Helena asked from the side.
"Don't worry," Ning said. "I have it with me in my storage." Ning patted his chest as if pointing to a certain area in his chest where he was keeping the storage necklace.
"Good," the old woman cried out. "Aside from that, I also hope that I will get to continue practicing my potion skills.
"Just because you are better than me, doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and let you be," she said.
"Of course," Ning said. "I wouldn't want you to get too far behind."
Then, Ning's face turned a little mischievous as he said, "Also, there is something new about potion making that I recently discovered that I'm sure you would love to find out as well."
Chapter 552 Teach Me tooAfter entering the building that Ning had bought, the old woman Gaani made a shocked gasp.
"You bought such a great building with your own money?" the old woman was truly surprised. The pristine white walls and ceiling, the spotless paint.
It had a solid floor made out of concrete, rather than wood like her old house. The old woman wasn't expecting the house to be so good.
"Yes, I rented the first 2 floors and the underground for myself," Ning said.
Ning showed the old woman around the first floor where she would be staying. There were multiple rooms in there and all of them were practically empty aside from some simple equipment.
"I will put your items in the living room. You can later decide where you want to keep them," Ning said.
"Hurry, hurry, I want to see how the kitchen is, if it is not fit for making potions, I will go find a different place to live in," the old woman said.
Ning chuckled and put all of her items from the old house in that room before walking back to show her the kitchen.
When the old woman entered and saw the massive kitchen, she was happy. But, once she saw the small, congested stovetop with only 2 stoves, she frowned.
"That's it? I thought big houses had more stoves in them," the old woman said. "I can't make potions with these small stoves."
"Don't worry about that, Mrs. Gaani. The place to make potion is separate from this one," Ning said and brought the two along to a staircase.
As soon as they walked up the stairs, the old woman saw an open space, with no rooms at all.
However, this place was not empty at all.
The old woman walked forward and saw a row of desks on the left side of the open floor, which when she paid a closer look were actually stoves.
She couldn't help but show a shocked expression when she saw nearly 20 stoves lined up in about 4 different rows.
And every single one of the stoves had a glass beaker on top of it with different colored liquids in each of them.
"Are those all… potions?" the old woman asked in shock.
"No, they aren't," Ning said and walked forward.
The old woman followed him and she could only then see the right side of the room that had the wall full of shelves from start to end.
Each of these shelves and giant containers filled with liquid of hundreds of types.
There were about 10 shelves in total, each shelf holding somewhere around 40 to 50 giant containers with liquid.
"What is this?" the old woman asked.
"I will tell you after you look in here," Ning said and pointed towards a door to the side of the shelves that the old woman hadn't noticed before.
"So it isn't an open floor?" she asked.
"It mostly is, but there is also a separate room there for whatever I may need, and there is a bathroom on that side," Ning pointed to the other side of the floor to a door there.
"What's inside?" the old woman was curious, so she opened the door to the room and was suddenly met with cold air to her face.
The air was too cold for her, so she quickly closed it, not before taking a peek inside to see what it had.
"So many potions!" the old woman's voice rose to a screech in surprise. Never in her life had she seen so many potions in such giant containers before.
"Young man, just how many potions have you made?" she shouted.
Ning chuckled again. "Those aren't potions, Mrs. Gaani, those are ingredients of potions," Ning said.
"Huh?" the old woman was confused a little.
"Come, let me show you," Ning said and brought her forward to an open desk.
"What potion would you like you to make?" Ning asked.
"What?" the old woman looked confused.
"Uh, let me choose for you. Let us make a Fatigue Removing potion today, okay?" Ning asked.
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The old woman nodded to go along with what he wanted to do.
"You know the recipe right?" he asked and brought out a piece of paper to write down the recipe.
"I know the recipe, young man. I taught you it mys— wait, that's not the proper ratio," the old woman said when she saw the recipe Ning had just written.
"Don't worry. I have experimented a bit, and for what I need to do, this is the correct recipe," he said.
"Come."
He took her along with him to the shelves, and only then did the woman see the many names written on the container of the giant liquid.
They truly were all ingredients. Some were ingredients that even she didn't know about.
"Let's take 2 parts of Blue Orange's peel, 1 part of Thunder Pine's bark, 1 part of Morning Glory, 2 parts of Novice roots…" he continued saying the recipe of the ingredients as he went around the shelves looking for the ingredients.
Every time he found the ingredients, he would use a hollow glass rod with a marking on it to take out that many amounts of liquid from the giant containers.
When he finally put the 3 parts of Frost Berry's seed, the vial in his hand was now full.
Then, he put a stopper on the vial and violently shook it for about 10 seconds.
Then, he handed it over to the old woman, who saw the sky blue-colored liquid inside the glass vial.
When she saw that, she could not hide the shock on her face at all.
"This is the Fatigue removing potion," she said with a surprise. That was the exact color of what it was supposed to be.
She opened the stopper and the smell was undeniably belonging to the potion.
In a single gulp, she drank the whole thing, and within seconds, she could feel the tiredness she was feeling from today's moving ordeal vanish just like that.
"So you can make any and all potions whenever you want to?" she asked with shock in her face.
"Yes," Ning said with a smile.
The old woman thought for a while and said, "Teach me too."
Chapter 553 Out of SleepNing started explaining to the old woman what exactly he had done.
A few weeks after getting this place and making potions, an idea struck Ning.
Since every potion was just ingredients boiled in water, he started wondering if the ingredients boiled in water individually would do the same thing.
When he realized that they worked just as he wished he started boiling ingredients in bulk. He kept a note of how many ingredients were being boiled in each batch and then evaporated that to get a concentrated solution.
By the time he did the process about 10 more times, Ning would have enough concentrated solution to fill a giant solution.
In a similar way, he had prepared the solutions for all the ingredients he could prepare.
Then, he started experimenting. He followed the recipe, but he realized that the recipes needed slight changes to the amount.
But it was a small enough change that Alex could rewrite dozens of recipes in a single day.
Then, he had finally managed to make a potion with his new prepared solutions.
After that, he pulled no stops as he practiced it day after day until he had reached a point where making a potion was as easy as gathering ingredients to him.
The old woman took in the explanation he told her about the potion-making process, and said, "That is actually quite genius."
"Isn't it? I'm quite proud of myself for finding this method," Ning said. He really was. Usually, he would only learn things after System had taught him about them.
But this time, he had come up with this technique in his own free time.
"I will try my hand at something too," she said.
"Please go ahead," Ning told her, letting her do what she wanted to. He handed her a small notebook with the recipes written on it.
She nodded and got to it. She followed the ratio on the recipe and put in ingredients one after another.
"I can't find the Lily buds anywhere," she said.
"Oh, the solutions that go bad at room temperature are kept in the cold room. I had someone install a refrigeration unit inside that room," Ning said.
The old woman reluctantly went into the room with a similar number of ingredients and walked back out.
When she was out, she was done. She quickly shook it together just like Ning and checked it.
The pinkish color of the liquid was exactly what she had been looking for. "This one is a success as well," she said.
"Great!" Ning said. "Very soon, I should be able to gain permission to sell potions to the masses as well. Until then, you should keep practicing."
"Yes, I will make some more potions," the old woman said with eyes that burned with a new light that she could swear she had lost years ago.
"Grandma, let's fix our place first, please. I'm tired," Helena said from the side.
"Right, right. Let's go do that," the old woman dejectedly said.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Gaani. This floor is open to you, and you may come here whenever you want. Let me give you the key," Ning said and gave her a key to this floor as well.
"Alright, I will need to return now. Please settle down properly," Ning said, and with a bow, he left.
Ning returned back to the tower and went back to his training. When he entered the training hall, he saw a big, buffed-up woman in dark skin training with a smaller, less buffed-up version of her.
"Oh, when did captain come out?" Ning asked when he saw Merasi fighting with Mercy.
"A few hours ago," Alekor said from the side. Ning turned around to see the weak Alekor and the panting Silvers on the ground.
"What happened to you two?" Ning asked curiously. However, he soon realized he shouldn't have asked given who was in the room right now.
Even without Alekor pointing his fingers toward the two fighting ladies, Ning knew what was going on.
Just as he turned around back to the girls, Mercy lost to a Merasi who appeared in her blind spot and sent her flying through the air.
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"Phew!" Merasi made an exaggerated gesture to show that she had worked hard, and the smile on her face showed how much she just loved fighting.
"Alekor, your tur— Oh, you're back," Merasi's smile just brightened like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
Ning didn't like that at all.
"Haha! Come, let's fight," she said, preparing herself for the upcoming fight.
Ning sighed. He wanted to refuse but this was his training period, so he was going to fight no matter what.
So, he walked onto the fighting area. "It's good to see that you are out, captain," he said.
"Yeah, it's good to be out. I feel like I've grown rusty in the last year I've been sleeping," she said.
Ning smiled. "Let me help you limber up then," he said.
"I hope you've gotten stronger while I've been away," Merasi returned the smile.
Even as the 3 of the others watched from the side, both Ning and Merasi vanished.
They didn't go invisible, and nor did they teleport. They simply moved at such speed that none of the 3 could follow them with their eyes.
A second later, both of them appeared at a distance from where they started with both of them clutching each other's hands, trying to push back each other.
Merasi suddenly stopped pushing and instead pulled, while at the same time kicking at his stomach.
Ning jumped up at the same time, dodging the kick, and front flipped over Merasi while still holding her hands in his own.
Once he landed, he pulled Merasi's hands and sent her flying towards the wall in the distance.
Merasi landed with a bang that threatened to destroy the wall itself.
Merasi dropped from the crater on the wall and looked at Ning in shock. She couldn't believe just how strong he had gotten in the time she was gone.
Her eyes narrowed a little in suspicion, and then, a smile rose on her face.
This was going to be an amazing fight.
Chapter 554 Jason"Congratulations," Merasi said with a brilliant smile on her face. Air spun around her, drifting her hair in the wind as she prepared for a full-on attack.
Ning's eyes narrowed a bit as he realized that she had realized. "Thank you," he said, returning a smile to her.
Alekor noticed this interaction between them and didn't hesitate for a second to send out his aether to strengthen the walls and ceiling of this place.
At the same time, Merasi and Ning moved.
They clashed at the center, their hands and legs stopping the others from attacking.
With a thought, Merasi created a gravity pull to her side, the target of which was Ning.
Ning kicked her and backed away before the gravity could work on him. At the same time, he created a spear out of nowhere and sent it flying at Merasi.
When it struck her, the blade on the spear bent sideways with not a single nick on her skin.
Merasi created a large bang noise but it wouldn't reach Ning through the vacuum he had already created around him with his reverse gravity around him.
At the same time, Ning created a massive flash of light that made Merasi wince a little before quickly opening her eyes to see Ning run towards her.
Seeing that, she punched him. However, just as their fists touched each other, she realized she had made a mistake.
A massive force struck her on her back, which sent her once more flying towards the wall.
However, this time she managed to twist in midair and remained flying there.
She watched the fake Ning disperse into a bunch of light.
"2nd Hit," Ning said with a grin on his face.
Merasi shook her head. She couldn't believe that she had yet to land a single hit on him when he already hit her twice.
"You've hidden your Invoking skills quite well," she said.
"More like I haven't needed to use my Invoking skills for training until now," Ning said.
Mercy's eyes were wide on the side. She had lost to him every single time they fought, and it turned out he wasn't even giving it his all.
Alekor simply sighed with nothing to say.
Silvers' mouth was so wide, that he could probably not say anything even if he wanted to.
"I will get serious then," Merasi said.
"Okay," Ning said and got ready.
Suddenly, metallic armor appeared on parts of her body only in certain locations like the chest, back, shoulders, wrists, etc.
Any location that would hamper movement had nothing blocking it at all.
Ning remembered it as what she had done during their battle the first time 3 years ago, but this time, she would have the power of a Supreme behind those movements and attacks.
Plus, attacking her nerve ends wouldn't work this time at all. Ning needed to seriously fight this time around.
Merasi came running towards him. At the same time, there was something forming on her hands that Ning couldn't make out immediately.
Suddenly, she swung her hand. A long whip came out of nowhere and targeted his left side.
Ning put his left hand up to stop. Despite his reverse gravity protection, if the whip was too fast, it could hit him.
As expected, the whip did get close to his body and wrapped around his hands. As the force behind the whip ended, it started to unravel back thanks to the reverse gravity.
But at the same time, a massive jolt of electricity passed through his body, nearly crippling him for a few seconds.
If not for the whip letting go a split second after the electricity came, he would have suffered far more damage.
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'Damn, she's really not playing around,' Ning thought. He looked at Merasi's gloves and realized that there was probably some sort of insulator inside them to protect herself.
Lightning crackled on her metal whip as she slammed it at Ning once again.
However, even as it came closer, a small gravity pull appeared near the wall that directly targeted the tip of the whip.
In the split second it took for the whip to go out of its way, Ning dashed towards Merasi.
There was nothing he could do to her using enchantment that wouldn't seriously harm her to the point where she would either be crippled or end up dead.
So, Ning decided to take the easier, more straightforward route and dashed toward her with all of his might.
Merasi tried to use some more forces on him, but none worked. So, she let go of her whip and went into battle with her body as well.
Each hit sounded like a thunderclap. The ground shook when their punches connected, and the whole tower threatened to tremble when their kicks landed.
If not for Alekor enforcing the walls, he was sure most of the structure would have taken damage by now.
So, as the two of them fought with great noises, no one in the room realized that there were some words being spoken on a loudspeaker outside.
The fight went on for a few minutes and neither Ning nor Merasi seemed to be winning.
Suddenly, the door opened to the training room and a bunch of people entered, wearing white and purple.
Ning saw them enter and stopped fighting. When Merasi saw that he had stopped, she was about to go in for an attack. But when she realized he was distracted, she too stopped and looked to where he was looking at.
A man had entered the room, followed by a bunch of other men and women.
Merasi's eyes changed when she saw that man. "Jason? I didn't know you had woken up already," she said, and her eyes flickered to joy as a smile appeared on her face.
She slammed her two fists together in provocation and asked, "Are you here to train with me?" she asked.
"Save your provocation, I'm not here for you," the man said as he looked around and asked, "Who is Terran Forn?"
Chapter 555 ReunionJason Dial looked like he was in his late 40s, and early 50s, with streaks of white hair all throughout his head. He had a small stubble on his chin, but his mustache was mighty thick.
He was a tall man and wore a white uniform himself. From what Ning could see, he clearly lead the way for the others.
'Jason?' he thought as he remembered that name. That was the name of the 3rd Supreme that Ning hadn't seen before.
Jason, Tristan, and Merasi made the three Supremes of the Aether tower. 'And he has come here looking for me?' Ning thought.
Merasi stepped forward. "What do you want with my subordinate?" she asked.
Jason frowned. He really didn't like interacting with this hag.
"It's an order from the lord. We are to immediately capture him and bring Terran Forn to the lord."
"The hell?" Ning shouted before he could even hear it all.
Jason looked to Ning. He had a guess already who he was. He was the person they were looking for, most likely. But the battle he just saw... that was a bit too much for him to believe that was who he was.
"What's this about?" Merasi turned to Ning to ask him softly.
Ning shook his head. "I don't know. I haven't interacted with the lord since after the day I arrived here," Ning said.
'Did he find out that I was learning potions and got paranoid that I might poison him?' Ning wondered.
"Did he do anything against the law?" Merasi asked.
"Stop asking so many questions. It's the lord's orders," Jason said with an annoyed look.
That only made Merasi's frown deepen. She understood that something underhanded was going on here.
"Tell me the reason, or I won't give him up," Merasi said.
Jason frowned now as well. He turned around to say something to his subordinates.
At the same time, Ning heard some words coming out of thin air from next to him.
"Captain, it looks like the lord is planning something. The entire tower is mobilizing, and some of the members were sent here to capture brother Terran," the voice said.
Ning didn't have to even guess to know who that voice belonged to. He looked to the front and as expected, near Mercy and Silvers, Alekor had already gone missing.
This man had somehow managed to slip through from one side of the massive room to another while in the midst of 3 supremes.
Ning was genuinely impressed. Merasi wasn't lying when she said his Aether arts uses one of the best in the tower.
Below Supreme, he might have been the best member of the Battle force. At least, for sure after Ning had ranked up once again.
"Why would the Lord want to capture Terran?" Merasi asked. "He's an asset to the tower. Perhaps one of the most important ones."
Alekor kept quiet for a while as he too didn't understand why this was happening.
Ning decided to help them understand.
"The Lord wants to reach Overlord, so he wants me to give him all the Aether I want. He called me very early on for that, and I refused him," Ning said, hesitating to speak any further.
"Just for that? I don't see why he would want to capture you. Antagonizing you is not going to get him the Aether he wants, is it?" Merasi asked.
Ning sighed. He had to continue, whether he wanted to, or not. "The lord was talking about using the tower to become the sole leader of the whole world just so he can bring peace through fear."
"So… I may or may not have threatened him that I would take over his position from him within 3 years after I, myself entered the Underlord rank."
Ning looked to the front and said, "It seemed… the old man made his move before I could."
Merasi sighed now that she heard the explanation. It made sense why he wanted him out of the picture.
Then, her eyes flashed with something. "What did you say about him wanting to take over the world?" she asked.
"That's what he said. He apparently wants peace, but he's going about it through fear and terror."
"If people are scared, they are too scared to do anything bad is his philosophy," Ning said.
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"I see, I will try to stop him from taking you then," Merasi said.
She turned to speak to Jason, but another man entered the room. A short man with purple hair walked to the front as well.
Merasi's face changed. "It's quite the reunion today, isn't it?" Merasi asked when she saw Tristan.
"Can we just get it over with already, Merasi? I'm tired and I don't want to work more than I have to," he said.
Ning understood Tristan's character from the time he had become their examiner in the Battle Force entry test.
"I won't give up one of my men without a proper explanation of what is going on," Merasi stood her ground.
Ning felt grateful towards her.
"So, what can you do now?" Merasi asked. "Wanna fight 2 on 2?" Her eyes were starting to shine with battle hunger again.
"Dammit!" Jason cried out.
"He'll be here anyti—"
Halfway through Tristan's words, the space twisted around him and an old man with white hair walked out.
Despite being old, there was strength in this man's legs. He walked to the front and stayed where he belonged.
In front of everyone.
Ning couldn't help but frown again. The Underlord was here.
"Merasi, get out of my way. I'm here to capture that man," the old man Perry said.
"Lord, but there needs to be an expla—" Merasi's body lurched backward mid-speech and slammed on the wall behind her.
Despite being on guard, she was swatted like a fly. Without even looking back, Ning realized that she had been knocked out.
Alekor appeared next to her as well, his invisible veil disappearing as he grabbed his arm. Being behind Merasi, he had taken some damage inadvertently.
Ning turned around, alone on the fighting stage now, and stared directly at the old man with anger in his eyes.
As well as fear.
Chapter 556 Taken AwayNing looked at the crowd in front of him. Dozens of Aether Kings and Aether Emperors, quite a few Aether Saints, 2 Aether Supreme, and finally, an Aether Underlord.
There was no way he could fight here and win without revealing his system.
Perry Thatcher stood in front of them all, with not a single shiver in him. Ning wondered if the sleeping potions he had ordered so much had helped him somewhat.
"Old man, you should know that I won't give you any information on where to obtain the Alpurite, especially not now that I see what you are doing," he said.
"I do not care about that anymore. I let you stay here, hoping you would change your mind, but I see that you are as stubborn as ever."
"So, I decided to stop playing games with you. You can shut your mouth or say what you want. No matter what, I am getting my information today," the old man said.
Ning was one step away from simply teleporting away. But should he show his system now?
Just as he thought that, the old man brought out a vial. Ning's heart sped up as trauma he didn't think he had flared and he unconsciously started opening a portal to some place else.
The old man saw that and used his Aether immediately and distorted Ning's portal to the point that it collapsed.
Ning looked back in fear. But the fear subsided when he actually saw the vial of potion clearly. The liquid inside was slightly purple in color.
This was not the poison Ning had been expecting. Instead, he recognized the liquid for something he had made himself.
A Truth potion.
Ning's lips twist up in a smirk filled with disdain.
"With this Truth potion, I will get the information out of you easily," the old man said.
Ning kept his smirk on him, but internally he started frowning. He had his solutions all around the world, ready for him to drink and advance to Underlord as well. But he had been waiting for his body to heal, so he could become an Underlord in that body.
If he wasted that amount of Aether, it would take him a long while to gather some more.
Still, Ning was sure he would rather beat this old man and wait, than let him do what he wanted to.
The old man's pressure was already on him, stopping him from moving even the little bit.
'Yes, time to go,' Ning thought and teleported. However, when he reappeared, he was still in the same location.
Ning looked confused. 'What's going on? Why can I not teleport?' he asked his system
The crowd in front of him also looked at him with slight confusion.
The old man's face changed when he saw Ning flicker for a split section, like his body went invisible for a split second.
But that couldn't be right, if he could go invisible, he would go invisible for much longer, wouldn't he?
"What?" Ning asked, and looked at the crowd in front of him. None of those were responsible for sure.
Suddenly, he felt his hair lift slightly as if it was being pulled towards somewhere behind him. From what he could see, space was twisting for a moment.
Then, it spat out a woman. The woman was tall and beautiful. Her oval face of fair complexion had not a blemish on it.
Her dark auburn hair fluttered in the wind, as her dark-purple eyes stared at the entire crowd.
The moment she appeared, the crowd felt a great attraction towards her, as if she were someone to be loved, but not as a woman, but a goddess.
Most of the men and women couldn't stop themselves from getting on their knees and bowing towards her.
Even Tristan and Jason were looking at her with awe. But they had lived long enough to keep their wits to themselves… somewhat.
The old man, however, couldn't keep his wits to himself at all. His eyes were wide open, with his lower jaw dangling beneath him.
He tried to speak, but the best he could do was quiver his lips.
"Let us leave," she said to Ning and placed her hands on his shoulder.
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Seeing this, the old man finally found his voice and shouted towards them.
"Master!"
The entire crowd looked at the old man in shock.
In response, Alexis simply turned towards him and shook her head in disappointment. Then, along with Ning, she disappeared.
"NOOO! Don't leave me!" the old man shouted, running forward to grab them. But Alexis was already gone.
"Noo! Why do you keep leaving me?" he shouted. His body was starting to shiver once more as he realized that his master had likely abandoned him.
"Bu-But why? I'm doing what you told me to. I'm trying to bring back the peace in this world!" he shouted, but there was no response at all.
The crowd started leaving under the order of Tristan and Jason, who chose to stay behind with their lord.
"Lord, what is your order?" Jason asked.
The old man was still on the ground, kneeling with tears in his eyes.
"I… I don't know," he said. "I… she… why did she abandon me?"
"Lord, get yourself together! Who the hell was that woman anyway?" they shouted.
The old man didn't give any thoughts to what they were saying. All he could think about was that his master who he thought had died until now, was actually alive and was even aiding the person who was his newest enemy.
When he thought about that, his heart grew cold and anger flared in his heart.
"I did this all for you, but you didn't want it, right?" he said softly. "Fine, then I will do this for me now."
He suddenly stood up and turned around.
"Start the operation. By tomorrow morning, I need to know that the entire world is under my rule," the old man ordered.
Without even thinking about what he had just said, the two Supremes nodded and saluted.
They would do what their lord asked of them without hesitation.
Chapter 557 Celestial ManifestationNing reappeared in the Aether forest with Alexis' hand still on his shoulder.
He walked away from her and gathered his situation. When he realized he was safe, he turned around towards Alexis.
Her eyes drooped to the side and there was a hint of hesitation in her eyes. Even as the question built up in Ning's heart, she already knew what he was going to ask.
"Why did he call you 'Master'?" Ning asked.
Alexis sighed. She couldn't get out of answering this question no matter if she wanted to or not.
"That's because I taught him the Aether arts, just like you," she said.
Ning felt his heart sink to his stomach. "You taught that bastard how to use Aether? Were you the one who progressed him to Aether Underlord as well?" he asked.
Alexis couldn't help but sigh. "He wasn't all that bad when I met him. He was a young child born into poverty. I found him after he was buried his parents who were killed in a war between two countries."
"I told him that I would help make him strong, and in return, I asked him for the same thing I asked you… to return peace to this world," Alexis said.
"And?" Ning asked.
"I gave him the same task as you too. Defeat the head of the tower and become the head yourself."
"The one at that time was an Aether Supreme, so after a few hundred years of training under me, he reached a level where even as a Saint, he could fight him and defeat him."
"Then, I waited for him to bring peace back to the land… but all he would tell me was that it's a hard thing to do and that I should wait patiently."
"But… I couldn't wait patiently at all. I wanted to see the peace in this world return, and I feared that by the time it had come back, I would disappear."
"After all, you had already broken the Peak of Afterlife, and thus my own life was slowly disappearing," she said.
Ning's eyes changed when he heard that. "Do… do you mean to say that the destruction of the Peak of Afterlife and you dying… are related?" he asked.
"How is that possible?" he asked. "Was there something in the Peak that affected your lifeline?"
Alexis gave a dry smile. "The portal you came through, that was my lifeline," she said.
Ning's eyes sharpened. "How…?
"A few tens of thousands of years ago, when the portal suddenly appeared on that peak, it spewed out an unimaginable amount of energy into the air, which… this planet absorbed."
"As the planet absorbed more and more energy, its intelligence increased as well, and from that intelligence, I was born," Alexis said.
Ning's eyes went wide. "You are the planet Vilmore itself?" Ning asked with shock in his voice.
"In a sense, yes. It would be easier to call it the will of the planet, but you are not wrong either," she said.
Ning looked at her in shock. The will of the planet… he had heard of such a thing existing back in Kumia, but never had he realized that it could give life to such a complex being.
Suddenly, the system spoke.
Ning didn't even hesitate. 'Give it to me,' he said, and suddenly, a vast amount of information embedded itself in Ning's mind.
When a heavenly body existed, at a certain threshold of energy, they acquired wills of their own. most of the time, they will barely have any intelligence.
Celestial Manifestation, otherwise known as Will Manifestation was when a heavenly body with a will was intelligent enough to manifest itself in a physical form.
Beings of such kind had unimaginable power and held a great deal of authority over their own system.
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For a Celestial Manifestation to happen, 3 things needed to happen.
First, the Celestial Body needed to have an Origin in themselves somewhere to continuously supply them with energy.
Second, there needed to be a vast amount of soul nearby for the will to even realize it could turn into something else. The most powerful of the souls, the human souls worked best for this. Since the wills were influenced by the souls, most celestial bodies couldn't manifest their wills themselves even if they met the other criteria as their will wouldn't know what to manifest themselves as without any influence.
Finally, there needed to be enough energy above a certain threshold in proportion to the body for the will to even be intelligent enough. This was one of the reasons why planets could almost never manifest wills at all since they would never have enough energy for their intelligence to grow.
Manifested wills usually—
Ning tried to read more, but there seemed to be information missing from his mind.
"There's more right?" Ning asked.
Ning ignored the system for now and thought about what he had just learned.
The first point, having Origin. Almost all planets should have this. At least, the ones with special energies in them. Since Vilmore had it, it passed that point.
For the second point, there needed to be souls around for the will to be influenced. Seeing how Alexis was humanity in its perfect form, it was easy to say that she had indeed been influenced.
Finally, the third point. The planet should have some level of energy in them compared to the planet itself.
Vilmore was quite small in size, and Ning wasn't sure what the threshold was. However, he had just learned one bit of information from Alexis herself.
When the portal started spewing out energies to the planet, she started getting intelligent.
Meaning, Alexis had accidentally got intelligence that she would have likely not received had the planet never acquired enough energy from the massive Kumia.
So it was because of Kumia that Alexis was even alive.
'But now I've destroyed the source of this supply of energy when I destroyed the peak. This means… the planet is returning to the time when it was below the threshold, and as such… her manifested Will will cease to exist,' he thought.
Ning's eyes went wide as he saw Alexis nod in agreement. "So I really am responsible for you dying."
Chapter 558 Filling in the Gaps"Yes," Alexis said with her eyes closed. She breathed in and sighed. There was no way for her to stop it at all.
'System, can I help her in any way?' Ning asked, but the system had already answered this question nearly 3 years ago.
"It's fine," Alexis said. "I have come to term with my death. I only wish to see the world at peace or at least heading towards that path now."
Ning remembered her face that time in the origin when she mentioned that he was the one who was killing her.
"Do you hate me for what I did?" Ning asked.
Alexis' face changed. Her eyes shifted elsewhere, unable to look at Ning. Ning kept staring at her, trying to read her face.
In the end, Alexis breathed out and answered, "Yes. Yes, I did. I still do. But I'm trying to look aside from this hatred I feel and toward what you can do. The good you can bring to this world."
"If it's of any worth, I'm sorry," Ning said.
Alexis immediately hesitated, her entire body squirming with cringe from something she remembered.
Ning caught that too. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I- I-" she couldn't bring herself to say it at all.
"What's going on? Are you alright?" he asked.
Alexis took a deep breath once again and said, "I'm sorry too."
Ning narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why are you sorry? Just because you hate me?" he asked.
Alexis looked to the side, not daring to meet his eyes, and spoke, "I- I might have done some things to work against you."
"Work against me? When?" Ning asked. In the 3 years, they had been working together, in the 2 years Alexis taught him the significant ways to use Aether arts, not a single time had Ning felt someone working against him.
Everything had gone smoothly as far as he couldn't understand. The training went well, his time in the Freeland was without much trouble, and she even helped him learn about Alpurite itself.
So what could she be possibly talking about? As he questioned himself, a thought emerged in his mind.
'What if it was before we met?' he thought.
As he did, a few inconsistencies showed up in the things that happened in his past. Things that had bothered Ning a little, but not enough to give much thought to it.
Now that he learned that Alexis had worked against him, he could see things falling into places where there were gaps in his understanding.
The first thing Ning had always wondered was how did Perry ever find his room in the Odrain empire. He had directly teleported into the room, something that was impossible unless you had been to that place before.
The next thing that was confusing was why did Perry have a potion with him that poisoned his body in such a way that his infinite regeneration would work against him.
Ning had brought up the topic of poisons and the old woman had said that poisons weren't a recipe her family pursued as much as they did the others.
One of the strongest poisons she knew what something she had simply thought of one day. What if the old woman hadn't? And instead, the idea was planted by someone else?
Then, after Ning was poisoned, when he tried to cure himself. Coincidentally, one of the ingredients for his cure was missing. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of forest, and there was not a single flower there.
That was suspicious, but Ning hadn't given much thought to it. But now, that gap was filling itself.
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Finally, as if to help him, Alexis appeared out of nowhere, making him work under her with the lure of Origin.
Was that all… her doing?
He looked at her, and her eyes looked back in fear and panic. "I'm sorry, I really am. I- I really hated you at the time, and my disciple asked me for my help."
"So without thinking, I gave him the way to ruin you."
"However, when I saw that you were a good person, and actually wanted to help this world, I sought out you, but by that time, everything was already over," she said.
"I wanted to fix you, but if I did… I would have disappeared then and there. My energy was already dwindling by that time."
"So, all I could do was make a deal with you to get you to work for me to bring peace to the world," she said.
Ning's eyes had at some point started burning with rage. He had never expected the entire planet to hold grudge against him and work to ruin him.
Alexis' lips quivered a little and she spoke. "If… if it's of any help, I can give you this," she said as she put her hands out.
As she did, light shined through her hands and something spherical appeared in her hands. When the light disappeared, something that looked like a white marble jabbed all around with a thousand red needles showed up on her hand.
Ning looked at it curiously. Not even a split second later, his eyes went wide.
"Scarlet Blood Lily?" he asked in surprise.
Alexis nodded. "I know I have wronged you and I wish to mend our relationship with this. You can continue to hate me if you want to, but please help me bring peace to this land."
"I had put my hopes on Perry, but that child… he… he's been corrupted by power. Please, fulfill this last wish of mine. I beg you," Alexis said as she got on her knees and bowed toward Ning.
Ning couldn't help but feel horrible seeing his 'master' bow in front of him. He still felt hate, but just like her, surely he could put it aside for now, right?
"Stand up," he said. "After I heal myself, I will go heal this world."
Chapter 559 Creating the PotionNing teleported away from when he was in the forest and instead appeared back in the house he had got for himself.
"Aah!" the old woman yelped in shock and nearly dropped the giant beaker of clear liquid she had in her hands.
"Oh, hello Mrs. Gaana," Ning said and immediately started looking around the room.
"What? How did you get in here?" the old woman shrieked.
Alexis appeared after him, giving the old woman another scare. However, instead of being completely fascinated by Alexis as everyone else did, she looked at her with curiosity in her eyes.
"Have I seen you somewhere before, young lady?" she asked.
Before Alexis could answer "In your dreams," Ning grabbed the old woman by her shoulders and started pulling her aside.
"Where's Helena?" he asked.
"She's downstairs making her room," the old woman said.
"Uh, why don't you go help her for a bit? I have some things to do here," Ning said.
The old woman stopped and didn't budge an inch. Then she turned around and looked at both Ning and Alexis.
Then, she harrumphed and started walking away. "Young men and women these days, so disrespectful. Won't even stay until night falls to follow their carnal desires."
Ning blushed a little when he heard that, but now was not the time to get red in the face.
He immediately brought out a small beaker and dropped the Scarlet Blood lily to start boiling it. He didn't have an accurate idea of what ratio the blood lily's solution had to be in the potion, so he went with the traditional way of making the potion.
He brought out the rest of the ingredients he had prepared for years and dropped them in that beaker.
Now, all he had to do was wait.
As the ingredients boiled in the beaker, Ning started asking Alexis more questions. Since she was more all-knowing about the world, and unlike the system, she didn't seem to cost anything, Ning asked as much as he wanted to.
"What happened to Merasi?" he asked.
"She's been taken away," Alexis said. "She defied what is happening, so she's being kept prisoner for now."
Ning's eyes narrowed. "Can they even keep her imprisoned? How?" he asked.
"For now, she's unconscious," Alexis said. "But, they have her sister hostage to keep her from acting against them."
"Dammit," Ning thought. He wondered if he should go help them right now.
"He's really doing it," Alexis suddenly said with a blank expression on her face.
"He's doing what?" Ning asked.
"He's started the domination of the continent," Alexis said as tears flowed down her eyes. "This… this is all my fault. I should have… I should have done something the moment he strayed from the path of good, but… I… I thought he would change."
Ning looked at her with nothing but pity. "Don't worry, I will fix it," Ning said. He still hated what she did to him, but that didn't stop him from feeling bad for her.
"What exactly is he doing though," Ning asked.
"He's… he's sent members of the tower from all around the world to bring down any monarchs or government in their country," she said.
"What?" Ning shouted. "He's attacking them?"
She quickly shook her head. "He won't attack them. Not yet. It's still in the discussion phase, but I'm sure the monarchs and nobles won't stand for this."
"They will surely refuse, and then the tower will have full authority to attack back," she said.
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"Is there no one in the tower that is fighting back against this?" Ning asked. He couldn't believe that everyone was going through with this.
"Some are," Alexis said. "But they are weak folks. The president and vice presidents of all the different towers are following through with this, and with the majority of the Saints and Supremes following the orders as well, most weaker people are forced to do this."
"Also, there seems to be some punishment for not following orders, so most of them are scared," Alexis said.
Ning looked back at the boiling ingredients. He wanted it to boil faster, but it didn't.
At the same time, his thoughts raced within his mind.
'What do I do?' he thought. Should he just kill the lord? Would that bring peace? Certainly not.
If the tower found out their lord had been assassinated, he could only imagine the chaos it would bring to the world. What if that added to the war that was already about to start?
No, Ning couldn't kill the old man. He needed to win against him in a duel between the two. Only then could he take over the tower, and order it all to stop.
However, could he win against the old man in a duel? Not as he currently was. He needed to reach Underlord for that to happen.
However, the amount of Aether he had to consume for him to reach Underlord was way too massive. It would take him at least half a day to consume all that for sure.
He needed help. Merasi would certainly help him. He was sure of that. Other than that… he needed someone who could stop the lord while he was away to cultivate to the Underlord rank.
An idea came to him at that time.
An hour later, the clear pink liquid in the beaker simmered until it was thick and viscous.
Ning poured it down into a small glass jug and prepared himself. With a thought, his real body popped out of his storage space.
His body squirmed as flesh was devoured by the toxin, creating more toxins to eat his body. At the same time, everywhere the toxin ate his body, the body reformed, only to be eaten by the toxin again.
Ning opened his real body's mouth and poured the potion into it. However, that body wouldn't drink the potion on its own.
So, Ning switched his body to deconstructing one and drank the whole potion in a single gulp.
Now, he had to wait and see how this potion would work.
Chapter 560 Finding HelpAs Ning took over his original body, he could only feel the heat and his body falling to pieces.
Since his main body felt no pain, the heat and the crumbling feeling was the only thing that told him that his body was still under the effect of the toxin.
He ignored every other feeling and focused entirely on the hot liquid in his throat that was burning him even now.
The potion was quite viscous, considering how concentrated it was, and it refused to go down to his stomach fast.
So, Ning had to use his Aether to force the potion down. There were cracks in the esophagus, but they were easily overcome with his control.
As the potion traveled through his food pipe, all the toxin in its path was immediately cleared away, leaving a healthy pipe behind.
When it finally did reach the stomach, the potion instantly dissolved amongst the toxin, blood, and stomach juices and healed everything around it.
Then, the potion made its way through the bloodstream.
Everywhere it went, his body healed. His heart, his lungs, his organs, his muscles, bones. Everything healed.
For 2 full minutes, Ning lay down on the floor with nothing else to do but wait. Once the wait was over, his body was healed.
He stood up slowly. Somehow through the sheer destruction of his body, his clothes had survived. Not that Alexis would mind seeing him naked. She very much likely saw everyone in the world naked.
From what he knew, her eye was everywhere.
Ning tried walking around, getting a feel of his own body. As expected, it was all healed. Even the system confirmed it.
He then looked at the other body that lay next to him, the 4th Supreme of the Tower, Terran Forn.
Ning didn't need this person anymore. He placed his palm on the body's stomach and asked the system, "Absorb all the Aether in him."
Similar to how Rachel's skill worked, only stronger, Ning's hands started absorbing all the Aether in his other body.
As a tumultuous amount of Aether started pouring in him, Ning quickly opened his automatic aether absorption technique to properly place the incoming Aether into his Sea of Aether.
Even then, the speed at which he took from his other body was too quick for his main body to convert it into his own Aether.
So, he also had to use his normal absorption technique, which was still miles better than everyone in this world.
Once that started working, it became easy.
Ning stood there for nearly half an hour as Aether Supreme's entire reserve of Aether flowed into him.
Finally, once all of the Aether in that body was stolen, Ning stood up with new vigor.
He had reached Aether Supreme in his main body as well.
"That's nice," he thought. "Can I win if I use this body against the old man?"
As he thought about that question, the answer was obvious to him. "Probably not," he thought. He would have to use his system to truly beat him, and that would cost him a lot of energy that he would rather not use at all.
"I'm going to have to do it the classic way then," he thought. "Time to reach Underlord."
Reaching Supreme had taken him half an hour. Reaching Underlord… that would surely take him at least 5 hours. Ning didn't have that sort of time at the moment.
So, he needed to make that time.
He turned around to Alexis and said, "We need help from anywhere we can. Where is the other Underlord that Perry is afraid of?"
Alexis' eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you want to use him? He hates the tower as much as he hates Perry," she said.
"If he hates the tower, it's better for us. We need that person to delay as much as possible," he said.
She nodded and closed her eyes for a second before opening them again. "Let's go."
With a swing of her hand, they disappeared.
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Darian sat in his chair as he read the report in his hand that he found hard to believe.
'But if it's that bastard, he would surely do something like that,' he thought.
The chair rocked as he read more and more information. The tower had, out of nowhere to everyone's understanding, decided to take over the world.
The fighters moved around the city, controlling it like it was their own. Anyone who tried to resist was captured and imprisoned.
From what he could see, the prisoners weren't treated badly, as the ones that followed the orders still seemed to have a hint of humanity in them. But there was also information about blatant abuse of power.
"That bastard, what is he thinking?" Darian got angry. He even thought of going to attack him, but no. If he could do that, he would have done so ages ago.
That bastard was way better than him in the ways of Aether, and even if he could fight him, He was one against the head of the entire world's largest organization.
There was no way he could do any of that. Just as he was thinking, the space in front of him twisted for a split second before two figures appeared out of nowhere.
A man and a woman stood on the carpet in his well-lit room not 2 meters away from him.
He immediately stood up and used his Underlord powers, but for some reason, neither of the two showed any reaction.
"We're not here to fight," the man spoke before he could do anything else.
"Then why are you here?" Darian asked.
"We need your help with resisting the Lord of the tower," the man said.
Darian frowned and eyed the two. "Who are you people?" he asked. He had never thought that aside from that bastard, there would be anyone who could possibly fight against him.
"Ah, sorry for the late introduction. I am Ning Ruogong, and this is my friend, Alexis," Ning introduced himself with a hand in front of him.
Darian looked suspiciously but still decided to grasp the hand.
"I am Darian Canon."
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