Ning felt a little sad as he walked back towards Famir's house. The old uncle was a little too emotional and it affected Ning a little as well.
"Sigh, poor old man. Losing a son must be weighing heavily on his mind," he thought. He started to pity the old man now. He sighed once again and reached Famir's house.
He could hear laughter from inside the house.
'The kids are finally laughing huh?' he thought. He walked up to the door and saw Aegis's back against the door. "Come back Aegis," he said and pulled him back to the beast space.
"What?"
"Huh? Where did he go?"
He heard the brother and sister speak at the same time.
"Oh, senior! You are back," Famir said when he noticed Ning.
"Huh? Did you take him back somewhere?" Mavenna asked. Her face got a little sad when she didn't find Aegis there anymore.
"Do you guys like him?" Ning asked, and the both of them nodded.
"Sigh, alright. Come outside. This place is too cramped for him," NIng said and started walking to the backyard.
"Aegis, these kids want to play with you. Come play here," Ning said and called out Aegis once more.
Aegis was a little confused at first, but once he saw Mavenna, he immediately started jumping up and down. Ning thought of something and flew Mavenna into Aegis's arms.
"Fly," Ning said.
Aegis immediately opened up his golden wings and flew into the sky. Both Famir and Ning could hear cries of terror and laughter from the little girl flying in the air.
"How did you make such a beast your pet, senior?" he asked.
"Oh, uh… I found him somewhere," Ning said. "I helped him fight off a few guys and got him to follow me after that," Ning said.
"Oh, I wish I can get one in the future too," Famir said.
Ning wanted to just tell him that it wasn't possible and that beasts that practiced Aether were a different kind from Aegis, but decided not to.
"You can always keep hope. Just don't go finding a beast expecting to make it your pet. Aether beasts are very much against humans most of the time," Ning said.
"I understand," Famir said.
They waited on the ground for a little more time before Ning called Aegis down. Mavenna laughed the entire time she was with him and had seemed to have forgotten her tragedy even if it was for a few brief seconds.
Ning had a week to spare, so he decided to impart some knowledge to the kids regarding Aether and learn it himself at the same time.
He spend a few million energy to create books about the knowledge he had gathered. At first, they were quite reluctant to learn, at least Mavenna was. But getting them to do something after already making them do that once was easy.
They were now very susceptible to suggestions. Ning also had to throw in playtime with Aegis and promised that if they learned in all under a week, he would let them play with another beast of his.
"Sigh, let alone Mavenna, even Famir who is 17 is like a kid," Ning thought. "I guess I was the same too at the time."
He had a massive bowl in front of him, but it was a little further away from him. Ning was trying to create and throw water into that bowl.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He then started to visualize moving water inside his mind. Usually, he would just think about water, but this time he needed it to move.
It had been 3 days since he started teaching the kids, and they were inside reading the books while he was himself outside practicing.
Water started forming out in front of him. The amount of water he was able to form now was nearly a liter. He envisioned the water flying into the bowl
"HAH!"
SPLASH
The water fell right where he had formed it. Ning's forehead, which was full of sweat, was now creased due to his frown. No matter what he tried, he couldn't get the water to move past its original location.
'Damn, am I really just an Invoker? Am I not an enchanter at all?' he thought. That thought left a bad aftertaste. He really wanted to believe that he was one of those rare Double Aether users.
'I guess I was only able to awaken as an Invoker,' he sighed.
Ning heard someone walking and looked back to see Famir walking out of the house. "What's wrong? Why aren't you studying?" he asked.
"Oh, I need to go get some wood to make some fire. I need to cook some food," Famir said and took out an ax-like weapon from somewhere and pulled down a large log from the pile of logs behind the house.
He propped it against another wood and started hitting it with the ax.
"Hah!"
Ning looked from the side and sighed; Famir had absolutely no talent at cutting woods. "You are quite bad for someone who's supposed to have done this forever," Ning said.
Famir stopped for a second and went back to cutting once more. "Hah!" He tried a few more times and stopped once more before saying, "My father never let me do any heavy works. He knew I liked reading books so he made it his job to never let me do any hard work and always encouraged me to read those books."
"Hah!"
He continued and kept on cutting the wood. Ning saw the sadness and determination in his eyes and decided to not interfere.
After half an hour or so, he had enough wood to cook his food. He brought pots and pans from inside as well as ingredients for a stew.
He then started to make a fire. He put some dried leaves inside the mud stove. He then took two stones and started to strike them to create sparks to make fire.
However, no matter what he did, he couldn't make fire at all.
