Ning walked out of the Tower. He couldn't believe how easily he had gotten enrolled there.
'3 weeks later huh?' he thought as he remembered what the teacher in the finance room had said.
2 weeks later, there was the 2nd test, which Ning didn't know anything about. Once the people that passed here, passed there too, they could finally be enrolled.
The sun was high in the sky. It had been so long since he had woken up, so many things had happened, and yet it was still only half a day.
'I'm not going to get used to this anytime soon, am I?' Ning thought. He took out the admission card from his pocket and looked at it. It had his name and age as well as a stamp officiating his entry to the tower.
It looked more like an identity card for an employee, rather than a student. "That was what sects were too, weren't they? Just a business with the face of a school. Maybe this is the same,' Ning thought. He was right.
"I have 15 days to spare," Ning thought when he returned back to his room. "What am I supposed to do all of those days?"
He didn't want to waste his time learning the Aether arts, as that was what he would most likely be doing in the Tower in 15 days after all. Learning something only to have to learn it again would be quite redundant.
He also didn't want to go unconscious for the next 15 days as Reever and Lisa could need him any moment. Also, he would want to collect as much Aether as he could with his automatic Aether absorption technique.
15 days of aether was a lot. Given how Ning considered days, it was close to 23 days of collecting Aether.
"What can I do then?" Ning wondered. Finally, something struck him. "Let's go find a part-time job."
* * * * * *
Ning couldn't help but laugh at himself as he stood in front of a metal door with a giant bucket in his hand.
The bucket was filled to the brim with some kind of grain that Ning was handed.
"Was I always fated for this?" he wondered. He stretched out a key that was attached to his hip and used it to unlock the metal door in front of him.
He pushed the door and immediately closed it after entering. He didn't want what was inside to leave.
Ning whistled as he shook the bucket and made some noise with the grains inside of it.
The room he was in was filled with rocks and grasses. The ceiling above him was lit up with powerful bulbs that gave the room a resemblance to being outside.
Ning stepped past the straws and feces as he made his way to the bottom of the giant rock in the middle and looked upon it.
He scattered the gains on the stone platform beneath the rock and banged the empty bucket on the ground.
A curious head peeked from atop the rocks. A head with two spiky horns, 2 black, beady eyes, and a purple scar upon its face.
Ning knew that wasn't a scar. It was just how it was supposed to be. The head moved forward to reveal a 3 meter long, four-legged creature with tiny black wings on its back.
The beast had scales on its body instead of fur, all of which had lightning-like scars, each of them glowing purple.
The tail of the beast was thick and long and ended on what looked like a flower, a weird body part that Ning had never seen before on anything in Kumia.
This was an Aether beast.
Ning was, once again, working in a zoo.
Of all the places he searched for a part-time job, this was the only one that had a vacancy open and was looking to employ just about anyone.
The pay wasn't really good, not that Ning cared about the money at all. He was just looking to pass time.
"Come down and eat," Ning said.
"FOOD?" the beast asked. Ning didn't know the classification for Aether beasts, he didn't even know if there was one. All he knew was this was one of the less intelligent beasts.
It was just about as intelligent as a house dog could be, which wasn't to say that house dogs had bad intelligence, it was just that the beasts he had been around before this could hold up a conversation with him, while this one could not.
The deer-like beast jumped down from atop the 5-meter tall rock, slowing down its fall by flapping its wings as fast as it could, failing to make an impact on its speed.
It fell onto the ground with a bang, but it suffered no harm at all. Ning pet the beast as it got down to eat the grains.
"Eat, Eat. No one will steal these from you," Ning told the beast. The beast perfectly understood Ning, it wasn't sure why. It didn't care either.
Ning waited for it to finish eating and watched the beast go to the small water fountain at the corner of the room to drink.
Ning took out a watch from his pocket and looked at the time. It was 12 o'clock in the morning. The zoo was going to open now.
Ning left the room and walked outside before locking the door once again.
"How do you do it?" a man suddenly asked outside. He had been watching Ning pet and feed the beast, something everyone had been unable to do.
The last zookeeper had left for this exact reason. The beast kept threatening to attack him, instead of actually eating what it was given.
"I… have always been good with beasts. I think I give off a harmless vibes," Ning said.
"Well, whatever it is, we are glad that it's working, thank you," the man said. "Anyway, the zoo is going to open now.. You should go take a small break and get back to work."
