Ning looked around at the room. The 25 or so kids there all looked way too young to be there, but he understood that the tower wanted to teach them young and had thus brought them here.
'Us adults are just getting a second chance at it, eh?' he thought. He then looked at the other 3 'adults'.
There were 2 men and 1 girl, all sitting on the same bench. They were on the 4th row of the 3rd column, meaning they were sitting at the corner of the room. He could tell that their age was upwards of 15 for sure, but couldn't tell their age beyond that.
What he could tell from their awkwardness was this was definitely the first they had talked with each other.
Meanwhile, Ning and Rachel were sitting in the 4th row of the 1st column.
He wondered why she decided to stay so far apart from them. Was she not a talkative type? That shouldn't have been the case. From how she talked earlier, he could see that she wasn't particularly unsocial, so he couldn't understand why she wouldn't sit near someone closer to her ace.
"So only 5 of us got chosen from so many people that came to get admitted huh? That's quite a low number. I would've assumed more would be able to get in," Ning said.
"The tower only has a quota of 5 people every 5 weeks. Just be glad that you had enough talent to get in. I heard that if you are rejected once, you can never go back to take the test again," she said.
"Yeah, I can see why that is. Since one can't possibly change their potential, it wouldn't make sense to get tested for the same thing twice. It's not like the result is gonna change," Ning said.
"Although, the potential isn't everything though. I wonder why they never bothered to check for talents," he spoke to himself.
"Why would they check for talent? What good is talent without potential?" she asked.
"I mean, potential helps a lot for someone, but that's not the only way to get stronger is it?" he asked.
"What other way is there?" Rachel looked at him with a weird look. "Unless you are rich enough to buy the occasional Aether ores that show up in the auction houses, it's pretty much impossible to get stronger without having the potential."
Ning wanted to explain how wrong she was in her thought. There were absorption techniques that one could use, even the ones with the worst potential, who could train up to become strong in due time.
Ning himself had never met anyone that did use the absorption technique, but he knew it worked because he had given it to Famir and Mavenna when he had first arrived.
He even used it himself. Heck, he was using it right now. With his automatic absorption technique, he was consistently taking in Aether from the surrounding, and when it reached a full, due to his incredible potential thanks to his new body, he would break through to the next level on its own.
Ning wanted to explain that, but he wondered if he should. Just as he was deliberating, a woman walked into the room.
She wore a dress of white and purple. Her hair tied in a ponytail behind her showed off her beautiful fair skin. She looked to be around 30 years old, but given how Aether also delayed aging, he couldn't be sure.
She was about 160 centimeters tall, so she was quite short in height, but her lean body made her look taller than she was.
She held a stack of books in her hand and walked up to the podium. She turned around to look at her new students, her sapphire-like eyes glistening with light.
She started pointing towards all of them one by one while mumbling something on her own. Once finished, she finally spoke.
"I see you are all here," the lady said with a gentle smile on her face. "Good morning! I will be your teacher from this day forward. You can call me teacher Sherry."
"Good Morning, teacher Sherry," the kids greeted her. The adults were a step behind, but they also greeted her.
Ning felt a little awkward during all this, but it was also fun in its own way.
"Please go around introducing yourself," Sherry told them. One by one, the kids started introducing themselves to each other, followed by the adults.
Ning learned the name of the other 3 students in their class to be Henry, Thomas, and Marie.
Once done, the teacher finally started the class.
"Since today is the first day of studies, I won't teach you many things, just the most basic of stuff," she said.
"Do you kids know what Aether is?" she asked.
Some kids nodded, some gave a confused look. As for the adults, everyone aside from Ning shook their heads to let her know they were not sure.
It wasn't that they were ignorant about Aether, but rather they weren't sure if what they had learned from the outside was true or not.
"Aether," She said as she walked away from the podium towards the students, "is a type of energy. To make something happen, you need energy, right? That's what Aether does."
Sherry explained to the kids what energy was.
"Although, don't confuse it with normal energy. It is very different from them all. Unlike normal energy like Heat or Sound, Aether cannot change to a different type of energy, and furthermore, it can be destroyed."
"Aether is also known to exist as a liquid in the purest of forms," Sherry said as she brought out a piece of rock. "It can also exist in a solid form or a gaseous form around us. "
"Other energies don't have form. Heat, mechanical, or any other type of energy, you can't find them in a physical form. At least we don't know of them having forms yet.. That makes Aether a one-of-a-kind energy that is truly unique."
