"—at?" the moment he finished speaking, his eyes went wide and he immediately looked around him.
"What? Where are we?" he started getting a little scared of what had just happened. "What just happened?"
"I teleported us," Ning said. "It's one of the things I can do. Don't mind it."
"Tele…port?" Reever was still confused. "Aether users can do that?"
"Yes," Ning said, not bothering to explain some more. "Come on. The village is just over there."
"Huh?" Reever looked around. "Oh, we're in the desert?" It took him some time to realize that.
Ning started walking and Reever followed. He slowly touched his ring and got a little confused. "Did you really use Aether?" he asked.
"Of course," Ning said.
"Hmm, then why didn't my Aether glow?" Reever asked. "It didn't even vibrate."
"Oh, that's because it doesn't register me when I'm using Aether of course," Ning said. He picked up a bunch of sand from the desert and made it move around him fabulously.
Reever was left staring at the amazing control Ning had come to learn in just a matter of weeks.
"Come on. We still need to go there, you know," Ning said and they walked to the village.
The villagers were beyond stoked to see Reever finally return after so many days.
Reever smiled and immediately started putting on a performance for them.
Ning watched from beside him. This time, the performance was much grander than the first time. 'He's really improving quite well as an Aether user huh?' Ning thought.
As he was watching the show that Reever had put on, Ning got a message directly onto his mind. It was a message from Sam, the assassin and it said 'Master, I have reached the Ordain Empire just now.'
'Oh, he returned already? This bastard, he didn't even apologize for shooting me and just left,' Ning thought.
Ning shook his head and sent a message back. "Next time, try not to shoot me in the chest, okay? You nearly caused me quite some trouble," he said.
Ning stopped talking and focused on the show in front of him with a smile on his face when a message came again.
'What do you mean, master? Why would I shoot you?' it said.
Ning's face changed a little because of the confusion. "What are you saying? You shot me today right?" he asked.
He waited for a while and another message came again.
'Shoot you, master? I didn't do anything like that. After I visited the pub today and saw no one, I told the Pavillion about what had happened.'
'After learning that I didn't need to stick around any longer, I took the first train back in the morning.'
'That's why I reached the capital of Ordain so fast, master.'
Ning's eyes narrowed. 'He didn't shoot me?' he thought. His slacking body straightened as he got serious.
"Brother Reever, I need to go somewhere. If I don't return back in time, just go to the City of Beginnings and wait for me there, okay?" Ning said.
"You're leaving, Brother Ning?" Reever asked.
"Yes. Something urgent came up," Ning said and ran away from the group. When he was out of sight, he immediately disappeared and appeared back in the slums.
"System, who shot me today?" he asked.
Suddenly, a few pieces of information were sent directly to his brain. He got the name of the shooter, his information as well as the affiliation he worked for.
"The Great Raiders group?" Ning was surprised. "Weren't they the terrorists from back then in the zoo?"
"First they came to kill the Eldest prince, now they came to disturb the princess' event?" Ning thought.
He asked the system and located the person who had shot him. "What the hell?" Ning read the information in surprise.
The person that shot him was hiding in a duke's mansion. 'A duke is responsible for this?' Ning thought in shock. 'Why was a duke trying to kill a princess.'
He wasted no time and immediately teleported out of slums and inside the duke's manor.
"Where am I?" he didn't know the layout of the Duke's mansion so he was a little confused.
The mansion belonged to Duke Tremen. One of the only 3 dukes of the Empire. The other two dukes stayed outside of the capital, so he was also the only duke of the capital.
A duke trying to kill a prince and princess… was a serious crime. If the Emperor found out about this, all of the Duke's family being hanged to death would be a very likely outcome.
'Where do I go now?' Ning looked at the information on the map he had just asked for from the system and walked.
He walked through the mansion, extra careful so that no one saw him. He sneaked past the servants, flew past them, and sometimes even teleported past them.
Finally, just as he was about to reach the terrorist, he turned a corner and crashed into someone that was trying to turn the corner towards him.
'Shit!' he thought and tried to scramble away from the place. But before he could do so, the other person stood up and looked at him in surprise.
"Master!" the figure called out to him.
"Huh?" Ning stopped right as he was about to run away. "Master?" he turned around slowly to look at the person's face.
In front of him was a girl in her late teens. She was wearing a very pompous looking dress and had a lot of make-up on her.
It didn't take very long for him to recognize the girl at all.
"It's you," he said with surprise clear in his voice. "You… what was it, Camie. Right? You're Camie."
"Yes, master," the girl said. "Why are you in my house, master?"
Ning looked around. "You are the duke's daughter?" he asked in surprise.
"Yes," Camie said. "I am Camie Tremen. The sole daughter of Duke Tremen."
"Ah…shit!"
He had accidentally made a Duke's daughter his servant.
