Ning left the tower and directly went to the commercial zone of the city. He has asked the system and found out that it would cost him quite a lot of energy if he wanted to create books for all of the people in the city.
So, he was instead going to find a book printing company and have them work on it.
He went to the biggest one in the city and found the head of the company.
The head was an elderly man in his late 50s, and from the looks of it, he truly was in his late 50s, and not an overly old man that just happened to look like that thanks to Aether.
'An unawakened,' Ning thought with surprise. 'He will be easy to persuade then.'
"Hello, How many I help you?" the old man asked.
"I'm looking to print a small book that will be around 2-3 pages long. Or it could be a long scroll," Ning said.
"Oh, hmm. I don't know if that's printable here. We are mostly focused on large books with at least a hundred pages," the old man said.
"Oh, but this will be worth it. It will be your biggest venture to date," Ning said.
"Oh, you say so huh?" the old man said, clearly not believing him.
"Yes," Ning said. "This is what I wanted to have printed." Ning brought out a scroll that was about 3 quarters of a meter long when fully unscrolled.
The old man read the scroll for a while, not understanding what he was reading. It spoke of doing things in your body, that shouldn't be possible as a human being.
"What is this? Some sort of prank?" the old man asked.
"It's a way to increase your Aether rank by employing that technique once you have Aether," Ning said.
The old man was surprised to hear what the thing was. "No way such a thing exists. Are you trying to scam people? I must say, sir, I will help you in nothing that helps scam others," the old man said.
"It's not a scam, you can be sure about that. If you still have any hesitation, how about I let you practice with that technique for tonight and see if it works or not. I will come tomorrow to discuss our terms," Ning said and stood up. He understood that he couldn't rush things. Since he still had 2 weeks to spare before making sure the Tower didn't do anything, he could take it slow.
Ning then walked out of the room of the old man, but just before he left, he turned around. "I almost forgot," he said. "You are not an awakened Aether user, right? Here, take this fruit."
Ning tossed the fruit to the old man. "You can eat the whole thing or just a slice of it. Either way, you will awaken with Aether. You can give the rest to your family. Once that happens, you can try out that book," Ning said with a smile and left.
The dumbfounded old man stayed back in his office, wondering what the hell had just happened.
'Aether awakening? A technique to increase aether? No way any of these exists,' the old man thought. He looked at the fruit in his hands and started doubting that the fruit may also be poison.
'Give this fruit to my family? Is he trying to poison us all?' the old man thought. Fortunately, his grandson was born with the ability to use Aether, so he could see if the writing on that book was applicable or not, without making anyone eat the fruit.
More customers arrived soon, and the old man forgot about it all.
Ning made his way to the slum. He had expected everyone to get awakened as an Aether user, aside from maybe the mothers who gave their piece of fruits to their children.
Ning went around looking for such parents, as well as the stupid people who ignored his advice he had written on those pieces of paper and tried using the Aether art without having much Aether in them.
Ning was sure he would find a lot of such people lying around the slum, paralyzed and unable to move.
After all, that was one of the most common medical problems encountered on this planet.
For those that didn't take their share of the fruit, Ning gave them some more pieces of them as he had brought an uncountable amount of them from the forest.
As for those that were paralyzed, Ning first gave them a stern scolding, before giving them the pieces of fruits.
He practically ordered everyone there to not use any Aether arts until he himself told them it was safe to do so.
Since it would be impossible to teach them all, he would wait for the book printing company's old man to agree to work with him.
Ning went back to the city to find himself a hotel and settled in. He then started making plans on what he could do.
Once the books were out, the tower officials would have a fire lit under their asses, so he would have to make sure to do all the publishing in a short period of time.
He was also sure that the tower in other places would start looking out for him once he arrived there.
'The other countries have a worse situation for the non-Aether awakened individual. I should get there soon too,' Ning thought.
Once he had made some plans for everything he was to do, he collapsed onto his bed and went to sleep.
Ning woke up quite late in the morning since he had nothing to look forward to that day except for a meeting with the old man.
So, after he was finally up, he freshened up and left. He arrived at the book printing location and before he could even ask to see the old man, the old man himself came running up to him.
"Young man, you are here," he said in a breathless voice.
Ning smiled. "I see you tested it then," he asked, to which the old man nodded.
"Good.. Let us discuss the terms of the contract."
