Ning fell silent. He didn't know what to say.
At some level, he realized that this was all partly his fault. He had known that revealing the absorption technique to the world would have some level of negative effect, not he society with people being drunk off of power.
However, that was just a distant thought for him at the time. It was like learning about a car accident on the news.
You would feel a little bad for the ones that got into the accident, but not think for a second more.
However, if the accident were to happen right in front of you, that was when you felt the horror of what an accident was like.
To Ning, the problems his scrolls would cause were simply part of daily life. Something that was bound to happen.
However, when he saw it first hand, he truly realized that his actions had consequences.
He had been so focused on taking down the Tower, that he didn't stop to think for more than a moment if he really should have.
"He's dead now. There's no point in cursing a dead man," Waxil said as he walked by Hans and Ning.
Ning looked up and he could see the slight trauma the man felt from killing an innocent person.
"It's dark outside. Your shifts have ended. Go back home and rest," Waxil told them and moved away.
Ning finally looked out, and realize that the day had already turned to evening. He didn't realize where the hours had gone by.
He slowly walked back home, his mood a little better, but the guilt was still there.
He knew that it wasn't him that caused most of what had happened. But… the small part that was his fault made him feel bad.
He returned to the empty home, Alexis already gone somewhere.
Ning didn't have the heart to train for the day, so he went to his room to sleep. It had been a long day.
He lay on his bed for nearly 3 hours unable to sleep. The events of the day still played in his head.
"I brought this to the world," he thought, his face somber. But then, his face changed with resolve appearing on it. "Then I will fix it."
He stood back up from his bed and started thinking of how he could fix it.
Plan 1. Remove all knowledge of the Aether absorption technique from everyone's head.
"No, that won't work. I don't have nearly enough energy for that," he thought. He remembered erasing just a little bit of memory of the Emperor back in Xandria for not a lot of energy.
But multiplying that amount by nearly 4 billion of this world's population. That would give him a heart attack.
Plan 1 was all he could come up with for the moment. He needed to think some more.
The system wasn't helpful either. It wouldn't tell him much about Aether itself, but he could learn more about using Aether.
So, he bought higher-tiered knowledge of the Aether knowledge he already had and used Aether in other ways.
One of the things he learned from this new set of knowledge was how to create a storage item to keep things.
Surprisingly, the way to make them was something he had never would've expected it to be.
'You can do that?' he thought. However, while the knowledge was interesting, he skipped it for now since that wasn't very helpful to his current situation.
Plan 2. Teach good people how to fight so that they can protect themselves against the bad ones.
There were flaws in this plan as well. Not only was it very hard to teach a lot of people, but it also had the same problem that teaching everyone the scrolls had.
That being Ning could not tell who was good and who was bad. More importantly, he couldn't tell who would turn bad after learning it.
Besides, it would take years to teach people all over the world.
Plan 2 was a no-go.
Plan 3 was gone before it was even formed. He wanted to do something like make formations, but that was impossible with Aether.
Only Qi could make formations… as far as he knew. There were dozens of different extra energy in the world that could also make formations, but Aether wasn't it.
As for Plan 4… Ning had no idea. With midnight falling over the world like a veil of darkness, Ning returned inside to sleep.
He woke up in the morning and saw Alexis outside the house on her chair. He could never tell when she came and go.
He walked up to her and decided to ask the goddess the question.
"Don't be sad," she said before he could even say anything. The goddess always somehow knew what he was thinking.
"I know you feel like you've done the world a terrible disservice by introducing the scrolls, and while the crime rate had indeed increased by over 300% in the last 10 weeks, there is also the fact that you have empowered a lot of good people too."
"As evil rises, there will always be good that rises along with it too to vanquish it," she said.
Ning nodded. He needed to hear it.
"Is there a way to repel Aether from an area?" Ning asked. That was the Plan 3 he wanted to do with formations before he remembered formations didn't work here.
"Repel?" Alexis asked. She knew everything he would ask and think before he did, but she still liked to act like she only just heard what he wanted to ask.
"Yes, repelling Aether," Ning asked. If anyone knew anything about it, it would surely be the Goddess of Aether.
"Unfortunately, there is no way to repels aether," she said.
Ning felt saddened when he heard this. Was there really no way?
"But… repelling Aether is not your objective, is it?" she asked.
Ning looked confused. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Alexis smiled a brilliant smile.
"There are ways to achieve what you want without Repelling aether. In fact, you just have to do the opposite."
