Ning frowned for a moment. 'Opposite?' he thought. 'Not repel? How am I supposed to keep Aether away by not rep— '
He understood what she was trying to say. 'I need something to attract Aether away from a location,' he thought.
"Hurray! You got it!" Alexis said from the side.
"How?" Ning asked.
She smiled again. "That's for you to figure out. Now go on, or you will be late for work."
Ning had the urge to skip work for today to make the goddess answer his questions, but they needed him at work today.
Ning sighed and left the place. He wouldn't see Alexis until tomorrow morning now, so unless he could come up with answers today, he would have to ask her again tomorrow after 36 hours.
Ning made his way to the tower with million thoughts in his mind.
'If repelling is not the way, but attracting is, what attacks Aether?' Ning wondered.
'Should I use Gravity at one point to pull every— No, that pulls everything, not just Aether. That won't work,' he thought.
'Attract… Magnetic energy? Magnets don't attract Aether at all,' he thought.
What other ways were there?
He asked the system for ways, but the system said that the information had something to do with the Origin of this planet, so it didn't help him.
'The origin of this planet?' Ning thought with surprise. He didn't think the answer would be common, but he didn't think it was so uncommon.
'What could it be?' he thought.
He soon got busy with work and couldn't think about it for much longer.
He had to go through the funerals of the dead and then return to the tower to help with construction.
The civilians came to help them as well, which was quite surprising to Ning. However, they needed every help they could get.
After about 5 hours, the tower was back to looking as good as new.
Ning went back to his table to stay and got back to work. Just then, a man walked into the tower.
He stood at the entrance and looked around until he saw Ning. Then, he limped his way towards Ning.
"Officer," he called out to Ning when he got close.
Ning was busy thinking about the thing to help with his Aether problem, so he didn't notice the man get close.
Only after he was called the second time did he realize someone had appeared in front of him. When he looked up at the man, he realized that it was the same man from yesterday who he had caught stealing vegetables from a neighbor's farm.
"Oh, you came on your own?" Ning asked with surprise.
"Officer, you said this could help me… right?" he asked. He was still not sure if this was the right thing to do, but if what Ning had said was true, he needed this.
"Yes, yes," Ning said and took out a form to fill.
He asked the man some basic questions about himself and took a statement of the crime he committed.
Once he was all done, Ning gave him a punishment of 30 days in prison.
He took the form to get the approval of 5 different officers in the tower.
There was no judge in this city, so instead, they just needed the approval of 5 other officers to give out punishment.
Once Ning got it, he took the man to the cell and put him there. He looked at the other people there that were either sad or injured from yesterday's event.
Some of them had killed people, and would likely get the death penalty for it. There was nothing Ning could do about them.
However, he could stop it all from happening again to someone else.
Once his work was over, he returned home. As expected, Alexis was missing again.
He sat down on his bed, not sleeping. He felt the bottleneck he was stuck on and knew that he needed to break through now as it was the perfect opportunity.
Ning started breathing in and out slowly as he felt the aether in his Sea of Aether slosh around while being nearly full to the brim.
He absorbed the Aether just a little realized that there wasn't much Aether in the surroundings to help him breakthrough.
So, he teleported to the Aether forest where there would be a lot of it.
Once he absorbed enough, the Aether went into his Sea, and he used that sea to push through his channels to breakthrough.
He was now an Aether King.
Ning looked at himself in surprise, his eyes so wide that they were almost circular.
Ning didn't need to be shocked for reaching the Aether King realm. That was easy. With how much Aether his automatic and manual absorption technique collected, it was simply a matter of time.
However, what did shock him was the fact that he had learned of the thing that attracted Aether.
Yes, humans could collect aether with a good absorption method and that would work in some cases, but not all.
What he was shocked about was the thing he has collected in his Sea of Aether just now.
Not the Aether, but rather the liquid that contained Aether.
He either needed to make something that collected Aether, or… he needed to make that liquid itself to collect Aether.
Ning returned home and waited for Alexis to arrive. He waited for hours on end when suddenly, he heard, "it seems you figured it out. And it didn't even take you a full day. I can't lie, I'm a little proud of you."
Alexis had once more returned without his knowledge.
Ning quickly walked outside to see Alexis on the chair. "So that is it? The liquid?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Just get the liquid and the Aether will always more towards it."
Ning excitedly asked. "How do I make one?"
"You can't," she said. "But I can show you how to get some."
With that, the world around Ning shifted, and he found that both he and Alexis had teleported.
