Merasi laid down with her back to the ground, thinking back to what had just happened. Despite her hard work, her muscles had been useless in her fight.
Ning had rushed towards her, with no weapon aside from his two fingers straightened like he was holding a dagger.
He moved with normal speed and hit her with a little bit more force than a normal human would.
But as soon as he did that, Merasi would lose control of part of her body. Ning hit her on the elbows where the metal didn't fit together, on the knee where there was a gap in the armor, and finally on her neck, making her lose control of everything below her as she slammed on the ground.
She looked with wide eyes as she realized that during the entire fight, she hadn't managed to land a single hit on him.
"How?" she asked, unable to understand what had happened. At first, she thought he was using Aether, but even she couldn't do something like that with aether.
Also, he was hitting each of her body parts before they went docile.
Ning walked in front of her and said, "you lose."
Merasi said nothing. She knew that she had lost. The winning condition was if the other person surrendered or was incapacitated.
She couldn't think of a better example of incapacitation than what she was going through.
"You can stand up, right?" Ning asked.
"Yes," Merasi said as Aether passed through her entire body. While she still had no control of it directly, she used Aether to control it.
She slowly stood up and with a thought, destroyed all of the armors in her body, revealing her muscled body to the masses once more.
"What did you do to me?" she asked Ning once more.
Ning picked up his staff from amidst the pile of broken metals as he said, "I hit your nerves to stop them from working for a few minutes."
"You can do that?" Merasi asked with a bit of surprise. "How do you even know where my nerves are?"
"I'm a doctor," Ning said. "These sort of things are second nature to me. I don't use it as much since using Aether is easier, but it does come in handy from time to time."
"You defeated me so easily," Merasi said. As much as she loved battle, it seemed she didn't like being beaten so overwhelmingly.
"I would've defeated you a lot more easily if you had decided to go with a weapon, instead of armors. I only hit your nerves because they were the only parts exposed to me for now."
"There are a lot more places on your body that I could hit to end the match in a single instant, but you got wise enough to put on armor. That helped it drag on to 5 minutes," Ning said.
"So… you lost the bet."
Merasi looked at him with awe. She had thought that she would have a great chance at winning in a battle, but… it seemed she was doomed to lose from the start.
"Where did you learn to fight like that? That staff technique of yours was amazing," Merasi said.
"Was it? It's one of my weaker techniques. The only reason I used it was because I didn't want to cut you with a spear," Ning said. "As for where I learned it… it was in another world."
Merasi didn't say anything. She assumed he was talking about a different place at a different time.
Waxil still looked at Ning with a face full of shock. Even after the three of them had entered the tower, he couldn't help but keep staring at Ning.
Ning saw that but chose to ignore it.
"So, about our bet. When do I leave?" Ning asked.
Merasi finally remembered the bet and said, "you wanted to join the Battle force of the headquarters?"
"Yes," Ning said.
"Now that you have shown me your ability, I can't deny that you will be a great help to us," Merasi said while nodding to herself.
"Alright, I will take you," Merasi said. Ning's smile widened to a grin.
"After 32 weeks."
Ning's smile faded. "After 32 weeks?" he asked. "Why do I have to wait for a year and 12 weeks?"
"Well, that's how long there is until the next Battle Force recruitment," she said.
"Recruitment? Wasn't I supposed to directly join?" Ning asked.
"Yes, but you still have to wait for the day of the recruitment to join with the fresh recruits," Merasi said.
"It takes place every 2 years, so the last one already took place 8 months ago. Now, you have to wait for it like everyone else," she said.
Somehow, despite winning, Ning felt like he had lost today. He couldn't believe that he would have to spend another 32 weeks doing nothing.
"I will go and report what I have learned here today. I'm sure they will send someone to you to further discuss how to use the Aether you made."
"Until then, sit tight and don't let anyone else learn about this," Merasi said as she closed her eyes.
Her thoughts drifted to a distance and she latched onto it. Suddenly, Waxil and Ning felt themselves being slightly tugged onto by the space in front of Merasi.
The space warped to open a hole in it, that looked no different from a drain being opened under a pool of water.
"I hope to see you before I go sleep again in a few years. Goodbye," Merasi said and stepped forward.
Then, she disappeared.
Merasi had left as she had come, by opening a portal through space and walking into it.
It wasn't long before Ning could do it again.
He spent the rest of the day working like he normally would while occasionally thinking about the work related to the Aether.
Finally, once he was done, he left the tower.
He was in his thoughts when he came across someone sitting on his front porch.
Alexis was back.
