As soon as Merasi left to speak with the lord, Mercy jumped on Ning and started pestering him to fight against her.
Ning tried to refuse, but the pestering got too much, and in the end, he accepted.
Mercy quickly dragged him to an empty area with a padded floor, perfect for fighting.
Alekor casually followed them, while Silvers was quite interested in the fight.
"Hey, Alekor! How strong is he?" Silvers asked slowly. His vision changed slightly, trying to see the amount of Aether in Ning's body.
"Oh, he's actually very strong," Alekor said. "He may actually be an Aether Emperor."
"What?" Silvers said in shock. He then immediately lowered his voice once more. "Aether Emperor? He's as strong as me and Mercy?"
"Yes, although not very surprisingly," Alekor said.
"Hmm, why is it not surprising?" Silvers asked.
"Uh, that's a secret that if anyone figures out I know, then my head would be one a plate tomorrow," Alekor said and then stopped speaking.
Silvers pestered him a bit, but Alekor didn't give in. If anyone found out that he accidentally overheard the information about Ning being able to create Aether out of nothing, the tower would certainly execute him to keep the secret.
'That reminds me, how did he even get put into our squad? The tower should be doing everything to keep him from harm's way,' Alekor thought.
Ning stood on the stage, staring at the less buffed-up version of Merasi. She was certainly not strong enough to be his match, but since she insisted, he would show off a little.
"Are we fighting just like I did with your sister and not using Aether? Or do you want me to use Aether?" Ning asked.
"Hah? What's the point of fighting without Aether? That's just stupid," Mercy said.
"I… suppose that is," Ning said.
"I shall be the referee between you two," Alekor said.
"Oh, thanks," Mercy said.
"No problem. I would be the one to get beat down if either of you gets hurt anyway, so I feel like it's my job to be the referee," Alekor said softly.
Ning and Mercy got ready to fight.
"Start!" Alekor said.
5 seconds later, it ended.
Mercy lay on the ground outside the fighting area, staring at the black ceiling, unable to wrap her head around what Ning had just done.
As soon as the match started, she tried to enchant Ning's clothes. Since an Aether user's body was hard to control, she knew to go for the clothes.
However, the moment she had even grabbed a hold of his clothes, Ning suddenly appeared in front of her and hit her on the stomach.
She felt her body grow numb from the attack and the next thing she knew, she was out of bounds.
The only reason the fight even lasted 5 seconds was that Alekor was too stunned to call the result for the last 4 seconds.
Ning shook his hand a little. 'Dammit, I didn't mean to make contact,' he thought. He had tried to push her at the same time while pumping electricity into her.
However, he made a mistake and had the electricity flow into her a little too early. As a result, he too got zapped on the hand.
Fortunately, with his Saint rank enchanted body, the electricity didn't hurt him as much.
'I got influenced by that girl into thinking about nothing but electricity today,' Ning thought. 'At least that should help get rid of the urge.'
"You can already use electricity, huh? Not bad, not bad," Alekor said.
"Thank you," Ning said from the side.
"Brother, you might be stronger than me too," Silvers said as he brought out a small piece of cloth to wipe his sweats off.
"Wait, that doesn't count. I wasn't ready," Mercy stood up.
"Do we really have to fight, sister Mercy? I already won," Ning said.
"No, that shouldn't count. Let's fight again, I will show you my power," Mercy said.
"Okay," Ning said. He had nothing else to do really.
Alekor sighed as he went back up to referee for them.
This time, the match lasted 5 more seconds. Ning took it slow and didn't immediately jump forward. Instead, he focused on strengthening himself to defend against Mercy.
At the same time, he changed the gravity for a small section of the ground that pulled a little too hard.
Once Mercy realized, she couldn't do anything to Ning without getting close, she ran ahead.
As soon as her foot stepped into the section with strong gravity, it buckled down as her entire body came crashing down.
The next thing she knew, Ning was right above her and he threw her out of the ring.
She lost once again. Alekor just shook his head as he declared the victory.
"No, once more," Mercy shouted as she got up. Alekor looked at Ning with a wry smile. He couldn't help him at all.
Ning simply shrugged. "Okay!"
They fought nearly 10 different times, and not a single one of them went above 25 seconds long.
Each time, Mercy would lose to either Electricity, Magnet, or Gravity. No matter how much she prepared, she couldn't stop those three things from interfering in her attacks.
Merasi walked in just in time to see Mercy demand another round and looked at them with a weird face.
"What's going on here?" she asked.
Alekor nearly jumped in surprise and turned around to see Merasi standing in the room. "Uhh, it's just a simple training session," he said.
"Training session? With Mercy?" Merasi didn't believe it. She knew her sister better than anyone.
"Did you ask to fight Ning?" she asked, turning to Mercy.
"Yes," Mercy said with a drooping head.
"Hah, well that was stupid of you," Merasi said with a chuckle.
"What? Am I not allowed to fight him?" Mercy asked with an annoyed look.
"No, you are allowed. That doesn't mean it's not stupid," Merasi said. "After all, in what universe could you possibly hope to use your Aether Emperor rank to beat someone that is an Aether Saint?"
