Ning hadn't realized how correct his words would be when he had said that it would be a long day.
Fighting continuously throughout the day for 13 hours was not something he liked very much. He would've likely not minded it if there was some training involved, but no, there was none.
It was all just fighting. To Mercy, who was his main opponent, fighting was training.
From time to time when he used a weird skill or did something that impressed Mercy, she would come up to him and ask him to teach her.
But with a few words of teaching, she would get bored and ask him to fight again. 'I learn better when I'm fighting,' she had said.
Mercy, unlike her sister, wasn't a dual awakener. Just an Enchanter. Still, that knowledge didn't look like it bothered her.
Silvers, the old man, was in fact a dual awakener. That wasn't why Merasi had taken him into the squad though. That came from his expertise to create everyday items with ease. The old man's invoker techniques far outranked his enchanter techniques.
Ning was curious at first. Why was such an old man in the tower even? So, he had asked, and without hesitation, he had told him his backstory.
Silvers was born into a poor household with barely any money to do anything. When he realized that he had some Aether abilities, from a young age he started creating things to sell to other people.
He was basically scamming them as the items he created would disappear not long after, but he didn't care. He needed to fill his family's stomach, especially his many younger siblings.
As such, the old man had gone through this young and teen life without a single free day to do anything but create items and sell them for money. He never got to go to a school either. In fact, he couldn't read at all.
Poor guy didn't even have the time to marry a woman. It was only later in his life that he realized that he could enchant as well, however, by that time he was fully invested in Invoking and didn't care much for Enchanting.
Due to the lack of early breakthroughs, by the age of 140, he now looked like an old man, when in fact, he was the youngest of the whole group. However, now that his life was comfortable, he decided to use it to the fullest.
Finally, there was Alekor. Ning had a hard time understanding this man's personality. He looked like a carefree guy that would just roam the streets of the capital with his hands tied behind his head.
However, he was the most hardworking of everyone in the group. And as of yet, he had been the only one who came close to defeating Ning of the three.
Apparently, Alekor was the son of a duke in Losmana, but since he was a second son, he was allowed to join the tower while his brother took over the family.
He had been a fantastic enchanter from a young age, taught by some of the greatest amongst them.
It was during one of her missions to the Losmana where Merasi had met the duke's son and noticed his eagerness to go out and do something other than sitting at home and rot.
So, Merasi told him to join the tower, and when he did, she took him in.
The fighting continued for days on end. By now, it had already been 4 days since Ning started this. Although, he wasn't sure if he could even call this fighting now.
Fighting had become really simple for him. All he needed to do was the exact opposite of what the enemy was doing, except for some cases.
If someone sent something flying towards you, just send that something flying away from you.
If someone created a magnet to attract the metals on you. Just reverse the polarity of the item that was magnetized.
If someone is using gravity to pull, just use reverse gravity to push.
There were a few conditions where it didn't work at all. For example, heat energy. If something was getting hot, he couldn't reverse the energy to make something cold.
He could only give energy, not take it away. However, he could create something with no energy and have that dissipate away from the heat.
However, that took incredible focus and concentration as something without energy didn't want to exist and would always pull on his aether to fill it.
Ning was getting there for sure.
He was on the training ground, fighting against Mercy again. Mercy jumped at him with an incredible weight to her whole body. She had increased the gravity on herself, and on the other end of the gravity was Ning.
Ning quickly realized that and canceled the gravity, but Mercy still flew towards him with incredible speed, with her previous momentum.
Ning put out his left hand to his side, a tiny black hole appearing near his palm. His body was fully enchanted and stuck firm to the ground, so nothing happened to him at all.
However, Mercy's body which was freely moving through the air was immediately dragged into it. Creating a black hole, however tiny, cost him a lot of energy, so he stopped using it for more than a second.
However, that was enough to throw Mercy off course. Mercy caught herself midair, suddenly halting her sudden advancement towards the ground.
At the same time, Ning appeared in front of her and flicked her forehead.
"I win again," he said.
Mercy frowned and pouted. She dropped to the ground and muttered 'dammit!' to herself and left with a pouting face.
Ning simply smiled. This was a daily occurrence now. With every loss, Mercy cursed to herself and left to rest for a bit and gather some Aether before starting again.
A woman walked into the room and said something to Alekor quietly. Alekor thanked her, and she left.
"Something wrong?" Ning asked when he saw that.
"Oh, no, no," he said. "I just received a message saying captains requested potions were ready and we could go pick it up."
