Saying that the old woman Gaani was surprised would be like saying a living person breathed. There was nothing more obvious.
Watching the purple liquid slosh around in the small vial, a color far deeper than the ores Ning had brought out just moments ago, Gaani knew exactly what this was.
And that only served to make her shock that much greater.
"H-h-h-h-how do you have that?" she asked.
Helena looked curiously as well. While she knew quite a lot, she was still a young child. Not to mention, Aether liquids weren't something that was readily available for her to have seen them.
Ning smiled, knowing that his next set of words was going to shock the old woman even more. "I can make them."
To his surprise, the old woman's expression changed… in the opposite direction of where he wanted it to go.
She… was actually starting to look suspicious more than surprised. 'Well, I should have expected that,' Ning thought.
"Check it," Ning said, handing off the vial to the old woman. That little vial was merely 3 days worth of aether from a random location in the Aether forest.
Adding in extra Alpurite, and continuously moving the vial around to new locations with Aether made it possible to gather it in just 3 days.
Ning had managed to do this by tying these vials to Aether beasts that could fly. At first, he had been worried that the vials would steal their Aether, which would either kill them or turn them into normal beasts in which case other Aether beasts would kill them.
He needn't have worried. The beasts' Aether in the gems wouldn't be so easily stolen.
The old woman looked at the liquid vigilantly and opened the cork to take a look inside. She took a deep breath to see what the liquid smelled like, but there was no smell.
However, it did have something else. An overwhelming amount of Aether.
With a single sniff, the old woman who had been stuck at the peak of Aether Grandmaster, advanced onto Aether Magister.
Her body shuddered as she felt the Aether in her body move through her. "Oh dear lord," she cried out as she nearly dropped the vial, but she caught herself.
Then, Ning finally saw the surprise he had expected.
"THIS IS REAL!!" the old woman shouted in her squeaky voice.
"That's what I said from the beginning," Ning said, with an I-told-you-so expression on his face.
"But it's so hard to believe," the old woman said, trying to reel in her surprise. She put the stopper back and handed it back to Ning but he shook his head.
"You keep it," he said. "A thank you for teaching me about potions today. That should help you get to Aether King if you absorb it soon."
"I cannot take this," the old woman said. The vial was small and light, but it felt heavy in her hand.
"Take it," Ning said. "Also, think about my offer. If you teach me how to make potions, I can help the little girl become a high-standing Aether artist in the near future."
"I will leave you to think about it. I will return tomorrow to hear about your answer," Ning said and walked away without waiting to hear anything else.
The old woman still couldn't say anything as the Aether liquid had left her flabbergasted beyond belief. For a moment, she had forgotten about the potions brewing behind her, the other one that they had yet to take care of.
'Aether King,' the old woman thought. The thought alone was able to make her feel like a young lady again. Just moments ago, she had been a grandmaster with no way to become an Aether magister, and suddenly, she was looking at an opportunity to reach Aether King.
The old woman's eyes twinkled with the thought of being able to become an Aether King. She was only broken out of her thoughts when her granddaughter asked, "What's that, grandma?"
Jasu Gaani looked at her granddaughter and suddenly all thoughts about becoming an Aether King drifted away like a distant dream long forgotten.
"This is something for you to use once you are old enough," the old woman said. Her days were gone, but her granddaughter's days was yet to come.
She would make sure to give to her granddaughter something her mother couldn't give to her, and she couldn't give to her son.
"Go throw out those wastes," the old woman pointed to the cloth with the used-up ingredients in them.
"Okay," the little girl jumped off the countertop and went to work.
* * * * *
Ning returned back to the tower with a newfound excitement that he had thought he had lost.
Fighting each and every time of the day had been boring and he certainly needed something to distract him from the mundaneness of the days coming up.
So, when he learned about potions, he was naturally happy. He wanted to ask the system to tell him everything, but he decided not to right now.
He wanted to research and find out on his own.
As he walked into the tower, he saw groups of men rush past him at a hurried pace, wearing white robes and purple shirts.
'The battle force is being deployed?' Ning thought. It was only one group, so he didn't think much of it, but before he got to the elevator, he saw 2 more.
Now he was really curious as to what was happening. He wanted to stop one of the groups and ask them what was happening, but they seemed to be in a hurry, so he didn't do that.
He didn't need to. There was someone in his squad that was great at gathering information and had likely known about it all along.
So, he jumped into the elevator and went to find Alekor.
"What's going on outside?" Ning asked Alekor, who seemed quite tensed himself.
Alekor didn't even acknowledge that Ning had returned and instead just said, "Deaths."
