Ning walked through the Aether forest and found the location where he had buried his bottles.
He brought it out and looked at the content, only to realize that it could use a bit more time before it was fully done.
Ning put the bottle into his storage and walked on. This place had become devoid of Aether thanks to this bottle, so he would bury it at another place.
Along the way, he found fruits and other items that would be considered ingredients for the potion. Ning had asked the system to inform him about each and every ingredient that could work, along with their properties.
What he didn't let the system tell him were the recipes and methods to make the potions. Those he wanted to find on his own.
He picked fruit from one tree, and cut bark from another. From another tree, he plucked some leaves and in another, he tore off some flowers.
Wherever his eyes went he saw nothing but ingredients for potions
A normal person would look at this place and see a dark forest he needed to get out of. Ning looked at this place and saw a treasure trove untouched by humans for eons.
Even without the recipes, Ning was sure he would be able to make many sorts of potions. In fact, he doubted he needed to kill Aether beasts either.
Ning knew that Aether beasts could reproduce, but the speed at which they did was slow. With the Emperor of Xandria killing so many, their population was already down.
So, Ning wanted to make recipes with only the plants so that people wouldn't go out hunting these beasts.
After walking a little further away, to a location where Aether was quite dense, he buried his bottle there.
Then, he teleported to the next location. At this location as well, there was a bottle that he had buried.
He had buried all the bottles at the same time, so it had been close to 2 years, or a single normal year since he had done this.
When he uncovered this bottle, he was pleasantly surprised that this was very concentrated with Aether and could no longer make anymore.
Ning placed the bottle into his storage and moved away. He gathered some more ingredients and buried another freshly made Aether liquid solution in a place with more Aether concentration.
He kept on doing this all over the Aether forest, gathering so many ingredients that he would have enough to make tons and tons of options.
After a whole day and night of finding his Aether bottles, and as many ingredients as he could, Ning returned back to his room in the tower.
He looked at the time and realized that he only had about 5 hours of sleep time left.
'Well, that's something I guess,' he thought and after a quick shower, went to sleep.
The alarm blared in the morning, waking him up with a drowsy head. He fought against the drowsiness and stood up.
An hour later, he was back in the training room, fighting with Mercy again. Once the battle started, all of his sleepiness disappeared.
Merasi had gone back to the closed cultivation that she called sleeping again. Ning wondered why they didn't simply use the word cultivation, but they likely didn't associate rising in Aether ranks as growth for themselves.
Also, Aether was definitely worse than Qi, so it was likely they didn't think so.
After a session of fighting, a break to go eat some food and rest, and another session of fighting, Ning finally had the free time to go meet with the old woman Gaani.
So, as soon as he had the free time, he rushed out of the tower. After a couple of minutes of a walk later, he reached the old woman's house.
Ning sighed once again seeing the obviously horrid state of the house and felt bad for the old woman.
Still, he walked to the top of the stairs outside the house and knocked on the door.
A minute or so later, Helena walked out in her normal strap-on pants and shirts. When she opened the door and saw that it was Ning, her eyes went wide and she immediately ran back into the house.
At first, Ning was surprised. Was she scared of him? Was he not welcome anymore?
However, when he heard "Grandma! That uncle is here" being shouted throughout the house, he realized that she had simply gone back to let her grandma know of his arrival.
He heard hurried footsteps as the old woman practically jumped down through the stairs and ran up to the front door.
Ning smiled and thought that she had been using her advancement to Aether King quite well. However, when she came to the front he realized that she hadn't advanced at all.
"Young man!" the old woman Gaani squeaked at him. "Where the hell were you yesterday? I waited for you all day long to come back, but you never did."
"Oh, you were waiting for me?" Ning asked with a bit of surprise. "I'm sorry. I had some work come up in the tower the other day, and had to spend the entire day yesterday out doing something."
"I'm sorry that I made you wait for me for no reason," Ning said.
"Hmph! That's fine. It's good that you are here now. You don't want to give this woman some heart problems you see," she said and turned around.
She started walking away but stopped for a moment to turn around. "Why are you still standing there?" she asked in a worried tone.
"Sorry? You didn't give me the permission to enter," Ning said.
"Forget about permissions. Just walk in," the old woman said.
"Oh," Ning started feeling happy. "Does that mean you've accepted my request to teach me about potions?"
"Yes, yes, I have," the old woman said. "You can also teach Helena about aether arts. I might be old, but I've not yet gone senile to know what a great opportunity I have come across."
