Ning sat in the Aether forest, with rain pelting him all over. His body was fully soaked from the rain, but his focus was on something else entirely.
He took out a bottle from his storage and looked at the dark purple liquid inside of it. This one was particularly concentrated and thus held a lot of Aether over the course of the last 3 years.
This one bottle alone was enough to send an Aether Saint all the way to the Aether Supreme rank. However, for an Aether supreme, they needed at the very least 5 such bottles.
Ning opened the cap on the bottle and started drinking it. The Concentrated aether had a slightly salty and metallic taste to it. It wasn't something he could exactly explain. But, it was good enough that he drank it without waiting for a single moment.
Immediately, he started using both his manual and automatic absorption skills to take in the aether he had just downed.
'Dammit, I'm losing Aether,' he thought and used Telekinesis to gather the Aether he did not absorb back to his stomach.
That helped with his burden a bit as he continued collecting and absorbing the bottle.
An hour later, he was finally able to absorb all of it, and advance quite far ahead as an Aether Supreme. But he couldn't stop here.
He needed to add more Aether to his reserves and thus make his skills that much stronger.
Ning took out another bottle, but he didn't drink it all at the same time. He took a mouthful of Aether, drank it, and started absorbing,
About 5 minutes later when he was done absorbing it, he took another mouthful of it and drank it.
As he continued doing that, time quickly passed by. He thought he would only need 5, but even as he drank the 6th bottle, he never felt a bottleneck arrive at all.
'Just how much do I need to drink?' he frowned. 6 hours had passed, and he was starting to worry about the state of the situation.
Just how far did the world go in the 6 hours he had gone missing? He shook off his worries and took out the 7th bottle to drink.
Halfway through drinking the 7th bottle, Ning stopped. He was still not feeling anything in his body, but that was the reason why he had stopped.
It had been 3 years since he used his old body and rank up in Aether, and in that time, he had forgotten something.
His main body never faced any bottlenecks at all. That was one of the reasons why it cost him so much energy to make it in the first place.
He also remembered the fact that he could never really tell what rank his own Aether was in his main body at all. So, he asked, "System, what rank of Aether rank am I at currently?"
<Aether Underlord>
'Shit!' he thought. He had unknowingly broken through sometime in the last few hours and he didn't even know about it.
He stored the bottle of Aether that was in his hand and wondered, "where should I go first?"
After a few seconds of thought, he decided where he should go first.
Ning teleported directly into the middle of the Palace hall in Xandria.
Everyone that was in the room suddenly propped their weapons at them, but Ning ignored them and looked at the throne.
"Ning?" the Emperor asked curiously.
"Oh, are you guys okay? Reever and Lisa were attacked from what I understand, where are they?" he asked.
"They're fine. They've gone back to sleep," the Emperor said and proceeded to explain just what had happened last night.
Once Ning learned that they had successfully captured the members of the tower and were holding them in the Palace prison where anyone below Aether Emperor would have their Aether stolen away from them.
"I see, if you're doing fine, then I will leave for now. I have more to do," Ning said and left before the Emperor could say anything.
When he reappeared, he stood in front of a bloody Merasi.
Merasi had lost her left eye and was missing a large chunk of her lower right chest.
She had somehow stopped the bleeding, but she was heavily panting on the ground.
On the other side, Ning saw Jason stand next to a near dead Tristan whose chest had fully caved in and blood was seeping out of his mouth.
"Are you alright?" Ning asked.
"Yes, I can fight," she said. "Go and help th—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Ning placed a palm on her head. In the next moment, all the wounds in her body were gone.
Since an Aether expert was just a slightly better mortal, it practically cost him nothing to heal her.
When Merasi suddenly could see from her left eye and her pain in the chest was gone, she couldn't help but look at Ning in shock.
"How?" she asked. Ning took out the half drank bottle and handed it to her.
"Drink and regain your Aether. I will take care of them," he said.
Before Merasi could even nod, Ning disappeared from where he was and arrived behind Jason.
Jason was shocked to see Merasi heal, but hadn't let that take away his guard. He immediately enforced his body and turned around his a metallic claw in his hands.
Ning did nothing but used his enforced arm to punch directly into his stomach.
As easy as hitting a wall of cotton candy, Ning's hand went through Jason's stomach and came out on the other side.
Ning quickly pulled back his arm and left the horrified Jason to bleed out on the ground.
He looked at Tristan and wondered if he should kill him as well, but Merasi shouted, "Go! Help that old man."
Ning turned around and looked at the sky above him and saw two figures fighting.
"Do what you think right of him," Ning said as he pointed towards Tristan and flew off.
Tristan didn't bother saying anything as he waited for his death.
