Ning walked out of the city and made his way toward the forest. He then settled down on the thicker part of it and brought out his Aether from the bag.
Fighting against the Midnight Phoenix had depleted his Aether to such an extent, that it had finally made him aware of the fact that even between the different energies, there was a sort of hierarchy.
As it stood, Qi was a much better power system than the Aether. Perhaps he could also do with Aether what others could with Qi, but that didn't change the fact that Qi would have him require a lot less focus, attention, and overall talent in creating and manipulating.
If even a weaker Immortal bird with no intelligence was enough to give him trouble, Ning could only imagine what an actual immortal with all of their mental faculties could do.
Once the bottle came out, he slowly drank it. It was fortunate that he brought the most concentrated stuff from Vilmore. Otherwise, it would have surely become a problem if it started sucking in Aether from the area.
Ning had to collect it little by little too, just to be sure he didn't accidentally pull energy from the outside. He had yet to realize how much energy from outside he could absorb before Genesis learned of his truth, but he damn sure didn't want any of it to get out.
Genesis didn't give a time frame this time after which the third competition would start. Because of that, Ning needed to finish as fast as he could.
'Fast' still ended up taking over 3 days because of how slow his absorption speed was. Ning was now prepared for the third competition that would start anytime soon.
Given how long the second competition took, he expected this one to go on for a while as well. So, he was all the happier to have completely recovered his Aether.
Ning looked over himself and realized he had done what he had come to do. So, he decided to return back. Just as he did, a voice floated into his mind. A rather familiar voice that he had been desperate to hear for quite a while now.
<Touch Him>
Ning stood dumbfounded for a few seconds. 'What?' he thought internally as he didn't dare bring out the random shout of surprise.
'The system is back?' he thought to himself for a moment before remembering that no such messages had come by him. If the system had indeed come back, he would have known.
Also, there was something weird about this message exactly. There had been no notification panel that popped up in his mind like it always did. Instead, it was simply the system's voice that spoke to him.
Ning's first thought after that had been to believe that he was hallucinating, but that didn't feel right.
Next, he wondered if it was an enemy that was using their powers on him, maybe it was even Genesis who had found out about his system. However, that didn't feel right as well.
Besides, it was impossible for them to get the system's exact voice, tone, and cadence if they had never heard it speak before.
To put it simply, Ning now believed that if was the system that had messaged him. The only question now was how?
Ning decided to ask that question once the system came back. For now, there was a more pressing matter that needed his attention.
'What does it mean by Touch Him?' Ning wondered. 'Who is he?'
It didn't take him more than a split second for him to understand that the system was talking about Genesis.
'So... Should I touch him? Then what?' Ning wondered. Was the system going to take over Genesis? Was it going to release its divine wrath onto a system creator?
To begin with, was he even sure the system was talking about Genesis? What if it was talking about Drake, or Issi, or maybe that man he saw 3 days ago. Maybe the Lion was a he too.
'I guess I should just go around touching everyone then,' he thought. 'That should be enough.'
Ning decided to stop thinking on this matter and instead looked around to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything.
Once he was done, he left the forest and walked back to the city.
As he made his way through the sea of question marks, Ning came upon a young woman who was not. She was walking towards him from the left side and would soon arrive in front of him.
As she did, she also noticed Ning slowly walking and was a little surprised. However, she didn't just because she saw him and soon the two of them came face to face with each other.
"Good Afternoon," Ning was the first to greet her.
"Good afternoon to you too, Mr. Leader," the girl replied with a curious look on her face.
"You can call me Ning," Ning said. "What name shall I call miss Leader by?"
The girl gave a cute smile. She was the leader of the other group and had likely seen him a lot through her screens back in the game.
She wore a simple white dress with a pink ribbon around her waist. Her violet hair flowed past her shoulders and down to her hips, a striking contrast to her otherwise all-white appearance.
"My name is Saphandra, but you can call me Saph," the girl said.
"I see, it's nice meeting you here miss Saph," Ning said and his eyes drifted a bit over her head. "And what should I call... Him? Her? It?"
"What do you mean?" Saph asked.
"I'm talking about your floating companion here in all blue," Ning said.
Saph's eyes suddenly change to awe, confusion, and surprise. "You can see her?" she asked.
"So it's a her," Ning said.
Saph nodded. "She's called little blue, and she's my bonded spirit. She's the one who gives me all of my powers," Saph said.
