Ning tried to understand what the system meant. "Wait, why do you think I want to teleport out of the planet? I just want to go to this location," Ning said as he showed the spot on the map once again.
<That location is out of this planet>
"How can it b—" Ning suddenly stopped. He looked around. He remembered the maelstrom, the flipping of gravity he felt, and the lack of Qi in the area.
He swallowed a mouthful of saliva and asked, "I— Is this… a different planet?"
<Yes. You are now on the Northern Pole of the Planet Vilmore>
"And this planet doesn't have any Qi?" Ning asked.
<None>
Ning was a little flabbergasted.. He couldn't believe that he was on another planet right now. "Wha— How— What?" he made nonsensical sounds as he tried to make sense of the situation.
"So, you are telling me… that that thingy at the bottom of the Northern Continent… a portal?" Ning asked.
<The Maelstrom is a wormhole that connects Planet Kumia to Planet Vilmore>
"A wormhole?" he finally got the answer. "Did that maelstrom create a wormhole?" he asked.
<No. The wormhole created the Maelstrom>
<When the two planets came into contact through the wormhole, the Qi of Planet Kumia and the Aether of Planet Vilmore mixed together to amalgamate into the specs of light in the air>
"Aether… is that another form of energy?" Ning asked.
<Yes>
"So… can I absorb it? Is it in the air around me?" Ning asked.
<System suggests you buy information on Aether and Aether users to learn everything>
"Oh, yeah sure. Also… give me the map of the planet at the same time," Ning said.
The system showed him a list of knowledge he could choose from. Ning decided to go with the intermediate version of all of them to save energy for now.
He immediately learned about them. The planet was a truly unique planet; the upper half of the planet, the northern hemisphere, was just a massive ocean.
The southern hemisphere was a single continent with no name to it. Ning was shocked when he realized that he was currently on the southern pole of the planet.
"Sigh, I need to acclimated to it before I can properly user Aether?" Ning said as he realized that he would have to go through the same thing he went through with getting acclimated to the Qi.
"How much energy to fully acclimate this body, right now?" Ning asked.
<It will cost you 216,000,000,000 energy>
"Yes, acclimation is good," Ning said.
He thought for a second and asked, "you said a cultivator can collect those right?" he pointed towards the crater that was spewing out a mixture of Qi and Aether into the air.
<Yes. Your body will reject Aether and only collect Qi>
"And I do not need anything special like a spiritual root to collect aether right?" Ning asked.
<No>
"Alright then, let's see if I can collect it then," Ning said and walked close to the crater. He had his arm stretched upfront just in case there were invisible blasts happening near the crater.
He looked at the barrier-like wall that was forming due to the blast of Qi being thrown upwards. Ning slowly put his hands inside it. The moment he did that, the Qi and Aether amalgamation started cutting his arm.
He was a body cultivator, so it didn't immediately shred it. However, if he kept it there, he would have lost his entire hand in less than 10 seconds.
He immediately pulled his arms out and watched it heal in front of his eyes. The wounds were many but tiny enough that his healing could easily fix it.
"Ow! I can't even keep in there for 10 seconds, how am I going to return?" Ning asked. He took out something from his storage and threw it into the crater. That too immediately got destroyed.
"What about the spear?" Ning thought and quickly brought out the blue spear he had with him. It was one of the strongest objects he had created and so he wondered if even it could be damaged.
He didn't want to throw it in completely, so he put the end of the spear to test it first. At first, it seemed like it was okay, but at some point, it started taking damage and in less than a minute, it was close to being completely gone.
"Sigh, not this too. System, fix it."
Blue light shined as the spear end regenerated and fixed the end of the stick. Suddenly, he had an idea.
"Wait, what if I jump in with something ridiculously tough, and continuously fix it with the system as I make my way through the maelstrom?" Ning wondered.
"I really just need to make something really small yet really durable. Hmm… I also need to move on my own against this upwards blast too.
"I guess I will have to collect a lot of energy then. Sigh, the next few days are going to be horrible," he thought as he looked at his healing hand.
He slammed the spear into the ground and jumped into it. At the same time, he also pulled in his body into his storage space.
"System, wake me up when my cap returns," he ordered.
<Confirmed>
The moment his consciousness slipped away from him, he woke up as well. It was like he never slept at all. "Ahh, I've missed doing this. Now that I can get the energy in a split second, I should be able to collect billions in less than 10 minutes," Ning thought and started to get excited.
He jumped out of the spear into his body and put his hand into the crater. The Qi-Aether specs hit his arms, but instead of damaging, they only gave him energy.
It didn't even take a split second for him to collect hundreds of millions of energy. "Wow, this is going to be quick. I should sleep again."