Ning looked around the village and realized that it wasn't that great of a village. It barely had maybe 100 people living in it, and most of them just did what they could to make a living.
"Sigh, this is a very poor village," Ning thought. The sun was already down, but the light from the aurora still hit the village and make it light up quite a bit.
"Let's go back," Ning thought and returned back to Famir's house.
When he walked in, he found Famir huddled up in a corner next to the bed. The bowl was empty, so he seemed to have drunk all of the juice.
"Alright, while he is asleep, Let me go and collect some energy from the mountain top," Ning thought. 'System, teleport.'
<Not enough energy>
<The natural seal around the mountain is too strong>
<Host will require more energy to break through it>
"There is a… seal? How come I never saw that?" Ning asked.
<Seal is at the base of the mountain>
"Hmm… so can you teleport me to the base of the mountain?" Ning asked.
<Yes>
"Alright, let's go."
Ning immediately disappeared from where he stood and appeared on the base of the mountain. From here, he could see that the mountain was around 5 kilometers tall.
"Is there really a seal here?" Ning thought. He picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it as far as he could.
Instead of flying far away, however, the stone struck an invisible wall and in a flash of purple light was destroyed to smithereens.
"Geez, there really is one. Is it that hard to get across?" Ning asked and placed his palms on the seal's barrier. Another flash of purple appeared and Ning's right arm was blown to smithereens as well.
" Argh! What the F*ck!" he couldn't help but scream. He hadn't expected the seal to be this strong. "Damn, I still don't understand why I can't just teleport inside. Isn't this just a barrier? Why can't I go inside?"
<Seals are different from normal barriers>
<Seals seal away space from the surrounding>
<So, while the mountain is still in Vilmore, the seal is making it so that it isn't>
"Damn, so I can never go back there?" Ning asked.
<There are 2 ways>
<First. Gather a lot of energy to break the seal on your own and enter>
<Second. Find the key to the seal and open it>
"Hmm… since you said a lot, it's probably not even in the billions anymore. Let's go with option two. Where is the Key to the seal?" Ning asked.
<There is no specific key to the seal>
"Huh? So there is more than one? What is this key then?" Ning asked.
<A human corpse>
<The seal will only open for 5 minutes when it comes in contact with a human corpse that hasn't awakened with Aether yet>
"Woah, that's… I can't find those sorts of keys. What sort of psychopath makes this sort of seal?" Ning asked angrily.
<This is a natural seal>
<Nobody made this seal but nature itself>
"Gosh, so I don't even have anyone to blame for me not getting to go in? Damn, that sucks. Now I will have to wait until someone dies before I can go in.
"In the meantime, this barrier will do I guess," Ning thought. When he had placed his palm on the barrier, there was so much energy output from there that not only had it filled its cap, it had exceeded far beyond anything he had felt yet and destroyed his arms completely.
"Very well. I shall come back daily to gather energy from here," he thought and teleported back to Famir's house.
Famir was still sleeping so he decided to go and try some Aether arts.
"I'm an invoker, right? I should see how much water I can create with the Aether in my body," Ning thought. He took out the bowl from the room and kept it in front of him before starting to visualize water in his mind.
The image of water flowing felt very real to him, and at the same time, inside his Sea of Aether, the few Aethers that he had gathered had started to boil once again.
They disappeared from the Sea of Aether and suddenly, in front of him, droplets of water started forming. Ning opened his eyes to see it.
There were about a dozen or so droplets of water formed in front of him. He was about to slowly place those droplets on the bowl, but suddenly, his whole body froze and he fell to the ground.
This happened due to him overusing his Aether and drying out the sea. If it were someone without any absorption technique, they would be unable to move right now until they somehow got Aether or ended up in a coma.
Those that did have an absorption technique, would use the technique and gather some Aether before standing back up.
Ning didn't even have to do that as his body automatically absorbed enough Aether right now to go from Aether Starter to Aether Student in just 10 days.
He stood up and looked at the bowl in front of him. He weighed the drops of water and found out it was around 13 milligrams.
He then waited for him to go back to being full with Aether and started forming more water once again. He continued doing that for the rest of the night.
By the time morning arrived, he was starting to make around 30 drops of water.
"That's a good enough progress for a day I guess," Ning thought. He let the water fall from the bowl and stood up to go back into the house.
Just then, he saw Famir rubbing his eyes as he looked at him. " *yawn* Senior, what are you doing so early in the morning?" he asked. "Also, why are you so dirty?"
Ning looked down and realized that falling onto the ground for so long had in fact made him quite dirty. "Oh, never mind this," Ning said and snapped. All the dirt in his clothes fell to the ground.
"Let's go back in."