"we're doing pretty well," Inna commented as the group let their clothes dry out by a fire. After staying by the lake, they had just done their laundry. "how much longer are we going to keep this up?" she liked training as much as the next person. But sweat zalts, she was reaching her limit; it wasn't helped by the occult creatures tumbling upon their camp.
Though the creatures were usually outnumbered and dealt with without too much fuss. What was causing fuss were the continued people coming to frankly gawk and stare at Aero as he trained. She was really starting to understand his short temper for this. If it was infuriating, they treated him like he was some kind of strange septical or freak.
She was beyond over it, though Aero was doing an excellent job of holding himself back. She felt like she would knock someone out; it would be incredibly satisfying, she knew it would be.
"Anyone wanting to smack the people who think we are some kind of show?!" Galia asked, stunning everyone before they all agreed. "I've moved way past smack," Aero stated, trying to calm his emotions. It wasn't really working, so he tried to distract himself, which worked less.
"Honestly, they might be the reason we have to head home," Tzilla stated, looking at the stars. " cause I don't think people are going to stop before we do something violent." the rest of the group agreed at that, it wasn't a feeling that Galia was familiar with pointing toward other people, it usually when toward creatures trying to kill her.
"I really think leaving would be less trouble cause the law will be on our si-. Have we even considered getting them arrested or at least charged with harassment? There kind of interfering with our work."
"oh yeah, I forgot about those laws, "Lior commented, due to how much work hunters were doing, hunting down the violent creature that shared the planet with them. Especially when they became a great danger to settlement. There are more than a few laws in each country to protect them.
Some laws protected people from them as well, with very strict and violent punishments. Aero could deal with a lot of things, but not those punishments.
After a bit more talking, they decide to send some people to the nearby village to get someone. They came back pretty soon, and immediately, a large group of law enforcement got to work cordoning off the area." what did you say to them?" Aero asked when he popped out of the water and saw the sight.
"The truth is, we're training for space, and the watchers are getting on our nerves to the point we're considering leaving. despite needing to train." Aero nodded, then thanked Tzilla for her work. Inna commented about how they believed that. "Well, everyone knows to an extent aliens are real, and we're looking for a method to reach the stars, so when we get them, then what?"
"we'll be our planet's first space explorers," and such is stated before kicking off and diving back into the water. For a moment, he just floated in the water, letting his momentum carry him a bit before turning so he was staring at the bottom of the lake. Watching the plants and rocks before diving down.
His foot briefly touched the muddly bottoms as he pushed himself up, not enough that he broke to the surface, but close as he started going through weapon stances. He's practiced with his staff quite a bit, so he decided to do without it. With said standing, he slowly moved toward the other side of the lake.
Reaching it, he pushed back with a punch before diving back to attack it until his lungs screamed for oxygen. Breaking the surface, he took a simple breath before diving back under and continued until he was near his limits.
Climbing onto the land, he walked around back to the camp, noting the whole body ache and light pounding in his head. He spent a bit too much time underwater, but he could bear with it and knew it would be gone by tomorrow.
So the young lord wasn't too concerned. Honestly, he was in a good mood. Almost all of the watchers were gone, giving the group peace they hadn't had in a while. He was definitely enjoying the lowered noise.
"so, any suggestion about our next moves?" despite the training they were putting in, he knew his people were nowhere close to reaching space. It was likely such a long time that he was better off continuing training. Which was close to what the helper suggested.
'my lord, I am happy to inform you that the energy and earth energy books have arrived in your star system." Aero perked up those books were every hard to get a hold of. He also knew they would give benefits to his team. People he cautiously called friends.' I don't know if at this point it caution or cowardness,' he was hoping it was the former.
Arriving at camp, he quickly changed into dry clothing and let the wet ones hang on the line that was strung between his and Inna's cart. Then he had something to eat and drink, other than accidentally swallowing lake water.
It was still lake water, but it had been boiled, and he knew drinking raw wild water was sometimes bad. Tova explained microbiology to him. It wasn't the most interesting topic to him, but it had a lot of practical knowledge that he didn't think he could unlearn even if he wanted to.
Cause learning the world was more alive than you thought, the microbiology of his own people was unknown. For now, the fact their things were too small for him to see living in the water he drank was interesting and mostly gross.
He will always be careful about what he drinks from the moment onward cause no. just no!
Needs meet, he relaxed by pulling a scroll out of his cart and reading it under the light of the setting sun; that night, not much happened. Nor anything the next few days, the group was perfectly fine with this development. Then the delivery arrived," All right, this was not what I was expecting!" idit said, checking her food to see if it had gone off. But no, right there, a large thing was floating in the air.
Aero took a moment to absorb their shocked expressions. Laughing a bit, he received the books. The lattice paper was very different from the parchment his world used. he didn't know if he liked it or not.
"Alright," he carried the books over, handing them over to each girl." I hope you prepared yourself for this."
"I don't think you can prepare for this kind of stuff mentally,' Inna commented, cracking open the book and skimming it. The concept of heaven and earth energy seemed pretty simple, but the later part of the book was about the stages that you would go through when absorbing the energy. "I think we should start with this test, which is mentioned at the front."
"Test, yeah, let's start with that." it was a pretty simple test with terms that they didn't recognize despite their translation. It took a bit to understand their meaning with the help of context and the helper supplying hints.
"Okay, with that, I can start." sitting down, Inna slipped into meditation, steadily working until she could pick up on the energy in the air. Then, pick out the heavy and earth energy. It took a few hours for her to get these parts down, her team switching between watching her and going about their routine for the day.
From there, Inna grabbed a lot of energy; it felt like a like, yet not much at all, before he brought it inside her body. After that was the hardest part, testing her body's reaction to heaven and earth energy. This was done by dragging the energy throughout her body. This would, in part, test for potential allergic reactions.
Yes, you could be allergic to some energy kinds; the helper said this was something to talk about later while it was a very important topic.
This test would also tell her several other things of note; for one thing, the energy came in different flavors. Knowing which kind would help her grow stronger faster or prevent adverse effects. After half a flower into the test, she felt her own body liked the lungs the best. Which meant energy affiliated with air or something. Aero was kind of curious about how that worked; you breathe with your lungs, but did you breathe in energy?
Anyway, Inna was affiliated with air type, heaven, and earth energy. The book stated the best places were places high in air energy. "it says places with lots of wind, so mountains and storms, right?" they agreed that was a good place to start." I never knew that knowing the weather would be so important." lior commented before entering meditation for your own test.
She took about the same amount of time as Inna. While the end result was her bones, the earth. "I'm not going underground." cause that's what the book said, underground worked best. It suggested digging holes word for word when she wanted to cultivate.
"zalts, we probably should have thought this through a bit more, Tzillia commented, reading further." this one suggested getting hit by lightning." grabbing a book, Aero read that part, and it did say that. even mentioned how dangerous it would be, "let's hope no one it attained to lighting."
Tzilia had tempted fate, and it answered by giving her a rather stronger aliment to lighting." why?! zaltess and zalts, I've served you faithfully. Why have you forsaken me?!"
"Should we stop her or...?" Galia asked, looking at where the girl was dramatically weeping, though she might not have been shedding actual tears. Galia couldn't see from this angle, but she still tried to comfort her friend.
It kind of worked," I understand your distress. But I'm sure we can figure something out. Maybe you don't have to get hit by lightning."
"Man, I really hope so cause it sucks. Not only do I have to try and find lighting, I have to get hit with it to increase my cultivation speed." Aero blinked. He hadn't realized that finding the lighting would also be a problem; from the look of a few other spaces, it looked like they were having similar thoughts.
"It is possible to track and predict storms," he stated, citing words from the helper who was going into a lecture about storm tracking and predicting. He was listening with half an ear, and he quickly found the science behind weather did not interest him.
He focused enough so that he could give general ideas to those around him. Maybe one of the scientists would be interested; maybe someone out in his home world would take an interest in it. Take pride in this knowledge and skill.
"so I have to study a field of science or get someone to study it for me so I can find storms to get hit with lighting. No thanks. I'll stick to the slow and steady method, and I'll live longer."
"I don't have an argument against that." what could he say? Tell her to put in the effort and risk her life. Besides, he doubted she was going to laze around and complain; Tzilia was a hard worker. They all were. more flowers passed as the rest of them went to the test, "so everyone is just stupidly varied; is that strange or not?" Galia asked after discovering her water affinity, and idit discovered her fire affinity.
"Honestly, at this point, strange is being a new normal?"
"Should we accept that or try and fight it?"
"How wise," Idit rolled her eyes before looking at Aero. He was looking at the sky with a frown; he did it pretty often, looking at the stars. What sat between them, beyond them. 'I wonder what he is thinking at this moment.
["Oh, my love, I know the stars are watching. but what does it matter, as it doesn't change how I feel for you. even as the heavens fall around us. I love you; never doubt that again." he leaned closer to is a lover who looked at him, nervously playing with her hair. What she saw in his eyes caused her to relax and accept his affection. It was a little at the moment, but as the night grew long., she found it in herself to accept the love and affection the man had plenty to give.]
[It was like a never-ending river. 'I wouldn't mind drowning in this,' she thought, leaning against him and watching as the sky fell around them. They both knew this might be the end of them. But neither could find it in themself to care.']
'yeas,' Aero cheered to himself,' after more than 3 dozen chapters, they finally fucking kissed.' too bad it was the end of the story, and Aero bemoaned this a bit. The author was very good, and he found himself emotionally attached to the characters." what a nice intro to the story."
'my lord, would you like the sequel?'
"yes," he instantly responded before fully processing the answer. While the helper was getting the sequel, Aero decided to look into his stats.
"I've improved by a bit in my physical ability, I need to figure something out...it's not like I can pick up an energy method like my team is doing?" downside of being a lord. After looking at the stars for a while, the helper had gathered the book,' Would you like to begin reading, my lord?'
"in a moment, first answer me. Could I use pride energy to help me break the limits of my flesh?" The helper did not immediately reply, but Aero waited. 'Each lord finds their own way to use their power to increase their abilities.'
"very well," Aero replied before he started reading. In the back of his mind, he wondered just how he was going to use what he understood was an emotion/feeling-based emotion to affect him physically. He might, in some way, be able to affect his mind. 'Well, energy is energy, at least.' that he understood was a law of the universe.
"attuly...