Chapter 56: Aether

Warm light poured through the cracked shutter, gently caressing Zayn’s face.

Blinking awake, he raised a hand to block the light, then sat up.

’Maks is gone, huh?’

Zayn was a little worried about letting him out of his sight, but he wasn’t going to go searching blindly for him.

Stretching, Zayn looked around the room, only to spot a change of clothes sitting on the floor next to his bed. A wry smile spread across his face.

’Seriously...? How long has he been awake?’

’Maybe the better question is how long I’ve been asleep.’

Pushing himself off the bed, Zayn trudged over to the window, opened the shutter, and looked out onto the street below. Unlike when they’d first arrived, it wasn’t vacant, but there were far fewer people than he’d expected, suggesting it was still early.

Closing the window, Zayn returned to his bed.

’Man, I’m starving...’

Thankfully, the inn also doubled as a tavern, so he could get breakfast without having to search elsewhere.

Slipping off his clothes, Zayn put on the black pants and brown tunic Maks had bought for him. They weren’t a perfect fit, but they were better than what he’d been wearing.

’Still no socks or shoes...?’

But...

Before heading downstairs, Zayn dropped back onto the bed and spread out his limbs.

’Alone...’

He was finally alone.

For the first time in a month, only walls surrounded him, not people.

There wasn’t some grand reason behind his desire for solitude. Zayn simply wished for it to last a little longer, so he ignored his growling stomach.

As he lay there, the lacerations in his mind having dulled into contusions overnight, he began to go over what he’d learned from the first Memory Fragment beyond the grand scene itself.

First...

’Status.’

🌑🌑🌑

Zayn Gatlin

Age: 22 | Gender: Male

Contractor: [ - - - ]

[Aether Core]

[Rank: Nascent] - (Progression: 6%)

[Tasks]

[Defend the Town of Adsagsona From the Incoming Monster Invasion] - (Time until attack: 222:51:23 hours)

[Hunt Disasters] - {Failure: Human Extinction} — (Disasters identified - Cynthia Vespertine, Shin Hae-Ryung, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???, ???) - (Disasters Slain: 1/16)

[???]

[Skills]

[Fall of Babel]

[Second Chance]

[Relics]

[Afflictions]

[???] - (Progression: 0.01%)

[Memory Suppression] - (Memory fragments recovered: 1/12)

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First — and most importantly — there was their next Task, along with what he’d learned about Tasks in general.

’Adsagsona...’

That was the name of the mysterious town Zayn found himself in. The town with a mix of modern and Victorian architecture, and anything advanced within it relied on Aether, not science.

There was a barrier surrounding the town that would fall in roughly nine days, allowing a monster horde to invade. The Task was simply to defend the town and survive as best they could.

At least, that was the objective on the surface.

Zayn suspected something important needed to be accomplished within the next nine days. Though he didn’t know exactly what, he knew that finding a historical archive was a good start.

Beyond the main objective, there were also the others who had been summoned alongside him by the Task.

Just like Zayn, they’d all gone through trials of their own. However, each trial had been unique. Not everyone had faced goblins, and no one had faced the same Goblin King as his group.

If his memory was accurate, roughly a thousand people had been summoned to this town. There should also have been countless other towns where the same scenario was playing out with other congregations of summoned people.

His memories still splintered, however, whenever he tried to recall anything substantial about towns other than Adsagsona.

As for the "Five Major Trials" the angelic man had talked about...

Zayn and everyone else had already completed the first. The town’s defense would constitute the second.

Progression wouldn’t remain so linear, however...

Unlike the first two Major Trials, there would be a significant gap before the third occurred. During that time, they could take quests from the bulletin board in the center of town or attempt Minor Trials — smaller-scale challenges designed by the very gods who had summoned them.

Well, actually, they had little choice, as they’d be forced to attempt at least one Minor Trial every thirty days until the Fourth Major Trial...

’Not that I remember why it stops there.’

Beyond the trials, Zayn remembered much more about what Aether truly was, what the ranks ’Nascent’ and ’Unseen’ actually meant, what the progression percentage beside the rank in his status represented, and what ’Aberrant’ meant.

Aether was the underlying elemental principle by which the world was governed. Every living being contained Aether to varying degrees. It was the natural, primordial substance that connected the soul to the body and the body to the world.

Beyond the definition...

The ranks were: [Unseen, Nascent, Emergent, Bloomed, Elevated, Boundless, Numinous, Empyreal, ...]

There might have been more, but those were all he remembered. Then again, he couldn’t recall anyone in his past life progressing too far along that path of ascension.

Anyway...

Unseen referred to all beings unawakened to Aether. They had an Aether core, yes, but no means of cultivating or wielding the Aether inside it.

After awakening their connection to Aether, they reached the Nascent rank.

Just as the name implied, one’s core was newly formed.

From there, one could cultivate strength in two ways. The first was to kill beasts and consume their Aether shards, allowing some of their Aether to seep into one’s core and become one’s own.

As for what an Aether shard was...

It was the crystallized remnant of one’s Aether core, rapidly formed upon death. All life-forms awakened to Aether — including humans — contained one upon death, and it formed where the core had been.

’In a human’s case, that would be inside the heart...’

In the goblins’ case, it was in the middle of their thoracic cavity.

The other method was what Zayn would call...

’The xianxia special.’

Although it did not pursue the same goal of enlightenment, the principle bore some similarity.

After all, it involved meditating while circulating Aether throughout one’s body and attempting to draw in the natural Aether drifting through the air.

It was much slower than the former method, but also safer. Under the right circumstances, it could even prove faster because it provided continual growth — something one could pursue even when locked inside this town, unable to leave and hunt monsters.

’And if one finds a place with a high Aether density, their growth speed can double or triple.’

Finally, the progression percentage quantified how far along they were toward reaching their core’s maximum capacity.

Even after reaching 100%, however, there was some condition they needed to fulfill before advancing to the next rank.

One that Zayn hadn’t learned.