"…"
I was too shocked to respond with any reasoning. Was she making a joke, being serious, or hinting at something more?
But a second later right before it got to the point it would have become awkward she broke out into laughter.
"Oh my, you should see your face right now!"
Now knowing that it was a joke I faked laughing to fit in.
"Ha, you sure got me."
But I don't think she even heard my response as she kept laughing to the point it started getting hard for her to breathe.
'Is it really that funny?'
After having to catch herself and take some deep breaths I thought it was finally over but Miss Smith took one look at me and broke out into laughter once again.
By this point, I was getting fed up. It felt more like she was laughing at me rather than with me.
While I patiently yet annoyed waited for Miss Smith to conduct herself I couldn't do anything more than stand there.
Finally, after what felt like a whole minute of laughter Miss Smith calmed down.
In an attempt to put this light-hearted situation behind us, I asked to get back into training.
"Why don't we-"
But before I could finish Miss Smith, who was done gathering herself, looked me dead in the eyes deadpan.
'Uh…'
"Don't hurt her."
As soon as she spoke I understood what she was getting at.
Staring right back at Miss Smith I didn't falter as I answered to reassure her.
"I wouldn't dare."
Hearing my confident answer and seeing that I wasn't breaking under the pressure she finally broke away and sighed.
"Look, I don't know how much she told you but she hasn't exactly had it easy in life."
Knowing that now wasn't the time to talk I gave Miss Smith my full attention and listened to what she had to say.
Seeing my mature response she couldn't help but show a smile before getting right into it.
"Her life growing up wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Her family… Well, let's just say they do things a little differently. Anyways, that resulted in some dark trauma she is still dealing with. So just be sure to be patient, listen to her, and most importantly don't make things worse."
Speaking up I reaffirmed my position.
"Miss Smith you don't have to worry, I won't let anyone else hurt her."
She nodded, accepting my response.
'Well, we both revealed a weakness. Miss Smith cares for Charlotte more than I originally thought and I shared that there was someone I would protect no matter the cost.'
Once our conversation came to a close the mood in the room once again changed. One might think we were bipolar with how many emotional topics were brought up but now that everything was said it was time to get back to work.
Miss Smith who now knew to give it her all to train me into my best possible shape began preparations.
While she wandered off most likely to grab a sword for me I decided to make use of the few free minutes I had.
Pulling up my wrist to look at my smartwatch there was one specific notification I wanted to check out.
Looking through all the notifications I had been ignoring I scrolled past them in search of the latest one.
Finally, after going through the long list I arrived at it and began reading.
[An insurmountable achievement! The user has discovered the existence of Aether! An unprecedented change has taken effect.]
[+ 1 Aether]
Reading the message I couldn't help but become excited. The moment I felt my watch buzz after Miss Smith mentioned Aether I began having high hopes and it turns out I was right in my prediction, I now unlocked Aether!
Wanting to take a closer look at it I pulled up my stats.
[Vitality: 3.8]
[Strength: 3.9]
[Speed: 3.3]
[Resistance: 2.9]
[Magic: 5.8]
[Aether: 2]
[Rank: 993]
[Credits: 250,000]
[Abilities: 3rd Person POV]
[Gifts: Weapon Comprehension (Intermediate-10), Null]
[Skills: Mana Breath]
My smile grew at the noticeable improvement in some of my stats but as I scanned over them two things popped out to me.
First of all, for some reason, I had two points in Aether when I should only have had one.
The second was that there wasn't any way to level up Null.
I had actually made note of the irregularity the first time I unlocked the gift but I didn't have time back then to look at it so I pushed it to the back of my mind.
In fact, I first thought it might have been a consequence of having the gift pick itself but now that things weren't adding up I knew there had to be a bigger story.
Therefore I tapped on Null to read its description and see if anything changed and what I saw shocked me to my core.
[Null: Allows the user to dismantle and disintegrate any Mana-based attack by countering it with Aether.]
The gift I randomly had created in the heat of the moment turned out to be a gift that required Aether to use in the first place.
Now that I understood that it made sense that I had two points in Aether since I needed some to be able to use the skill.
But then the next question was how did I unlock and use it without even knowing of its existence as I do now.
However, that's when I recalled the strange vision I had, and things started to make sense again.
Although I still have no idea what the vision meant, one thing that I was sure of was that it had to do with Aether.
Realizing that everything was revolving around this mysterious energy I tapped on Aether and waited for a description to appear in the hopes that some of my questions would be answered.
[Aether: A taboo unnatural force that exists beyond the region of the universe. It is made up of nothing and creates nothing as its sole purpose is to destroy.]
Reading what was shown a shiver ran down my body as I realized I was far too in over my head.
Something that is taboo is something that shouldn't exist in the first place. Yet this power that should have been unattainable somehow ended up in my hands.
Not to mention that according to what is written it's a force that isn't from this universe!
This opened up multiple questions such as whether there are other universes and who or what are within them.
This was way too much for me to be thinking about for the time being and I didn't want to have a debate with myself on the existence of extraterrestrial life.
One thing I did however understand was that Aether is the counter to Mana.
This was a whole other topic I would have to research but at least I now knew how Null worked.
I didn't know how to feel about the gift but being that it used a force that's purpose was to destroy couldn't be a good thing.
Having all these questions stuck in my head with no answers I pushed on by wanting to learn more. Therefore I tapped on the description of Mana to see if it was at all like I believed it to be.
[Mana: An intentional natural force that permeates the universe. Anyone and anything can have Mana and it's the life force all things are created from.]
Seeing the similarities and differences between the two up close I knew that the already complicated world I was sent to just got that much worse.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶