24 Nepherage In-depth

Kaijin Name: Nepherage

Core: Hero

Aether Formula: Lava Maiden Revelry

Ranking: Aether Acolyte, Fifth ring

Strength: A

Dexterity: C

Endurance: B

Intellect: D

Speed: C

Aether Arts: Lava Uppercut, Seismic Clap, Eruption Knuckle,[6 other combat arts]

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"Talk about minmaxing...wonder if I can..."

As Zhen Liu stared at the status window, he began to focus on the aether arts list. A moment later, a new window listing off all of the aether arts Nepherage knew popped into his field of vision. Visually, it reminded him of some JRPGs where the skills could be swapped in and out.

When Zhen Liu focused on the [Eruption Knuckle] art, a little window describing the art popped open as the holgraphic image of Nepherage began to perform the art.

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Name: Eruption Knuckle

Class: Major Corporeal Art

Element: Earth/Fire

Description: By condensing Earth aether around the knuckles, the user is then able to rapidly circulate and accumulate Fire aether in the rest of the hand. When the user makes contact with their intended target, the Earth and Fire aether will violently collide with one another, causing an "eruption" of force to collide with the point of impact.

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"Huh...well, at least it's less vague than that weird floating aether stuff. Wonder if it's cause of this ring that I can see it like this instead of all esoteric-like?"

As Zhen Liu pondered on the implications while staring at Nepherage's screen, he noticed a weird little book shape icon in the corner. When he switched his perception to what he called "native mode", the book shaped icon disappeared and was replaced with a headache inducing profound aether array. He switched his perception back before he got lost in trying to understand it's intricacies and started seeing the world beyond the veil of reality or something.

"I'll switch to native mode, once I cultivate more or something," Zhen Liu told himself as he clicked on the book icon.

A new window appeared in his field of vision that showed a long, long list of text. In the upper right hand corner was a number that read: 513783. As Zhen Liu read through some entries on the list, he recognized a chunk of them being the names of aether arts that he had seen in the Library of Nowhere. In fact, the top of the window screen read: "Library of Nowhere: Aether Arts List". This sight caused Zhen Liu to grimace as two possibilities popped into his head at this sight.

This either meant that the ring on his finger was connected to the Library of Nowhere or the ring was the Library of Nowhere. Both possibilities weren't necessarily good for his health.

"This means I gotta deal with a Castle Gr*yskull situation and hope to the heavens no one finds the library or I'm screwed, or it's a pocket dimension deal and I now have a mobile base/prison if someone finds out about this thing...," Zhen Liu thought to himself, "Worry about that later though, might as well see if this library window does what I think it does."

Zhen Liu began to mentally "click" through the aether arts list and found that it worked kinda like a library directory, including the ability to filter out entries based on certain criteria. Noticing the "most compatible with current kaijin" option, he clicked on that and the amount of aether arts presented dropped from 513783 to about ten thousand.

"That is still an absurd amount of arts to look through...speed reading mode let's go."

As he looked through the list, he saw that a majority of the arts listed were either of the Corporeal or Ethereal class with a few minor grade World class arts. When he double clicked one of the World class arts, a warning screen flashed.

[Warning: The following art exceeds the current kaijin's capabilities. Please remove other arts to make room for it or strengthen the current kaijin.]

Immediately after this warning popped up, the window showcasing Nepherage's arts moved to the front and a number indicator began to flash red.

[1000/1000]

Out of curiosity, Zhen Liu removed one of the arts from Nepherage's list, causing the number indicator immediately changed to read: [960/1000]. When he put the art back, the indicator went back to [1000/1000]

"Huh...Skill points by any other name is just memory storage," Zhen Liu mused, "Safe to assume higher ranking equals more usable arts...or higher level of arts are usable."

Zhen Liu perused the list of arts, but soon came to the conclusion to not change any of Nepherage's current repertoire...yet. There were just too many to look through and he was too tired to continue doing so.

"Now I guess I turn this thing off by...ah."

Zhen Liu focused on the ring, symbol and bracelet once again, but instead of feeding it more aether, he thought of retracting it. The moment he did, everything turned off and Zhen Liu's view returned to darkness.

"Well...time to sleep," he thought as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

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Earlier

"I wonder how he's doing?," Jin Fang thought as she walked to Zhen Liu's room, "He's usually quite shy at parties, let alone his own funeral. He must be quite tired."

Jin Fang eventually reached the door to Zhen Liu's room and was about to open, when she noticed a strange colored light coming from th edges of the door.

"What's this? Is the young master cultivating in there?"

Curiosity getting the better of her, Jin Fang opened the door just a crack to see what was causing the light. What she saw shocked her.'

"What on Valresta?!," she quietly gasped.

Zhen Liu was lying in bed, but he wasn't sleeping. Instead, Jin Fang saw that his eyes were glowing alongside his left hand which he held aloft.

Encapsulating the young master was a strange ghostly being that looked a bit like a demonic marionette with a dozen arms that appeared to be fiddling with a strange looking orb of covered in diagrams and runes.

Every now and then the arms would pull something out of it, twist and turn it, then put it back in rapid alien-like movements.

Jin Fang stared, enraptured by the strange sight, until the strange marionette ghost suddenly turned it's head towards her.

She stifled a gasp at the ghostly figure sudden movement, but was thrown off guard when the marionette ghost just...waved at her before going back to doing whatever it was doing.

Under Jin Fang's gaze, the marionette slowly stopped it's work, moments before the glowing around Zhen Liu stopped and the orb that was being held aloft absorbed into his palm.

"Well...time to sleep", Jin Fang heard Zhen Liu mutter before actually falling asleep. Not wanting to disturb him, Jin Fang closed the door and proceeded to sneak away.

"Zhen Liu...what was all that?," she couldn't help but think as she walked away.