“So right now, I am presently sitting on a planet that is just 1 out of 100,000, and all of these planets are enclosed inside the only livable space in a universe covered with dark aether, its essence, and darklings.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. You’re a fast learner lord Alfzaar.” Arya compliments him in her soft gentle tone.

The boy blankly stares back at her.

It may not have seemed like it on the surface but inwardly he was freaking out.

“A hundred thousand planets? Dark aether and darklings? A universe filled with monsters on all sides!? Fuck me, I have died and this is hell, this might actually really be hell. It’s got the right number of monsters and demons at least.”

An image of billions of darklings like the huntress, advancing across the earth pops up in his mind and he physically swats at the empty space in front of him to drive the thought away.

“What’s the matter lord Alfzaar?! Are you ok?”

“NO, I’M NOT, THERE’S NO TRAINING THAT COULD’VE PREPARED ME FOR THIS!!” Is what he thought inside, but his actual reply was.

“Yeah, just thought I saw something for a second.”

“Great, is there anything more you wish to know?” Arya inquires innocently.

The boy thinks over everything he has learned, his mind processing and analyzing the information.

“Yeah, I have some questions.” He tells her.

“Sure, I’ll be happy to help, ask away.”

“If the entire universe is just dark aether then what is so special about the dominion that its safe inside?”

“Separating the cosmic nebulae of dark aether and dominion’s boundary is the barrier of celestia tech.”

“Celestia..wha?”

“teehee celestia tech silly lord Alfzaar. Advanced technology from an unknown age that can hold back and purify dark aether into normal, regular aether.” Arya answers while giggling at his reaction.

“Wait so there is technology that can stop dark aether, why isn’t the dominion going all in with this tech?”

“Hmm because it’s impossible. First, the technology is millions of years old and no one has any idea how it came to be, or how it came to cover the dominion. Second, the technology requires a material called aetherium to be created. It’s a material that can effectively channel aether.”

Arya points toward his suit and ring.

“Your battle suit and your weapon are both made of high grade aetherium. The purer the aetherium the better it can channel aether.”

“And let me guess, this aetherium is hard to find or make.” The boy guesses.

“Exactly yes lord Alfzaar, aetherium is made when dark essence seeps into inorganic matter. Once Inside, it mixes with the matter at a molecular level and lots of time later the mixture slowly solidifies into aetherium.”

“So the biggest deposits of high grade aetherium….”

“Can only be find inside the dark aether nebula outside the dominion, yes.” She completes his thought and continues.

“Besides even if a world were to luckily find a giant deposit of aetherium, it still doesn’t solve the third problem, which is aether itself.”

“..aether?” The boy repeats, taking in all the information.

“Yes, aether. Even if you were to luckily design the right mechanism of the millions of years old technology, you still need aether to run it and the amount you need is astronomical.”

Twirling through the air, she carries on.

“For example, take the current barrier protecting the dominion from dark aether. The estimated aether requirement to initialize something of that scale simply can’t be produced today. even if all one hundred thousand planets combine their aether counts. That includes the living people and the nonliving aether stones.”

“But how can that be? Who made the barrier in the first place then?” The boy protests.

“The answer to that has been lost to history, the barrier has been active for millions of years now. For most civilizations it’s just a natural part of the universe at this point. Although some religions point to a powerful elder god who sacrificed their life creating the barrier to protect life against the darkness.”

“Great, of course there are religions here too.” He thinks inwardly.

“Currently, the most that can be done with celestia tech is to create a ring around a planet that can maintain a powerful ball of fiery aether that becomes the planet’s source of heat and warmth. Just like the one around this planet.” Arya drops another tidbit of craziness in a matter-of-fact tone.

“You mean the sun!” The boy almost shouts.

“…the sun? I can’t say…”

“I mean the ball of fire in the sky, warming this planet. That thing was artificially created?!” He asked once again in a surprised tone.

“Yes of course, almost all planets within the dominion have their own celesta tech that is the source of their light and warmth.”

“They have the technology to make their own personal stars!” He thinks inwardly.

“The celestia tech can be fatal for most darklings and they generally tend to dislike it, which is why the types of darkling you just saw in the footage hide underground when the celestia tech soars through the sky.”

“But I saw some bugs and darkling birds in the open sky when the celestia tech was out in full force. Why weren’t they affected?”

“Simply having black skin, fur, or feathers does not make the creature a darkling. That is just the beginning stage of the dark essence infection. If they keep ingesting dark essence then with time, they complete their transformation into a darkling. I know the particular birds you’re talking about; these birds die when they’re relatively young since after becoming a darkling they can no longer fly in the daylight.”

“So, the birds don’t survive long after becoming darklings because they can only hunt by flying around in the day and the ones flying about are not complete darklings” He summarizes her words.

“That is precisely what I meant, yes.” Arya agrees with her soft smiling expression.

It was too much.

The learning curve he was facing was very, very steep but the boy knew he would have to adapt quickly if he wanted to survive.

“I now understand the basic premise of everything. Time to find out how combat works.” He thinks to himself.

“So aether is the force that is used by soldiers and militaries to fight, correct?” He asks Arya.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And it is aether that all living things channel to boosts their strength and speed.”

“Yes, that is precisely the case.” She agrees.

“How does it work and why are there different colors of aether?”

This time it is that Arya takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. He even thought he saw a twitch in her calm and gentle expression.

“That is a tall order to explain lord Alfzaar.” She tells him.

“It’s ok we have time.” He replies back.

“But we don’t have any time, I don’t know if you’ve noticed lord Alfzaar but you were basically out for more than 15 hours. It’s night time again, the darkling that was at the entrance before is going to return any minute now.”

It almost sounded like she was complaining.

“All the more reason to learn about this quickly, you’d rather I face the darklings without knowing anything?” The boy tries to emotionally blackmail her while wondering if it was possible to do so to an AGI.

It surprisingly works.

“That….is a valid point, yes.” She agrees reluctantly before resuming her explanation.

“Alright so I mentioned that all living beings in the dominium have evolved specific biological organs to channel and manipulate aether right?”

“Yes, you did.”

“The actual name for the biological system is the Stratus system.”

“Stratus…..” the boy repeats after her.

“Yes, so just like how you have a system of blood vessels that transport blood and a nervous system that sends nerve impulses. The stratus system absorbs, channels, and manifests aether around an organism’s body. All living beings whether sentient or non-sentient, have this system inside them and use it for their daily purposes.”

‘The stratus system huh.”

“Yes.” Arya continues.

“And just like how the heart is the center piece of the blood vessels and the brain is the center piece of the nervous system. The center piece of the stratus system is the stratus core, found right next to the heart. That is the part that contains the person or animal’s entire aether count.”

Waving her arms, Arya materializes a holographic image of the stratus system.

It was an intricate system of vein like vessels that formed a complex network encompassing the entire body. At the center of the complicated web like structure was a circular organ.

Arya waves her hand and the hologram zooms in on the round organ.

Pointing at the stratus core she explains.

“Needless to say, not every core is the same and contains the same amount of aether even within identical species. The amount of aether that every core contains is heavily dependent on external circumstances. For example, out of two similar animal species one is a successful hunter, and the other is not. Over the course of their lives, the successful hunter kills more prey compared to the other non-successful hunter. Since it has killed more prey its stratus core will have a higher level than the non-successful hunter.”

“Level?” The boy asks, tilting his head.

Arya simply sighs at the question but presses on.

“A stratus core has levels, or spacings inside. By absorbing enough experia you can fill these levels inside the core. When a level is filled completely, the person’s overall aether count increases.”

“Does this happen when a person kills something, like an animal perhaps?” he asks, picturing the white mist seeping out of the rats he had disposed.

“Yes, it does.” Arya nods.

"If an aether-charged killing blow is landed on a living organism, the aether of the victor interacts with the aether of the dying being. When that living organism dies, its stratus core releases all its accumulated aether, and some of that abandoned aether flows into the person or animal that delivered the fatal blow since that was the last stratus core it had interacted with."

“That makes sense.” The boy thinks, remembering all the floating white wisps rushing to absorb into his skin.

“Just as the spectrum of light consists of different wavelengths, aether shares a similar characteristic. The stratus core enhances the body's capabilities by allocating different wavelengths of aether for various functions. It can utilize a part of aether to enhance strength, known as 'atayk aether,' or it can deploy another part of aether for defensive purposes, referred to as 'defward aether.’”

“So, the red aether is called atayk.” The boy says, verbally connecting the dots.

However, hearing his words Arya furrows her holographic brows.

“I do not understand lord Alfzaar, why do you keep bringing up colors?”

“..because isn’t that the color of the atayk aether?” The boy asks, being just as confused as she is.

She stares at him for what seems like a minute before answering.

“No one can tell the color of aether because no one can see aether. In fact, in my entire database there hasn’t been a single person I history that has been able to visually see aether, let alone tell its color.”

Hearing her response, the boy grows quiet as he reexamines what had happened during his fights with the rats.

“Of course! that’s why none of the rats were able to tell what I was going to do while to me it seemed like they were telegraphing their every move.”

That part of the puzzle clicked into place as he realized only he could visibly see the aether coursing through the bodies of others.

“Uhm lord Alfzaar?” Arya was looking at him with a concerned expression.

“Hmm no it’s fine. Forget what I was saying about the colors. Tell me how many different ways can the stratus core manifest aether?”

At this question Arya materialized a holographic chart that contained all the different parts of aether along with their respective terms and explanations.

“You can use your hands to move or zoom in to the chart.” She explains.

“Thanks, I will.”

Through his hand gestures he motions to the holographic chart to come over to him, not expecting it to work.

But it actually does work and the chart floats closer to him.

“Those Apple phones ain’t got nothing on this tech.”

Looking over the chart, he notices that the stratus core could surprisingly divide the aether into eight different parts.

 

 

Although the words on the chart sounded foreign in his ears, he understood their meaning clearly.

They were terms that he had seen on earth  before.

“These…..are like parameters…from a video game!”

He faintly remembered playing RPG games with his little brother back on earth that had similar parameters.

Growing up he played such games because they were more challenging than conventional games.

Recognizing the similarity between the mechanics of the stratus core and RPG games from earth, everything clicked into place in his mind.

“When an organism dies the aether released from its core is called experia and….!” Arya’s explanation is interrupted by the boy.

“Experia is what flows into the body and gives you strength.” This time he finishes her sentence.

“Exactly, yes. The experia raises the level of the stratus core in an organism’s body, increasing the total volume of aether that the core can contain.”

“Because it’s literally exp. You get enough exp and you level up. The whole system resembles a rpg game. Even how they measure the aether is exactly like a game! I get it now.” The boy thinks inwardly.

This makes things a lot easier.

He finally understands how he has to survive in this universe.

He did not now how the stratus core exactly leveled up but that knowledge was unnecessary for now.

“Arya, what is the highest level a stratus core can go to.”

“Hmm that information is not exactly clear as no one has actually ever been able to hit a limit on this world or the surrounding planets.”

“So its not that easy to raise your level.”

“No, of course not. In order to raise the stratus core level, you have to fight and kill a being that either has a higher stratus level than you or is at least the same level. You can also raise your stratus level by fighting something that is immediately lower than you in level but then you have to defeat a lot of such beings. Anything too far below will barely have any impact.” She explains.

“Like your typical rpg.” He thinks inwardly.

Once he made the connection between this universe’s system and rpg mechanics he could make some estimations about life inside the dominion.

He also understood what had happened to his own body during the fight with the rats. His body had grown stronger at a breakneck pace. Which meant….

“Arya, can you show me my stratus core level.”

“Yes, no problem. Usually, the results take some time to manifest but your stratus core has been under analyses of the nano tech inside this facility since the time you stepped inside. It has increased remarkably.” She replies with her usual smiling composure.

“And I never even knew, scary.” The boy thinks.

Another holographic screen materializes in front of him, containing all his information.

 

“So, this is my Stratus” The boy remarks.

“Like I thought, its increased”

“Yes, it’s a pretty powerful stratus overall. As expected from lord Alfzaar.” Arya adds before continuing.

“As you can see your Attacking and defensive aether are off the charts compared to the rest of the values…!”

“Because of my sword and suit, I get it. What is that stratus mutation?”

As Arya opens her mouth to explain her voice is muffled by a sudden blare of alarm that reverberates throughout the facility.

The room’s soft white light is replaced by a flashing red one, signaling approaching danger.

“Uh oh, that huntress darkling is back and she is not alone.” Arya states, her tone growing cautious.

With a wave of an arm, she summons a holographic display that shows the outside of the facility.

Although the footage on the display was dark, the boy could make out several moving and shuffling dark blobs.

“The scanner is showing hundreds of darklings converging at the entrance, what’s happening!?” Her expression had clearly changed to alarm once she saw the numbers.

“They can’t enter inside the facility though. Right?” He asks her.

“No, they can. These are different types of darklings, they’re much smaller than the hunter class darklings so they’ll be able to enter with no problem. Many of them are already inside and are gathering at the second gate as we speak.”

“Will they be able to reach all the way inside?” He asks calmly.

There is a long pause before Arya answers.

“…..Yes they will. They’re starting to attack the second gate after the entrance, its going to take them a lot longer to tear through the gates than the huntress but they will have enough time to reach here.”

“I see.” The boy replies, standing up from his chair and walking toward the door.

“What are you doing lord Alfzaar?” She asks him.

“Hm? Isn’t it obvious? Coming up with a plan to take care of them.” He answers calmly as he leaves the door.