Silas Raven had barely left the room when Ether erupted into a silent, dry laugh—a rattling sound that never reached his bloodshot eyes. His stiff facial muscles, damaged by years of slave labor and nutritional deficiency, moved with difficulty, like a rusted machine attempting to function for the first time in centuries. He could feel the newly integrated Rank (B) energy pathways from Count Valerian hum with potential beneath his decaying, sallow skin.
"Watching my veins?" Ether muttered, rising slowly while ignoring the intense vertigo caused by the recent Talent Leaching. "The nobles of this world are all the same. They think power is merely the volume of ether they possess... they are like children admiring the size of a river without understanding the fluid dynamics that govern its flow. They do not realize that true power is not accumulation; it is 'Molecular Control'."
In his previous life of 500 years, Ether had not merely cultivated; he had dissected the very nature of energy itself. He saw ether not as a mystical, magical substance, but as a semi-intelligent, gaseous biological agent that acted on physical matter. With his newly plundered Rank (D) talent, he could now manipulate this agent with 30% greater efficiency. The "wasted heat" that was killing his nervous system before was now being converted into stable kinetic energy.
As Ether gathered his meager belongings—a few surgical tools synthesized from scrap metal and a pouch of dried, pungent herbs—to move to the West Wing as ordered by Silas, he was confronted in the narrow, torch-lit hallway. It was Julian, the youngest son of Count Valerian. Julian, a pampered teenager with Rank (C) talent, had always used Ether as a convenient punching bag to vent his frustrations, secure in the knowledge that a slave could not fight back.
"You filthy, low-born maggot!" Julian roared, lunging toward Ether from the shadows of the corridor. He was surrounded by a swirling, erratic blue aura of the "Rushing Water" phantom, a lower-tier combat phantom favored by arrogant nobles for its rapid, overwhelming force. "I heard what you did! You touched my father with your diseased hands! How dare you claim to 'save' him when the greatest academic physicians failed? You must have used some vile black magic to trick them!"
Julian's intent was clear: a devastating, bone-crushing blow that would shatter Ether's ribs—a quick "lesson" for the slave who dared to gain undeserved fame within the palace walls. It was an attack born of pure entitlement and ignorance.
In the past, Ether would have gritted his teeth, endured the pain, and harbored the grudge, biding his time. But today? Today, Ether possessed Rank (D) talent, and his energy channels were "primed," buzzing with the stolen essence of a Rank 3 cultivator.
At the moment of impact, Ether did not flinch, nor did he retreat. Instead of defending against the attack, he executed a precise maneuver based on Earth-based fluid dynamics: (The Principle of Osmotic Absorption).
When Julian's water-clad fist struck Ether's shoulder, expecting to smash through brittle bone, there was no collision. There was no explosion of energy. Instead, Julian's eyes widened in sudden, absolute panic. He felt his "Rushing Water" energy being pulled, not resisted. It was as if his entire ether reserves were being siphoned into a "black hole." Ether wasn't blocking the blow; he was "grounding" the kinetic energy, converting the hydraulic pressure into raw, chaotic ether that his hungry Rank 1 cells greedily absorbed.
"What... what are you doing?!" Julian screamed, his voice cracking with terror as he watched his aqua aura dissipate into harmless vapor, his hand stuck to Ether's shoulder as if glued by some unseen force.
Ether did not say a word. He slowly raised his own emaciated hand and grasped Julian's wrist. It wasn't a powerful, crushing grip; it was terrifyingly precise. With his thumb, Ether located and pressed down upon the "Primary Etheric Ganglion"—a crucial neural cluster in the hand known only to an expert surgeon. In that singular moment, Ether activated a microscopic burst of "Rust Phantom" energy, injecting it directly into Julian's nerve cluster.
"Listen closely, little one," Ether whispered, his voice as cold as the morgue slabs of his past life. "Cultivation isn't about raw power; it's about efficiency. The 'water' you are so proud of is merely unorganized liquid matter. If you attempt to touch me with your primitive specters again, I will not simply absorb the blow."
Ether pressed down harder on the ganglion, and Julian gasped as a paralyzing chill began to spread up his arm, turning his veins a sickly, oxidized grey.
"I will 'freeze' the ether within your channels," Ether continued, locking his gaze with Julian's terror-stricken eyes. "I will reverse the flow, causing hydraulic pressure to build within your arteries until they explode from the inside out. Do you want to know what it feels like to have your flesh turn to slush?"
Julian went completely pale. The blue in his eyes had retreated, replaced by a deep, primitive fear. He could feel the "Rust" energy gnawing at his nerves—an infection that defied his conventional understanding of energy. Ether's hand felt lifeless, like the hand of a corpse, but the latent power within it was overwhelming.
Ether released Julian's wrist, and the noble boy collapsed to the floor, not from physical pain, but from sheer psychological terror. Julian scrambled backward, his mind shattered by the cold realization that the "slave" he had tormented was now a monster capable of unparalleled biological horror.
"Rank 1 - Advanced Stage," Ether thought, ignoring the cowering boy on the floor and continuing on his way toward the luxurious West Wing. "Once I settle into my new quarters, I will need to plunder a true combat-ready phantom 'Essence.' The Rust Phantom is an excellent passive infection, but I need something faster, something that ravages the nervous system... perhaps a variant of 'Neuro-Toxin'."
He entered his new assigned chamber. It was vast, richly decorated, and featured a massive surgical table of black marble under an array of focused ether lamps. Ether gave a faint, haunting smile. "The Raven family thinks they've given me a reward for my services... in reality, they've just handed me a 'larger scalpel' with which to dissect their fragile kingdom."