Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 171: Book 3: Chapter 25: Energy From A Lizard

Read chapter 171 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 3: Chapter 25: Energy From A Lizard Chapter 25: Energy From a Lizard The ground quaked in low tremors as the earth aether poured around Tom-Tom, thick and heavy like clay being kneaded by invisible hands. Pebbles rattled across the dirt, roots and vines writhed free from the soil. The little kobold was on his knees, chest heaving, his wide eyes blazing green and gold as the power crashed through him. “Gods above,” Devon whispered. “He’s really… he’s actually…” “Adept,” Allie finished, amused despite herself. Garret let out a wild whoop, pounding his fist into his shield. “That’s my boy, Tom-Tom! Show the mountain who’s boss!” Even Henry, usually as stony as the cliffs they’d climbed, gave a nod, his mouth curving in what might have been the ghost of a smile. “The little one stands taller than he looks.” Then something changed. Alex watched as the dense ochre swirl of earth aether around the kobold shuddered, faltered, and above Tom-Tom’s head, a glow began to bloom. Golden and radiant, nothing like the elemental power from below the ground. It gathered in slow streams, a mist coiling downward like strands of sunlight woven into air. Alex froze. He’d seen this once before, with Holly. That golden cloud that had crowned her when she pushed through her transformation. He’d thought it a fluke back then, an oddity. But here it was again. Obby didn’t whisper in his head this time, he screamed. “ Gather it! Now, before it disperses! Meatboy, do not waste this chance again! ” Alex hesitated, watching the golden aether condense over Tom-Tom like a blessing, dripping slowly into him. Was it right to take from it? Did he even understand what it was? “ DO IT! ” Obby thundered, his tone filled with apparent desperation. “ It’s important! More important than anything else you’ve stolen from this cursed world! Take it before it’s gone! ” The shouting in his mind shook Alex’s concentration. Just like last time, Obby wasn’t just insistent, he was frantic, with rage boiling in the edges of his tone like a man screaming at a fool who wouldn’t move from a collapsing bridge. “Dammit,” Alex hissed under his breath. He stretched his awareness out, reaching with the faintest touch of his bodygate. Just a thread, just a tether to see if he could catch it, and the golden aether answered him . It was only a tiny bit, a small fragment of a slice of the golden misty power, but even that tiny amount was enough. Once it touched his bodygate, it poured through him like a flood breaking a dam. And the moment it entered, the world split open. A thousand voices thundered in unison, speaking not words, but harmonics of light and sound so pure they seared straight into his soul. His Soulspace convulsed, every shard of his Mage Core blazing with reflection of that golden brilliance which invaded it. He was no longer kneeling by the mountain door, no longer standing among his friends, he was everywhere. He felt his veins become rivers of sunlight. His marrow, freshly infused with wyrm-poison, sang as the golden current bathed it, tempered and purified it without erasing its venom. His bones glowed in his mind’s eye, wrapped in twin strands of gold fire. His soulspace mended, the cracks sealing shut, the scorch marks from the dragonic fight wiped away, the foundation—which bore acidic holes—made clean and new. The energy revitalized him in a way he didn’t think possible. And above all, he felt seen, watched. Not by Obby. Not by the squad. Not even by The System. By something else, something vast . Something that weighed him against a scale that stretched across eternity and back. Alex’s knees buckled, his breath ripped from his chest as his vision filled with golden script that wasn’t System text, but something older, written straight into the fabric of his soul. Inside his soulspace, he screamed as heaven itself broke inside his mind. Because what felt like a welcoming wash of purity and love, changed as the golden current turned on him. What had begun as radi