Chapter 6

Chapter 6

A new day. Amelia stirred as she slowly opened her eyes, hoping for a bountiful morning. But the first thing she saw was two big eyes staring intensely at her. If her survival instinct hadn’t kicked in, a loud shriek would have echoed through the void. Amelia scrambled to get up, and when she finally saw who those eyes belonged to, she exclaimed, “Storm!”“Don’t scare me like that again,” she said, her heart beating fiercely.

“Third day in this godforsaken place and upon waking up, I’m given a heart attack,” she grumbled as she fixed the blanket and pillow that had been tossed aside. Meanwhile, the culprit, Storm, acted innocent, tilting her head toward Amelia as she hovered near her shoulder.

“This thing is my companion… I’m not sure whether to call you cute or ugly. What a weird genetic mutation,” she continued to grumble.

As she finished cleaning up, she started to boil water for the day’s consumption and discovered a ‘gift’ left by Storm near the sprout. “Seriously?!” Defeated, she used the plastic wrap from a loaf of bread to pick it up. She paused for a moment and looked over the edge. “I don’t know if there was a bottom down there, or if some unlucky soul will receive Storm’s gift,” she said as she dropped the wrapped waste into the sea of clouds.

After making sure everything was as tidy as possible, she proceeded to train Storm. “Since I can’t gauge your Windblade skill yet—we’ll need some targets for that—we’re going to focus on your other skill: Dash,” Amelia said, tending to the wood stove. “Well, to be precise, gathering those Aether Stones is already a form of training. Why not let me see how far and how fast you can go, and how often you can use the skill?”

Amelia drafted a routine: she would toss a regular stone into the air, tasking Storm to catch a drifting Aether Stone before the regular stone hit the ground or before Amelia finished counting to ten. After an hour of training, Storm had gathered three Aether Stones. So far, the farthest she could go was fifteen meters, and the round trip took five seconds.