《The Aether Universe》Chapter 16
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Waking up the next morning, Tai did his usual morning routine, shower, then get dressed for breakfast. Lifting up his sweatpants, he saw that his leg was about halfway done healing and would probably finish sometime today.
Leaving his apartment, Tai went to his favorite place to eat breakfast. The name was in some other language, but the system translated it for him and it read, 'Shin's Ramen Shop.'
When Tai first entered the shop, he quickly became a regular as their food was just too good. He would regularly eat pounds and pounds of food as that was one of the problems with getting more strength and endurance, your appetite grew, and not by a little, it grew a lot.
Tai, who would usually be fine with one big bowl of ramen, now eats about 10 per day. It might not be healthy, but he didn't care. The ramen tasted good, and he felt good.
"Morning, Tai," Shin, the owner, and was also the chef said.
"Morning," Tai replied, sitting down at the counter.
"The usual?"
Tai nodded as he placed his walking stick down, making it vanish. He closed his eyes as he stuck out his nose, smelling the aroma of the ramen that Shin was cooking.
Shin was one of the few people in the city that had their own business, and it had become quite successful as there were 10 people in the shop, not including Tai, and Shin.
After a few minutes, Shin had finished making 10 ramen bowls and placed them in front of Tai one by one. The regulars at the shop were used to this as they had seen Tai order and eat 10 ramen bowls in a relatively fast time, but the new people had their eyes wide open with thoughts going through their head like, 'How the hell is he going to eat that?'
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Tai smiled as he licked his lips and took a pair of chopsticks on the counter. "Thank you very much."
He said before digging into his food and stuffing his mouth with ramen. "Hey, Shin."
"Yeah?"
"Do you know if there's a way to find your family members? I don't even know if that's possible since the planet is bigger than Jupiter now, right?" Now that Tai had dealt with his leg situation, he now wanted to find his family and make sure they were safe.
"Sorry, Tai, but I don't know. Maybe you could ask Terek, or any of the UEE soldiers. They could probably help you."
"Tsk." Tai continued eating his ramen, finishing 10 bowls in just under 20 minutes.
"Ahhh. Well, then I'll be going. Thanks for the food," Tai said, standing up and heading out of the shop.
"No problem, have a good one."
Following Shin's advice, Tai went to the UEE building in the middle of the city and went to the counter where a woman in a UEE uniform was sitting. "Hello. I'm just wondering if there's a way to find my family members?"
The woman smiled at him. "Yup, there is. You can send them a message via the Aether Network."
"And how do I do that?" Tai asked.
"You'll need to get yourself an Aether Communicator. Think of it like a phone from Earth, but only for communicating. They usually cost 1,000 AC, but if you join the UEE, we'll provide you one free of charge," the woman answered.
"No thanks, but thanks for answering my question. Have a good one." With the new information he got, Tai left the building to get himself an Aether Communicator.
Tai wasn't a very 'technical' person, but he does know one shop that sells devices as he passed by it once when looking for food and if he remembered correctly, it had quite a few customers.
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Arriving at the shop, Tai noticed that there were a few people inside, all looking at guns to buy. Tai would never use guns as they ran out of ammo, and were expensive to repair, but he wasn't here for guns.
This store was owned by the system, and didn't have any human employees which he didn't mind.
"Good morning, customer. What can I get you?" a robot attendant asked him.
"Aether Communicator, please," Tai replied.
Hearing what he needed, the robot attendant flew through the air, grabbing the communicator at a nearby shelf. The communicator looked weird and didn't look like what he imagined. It was like a chip for a computer and Tai wondered how he was going to use this to contact people.
"Here you go, customer. That'll be 1,000 AC."
During his time in the city, Tai had gotten himself an Aether Card which was a debit card for Aether and it was way more practical than carrying AC around with the added benefit of only being useable by its owner.
Tai held up his card to which the robot scanned taking 1,000 AC from his account. "Have a good day, customer."
Tai grabbed the communicator and received a notification the moment his fingers touched it.
Would you like to install the Aether Communicator upgrade?
YES NO
Pressing yes, another notification showed up as the chip that he had bought disappeared into thin air.
Aether Communicator installed
"How do I use this?" Tai asked himself.
Responding to his question, another notification showed up.
To use the Aether Communicator, just think of using it and a menu will show up
Tai did as the system told him and thought of using the communicator, bringing up a menu in front of him.
Aether Communicator Messages
Contacts
Tai pressed the messages option as he wanted to send a message. When he pressed it, he was shown another menu, this time showing all of his messages which was empty, and a button that let him compose his message.
Composing a message, a menu showed up asking him to input his message and who to send it to. The person he was going to send the message to was easy. His mother, and his sister. Thankfully, there weren't no problems. Now it was time for the message.
Tai wrote a quick and short message asking if they were safe and where they were. When he sent the message, Tai wondered how they were going to receive the message and reply back if they didn't have a communicator, but the system calmed him down, answering his question.
If the recipient of the message doesn't have an Aether Communicator, a robot drone will be sent to them to deliver a message and reply back
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