“So their return is imminent?” Rune asked as he observed Adreana who was hard at work inside a new 500 meters wide circle area.
“A week at best, 2 weeks at worst, they’re nearly out of the tier 3 forest zone,” Arik, standing next to him, answered.
“What will a single star dome look like? You really accepted dome right? It’s not a joke?”
“Our idea was shit, so we took yours and scrapped ours,” Arik said with a straight face.
“If I don’t need to know… Then I’m better off not knowing it, if you want to find me, I’m at the center of the mist dome,” having enough Arik-class interactions, he retreated to his personal heaven.
But Arik seemed to have seen through him as a slight smile appeared on his rapidly growing bearded face, “I’m coming too!”
“Ok, I’m resigned,” Rune instantly surrendered, “It’s been some time since we last discussed like that, did you listen to the last hit ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’?”
“Yeah, Cindi not only has a really festive mood around her, her voice is also really special,” matter-of-fact Arik commented back.
“Do you have any idea where to find someone similar to her? And when will the first AI core finally come online… I really want them to help me.”
“Not for a few years with what’s happening and how the IGS rushed some steps, but maybe around when airships…”
Discussing nothing was a specialty of Rune and Arik, and with nothing else to do until the park opened tomorrow, they entered the mist dome and played around with its effects.
…
The next day, all the Undecided except Nelo and Astryde were gathered for the official opening of their training park.
Already, some tens of curious people were gathered at the hastily put together entrance gate, a simple wooden arch with “Undecided Training Park” written on top of it. Gar and Utopia were there to discuss with them and shape a good atmosphere.
The decided money-making method was a monthly subscription of 1 000 000 EP for everyone interested in using the park, with the other main services like “dome making” having different pay rates depending on the chosen size.
To make even with their initial investment, they needed 2 000 users, plus or minus something depending on dome renting, which they didn’t really put much hope on in the short-term as only Adreana could do it and Nelo had an area already designed for him.
And it wasn’t even accounting for all the ideas some Undecided had, like Utopia wanting to make an obstacle course in a special cosmic mist dome, or Adreana wanting a special aggressive single star element dome to train at defending against permanent massive energy offensive.
Observing from within the mist dome, Rune and Arik made a stand of not going out until the situation cleared more.
As a few days had passed, Rune got three 10-hours intent-refining sessions and brought an average powerful sound wave traveling distance to under 3 meters.
It was still far from his complete 2nd stage “physical sense extinction by absorption” objective, but with only the time necessary being the obstacle, he really felt like a genius.
And that was comfortable.
“They’re opening…” Arik’s voice reached him and made him stop what he was doing.
“How much energy did you infuse in your voice to make it reach me? That’s 500,” Rune looked at the tree 10 meters away from him, where Arik was lounging on a high branch and infused 500 energy into his voice before talking.
“That’s 400,” Arik’s voice returned.
“300,” Rune continued, but this time Arik shook his head after seeing his lips move but no sound reached him.
‘I still have much to do, what if someone really infuses 10 000 energy into one sentence?’
And inevitably, after thinking about that, another subject automatically came up.
‘If someone from the guard unit tries it, then it’ll alarm everyone, and then we’ll have to hide, but if they make a floor-clear then…’
Thinking from the perspective of an infiltrator was so new that he only very recently started to put his mind into it and find some fun from it, and that fun was mainly derived from him thinking seriously about infiltrating the HQ.
‘They still aren’t there… Well, more time for me, won’t complain about that.’
With the terror unit not there yet, he continued on his intent refinement. It was only recently that he was able to tune himself on and off at will when it came to refining his intent cocktail, and that easiness only really came after he compared his intent as some sort of clockworkery.
Everything interweaved together, and different effects were produced. But not everything was single-purpose, he had the hour hand, the minute hand, the second hand…
He only had to keep his mind clear and continue developing what he could without affecting the rest, learning on the spot was common, remembering why he had done something was more common.
4 hours later, he received a message from Hosirha that they were arriving in under 5 minutes, so he stood up and took the main road to exit. On it, he passed by 2 people who were curiously observing the new environment.
The mist dome was prepared for guests and users alike, with roads and signs indicating where the exit was in anticipation for when he finalized his 3rd stage and everyone lost any external landmarks.
True to their words, they arrived at the entrance where Utopia and Gar were, and when Rune exited the mist dome, they paid the membership and entered.
Them being welcomed by Rune personally of course drew the attention of his friends, but they only observed from the side with slight smiles, thinking the asocial Rune made some other friends behind their back.
“Hello everyone, let’s go inside the mist dome, there, no one will be able to sneakily listen to us,” this was the first thing he said to them.
“Rune, I wasn’t there during your introduction and I’ve already been introduced but that doesn’t matter, I’m Rhia!” An azoran girl, a true girl, very short and young, blue hair, stained glass skin, introduced herself.
“Nice to meet you, if I didn’t already know someone around your age that can demolish me, I’d be surprised by your presence,” as he thought of Lounae, the behemoth path prospect, he truly smiled.
From when they separated, they never met again, only very sporadically did they exchange some messages. And she still looked to be burning with determination to further her path towards tier 5.
“Hu, I’m 14 years old? How can someone around my age demolish you?” She looked shocked, and for Rune it was enough to open him up, making him think about his even younger 2 little sisters.
“She’s a prospect I encountered during my adventures, Lounae Mera, official behemoth path prospect of the IGS, currently on the north expedition front, progressing through the erosion anomaly.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Oh…” This time it for sure wasn’t acting, as she directly used her eyes to type things and search the net for more info.
“I didn’t know she existed… How come I never heard of her…” Mumbling very slowly and carefully, she erased her presence from the ground and backed up to the back, next to Hosirha, who welcomed her naturally.
“Don’t be surprised by her bubbly personality, she’s been sheltered by her parents from young, and as they were IGS agents, they gave her all the tools she needed to live the life she wanted, that’s how she ended up here,” as they passed through the border of the mist dome, Arsen started to give tidbits of personal info.
“If I don’t have to worry about spiritual perception like the dome makes it appear, then my job will be a lot easier. But maybe it’s just above what my personal perception-intrusion capability stands… And I don’t think the guard unit will forget stealth,” Rei, the main actor, and neutralizer, said, his burning character from a few days ago was a lot more subdued.
“With an entire month to prepare, I think I can push it to the point where infused-energy voice cannot travel through it, I should also be able to hide your physical form, and depending on if I know what needs to be precisely hidden or blocked, as long as it’s not a living entity or physical objects, I can similarly prepare for it,” Rune started to talk about what his element could do, he had prepared this part before.
“Including internet signals? Is light included?” The bubbly Rhia asked from behind.
“It’s part of what I would need to prepare for beforehand, I have the signal blocking property, I just need to know precisely what I’ll need to block. And I didn’t try photon-based signals like lasers, but it should work too, just have to test.”
“Ok, I’ll bring all the special transmitters we know that are present there to our fake shop, when you have time, just come,” Arsen was charged with planning and seemed to have also gotten the “responsible one” role.
“No problem, it’ll just have to wait until I finish my 2nd stage intent refinement, so maximum a few weeks if things seriously go wrong,” Rune finished saying that before he looked at Rei, “Maybe come to check the mist dome once a week Rei, it’ll give you time to get used to acting in it.”
“You can’t make a temporary cover?” He asked back.
“It’s not my path, maybe in the future I’ll take a specialization to be able to cover someone else in my energy, but even then I’d take the compressed energy cover, not the elemental cover.”
“Tch!”
“Hehe, the world doesn’t revolve around you Rei, and if he didn’t join our unit, I would have just been the one to accompany you inside, and you’d then have to cover for both of us by yourself, so be happy,” Arsen commented.
“Is Rei a spiritual stealth user? How is he going to neutralize Mr. Finley when we got to him? Spiritual pulse? Ether soul shock?”
“I’m not a p*ssy spiritual power specialized! I use skill, true skill. As long as you can cover explosion sound, then my only problem will be eliminated and Mr. Finley will have no choice but to have his hope crushed that the guard unit can save him,” burning-will Rei finally appeared again.
“Then how are you hiding yourself? Did you just answer the neutralization part but forgot about the spiritual stealth part?” But Rune wasn’t someone to be swept by someone else's rhythm.
“Spiritual stealth is a skill!”
“Well, let me tell you something, my perception specialty is specialized in detecting when something is wrong, so if you visit the training park again and try to go undetected, I’ll be able to tell you if you’re above my still-untrained perception intrusion ability…” Not even going in a confrontational mood, Rune calmly answered.
And that calmed Rei, “We’ll see then…”
After advancing rapidly, they reached around 100 meters in, where they stopped after understanding that in a practical case, the cosmic element he used would be just as strong as it was at this depth.
“Then let me perform some tests with my sensor specialization,” Miki, the furry-eared guy took command from there, “Get away from me, separate yourself regularly, speak normally, then infuse your voice, and finally, do strange things, try to hit the air and provoke big movement, fly upward rapidly, do the same thing but from behind a tree, be weird.”
‘With pleasure…’
Knowing his element’s properties the best, Rune’s eyes let through a mischievous glint.
And it looked like he wasn’t the only one, with Rei metaphorically burning even more than before.
In an instant, everyone vanished in the mist, each with their own idea of what needed to be done.
‘Wait…’
But Rune's mind sometimes worked strangely, and something suddenly occurred to him.
‘Rhia is 14 years old now, so she was around 8 when the Ether Law woke up? And Lounae was probably… 7?! Oh, Ether, I’ll just ask her later, it seems like a crispy story.’
And that was it, after this delayed deduction took place, he focused back on his “Scare Miki” plan.
Releasing more cosmic mist, he filled his body-shaped energy form with it, then he did the same with his clothes and aura, and then he rotated around the initial position of Miki and started to close in.
Some recollection took place as he did that, it was when he had to walk down the stairs of his home, and his dad was a very light sleeper… So he became an expert at finding the weak points of where he walked and always remaining light on his feet.
After going down the behemoth path, and developing a prolonged offensive fighting style, he put a lot less importance on remaining silent, perception spheres existed anyway.
Creeping as silently as he could, he put his perception of what was happening outside of the dome out of his mind, it wouldn’t help him.
He knew that with the current cosmic mist iteration, which was the one he used and that was in the mist dome, the best sense with a normal sense makeup was the sight.
‘Should I act with bias and consider that with furry ears, he’s specialized in sounds? Or maybe he’s going with smells? But that one is too useless in too many situations, so it’s probably not that. Or is it a single mastery slot dedicated to it?’
Like slipping right back into a familiar mold he knew too much, he adopted the right mindset a few seconds after he started to consider the goal he was striving for. This mindset was the one he developed through his adventures.
Only now did his mind starts to fill with different insights he never considered, the mist movements, the natural winds passing through, from his theoretical analysis, those points of course existed.
Nonetheless, now that he was acting on them…
“50…”
Vaguely hearing the others infusing their shouts with enough energy to make it reach beyond the 10 meters sight limit made a bit of an impression on him.
‘I can use this element to surprise others, but others can also surprise me if they use it…’
Surprising a sensor specialized, or sensory senses specialized, but that was too weird to say that, was a very hard challenge, but the situation wasn’t serious, so he just continued advancing.
The advantage he wanted to use was the fact that Miki probably wasn’t yet used to a cosmic mist environment.
Taking another step, the very slight sound produced from stepping on grass was completely absorbed the moment it was produced.
Same for the vibrations produced, be it the air movement or the ground’s vibration, the basic cosmic mist absorbed them, and the 2nd stage intent he was preparing had started to reinforce those aspects.
As he was prepared to take the next step, he suddenly stopped moving.
Someone had hugged his neck from behind.
“Got you Rune.”
Burning-will Rei had sneaked up on him and reached him without Rune ever suspecting it.
“Sigh… Why didn’t I think about it… Of course, I’m not the only mischievous person in the world…”
“Hehehe!”
Like friends that had known each other for years, one showed all the misery of the world on his slumped shoulder and the other celebrated by laughing loudly openly.
It was clear that Rei didn’t seem to have any other desire to sneak on someone else.
From the direction of the center, one of the tree’s branches suddenly swayed a little and Miki appeared from within, observing them for a few seconds before hiding himself once again and continuing to take notes about the cosmic mist.
3 people were at least helping him, unlike the newcomer Rune and the trouble-maker Rei.
…
“Where did you make new friends like these, Rune?” Gar asked from the side after Rune escorted a group of 5 out of the training park.
“Probably restaurants! Do you think he’s able to accost people in the street?” Utopia the second guard also wanted to have his curiosity satiated.
“How to say that…” Rune wanted to explain he joined the terror unit, but he couldn’t find the right words, “Do you remember the trouble-makers option you gave us Utopia?”
“Want to do it?” He smiled brightly and answered.
“He’s not finished, idiot,” Gar saved him.
“I should have joined you, but fate had decided otherwise,” remaining cryptic, he conveyed what he could in his own awkward way, “But I’ll make sure to defend your side and make everyone follow your plan because, in the end, there’s no restriction right?”
Utopia remained silent for 10 seconds, he seemed to have understood, “Is it because of your cosmic mist?”
“Sigh… Did I already tell you I’m too much of a genius?”
“What happened?” Perplexed, Gar asked but no one answered him, he was smart and would know that things had changed.
“Rune agreed to my plan, but he’ll do it on his own, that’s what happened.”
“Then I can ask him about the benefits, he’ll be so much more open than you,” Gar turned to Rune, rubbed his hands together, and smiled like a shop owner going to scam foreigners, “Is it big?”
What ensued was Rune paraphrasing everything Mr. Finley told him during his induction speech and Utopia laughing louder the more he tried to clearly explain to Gar he couldn’t tell him directly that “We’ll stay like flying butterflies” meant “There are no restrictions”.