Accepting the DELR directly, the meeting was finally turning into something Rune had already experienced before with Aleda.
“So, I’m certain I understood what you want your growth mastery to be, and while the simple and summarized version is completely impossible to make, once you add the correct restrictions, it immediately changes. But you’re underestimating the precision you need to have when you fuse all your effects. For example…”
In his view, 10 pictures of completely different landscapes appeared, included were the erosion anomaly white zone, the gravity anomaly mountain zone, an artistic representation of the Eclipse Arcadia, and even the hole tunnel.
“Your goal is to resist environmental effects with a process of adaptation. Clear, precise, adapted, good, very good even. You have excluded the possibility of gaining resistance to attacks from entities, but what do you mean by that? Do you want to resist the gravity anomaly but not the gravity I can generate with an element? Explain.”
In a few seconds, the meeting had returned to foreign territory, and he seemed to have gone even deeper.
“Hu… Energy? I’ll be able to adapt to ether-based effects but not energy-based ones?” Rune spouted the first thing he thought about, but before he could even say it was an answer with holes everywhere, Zophia overtook him.
“What about environments made hostile by the interventions of energy? The possibility remains that both the gravity anomaly and the erosion anomaly only exist due to the presence of a nest zone located at their center.”
“That’s a good question. One I can’t answer right now, and I’m not going to spout nonsense, I know I can’t answer.”
“Good. Now, are you aware of the bone region recently discovered?”
“Yes,” Rune didn’t add more than that.
“The environmental effect of the bone region is to integrate all the flesh and organs into the bones, but this doesn’t damage you in any way, it’s even reported to be a very unique and thrilling experience. Do you want your growth mastery to resist that effect too?”
“...” And once again, he was reduced to silence, before giving a reply that upsetted his understanding of his own growth mastery, “No…”
“Good,” and once again, she seemed to have plenty of ammo to use as she nodded and charged yet another bullet.
“Do you want to resist the natural ether stats restrictions some regions have?”
“No…”
“Good,” the same sequence repeated once again, and it wasn’t the end.
“Do you want to resist the natural pressure present naturally everywhere? Like the water pressure 100 kilometers below the sea level? Or the pressure of rocks 100 kilometers below the ground?”
“Probably yes…”
“Good.”
“Do you want to resist people who have region-dependent masteries, like someone with the ability to manipulate the neon white ether in the erosion anomaly?”
“Maybe? Let me think for a bit…”
But she didn’t agree as she kept saying, “You’ll think in a bit, just continue listening and keep your brain working.”
“Ok…” Rune could only meekly answer, she was the pro here, and he was the one needing help. A situation he wasn’t unknown to.
“Do you want to resist…”
…
The session of question-answer went on for 5 more minutes, with it ending in a state where one party didn’t seem to care anymore, and one party went deep into thought.
‘How could I have missed all that? How could everything become so confusing? Is there even a solution?’
Thoughts after thoughts swirled about, making Rune unaware of the passing time, he was trying to resolve a problem where his knowledge couldn’t bring him far.
Opening his growth mastery document, he wanted to write down everything she just said and mull over them later.
“Here, I already organized everything,” Zophia interrupted him and sent a file. Ether knows how she knew he was preparing to note things down.
And then he received a file with all the questions and problems that had been brought up.
‘Natural phenomenon replication by energy, energy anomaly, inoffensive effects, ether stats restriction, natural pressure, environment manipulation…’
“Sigh…” Reading this, Rune could only sigh in amazement, ultimately, it had only been a few hours since he sent his form, and the person before him had come up with those areas to precise, “Thank you, should I leave now, or…?”
Not even bothering to look at him, she was probably working with her connected lenses as she answered him, “Creating a growth mastery is too personal, it’s not complex, it’s not luck-based, it’s just a long process… And you’ll not be the first one to give up after 10 failures.”
“...” It had been a long time since he was made speechless so many times in such a short period, and it made a somewhat bitter taste appear in his mouth.
“If you succeed, use the contact information in the guide to report it, we’ll meet again, you can leave now, I’ll not see you off.”
Standing up, Rune could only say one thing, “Goodbye, and thank you again. I’ll make sure to report once I succeed.”
He didn’t bother analyzing her face as he left by the door, closing it behind him.
…
Back at the training park, Rune wasn’t in the mood to work on anything, he felt like a kid who had made a big mistake and was lectured for 10 minutes straight.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t one to stay miserable long and decided to go through an entire day of entertainment to make this downtime end at the fastest speed.
It had been a long time since he had done something like that so his list of “to-watch things” had grown to unimaginable proportion, for his greatest pleasure.
He also considered sleeping or making a trip to the Dream, but he didn’t feel like it. From his perspective, exploring the Dream didn’t seem like a leisure activity.
‘If I had speakers and a big screen, it would be an exact copy of my room, but I can do with connected lenses considering I don’t want to make another roundtrip to the capital.’
Finding a nice isolated place in the second mist dome, the one without much of the 2nd stage intent, he went to execute a 20-hour long seclusion.
During all of it, he forced himself to stop thinking about all the new problems that appeared, he forgot about what was happening, and just focused on being himself.
He got back into the mold of the guy who just graduated with an explorer engineer’s degree, and then went on a 1-year break.
No worries, no deadline, no need to adhere to the rules of society, a day could be 10 hours long if he decided or if he felt tired, and he could at any moment decide to eat something.
15 hours in and he felt fully rejuvenated, but as he was watching a 24-episode long anime, he continued for an additional 5 hours.
When he came out, he was ready to tackle the big work and clear all his confusion, so he opened the file with all the problems associated with his idea of his growth mastery, and went on to search each subject deeper than before.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
And he did that even when he already had an answer in his mind.
‘The problem is how to differentiate between energy released directly and energy left alone, and seen from this perspective, then people who have the ability to manipulate the neon white ether are sort of “reactivating” it. The best answer is to use a concept like intentional harm, opposed to untargeted and unintended harm.’
Establishing his framework of rules, he calmly found possible solutions while not expecting them to work. Yet, what he wanted weren’t answers, he wanted to first have a clear and precise objective to work towards.
‘Resisting ether stats restrictions is an obvious no, few people even touch on resisting those restrictions because they want to according to the guide. It’s better to accept them as universal environmental effects, the highest peak that I mustn’t reach for in fear of burning myself.’
From points to points, he wrote down the issued verdict, and sometimes verdicts.
‘If it’s completely inoffensive, then I have no reason to block it. But there is a possible conceptual mix as gravity isn’t harmful by itself before a certain threshold is reached, and I want to resist this gravity. Though, I think there is a link with a certain concept I can use…’
A concept he found after he thought a bit outside the box.
‘The natural phenomenons, the true natural phenomenons like water pressure or heat, I can link those to gravity with one concept… The concept of being restricted, the bone region bone transformation doesn’t restrict me, gravity does.’
Although simplistic, Rune took a first step in establishing the unexplored and undefined boundaries of his growth mastery.
‘And then I must have the corresponding effects. With those simple boundaries, I still need a growth-related effect, but I also need another one related to… Recognizing I’m dealing with untargeted and unintended harm?’
“Something like a ‘one with nature' sort of effect? With cohesion?” Mumbling to himself, he hesitated a bit before ultimately writing it down, it wasn’t time to be a perfectionist, he would remember the associated reasoning as long as he read it again.
Then, departing from those hazy boundaries, he set off again in search of better-defined concepts and possible realities and facts grounded within the Ether Law that corresponded to what he wanted.
‘Restriction is a good concept, I just need to add the physical limitation to it, I don’t care if my spirit is- No, of course, I would care, then I can’t go on the only-physical-restriction concept. Or can I? My cosmic mist’s goal is to confuse myself and others, and if I exclude all the spiritual and weird environ-’
“How am I?”
From next to him, the voice of a familiar little girl prospect pulled him out of his contemplation.
Once he stopped fully dedicating his attention to finding answers, he found Lounae standing next to him in a completely different style than usual.
She had already switched her vestimentary style weeks ago, but it was the first time Rune was seeing her outfitted completely with energy accessories everywhere as he had taught her.
He had shown her all the basics like energy shaping, color creation, and on/off mode before leaving her to explore it by herself, and now she was showing something close to his own level.
From the colors he had shown her, the color she had decided for herself turned out to be the sunset warm gold, a color with an affinity towards a calming and relaxing intent, and she used it to color her casual clothes, a simple close-fitting shirt, shorts, and a pair of shoes.
She also imitated the way he did faint energy tattoo lines, ending not only in a colored iris and a circle on her sclera but also in energy threads coloring a part of her blue hair with orange-gold shades.
“Mmh… I think you’ll be able to attract the attention of a lot of people with that, as long as you don’t care about the gaze of others, then you found your first social attire, maybe add simple lines to your clothes?” Judging a work of art was hard, but Rune tried his best to transcribe what passed through his mind.
“Are there darker colors with the same artificial intent?”
“Well, let me search for a bit, or try to find something interesting yourself? Here, have my artificial color file. I didn’t organize it to be read by others but it’s still not gibberish-level, so have a go, it’ll be a good distraction and show you all the choices.”
“Ok,” when a typical “himself” answer came out of her mouth, Rune got momentarily immobile, was it what his parents had become used to dealing with?
“Should I start to call you little sister? You’ll be my third one if you accept.”
“Eldest or youngest?” Completely unexpectedly, she replied seriously.
“Youngest by one or two years, they were 9 years old when the Ether Law awoke.”
“Ok,” she accepted.
“Sigh… What wouldn’t I do for my little sister then… Come here, I’ll guide you to deciphering this mess, I’ll even advise you if you call me big brother!”
This sudden situation really brightened his day, he didn’t want to go back to finding growth mastery’s answers, it was time for a bit of family activity!
…
Gaining an impromptu little sister on that day, one stronger than himself by a large margin, Rune once again dived into the complex field of growth mastery’s boundaries-making without any misgiving.
Being reminded that his life now was made of a succession of mostly unimaginable events less than 10 years ago motivated him to look forward. He also became a bit more aware of what a lifespan of several millennia implied.
‘Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. I don’t know if I can do the former, but for the latter… I can at least try. There is no finish line after all, and even if there was one, it’s never too late to cross it.’
He was the one who decided to see through to the end this growth mastery, he also decided to make his exploration immortal path a reality, so he would make it.
‘And if I add the unrestrained effect, in addition to adaptation, isolation, and rejection, then I got the perfect 4 as advised in the guide.’
From hazy boundaries to undefined concepts, then to more defined concepts and possible effects, and finally to effects that completely corresponded to everything he defined.
‘Adaptation for the core of the growth mastery, unrestrained for physical and spiritual restrictions, then the scope is reduced by rejection, where I reject adaptation to something belonging to someone, which is re-countered by isolation who forcefully include harmful untargeted and unintended environmental effects.’
Starting with a first theoretically working model, he kept going.
‘This framework looks good, now I need to make links everywhere, more specific way to adapt, larger scope for being unrestrained, think of more examples of rejecting cases I don’t want, and specify specific cases that correspond to the first unrestrained filter but didn’t pass the second for some reason but should still be included…’
…
3 days later, Rune judged his framework to be… Temporarily finished.
‘It won’t work on the first try, but before I can even begin all that, I need to start working on myself… Or more precisely, my subconscious.’
His end goal and the process to reach it were mapped, now, he only had to put into practice the theory he had made.
‘And it all starts with practicing G-Introspection. And that doesn’t look good at all.’
“That’s why,” he stood up from his chair, got all his note documents closed, picked up everything, finished his glass, “I’m reporting it to later! Intent tinkering first!”
On those wise words, he changed the music playing to a more fantastical fantasy mix and casually walked to the mist dome, his place of reclusion.
‘Chaos interference stage, I’m coming! World, I give you a few weeks to impress me when I’m getting out!’
…
Inevitably, a few days after Rune entered the mist dome, the true tournament deciding who got to integrate the Abnormals came to an end.
Fights worthy of entering the history books took place, unsuspicious and unexpected dark horses proved themselves by unveiling the fact that they reached beyond, sweeping through highly ranked contenders.
By far, the tier 4 category was the most violent and spectated category of all the tournaments.
Already known beyond contenders like Samurai Heart, Fairy Zero, or Psycho Addict earned their place in the top 12 positions after having demonstrated their might, but to the surprise of everyone, they only made up the top 4.
The ultimate position of the true tournament’s winner, having won against Samurai Heart in a final showdown, was given to an entity named Golden Dust, a male azoran, with an ending proving he didn’t only reach beyond once, but twice.
After the true tournament ended, it wasn’t the end of the event yet even though the peak had passed, because the freed place was immediately occupied by another tournament lots of people similarly expected.
The top 100 of the music competition, who didn’t yet determine who was first, started a battle that made the spectating crowd and the netizen army more explosive and volatile than the true tournament had.
It seemed that the culture department and the companies linked to this part of the culture all predicted this would happen as they all started to aggressively advertise different music groups and open the recruitment for complete beginners.
And with one part of the culture domain being put forward like that, the rest soon followed along as the food, art, and entertainment industry similarly opened their doors wider than before to hopeful and dreamy people.
In 3 days, the music competition ended with a final explosive performance by the acclaimed winner, a music group led by an individual named Alice Cooper, an ancient rock legend rejuvenated through the Ether Law.
Amidst the ruckus provoked by the music competition ending, all the competitions that only selected up to their top 100 took the stage, vying against each other to bring more attention to their respective field, with yet more companies and sometimes even small restaurants launching their own advertisement campaign.
In parallel to that, for the first time, a part of the Cell’s inner workings was unveiled as one of its public cells, or branches, the civil protection cell, made its appearance in the area surrounding the main stage.
Also at that time, the net was set ablaze as the first cases of open assault on patrollers and agents of the civil protection cell and the government doing nothing but hinting that it was completely normal, took place with video proofs.
However, the truth quickly came to light when prospects actively involved themselves, capturing some assailants and interrogating them, ending in videos of people admitting to following the orders of the civil chaos cell as members of the civil unrest unit.
But no matter how strange the situation seemed, the IGS didn't answer, and some weird-sounding explanations like the existence of an unstoppable disaster not that far away weren’t accepted.
It was in this new climate that Rune ended a whole week of seclusion from the world by reaching the 4th stage intent that made him feel so confused as to where he was, that it turned him into someone who needed to find the pre-created paths to exit the mist dome.