Leaving the ether labs, he didn’t do any other detour to buy or eat something and arrived back at the Undecided Training Park an hour later.
And while he wished nothing had changed, the creation of a highway heading right towards the training park, the not-little flow of people using it, and the numerous mentions of the term “training park” explicitly told him things had… Changed.
When his perception touched the border of the park, the only thing he still recognized was the entrance gate. Everything else had been transformed.
The delimitation between the forest and the training park had been made clearer with a wooden wall having made its appearance. A few people were clearly being employed to regulate the entry, and there were multiple entries.
The wooden wall also wasn’t delimiting the piece of land they had at the start, one of 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers, it had been expanded to more than 10 kilometers, that was all Rune could see.
Domes he wouldn’t know how to describe were also present, it seemed that some secondary objectives had been completed as he could see at least 20 different ones from where he was.
As for the most important…
‘That’s a lot of people…’
The truly most important part.
‘Are we rich?’
Clearly, the highway had been created to pass by the training park. It was either a massive coincidence or someone was directly responsible for making arrangements for that to happen, and Rune knew on what to bet if he had to.
The fact that the highway continued even further and the presence of nothing besides the training park at least told him the situation hadn’t changed that much.
Thinking about a possible awkward situation, he covered himself in a layer of cosmic mist and entered the park.
Passing by the entrance gate, he wasn’t stopped by anyone or anything. With this non-hurdle passed, he then took his time to observe all the new domes, before he suddenly thought about something everyone had thought of doing before.
Searching for available networks, one called “UTPN” directly appeared, and he focused his vision on it. He recognized what the name meant the moment he saw it: “Undecided Training Park Network”.
The result was that he was redirected to an identification page, and a request to access the personal identity and the current location, to which he of course agreed.
A second of loading later, signs spawned everywhere indicating the names of every dome he set his vision on, and a map icon also became available.
‘This bunch of crazy maniacs really did it! It’s so freaking awesome!’
Using an internal network to map the park and in the future using just an AI core to manage everything was the clear answer all IGS citizens would give if they were asked what was the most optimized thing to do with this park.
All the Undecided also agreed that it was the best thing to do, so they started with setting up a simple network.
‘Golden Dust Dome? As in, Golden Dust, the guy who won the fight against Samurai Heart at the true tournament and gained first place? The guy who won against the genius who pushed his sword energy coating mastery to the beyond? The guy who has at least reached the beyond in his composite energy and his secondary weight manipulation?’
But not even did he look at another dome, he was shocked to his core once again.
‘Fairy Zero Ice Dome… Top 4 of the true tournament, beyond ice element. All her fans have advocated that if it had been a true fight, she would have demolished everyone. Not sure about their claims, but she’s for sure able to demolish me.’
And then he saw another name that, this time, it couldn’t be a mistake, it was a name that couldn’t be used for anything else but for the top 7 of the tier 4 true tournament, the guy who didn’t reach beyond but climbed to this place.
‘Melter Dome…’
Adding everything that he saw together, the huge number of people, the very clearly named domes, the highway passing just next to the entrance… Rune couldn’t help but make a pretty scandalous conclusion.
‘Am I a big shot of the training park industry now? Did we make the buzz? I’m part of the Undecided after all, so what belongs to me belongs to them, and what belongs to them… Belongs to me, yes, of course.’
Not taking this funny conclusion that seriously, he continued exploring the new park, reading the names of the domes, looking at the interactive map, observing that the size of the park was now 30 square kilometers, and when he looked at the map in more detail, he saw yet another thing that made him react.
‘Burnt Ends, Lyle’s, Maaemo, Azurmendi… Why are there restaurants belonging to my list on this map? Thinking about the truth makes me fear it.’
Reaching the living area according to the map, he was comforted to still find the central chaotic wooden chairs and tables area, the original one was still there and multiple others had been added further away, separated by streets of places to sleep, be alone, or order things.
‘And that’s clearly a purge area there. I don’t believe we started a mediation area or have authorized any religion to set itself up there.’
At the extremity of what his perception could see, the most silent gathering of people he had ever seen in his life was present. A clear wooden wall and probably network signs indicated it wasn’t an area for training or relaxing.
It was even sub-divided into 7 areas, probably according to the day the few hundreds of people currently using it had entered.
‘Well, it’s time to find a little corner with my own table and chair and start to read what happened during the last 6 months.’
Entering one of those areas with chaotic chairs and tables, he didn’t know if they had been given a specific name yet, he released the cosmic mist that hid him, went to the few shops that served true drinks to buy himself one, then set himself up for a big session of internet browsing.
Next, Arik exited a building he just thought to be empty but was, in fact, perception-protected, and arrived at his table
‘Since when do we have a perception-protected building here?’
He disregarded the attention his sitting at his table caused. He was his usual self this time and didn’t beat around the bush, “If we want to go to the bone region, you need to personally contact your first support and use your pioneer privilege to get us access. And the faster the better.”
“Ok.”
Rune too was acting like his usual self, and as if it was a rehearsed scene, he called Olivia the next instant to ask about this “pioneer privilege”.
“There will be a price to pay my dear Arik… I hope you know perfectly what funny and important events happened during the last 6 months,” Rune asserted as he flashed a greedy grin at one of the two informants of the Undecided while waiting for the call to be picked up.
But Arik only stared straight at him, ignoring what he said completely. He was ready to participate in the call.
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It seemed that the bone region had maybe become something more than a weird hole in the ground he discovered by accident while escaping for his life.
…
“I’ll give you news in a few days then, don’t forget to call me before you depart! The demands to go down there and receive newly-developed equipment are two different forms, not even talking about the specially prepared identification devices, and you’ll need more than just this identification to be allowed,” Olivia’s voice was transmitted to him as the call was coming to an end.
As for Rune, he was acting his part of knowing nothing of why the bone region needed so many authorizations but still sounded like he knew everything.
“Yeah, yeah, I won’t forget, it was good to hear from you again.”
“Bye Rune,” she wasn’t overly emotional, that was clear as she hung up on him on that. Maybe it was proof that she cared a bit, to the point that she could hang up casually like that?
“Sigh…” He closed the call screen and looked at Arik who had clearly overheard everything and looked over-excited as he sat down on his chair, “Well, what happened?”
“Summarized, traces of sapient-level civilization have been found there, many people are trying to gain access, most are ruthlessly rejected, the only reason it’s not all over the news is due to the major exploration front and Heaven’s Rift getting the attention away,” he explained the situation, the only problem was that he added things Rune didn’t know about yet.
“I think it would be easier if you started with 6 months ago, redo the chronology from there. I’m sure it’ll all come back to you as you start from there. You just cut short all my short-term plans, you know? Departing as soon as possible? What the penguin bro.”
“You don’t realize how powerful your pioneer right for the bone region is. Just do the maths, with it, you can only take an additional 2 people with you, and believe me that Utopia was ready to throw his own plan to come but had to concede when Astryde brought up her time watcher specialization,” Arik was hyped up at getting his confirmation that they were departing in a few days, more than Rune ever expected him to be.
“How many months did you skip by starting there?”
During the call, he had asked Olivia how many he could bring with him at the demand of Arik and he received the answer of 3. From that, Arik kept giving him new things to say, like asking to prepare the demand for 3 people, himself, Arik, and Astryde, or asking for custom-made goodies.
Rune, however, knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was the event chronology. Knowing his whatever “pioneer right” was powerful and that Astryde would also come with them were all new things to him, exactly like the training park.
So he waited for Arik to recenter himself while sipping his sunlight energy-taste drink, a very weird name for an equally weird taste.
“Hu… Let’s start with the Cell interference plan and the end speech made by Seere, the same who did the opening speech.”
The stubbornness shown by his talking partner worked, and he started to make this event chronology. Though with all that he seemingly wanted to say, Rune couldn’t be sure if he would skip some news he would really want to know more about.
“The event ended 4 months and a half ago, and as you probably know, during all of it we were all charged as members of the civil unrest unit to do a certain mission. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but the result is that we failed. So we got only the normal amount of contribution…”
“During the closing speech, the Cell as the new secret department of the IGS has been acknowledged, the prospect school got an official starting date, 1 year, Heaven’s Rift presence was shown to everyone, and the Endless Mountain major expedition front has been created…”
“After the event officially ended, the hype was still there but all the prospects and patrollers started to leave once again, it included Lounae who left a few days after the event ended, you can ask her where she is yourself if you’re interested, I didn’t bother to ask…”
“As for us, well, there was a big bomb that exploded when Astryde told us she hadn’t been recruited into the civil unrest unit, but in the track unit. So from the start, with an enormous amount of contribution as the reward, she kept giving intel to the other side…
“In hindsight, it was really the best result possible as now we have you in the terror unit, her in the track unit, and a massive contribution that helped us boost the training park. We were also a bit stupid at ignoring the fact that she was a time watcher but had still been assigned to the civil unrest unit…”
Hearing Arik talk so much felt really strange for Rune, it was like it wasn’t the real-life Arik but the netizen Arik facing him.
“From there, I can differentiate 2 chronologies. The park’s chronology and the rest’s chronology, which one first?”
“The rest.”
“So, using the hype around the end of the event, a few extremely notable companies have emerged. First amongst everything and anything, without any competition as they are alone in a pioneer domain, is Catastrophia Corporation, which launched the ‘Living Materials’ project headed by its successor Sivan, which has successfully gathered the complete support of the IGS and massive conglomerates in other domains…”
“As a show of their current expertise, they gave away samples of their 3 living metals and 2 living woods, and oh dear you can go try them when we pass by the central sector, they are so freaking solid. We have also bought some samples, but not enough to play around with. Let’s just say it's a work-in-progress…”
“Their advertising campaigns which included giving away a tier 4 katana to Samurai Heart brought them massive favor with the energy coating path community…”
“The transportation industry also started to seriously make their presence known after the first spaceship prototype using liquid ether to work was released. As a result, the demand for ancient physic laws specialists and liquid ether producers, needing a dedicated specialized mastery, has increased exponentially, and as proof that it’s no joke…”
“The newly set-up transportation branch of the energy builders guild has invested manpower into securing deals with the most advanced factory to have fully functional both energy and technological spaceships in the shortest amount of time. I heard the first available working transportation spaceship including technological amenities is for very soon but I have nothing concrete…”
“In counter to that, teleportation network’s nodes have started being built in tier 1 and 2 zones, and with a conjoint announcement with the IGS, the city plan for the Arcadia’s stairway has been unveiled. You should check the artistic representations, they are beautiful…”
“Buildings are everywhere, carved into the rocks themselves at the side, and a massive water layout will take place to create a true idyllic stairway city over more than one thousand stair steps each a thousand kilometers long…”
“An official port at the shores of the spiral ocean has finished its construction, and subventioned expeditions have started, though as you can probably guess, the transportation branch of the energy builders guild has taken for themselves the big profit linked to that…”
“Already established companies and independent people are also keeping up with all that as everyone is trying to tap into the not yet touched pioneer sectors or join those who are already there. And if it wasn’t already thriving enough, a special Cell branch, the black market cell, has officially started to operate…”
“Its goal is very simple: it's to make money. Through the few secret black markets that have opened and are continuously moving. There, you can order other cells like the terror cell or the infiltration cell to hit certain rival companies or take away industrial secrets…”
“Less fun is the fact that already, a few madmen have started to wreak havoc and cause deaths and true damage in some places. The IGS has published the records of all the minor crimes and major crimes that have happened to sensibilize the population every month, but the number of crimes only keeps increasing steadily.”
There, Arik condensed a glass for himself and got a barrel out.
The rest part was over.
“Mmh… This feeling of having another tells me everything I want to know… From now on, I officiate you as my official news summary maker, you have a slight talent for retelling things if I do say so myself! I think I’ll call you father Arik from now on!” Rune clapped his hand and then pointed at Arik with his finger as he said that.
“We really have the same mind! This type of news and development is exactly what I wanted to know first and foremost! More! Go with what happened to the park, did I become a big shot while doing nothing? Are we rich?”
“The pioneer advantage. That’s what every economic review says about all the newcomer companies and new activity sectors who became successful due to being a pioneer in their field,” Arik started the training park part by saying this.
“Utopia and Gar hadn’t finalized their choice of making the training park the focus of their next step when the event ended, they wanted to know what would happen short-term, see if it was worth it or not…”
“And then Astryde suddenly told us that she had gained a massive amount of contribution. Using this contribution, we bought services that belong to the ‘unique rewards’ part, and I think you can easily guess what we asked for…”
Rune nodded, “Golden Dust dome, Fairy Zero ice dome, Melter Dome, Cyclone dome, among others.”
“Exactly, I think it was when Golden Dust personally arrived to fill a dome for us that Utopia, Gar, and Adreana too, decided to make the park their focus for the near future. Having made their decision, they immediately started the preparation to have a network settled, employed people to occupy the entrance area, and also sponsored the construction of the highway leading to here…”
“A month later, or a bit more than 3 months ago, we reached the iconic 50 000 users and decided to scale up the park to its current scale, we also employed other people with more expertise than us to rework the layout, we sent requests for a few of your best restaurants to at least open a branch here and come over to cook when they wanted to relax…”
“By then, the specialized press had already caught on to us as one of those ‘pioneer success stories’ and with all our qualifications, we quickly made our way to the circle of successful people. And that’s pretty much it, now Utopia, Gar, and Adreana are busy with managing the park, now registered as an asset under our company…”
Rune lifted his hand, interrupting Arik.
“Yes?”
“Undecided Company?”
“...”
Arik stayed silent while looking emotionlessly at Rune like he was a teacher who had given up on his student long ago.