“2 months ago, Nelo departed alone after maxing his stats. He went to the beyond-horizon monster's anomaly again, still as stubborn as ever. As for Astryde and I, we started to make preparation to go to the bone region a few weeks after Nelo departed, when Gar brought me a report he got from his new contacts…”
Arik seemed to have forgotten what Rune asked about if their company was named Undecided Company and just continued his chronology.
“From there, the situation hasn’t changed much. The number of users has continued to increase, the next expansion is already planned to happen soon, Utopia and Gar are having the time of their life, Adreana is continuously pumping out new domes, and Astryde has contacted the budding time watcher association to get herself a good position as an early bird…”
“As an important specialization, the research faculty behind it even has dedicated training for them to improve their ability to see the past, and from what she said, she needs decades of true devotion to only this mastery before reaching the level of a true professional according to the board…”
“So, yeah, that’s pretty much it. If you have any good ideas to make the park even better than it currently is, just add them to the list. I know Utopia is using it as some sort of sacred text to know where to take the park,” finishing the park part, Arik stood up without any explanation.
It was much to take in for Rune, but if he had to be honest, he saw all that happened much more as a form of an entertaining story than something he was directly involved with.
However, before he had finished his glass and thought about what he would do for the few weeks before he departed, the reason Arik stood up quickly arrived.
It was a pachin with dark brown skin and smooth black hair who appeared serious, a member of the Undecided, Adreana Kita.
“Well, see you later Rune, I think you’re going to have to fill a few domes, your cosmic mist dome is pretty popular as a perception or awareness specialized training place. You have to make up for your absence,” Arik said as he took back his “water” barrel and directly departed.
‘Weren’t you the one who had so many other things to talk about?’
Finding his reaction ridiculous, he quickly switched gear to find the positive of the situation again.
‘Then… I can probably do some intent tinkering, it’s been a long time…’
And Adreana arrived, “It’s exactly as Arik said, give me a few hours and I’ll re-clean one of the empty domes I have prepared,” and with a gesture indicating him to follow, they departed the living area to arrive at an empty area.
There, she entered alone and sat in the middle of an area where the forest had been completely razed and only metal bars could be seen protruding from the ground, probably to welcome further adjustments or structures in the future.
Not even half an hour later, far from the few hours she told, she stood up, approached him, and told, “It’s empty again, you can go in to fill it. Is your purity maxed?”
“No ma’am!” Military salute joke done, Rune kept a poker face.
“Then I’ll go fetch you the EP you need, just start to fill it. I’ll use this time to prepare a bigger dome for you, you’ll fill it as your last task before departing,” she didn’t react to his joke.
“Yes ma’am!” So he kept forcing it and walked inside as he started to release pure cosmic mist without intent.
Once again unaffected, she left just like that and came back half an hour later, “Give me your hand.”
“I’m too young to marry…” Despite the joke, he gave his hand like a good boy.
*Ding* You received 40 000 000 000 EP from Adreana Kita
And was given a shock when he saw the amount, “Is that the famously infamous dowry? I heard some cultures still have it, didn’t think you were born in such a unique culture-”
“Max your stats and give me back the extra,” she still didn’t give in and maintained her serious facade, not even a twitch made its way to her face.
“Ok… Let me see…” Not wanting to take it too far, he did as asked and opened his status.
Rune Tudor (Tier 4)
Class: Armored Pathfinder
Specialty: Innate Dimensional Perception
EP: 40 118 045 414
Stats Total: 60 002
Health: 5 000
Health Regeneration: 5 000
Strength: 5 001
Cohesion: 5 001
Energy: 5 000
Energy Regeneration: 10 000
Purity: 5 000
Affinity: 5 000
Momentum: 5 000
Perception: 10 000
‘5 000 in health, 5 000 in health regeneration, 4 999 in strength…’
In the same way, he did it at tier 3 when he took the loan available for tier 3 adventurers who showed themselves to be true pioneers, he maxed all his stats in an instant.
Rune Tudor (Tier 4)
Class: Armored Pathfinder
Specialty: Innate Dimensional Perception
EP: 4 118 845 414
Stats Total: 100 000
Health: 10 000
Health Regeneration: 10 000
Strength: 10 000
Cohesion: 10 000
Energy: 10 000
Energy Regeneration: 10 000
Purity: 10 000
Affinity: 10 000
Momentum: 10 000
Perception: 10 000
“Hahaha! That’s the feeling of being a shareholder in a little company that made it big! Thank you little girl, here’s your tip for your miserable errand work, take it as compassion from a superior, a bonus to your measly salary.”
Rune took her hand forcefully and arrogantly, transferring back nearly all the EP he had.
*Ding* You transferred 4 108 845 414 EP to Adreana Kita
“What a generous tip Mr. Shareholder… I’ll make sure to transmit this conversation and this tip amount to the other shareholders,” she finally played a bit with him and answered in kind, “I have other places to be, see you.”
Having succeeded at making her play, Rune smiled dumbly. Then he started to have weird thoughts about what just happened.
‘I think I’ll soon contract the impostor syndrome…’
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Relativizing his life, it was easy to see he had put a good amount of hard work into getting where he was today. But he also knew how important EP were at the current age, he understood it even more now after Arik had told him what happened in the last 6 months.
He had never known what being poor or in need was, he came from an average good-standing citizen family of the IGS, it was a long word to describe that he came from something a lot more simple: An average family without any problem.
During his schooling, the IGS education he received had never hidden the benefits linked to being rich in its society model, better amenities, and the occasions to visit or assist extraordinary places were only one of the numerous concrete benefits.
With no superpowers then, very few if any citizens living on rural planets wanted to know the important news concerning the true undercurrents or the golden opportunities to become rich, not like they would be available on a rural planet such as X125… All to say, Rune was content with being from his own family.
His exploration engineer job would allow him to set foot on other planets, gain enough money to allow him to retire after only a few decades, and remain alone cause there was too much entertainment to watch…
Even now, as he was releasing cosmic mist that had become a lot more powerful, and feeling his changed body as the stats took it at the apex level of the tier 4, he could still easily think about what he had planned his life to be.
‘Becoming someone important, someone well-known… Maybe it’s just part of the pioneer package? Inevitable unless I take drastic action to not be known, but that is already too late.’
His friends had often told him he was a bit dense and couldn’t think of the obvious, but between being ignorant and an idiot, Rune knew he was maybe the former, but certainly not the latter.
‘One of the first adventurer groups to have discovered the straight cliff, one of the first to have paved a path to the jungle region, one of the first to have entered a tier 3 zone. As for me alone… Not one of the first, but the first, to have pioneered the cliff path, discovered the erosion anomaly, pushed it until the white wall, making flora and fauna reports of the Endless that are now used and referenced in the scientific community…’
His career as an adventurer was something that could be used as a role model, not even talking about his discovery of the hole tunnel leading to the bone region that ignited the archeology department.
‘I don’t think it’s possible to erase my name from the pioneer era chapter of the IGS anymore…’
Thinking about it, he felt slightly dizzy. But more than dizzy, he didn’t know what he should feel about this situation, so he came back to the goal he used every time his mortality made itself known.
‘I still haven’t discovered floating islands…’
And from there, he made his way down to things that proved he was still who he thought he was.
‘I still have to clear my loan of 9 000 000 000 EP, though I’m sure it’s already on the to-do list of the park to clear all the member’s loans, I’m also so far behind any Abnormals’ members or any prospects, my only discovered talent is in a field I don’t specialize in…’
10 minutes later, he felt a lot better. His adventurer career was good, exceptionally good if he was to be a realist, but others existed that completely made his golden record seem like an average one that he couldn’t feel any dizziness anymore.
‘So now I’m comparing myself to the top 0.00001%? What a way it is you have gone through since it all began… Sigh. Let’s do some intent tinkering, at least I know it’s something I’ll never find boring.’
…
Doubling his purity from 5 000 to 10 000 didn’t reduce the time needed to fill a newly-emptied dome, it was still 6 to 7 days. What it changed, however, was the power of the cosmic mist element itself.
Ether stats were the basis of everything in the Ether Law, and they were far from being monolithic concepts, Rune could easily remember they all had tens of effects documented.
Perception wasn’t only the range of one’s perception sphere, it was also the power of one’s perception sphere, it had an effect on reaction speed, and once the subject spilled over to the spiritual powers, the number of concerned minor manipulations were… Infinite, conceptually infinite.
For Rune, however, before getting his cosmic mist element, he would have never said purity was an important stat for him. He knew some rare variant of the behemoth path used purity in their concept, transforming their armor into a half-energy weapon that inflicted damage to any people touching them, under this case, he completely understood why purity would be important.
As long as energy and dealing damage were put together, purity was the first thing anyone would think about, Rune would too. But seeing the impact his doubled purity had on the power of his cosmic mist, it seemed that he had underestimated it by a large margin.
Intent reinforced what was already there, so what happened when he doubled what was already there? What happened was that even after one week, when the dome was completed and Adreana came to fetch him to bring him somewhere else…
‘I still haven’t completed my 1st stage… Penguin.’
He hadn’t regressed in intent tinkering over 6 months, he was certain of that, he even had an overflowing motivation to bring his cosmic mist to a new height even normal tier 5 entities couldn’t hope to break through, but reality told him that he had truly done his best and that it wasn’t enough.
His intent became more and more complex as he kept developing it. Soon, he was sure he would transition from high-end steam motor 4th stage intent to the first combustion motor.
With this challenge awaiting him, Rune didn’t even dare think about the complexity needed to finish his first round of completed 5th stage intent anymore.
“Why didn’t you start with big domes like this before? I’m sure it’s not just a question of it taking more time.”
“With your admin right, you can take a look at the proposition screen and see the opinion box, look at it to understand the real situation of the park as of now,” Adreana answered him off-handedly.
“As for the summary: It’s actually a proposition made months ago, but we had no element worthy of being made into a 5 kilometers wide dome, and while we’re considering widening the basic dome to 1 kilometer wide, the 500 meters version is amply sufficient to sustain the needs of…”
“Ok, I’ll read it. This summary is a bit too summarized to my taste.”
A 5 kilometers wide dome was no joke, but at least, when it was filled there would be no need for him to get other cosmic mist domes up, that’s what Rune told himself.
An entire circle of 5 kilometers in diameter emptied of everything, despite his ability to cross it in under a minute, remained an impressive sight. Same as the previous one, the forest had been razed, the ground had been compacted, and only metal bars could be seen.
Getting to the center, he sat and started to tinker with his intent once more. His thoughts about finding why setting a 5-kilometer dome wasn’t done before went in over his head, he largely preferred doing what he was doing.
‘Wait…’
It was at this moment that his weird thought process made itself known.
‘How will I hear music when I don’t have a brain anymore?’
That’s how he came to decide on taking with him a micro-speaker that he would put in his skull to hear music through his perception, he called this DIY solution the “speaker skull project”.
He also had 3 laughing fits during the process to arrive at this conclusion. And he of course made sure to send this conclusion to the Undecided discussion group, to which only Arik and Astryde seemed to have understood why this was funny.
To the dismay of everyone else.
…
Two weeks later, the 5-kilometer dome, a dome 10 times the size of any other ones in the park, was opened to every user of the Undecided Training Park.
The fact that when it opened, the other cosmic mist domes already available had their perception-blocking power multiplied by more than 2 was something that brought a mini hype around it for the users, as a prize of 1 000 000 000 EP was announced to be given to the first person who first cleared the challenge of the new “Total Immersion” cosmic mist dome.
This prize competition was a successful marketing coup as it brought more than 1 000 new users to the park, nonetheless, all that was something Rune only read as he had already departed from the park accompanied by Arik and Astryde.
The stop at the Adventurer’s Society headquarter had been a small revelation to him as it turned out it wasn’t the headquarters anymore, it was just a branch now.
The true headquarter had already been moved to the first step of the Arcadia Stairway project, and while it didn’t change the importance of this “branch”, the future implications were what was important.
As for how the stop there went, it was maybe the most serious official matter Rune had ever been involved in. Olivia had kept to his side like the most devoted first support ever, their identity had been verified through tens of ways.
Mr. Finley had even popped up to confirm his identity before they were handed their identification devices and plenty of different forms to hand over when they reached the bone region research base in the tier 4 zone of the mountainous region.
Obviously, Arik similarly hadn’t expected the verification process to be so thorough, as had Astryde, but finally, they were released after 3 hours and directly went on their way east through the highway.
They didn’t receive any equipment packages as they needed special ones made explicitly for the bone region… Very special environment, and those were available only at their destination.
Before they exited the capital, however, Rune insisted on needing to go see the tier 4 living metal statue. He wanted to see for himself with his fist how resistant it was.
Evidently, lots of other people had the same idea as him, so he satisfied himself with just seeing a fellow tier 4 cause yet another big crack to appear on the ground as he punched the statue with all his strength, only for him to be sent back, and the statue having no apparent damage.
After that, there was nothing else he wanted to see that could be easily seen, so he didn’t delay the group of 3 anymore and they took the highway leading towards the mountainous region.
Now that the adventure had truly started, the 3 friends had to make different decisions, as despite being tier 4…
“Don’t know for you guys, but not one of my provided masteries reached tier 2 yet, so…”
They were newbies tier 4, newbies who had only gotten a specialization and didn’t level their adventurous build. So Rune was wondering in what way they would breach the tier 4 zone.
“With our maxed stats, we can probably handle the tier 3 zone easily, but I think it’ll be preferable to adopt a more intense fighting rhythm to prepare for the tier 4,” Astryde answered his query, but not without a trace of indecision in her voice.
“I also think that’s what we should do,” Arik agreed without a plus from the side.
“If we encounter a big problem, we can just use my cosmic mist to escape so let’s not worry too much, it’s been a long time since we’ve been together.”
It wasn’t awkwardness that defined their relationship, it was more too much familiarity. Arik and Rune weren’t people who liked to talk that much unless it was a subject that interests them, and Astryde was in the middle zone. She was just a bit above Adreana when it came to her ability at appearing like a proper kajo’s lady.
“I never thought we would one day talk to each other like that, maybe I just dismissed the fact that maxed strength stat and basic tier 4 body control meant we would be going so fast,” Astryde’s energy-infused voice reached them as she didn’t seem to want the conversation to be over.
And it was perfectly comprehensible.
Maxed strength at tier 4 meant 10 000. Basic tier 4 body control fundamental meant a bonus of 200%. So at least, their effective strength would be 30 000, and 30 000 meant their max speed was…
580 meters per second.