The exploration immortal style, that’s the name Rune gave his not-yet finished fighting style that adopted cosmic mist as a core component.

Despite having obtained this component months ago and using it for much more than what he planned during its creation, he knew that only a trial by adventure would teach him how to properly wield it.

And a trial by adventure was what the group had started to experience since a few days ago, when they finally breached through to the tier 4 zone of the mountainous region.

Their progress speed as much in terms of distance traveled and level gains had slowed down, the group was closing in on peak tier 2 provided masteries, and they couldn’t gain 3 levels per day anymore.

All those thoughts, however, were only useless statements that had no impact on reality.

For example, no matter how Rune saw it, blind monster or not, his chance of evading the simple and basic reinforced charge by the 10 meters high quadruped with obsidian black leathery skin was close to zero.

‘Mitigating it is.’

With no choice, he could only prepare himself to be sent flying out of his cosmic mist bubble.

And it’s exactly how it happened.

Using his armor to absorb all the damage would have been the stupidest decision he could have made, and his best choice against a reinforcement monster was to accept that he didn’t have the capability to brawl with it.

The moment he exited the cosmic mist bubble, sounds and sight came back, letting him see the “squad” of 49, now 36, monsters that attacked them.

Arik was orbiting the bubble, dealing continuous hits and daring to brawl with the most ferocious and already berserk monsters.

Astryde was doing the same, she just didn’t pack as much power as Arik, but equalized the result by weaving through the most packed part of the monster squad.

As quickly as his momentum allowed, he rotated his body a tenth of a second after being hit and sent flying, locked his energy platform, causing a gigantic boom as his body going faster than a bullet was suddenly stopped, and then propelled himself back into the fray.

The absolute chaos made it hard for him to not grin. The situation was just so similar to the old days.

Rune didn’t need a battle-cry and had already stopped making sounds with his mouth while fighting a long time ago, making it so that in his battles, only the sounds caused by massive impacts, energy spells’ explosions, and monsters’ roars existed.

His pursuit of the perpetual 100% strength use took him all his effort, and as the situation was challenging enough, he didn’t hesitate to add momentum. His peak tier 4 perception stat gave him the reaction speed necessary to do that.

Landing back on the ground as soon as he could, a few monsters were already on him, and his newly-learned priority as he forged his new style had already become a process.

So the first thing he did was release more cosmic mist.

A 10 000 purity cosmic mist boosted by his more than 200% efficiency bonus thanks to his grand manipulation and his added intent worked fine, and the monsters that targeted him lost sight of him.

As their main objective wasn’t exactly to fight, the group of 3 still planned to finish the fight within an hour or two, prompting Rune to not lose time battling with monsters that weren’t targets yet.

Using his strength and a cover of cosmic mist, he returned to the main bubble and started once again targeting specific monsters.

For him, the best targets were those that showed their specializations openly, he was recently reminded of that when a presumed purity specialty monster suddenly used an element similar to the one used by the Melter, an acid-ish, erosion-ish element.

Those were clearly his most direct bane as once they touched him, the most efficient way to deal with them was to cut off the entire affected chunk of armor.

And same as one’s health, if he cut 20% of his armor, say an entire arm’s worth of armor cause he used it to block the surprise attack, he would lose 20% of his armor, logic.

But that was clearly the better option, so he would still do it as many times as he had to.

Making no mistakes, or as few as possible, the group continued to diminish the overall number of monsters steadily.

A monster that unfortunately separated from the main mass here, another monster that thought entering the cosmic mist bubble normally was fine there.

The time it took for the monster squad to go from 36 to 0 members was two hours and a half.

Two hours and a half where the group didn’t make any major mistakes and adapted themselves to however many surprises those tier 4 monsters had for them.

Then they departed once again.

‘Let’s see…’

As he became used to after each intense battle, Rune opened his diary and leveling notifications at the same time.

*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct reached Tier 4 Level 15

*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Body Control reached Tier 4 Level 16

*Ding* Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element reached Tier 2 Level 92

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense reached Tier 2 Level 86

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure reached Tier 2 Level 86

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor reached Tier 2 Level 86

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Quick Compression reached Tier 2 Level 59

*Ding* Body Control: Provided Humanoid Body reached Tier 2 Level 65

*Ding* Body Control: Provided Prolonged Body Use reached Tier 2 Level 65

‘Huhu, another cycle of active physical fundamentals. It’s pretty much stabilized at 1 level every one week and some days, much better than 2 weeks in the long run.’

Things he noted down 2 months ago had already allowed him to see his stable leveling rate, and while he pretty much ignored his tier 2 provided masteries and his cosmic mist specialization, his tier 4 fundamentals interested him enough to prompt an after-fight analysis following each battle.

‘Though I don’t know if we’ll be able to maintain this rate for much longer. We’ll probably have to flee some encounters soon.’

In all seriousness, he made hypotheses as to what would happen in the near future considering the trend he observed and felt with his own body.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it. But maybe…’

With that in mind, he used his perception to observe his 2 friends.

‘I don’t know if they’ll readily accept that there’s nothing we can do and that retreating is the best option.’

Rune, believing that Astryde and Arik didn’t have similar experiences as he had during his white zone adventure and tier 4 mountainous zone adventure, hoped they wouldn’t be affected by the inevitable entailed in reaching the hole tunnel.

‘Just another week, maybe two, and we’ll be there.’

After he stopped thinking about it, his mind automatically moved to the next subject.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

‘Oh, that’s right!’

In the middle of his after-fight analysis, Rune thought about something he seemed to have perceived but didn’t have time to prove if it was true or false.

To see if that was right, he brought up his cosmic mist in a small orb and infused it with his special battle version intent.

And then he observed.

‘I’m sure…’

And continued to observe, making comparisons and feeling with his mind the small orb of cosmic mist that couldn’t block his perception.

‘Something has changed…’

It had become… Slightly more powerful?

‘Mid-fight I only create the same intent again and again, so does it mean that when my focus is more intense or maybe when I’m feeling threatened…’

Making deductions, he thought back to different events, thought back to more primitive concepts, and concluded that it wasn’t totally stupid.

‘Intent is based on a lot of things, and my state of mind is one of them, so it’s really not stupid to think I can make innovation not on the field of complexity but on the field of intent’s purity and intensity during a particularly intense moment.’

However, while it made some sense in his mind, he only wrote that with a big question mark. There was no benchmark to compare his before and after-fight battle intent, so he would wait until remarkable changes happened to confirm.

After finishing his entry, Rune was ready for yet another hour-long fight with yet stronger monsters and yet weirder and more annoying specialty and specializations.

…

2 weeks passed by faster than the group ever thought it would as Rune’s prediction came to life a few days after the 2 months benchmark.

Besieged by monsters relatively not that much stronger compared to them, but numerous enough, the group had to retreat and avoid thorny encounters more than ever.

They had also started to rarely encounter proper “middle” tier 4 monsters with which they tussled about when the numbers were not significant or when they faced a loner.

Ultimately though, the hole tunnel and the bone region research base weren’t located that deep into tier 4 territory, and at the end of 2 months and a half of travel, they finally perceived signs of civilization again.

Those signs included fewer monster encounters, frequent sites of battles, and patrol of… Patrollers, or maybe fresh prospects?

“They’re capable of controlling the access fully thanks to the unique entrance, can you even think about digging thousands of kilometers? And I don’t think even after infiltrating the tunnel you’ll be able to avoid the elevator passing by,” as the patrollers approached them to confirm their identity, Astryde talked about the situation revolving around their destination.

“For me,” Arik started while looking at Rune while wearing a strange satisfied smile, “The best of this situation is that Rune will be responsible for everything. He’s the one with the pioneer right…”

“Wait, what?”

The concerned one face underwent an immediate change.

“Good luck,” Astryde also allowed herself a comedic smile after seeing his reaction, “You screweded big this time if you thought I would take care of interacting with those dear patrollers.”

“Mmh, good luck,” Arik had exactly this stand and he even took a step back to allow him to be introduced as the leader of their group.

“Me, kidding, you, are?”

But as soon as started to think about what he soon had to do, the patroller squad arrived.

‘Efficiency, efficiency is the best. Ask them if they have the necessary devices to confirm our identity, give them our identity, be escorted or given direction, easy.’

“This is a military restricted area, either give us your identity or make a detour around this place,” the squad of 5 had their leader, a kajo in patroller’s uniform give us the most streamlined greeting he ever had to face.

Having no choice, Rune took a step forward, put on a simple social smile, and started to speak, “Our goal is to enter the bone region through the bone region research base. Do you have what is needed to confirm our identity? We have all the necessary documents on us.”

The kajo patroller turned his head, signaling with his head to one of the other members to take charge of the situation.

The concerned person was a normal-sized humanoid with just a very sharp face and eyes, “Please, give me the necessary data chip,” as he said that he got a holographic screen turned on from his collar.

“Here,” Rune got his own chip and that of Astryde and Arik out, handing them over. He had the pioneer right, so he had been handed all the chips and devices, he just had never thought about the implications.

Inserting the chips into different slots also available on his collar, everyone was able to see the contained data. Pictures of Rune, Arik, and Astryde, passed by as the patroller started to make a comparison with them. After he did that, he nodded at the patroller who talked to them at the start.

“Please, come with us. We'll escort you to the research base where further testing will be done. You can still back up this instant if it’s only a very well done scam attempt, you can also say it, and we’ll pay you big money to inform us about where you got those contraband chips.”

“Nope, everything’s fine, there are even so many chips I don’t know how someone can falsify all of them.”

“Fine.”

Being escorted by a patroller squad didn’t change anything to their speed, in fact, the area was so well cleared that the group and their escort arrived at the research base a few minutes later.

“Well,” Rune couldn’t help but start to speak when the research base entered his perception, “I swear it wasn’t like this when I discovered the hole the first time, I still have pictures to prove it.”

“Send them,” Arik requested next to him.

“Yeah, yeah, here.”

Where before it was an uneven field between three different mountains, it seemed that everything had been “leveled” and “razed” to accommodate a stable foundation and an optimal security perimeter.

As for the research base itself, it really looked more like a research base than a military camp, it had buildings made of concrete, gigantic antennas and ether towers, multiple white metal domes totally isolated from his perception, and a respectable amount of “scientific”.

Rune didn’t see a lot of people, if any, that showed their non-affiliation openly. Or in other terms, there weren’t any adventurers in his perception.

It clearly wasn’t a city or a colony, nothing was pointing in that direction. Maybe in the future that would change, but it didn’t show any signs of it now.

Following the rhythm of their escort, the group slowed down as they neared the base, and they soon reached one of the concrete buildings where they entered and were then directly sent inside a room in which someone asked them for all their identity devices.

“Ok,” even if the situation was a bit weird for him, Rune wasn’t someone to say no easily, so he did as asked.

Following that, they were asked to first confirm all the basic identity marks like fingerprints, and second show their specialization in a very direct manner, with Astryde having to use her time rewind, Arik using his purity and affinity infusions, and Rune covering himself in cosmic mist.

“Your identities have been confirmed and match with an announced arrival, your bone region entry form is valid, and your custom equipment form is also valid. The next elevator’s descent is planned for in 7 hours, is there anything you’d like to do before descending?” The woman who checked all their documents asked them as she handed all the chips and devices back to Rune.

“Nope, do we get the custom equipment now?”

“Everything will be explained to you when you start your descent, you only need to wait for the elevator to arrive, the rest is for the deep base.”

“There’s nothing I need to do. You, maybe?” Looking at his 2 friends, Rune saw them shaking their heads, so he didn’t say anything more.

Then a patroller entered the room, smiling politely and nodding at the person in charge.

“Patroller Martin here will keep you company until you decide you’ve seen enough of the base and go wait for the elevator, until then, unless Martin tells you it’s a restricted area, you can visit the base as much as you like,” closing off all the holographic screens, she made sure she gave back everything and then vacated the room with them in tow.

“Well, if I can visit, I won’t hold back.”

Arik nodded fervently after Rune said that, they were more than similar on that point.

With 7 hours before them, they amply had the time necessary to enter all the domes and buildings, sweeping what was happening inside with their perception.

Though it seemed they overestimated the importance of the surface base, as there wasn’t much except material stocks inside the massive buildings and domes.

Still, the group found their fun for a few hours when they stumbled upon a dome dedicated to testing energy building-related mini constructs, with true energy builders at work inside.

“Sigh, that’s really crazy what they can do.”

“And you didn’t have the chance to see the etherships used to transport people, it’s more than crazy how fast they can go when they accumulate the momentum of 100 people with 0% loss,” Arik was completely in his domain as an informant that had access to more relevant information thanks to the training park.

“Hehe, 100 people. 5 000 momentum times 100? 5 000 000? Something like… 80 kilometers per second?”

“Well, there's videos of the rare occasions where someone really gathered so many people for their ethership. Though for that to really happen, you have to pray that an Abnormal wants to deploy somewhere.”

Energy builders was a path that shined the best when someone had a civilization or an organization to serve. But as long as someone really had them behind him, then the amount of guidance he had available was immeasurable.

Rune had only browsed through it a bit, and already he was marveling at all the different specializations needed to be considered an energy builder, and even more for being considered a transportation energy builder.

Terms like “propulsion core” or "momentum engine", to use the momentum of other entities, or “hull core” and "compression engine", to allow other entities to use their energy to fill the energy armor of the construct were things that resonated with him and his past education.

‘Also, it’s purely and simply amazing…’

Those working in the dome were experimenting with the second most important core of an energy builder, the assimilation with normal matter.

Rune hadn’t learned that from the guide, he had learned that from Arik’s summary of 6 months. There was a reason the transportation branch of the energy builders guild had invested massively in getting and developing liquid ether-fuelled “spaceships”.

That was because while energy builders could make a construct from nothing, the true essence of the path resided in layering it over true matters, and more often than not, independent constructs.

“30 minutes remaining before the elevator departs,” from next to them, Astryde, the only one not that marveled with what was happening under their eyes, had kept watch over the time and signaled them that it was time to leave.

‘Well, It was enjoyable. Let me see a true energy construct now.’