“What? That’s it?” Having just been teleported to the Undecided minor node, Rune was surprised at the speed at the relative ordinariness he experienced.
“What did you expect? Do you want to throw up some energy or retch for air? I can help you with feeling that if you allow my punch access to your body,” Astryde sharply said.
She had been the one to communicate with Utopia to know and organize everything about coming back to the training park after Arik got them to the industrial zone after all, so she felt a bit frustrated by the weird expectation of her friend.
Realizing his mistake immediately, Rune bowed deeply under the confused eyes of the space piercer who brought them here, “I’m sorry mistress Astryde, I forgot my place and would be immensely grateful if you could absolve my unforgivable sin.”
At that moment a very familiar presence appeared in their perception, making them stop their friendly joking bout and focus on it.
It was Arik who first said something, and it signaled the start of yet another skit, “Looks like he came with 2 disciples… I wonder who those 2 are? Wait… Tier 2? Humph!”
Turning his head and humphing in disgust at those weak beings, it became clear in an instant that he knew who those two accompanying Utopia were.
Using momentum to not cause a possible mess, the three exited the Undecided minor node and landed on a compressed dirt path surrounded by primal untouched forest.
‘If I knew they would… Or I can still do it, why not?’
Changing his mental state and mobilizing his energy, he started to move it in a way he hadn’t done in a long while.
Over the next second, a complex star pattern appeared over his two eyes and a few subtle lines of energy manifested themselves over his entire body starting from his bare feet to his exposed neck.
Once he created the foundation, he decided on a whim of the intent and ether color to use: Corrupted purple, corruption intent.
While he didn’t go all the way due to it being too bothersome, he still did the basic and colored everything in corrupted purple mixed with streaks of black to not be too uniform, then he infused it with a quick intent emphasizing the corruption concept.
Having witnessed this change, Arik and Astryde remained speechless before the shortest of the two commented with a simple sentence, “I’d hate you if you were my family.”
Putting his two friends out of his mind, Rune adopted a proud and serious posture by crossing his arm and straightening his shoulder and head, “I’m a veteran, I saw things those two cannot possibly imagine, so I need to teach them about the harsh reality. It’s my responsibility.”
“They can see it through publicly available video online though?” Astryde muttered on her side, seemingly not wanting anyone to hear what she just said.
What the group didn’t expect however was Utopia responding in his own way by changing his neat white and gold suit into a fully golden one streaked by fine threads of burning white, even infusing a basic heroic intent into everything.
A few seconds later, Utopia, adorned in his now heroism-infused suit, arrived in front of the group with two younger-looking Rune in tow.
“Look at those two kids…”
“They’re unrecoverable.”
Intensely looking at the other’s eyes, neither Rune nor Utopia said anything about the whispering idiots or even looked at them. They had their own flow to follow.
And in this flow, Rune was the first to find a weak point he was able to exploit, and he didn’t hold back in infusing pressuring intent into his voice, “What are those tier 2 specks of dust doing here? They’re your disciples or something? Are you still upholding your ideal of helping lowlifes perhaps? Quit it.”
Accompanying this first line was a slight haze of cosmic mist that distorted the perception and sight of anyone trying to look or perceive it.
“Just because you’re stronger than me… It doesn’t give you the right to impose your despicable principles on me,” categorically denying everything, Utopia made it seem as if he didn’t even regard Rune properly, as if he was insignificant.
Similarly disregarding what the other said in a battle of who could be the coolest, Rune directed his gaze to one of the two young-himself standing next to Utopia, “Did you bring these two here to mock me? Considering your actual pitiable, at best, level of strength, I’m sure they know nothing of what the real world is like.”
“What? You would dare teach me how to educate lowlifes? If they really follow your way, they’ll not be able to resist anything when their darkest days arrive. Surviving the monster hellscape isn’t something they need to do alone,” sneering at the pathetic person before him, Utopia seemed ready to explode.
A cloud of gloomy disgusting red started emanating from Rune as their debate appeared to enter a deadlock with the two parties refusing to even consider the other’s opinion.
“If you can’t see the only truth with words, then I’ll show it to you directly with my action. Are you even able to protect your disciples against a simple trick?”
Creating a new intent with all the experience he had gathered, Rune didn’t attempt to create a completely new one but instead went from his only “offensive” complex intent: Bait intent.
Seeing as the situation had developed in a direction where confrontation was unavoidable, Utopia created a cloud of golden energy that surrounded himself, Miro, and Miri, preparing himself for the “simple trick” Rune was going to use.
Smiling at the reaction his friend had, he created a small spark of an ether color any neophyte wouldn’t look at again after seeing.
It was a strange spark of orange-ish yellow that attracted the eye, but nothing more.
“Let me show you… A star.”
Talent, preparation, and feeling guiding him, Rune created a baiting intent composed of 3 core concepts he had continued to refine over months of intense battles against unforgiving and relentless monsters.
With the blinding, deafening, and threatening core concepts amalgamating together into a battle-refined complex intent that stood in between his cosmic mist intent 1st stage and the rest, the inoffensive spark of baiting orange suddenly seemed to come to life.
The energy cloud Utopia prepared stopped nothing.
An area of 50 meters around the spark was at the same time: Blanketed by a muted sound that cut off everyone’s sense of hearing, covered in indescribable blindness that created an extremely bright point in everyone’s perception, and no one could ignore the feeling that something was ready to jump at their throat.
Something much stronger than themselves.
Utopia, who had stopped threading the path of life and death while exploring, flinched back in reaction at this change that happened in an instant, not to say anything about Miro and Miri who appeared completely shocked by what just happened.
“So… Are your beliefs still standing? Are you resigning to your fate just like that? Is this bit of intent enough to completely paralyze you? Not even talking about your two disciples, how could you have become so weak as to flinch at this,” graver than ever, disappointment was infused in the form of intent in a voice that no one was able to see the origin of.
Gritting his teeth after having failed to defend himself, he wouldn’t even get the opportunity to redeem himself as the bait Rune created ceased to exist the next moment, leaving behind nothing.
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As for Astryde and Arik, they looked at Utopia weirdly, his flinch hadn’t seemed artificial after all, so either he had really flinched or he had taken his acting to the next level.
Feeling a bit sorry for what he did and not wanting to continue anymore, Rune changed the colors of his shorts, shirt, and hair tie to a pale golden one while dismissing the lines and only keeping his star-patterned eyes accessories in the corrupted purple color.
After he made this change in a single second, he approached his still shocked twin little brothers and smiled uncontrollably, “Well, you’re not the Miri and Miro I remember at all. Now tell me. Who’s the one who said I was dead for you?”
…
“And what about mom and dad?” Rune asked as he took a sip of an energy-infused fruit juice glass.
“Still the same,” Miro said, “Lovey-dovey and that’s it. They didn’t have more children if that’s what you were asking. The incoming ether erosion is pretty much forcing anyone who wants to have some to first enter the Endless and become ether lifeforms. At least that's what I understood.”
“I didn’t expect anything less from them. They just live their own life and leave us free to live our own,” happy of knowing his parents were living as they always had and proud of having them as his parents, he skipped to the next subject, “And what about your current life in the Endless? Nouveau riche-ish lifestyle of decadence? Hehehe.”
“Well, now that months have passed since I got access to nearly unlimited EP, I think I pretty much got used to it?” Miri seemed a bit hesitant in his reply, as if he hadn’t really reflected on his current lifestyle.
“I still find it exhilarating to enter a full holo room I own, but that’s pretty much it. As long as I focus on my own things or I train, I go days without thinking about the fact that I can buy lots of things like food or drinks,” Miro, the more rational of the two, gave a more nuanced description of what his life was really like.
“Are you focusing on something in particular? Not like I expect you to have already found your own calling. Did you try intent creation? Got your own hands dirty by creating your own energy tastes? I heard there’s a passionate gardener too…”
Continuing with his interview of his twin little brothers he hadn’t seen for years, Rune completely turned off his social filters like he did when he was with his close friends.
The situation he found himself in was like a dream for him, there was nothing negative, nothing bad, everything felt right, smooth, and soft.
He was in the familiar Undecided training park, in a relatively secluded and quiet area, his friends were not far, his direct family was before him, there was no fear of any monster attack, the environment was peaceful and sunny…
It was just a perfect setting for him, and he could only think of one thing that could bring it to the next level: Being on a floating island. But as it was still a bit too difficult, he felt satisfied with just what he had right now.
“What are you going to do now that you’re back?” At some point, Miri asked this question after their discussion developed in this direction and they all settled in the right mood.
Having nothing to hide, even to the few strangers listening in, Rune just shared his short-term plan in a light tone, “First, I’m going to wrap up a few writings and publish them. Then, I’ll start my preparation for my next adventure’s destination. And finally, I’ll leave everything behind and go again, this time for probably longer than ever before.”
Observing Miro and Miri go silent, his smile became wider as he followed, “At best I’ll be reachable for a few months, as for after that? Considering my next destination is the Unending Mountain Dimension, I’ll have to leave behind everything you could use to contact me.”
“Are you a prospect or what?” Miri asked while frowning a bit, “If you created a training park it’s for using it, right? And isn’t intent creation a crafting path?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Rune admitted to it without remorse with a slight nod, “Intent creation is classified as a crafting path, but the way I use it doesn't have to be like the guide or everyone else says I should. When you find your own talent, you’ll eventually understand.”
Thinking back to the way he had come to discover his talent in intent creation and how he had subsequently developed it, he couldn’t identify with the homebody intent creator the guide talked about. Even the crafting guild didn’t call to him as much as it should.
“Well! I think that was a pretty fine catch-up session!” Clapping his hand in finality, Rune judged this hours-long chattering to have been more than fulfilling enough, “I’ve run out of spontaneous subjects to talk about, and it seems that you have too. So let’s go our own way, okay?”
Also feeling like they had run out of things to discuss, Miro and Miri didn’t try to continue the discussion and nodded.
…
Once Rune split from his two little brothers, he started pondering on what his next activity should be.
This pondering period only lasted 20 seconds before he remembered that aside from wrapping up his bone region adventure through very obvious means, there was another thing he had always liked to do when coming back from a long period of disconnected adventuring.
‘Hum… Let me see… Which one should I choose to award the honor of becoming my personal guide to this new period of time I’m completely cut off from? Adreana it is!’
Going by his feeling, he decided to go meet this taller than him, brown-skinned, black-haired pachin, and "hint" her into speaking at great length on the subject of the current situation of the IGS aside from the major events.
‘There’s also her gardener friend now that I think about it… If the timing is right I should acquaint myself with her.’
…
“It’s not like you care about it, and you’re going to leave again for years soon, so why do you want to know what the company is up to?” Adreana asked her office-intruder friend, knowing that trying to reason with him was a lost cause.
“My little brothers told me you allowed the Secluded Corner to own an entire floor, so I’m just wondering how it happened and things like that,” not knowing where to begin with, Rune said the first thing that came to his mind.
“That’s our main secondary activity. The Undecided company’s main activity is the training park, and the second is an investment fund, does that answer your query?” Shortening the answer as much as she could, she clearly didn’t want to enter the details.
But it was without counting on Rune’s sometimes genius social mind that made the most improbable and random links, “Is that how you made friends with the gardener path woman? The one who sent us the identification guide? Is she currently somewhere in the park? Can I say hello?”
Narrowing her eyes from behind her cool desk, she didn’t know how to exactly answer this sudden change of subject, “Yeah… She’s probably experimenting somewhere in the south area…”
“Ok, I’ll say hello later, and what has the training camp been up to? It’s our main activity as you said so it should have become amazing.”
“If you’re asking about everything we did while you were away, then I’m sorry to say you better ask someone else, though… Yeah, you probably don’t want the details, right? You just want the outline, of course you would only want the outline…” Making her own deduction under Rune’s puppy gaze, she ultimately resigned herself and decided to just have a good chat.
“Let’s find a good place?”
…
A bit different from the quiet and secluded place he had his reunion with Miro and Miri, Adreana guided him to the central area of the park, which hadn’t changed much if at all.
It was still a chaotic gathering of wooden chairs and tables surrounded by places where you could buy things to eat or drink. This same setting was repeated multiple times over the entire park, creating social areas crowded with people who were taking a break.
Once the two picked an overturned wooden table, settled it right, and ordered a few drinks, Rune welcomed the second chatting session after his return.
Thinking for a few seconds about where to start, Adrena finally seemed to have found a good point, “Do you know what field the training park belongs to?”
“Training?” He didn’t think much, yet this answer sounded kind of right-ish?
“You’re close,” she nodded, “You’re just missing a defining term that changes the whole meaning and implications: Urban. Our training park belongs to the urban training field.”
“I’m not going to expound much on the definition, but if there’s something you need to know about this field, it’s that pretty much every specialization path has their own organization to create the optimal training for them.”
The way Adreana approached the subject was to be gradual, she needed to make sure Rune knew at least that much before she broached onto the main subject.
“So if you want to know what we did for the 2 years you weren’t here, I can shorten it to a single sentence: We focused on creating bridges with every other organization that is related even the slightest bit to the urban training field.”
“Like… The crafting guild for example? Or the time watcher association? Even the energy builders guild?” Rune asked, throwing out the names of organizations he knew existed.
“Yup, all of them,” she nodded again, a smirk appearing on her face, “It’s just a minor insignificant bridge, but we have established a small partnership with all those organizations that are classified as ‘specialization path organizations’. The way we did it or the effort we used to make it happen doesn’t really matter though, because, in the end, everyone received the same offer. What do you think the partnership was about?”
Adopting the thinking man posture, Rune acted as if he was in deep thought for 5 seconds before shrugging confidently and shamelessly announcing, “I know the answer but I’m not sure you have it, so tell me first and I’ll say if we have the same.”
“We don't lose good habits, I see. Anyway, the partnership we established with lots and lots of organizations was about getting recommendation quotas. And now? Can you tell me the answer you found?” Answering shamelessly too, the only difference was that she exuded seriousness and not confidence.
However, she had given Rune the hint he needed to make his imagination work and find a conclusion that seemed to be the most probable and logical.
“It’s all about finding people who are using the park but shouldn’t be here. By publicizing the fact that the park has a referral service with hundreds of specialization path organizations, we can find those people and send them where they didn’t know they wanted to be,” giving the vaguest answer he had thought about, Rune was sure that at least some part of it were true.
Though he hadn't thought that while he was “right”, he seemed to have forgotten more than half of the correct answer, and Adreana noted it without hiding it, “Well, that’s maybe a quarter complete, in a very distorted way?”