Rune slept for 3 entire days, waking up one time in between due to thirst and hunger which he resolved by just activating his revitalization energy loop again before going to sleep again.
Once he woke up, his spirit having finally recovered enough, he still felt annoying secondary effects from spiritual over exhaustion.
‘Is that what a hangover feels like?’
He had never been an avid drinker, he wasn’t even a festive drinker, as far as he could remember, he had never ended up unconscious or forgot about a night due to having drank too much.
With those 3 days, his spirit clearly made him acknowledge that next time, he should not do perception sphere manipulation training for 1 month straight.
‘Maybe just one or two weeks? Very intermittently?’
At least, he could rejoice that there hadn’t been any pain involved, it was just a long sleep.
…
‘Close combat… Body control… The peak of absurdity if I was just an engineer, but now even the education department is talking about including body control education… What a crazy world.’
Times had, and were still, changing, and Rune was already a part of what prompted the times to change. Even if he didn’t want to admit to it.
Parents already started getting notices that universal education would change as soon as possible, and as the current education period was coming to an end, there was only 1 month remaining before the ancient education disappeared.
Every school period was 10 months long, and as Ether appeared when Rune decided to take a long break as his twin brothers and twin sisters began their school year, the timing was just perfect.
It also meant that after 1 month of school and 2 months of vacation, 3 months only, the new education reform was going to be revealed to the entire IGS.
‘Fortunately, I’m already considered an adult…’
While thinking about his luck at having graduated before the big mess that was coming, Rune entered through a gigantic open-air entrance to a gigantic and crowded building.
This place was the martial supreme dojo branch on A56.
As it had access to government help and private companies support to transport new training modules and even trainers, it was established and popularized in record time. Better than even a galactic buzz could have done it objectively.
The futuristic appearance from outside but also from inside contrasted with the corporation name including “dojo” in it. Only the logo showing a big “MSD” with the background of a muscular humanoid doing middle-kick training within a dojo allowed people to know it was the right place.
Inside, there were neither reception desks nor people to help and guide you, only 3 different hallways, respectively named from left to right “Reinforcement”, “Close Combat” and “Body Control”.
As he already knew where he wanted to go, Rune entered the “Body Control” hallway and stepped on a speed walk.
He knew that if he wasn’t included in their database, he wouldn’t even have reached here and be authorized access, so the managing AI should already know he was an adherent.
As he was pondering on how it would go, he was surprisingly automatically led to a single room, with an entrance appearing in the wall of the hallway.
Not every person before him was similarly being led to a single room, but still, some of them were, so he didn’t worry too much. And with his perception he was able to see where he was being led, greatly helping him calm down.
Once in the room, the door closed behind him and a control screen appeared in mid-air, which asked for his specific original body’s stats, so Rune wrote his physical stats: 10 health, 7 health regeneration, 4 strength, and 10 cohesion, as well as one of his spiritual stats that gave him reaction time: 50 perception.
After that, the screen changed to an options window, with all body control mastery levels: Beginner, amateur, competent, proficient, expert, and master.
As there was no masteries information window in the global system, the martial supreme dojo took a bit of a liberal approach and put names on different categories that they defined.
One day they’d change it to reflect reality better, but currently, they let each person judge themselves by comparing to the difficulty of a level they defined arbitrarily.
Rune chose the beginner level, and immediately after, instructions started to be vocally transmitted and written on a screen that appeared to the side.
The room he was in had multiple machines, and one was currently being highlighted.
Walking to it following the instructions, he put all his strength into a punch, then a kick, then another punch, then another kick.
The initial tests asked multiple tries of each offensive movement for pure strength exertion.
Next, another machine was highlighted, this one used to measure his explosive speed, and he was asked to not use the momentum stat.
Then another machine, testing his dexterity and body coordination by making him evade things. It had probably been adapted to his reaction speed as a perception of 50 was not a joke and as a pure amateur, Rune could react to 10 different moves at the same time.
In the end, as he had never trained like that before however, he simply became a sandbag for the experienced machine.
A comprehensive amount of tests later, the revitalization spell being the only thing that allowed him to still be standing, his body was covered in sweat and his breathing was heavy, more than when he had fight practice with his friends.
The sweat wouldn’t disappear, but the breathing difficulty would. In one minute to be exact. The time necessary for the Ether Law to reset everything.
A floating screen appeared again once no machines remained untested, letting him see the result.
[68% overall body strength application, beginner level, expand detail?]
‘Sigh, why not, let me see my miserableness.’
Rune selected the expand option.
[Direct strength application: 65%
Fast strength application: 59%
Strength-ground transmission: 67%
Body dexterity index: 62%
…
Overall body strength application: 68%]
‘I’m a complete beginner, aren’t I? Does that paint a bleak picture for my talent in this field?’
The percentage expected to become an amateur was 75%, then with every 5% gained, you passed to the next stage. So 95% to 100% of strength application was master level.
Meanwhile, everyone below 75% was a beginner.
“Do you want a virtual assistant to receive advice on how to start your training, or do you prefer deciding your own training?” A comfortable robotic voice asked him out of the blue.
Hearing the proposition, he didn’t hesitate an instant and chose to get a virtual assistant.
The start was always the easiest when it came to the progression curve, and he didn’t come here to go back after knowing how miserable he was.
…
Rune was then led to the beginner body control hall where plenty of people were using different training modules, from gravity modules able to go from 0 to 100 times the average amount to similar-looking machines to the punching machine he had just used during his test.
There were also people with martial supreme dojo’s employee clothing, probably the instructors, here to oversee that everything was fine.
Every training machine seemed to have people on them, and with his perception sphere, he could see another hall on the other side of the wall. He just didn’t know if it was also a beginner hall or another higher-level hall, it looked very similar to the beginner hall he had before his eyes if he was to be honest.
His virtual assistant quickly started advising him and led him to a punching machine first, followed by a 3D holographic image of him doing a punch virtualized before his eyes, accompanying by explanations on how to use more of his strength, how using the rest of his body was important, how to use simple positioning to have more exerted strength at the end, the correct alignment of arm, torso, and leg…
Every possible piece of advice was thrown his way, resulting in a never-ending session of him forgetting half of it as he had to associate what he was seeing with what he was hearing.
“Newcomer?” A passer-by, seeing what he was doing, came to advise him, “Just punch and kick, you don’t look like a rululu, so just learn as your assistant corrects you. Perfect your moves, and remember as much as possible while continuing to punch like an idiot, with time you will clear this training and go to the next.”
Seeing the strange look he received from Rune, the passer-by felt forced to explain, “Just alternate between 2 to 3 moves, you have tens of moves to learn to have the beginner fundamentals of body control. So unless you’re a genius, be ready for weeks and months of training.”
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
With a faraway look, the passer-by then continued his path and started punching on the machine next to Rune’s one.
Every time he punched, he seemed to remember things and punched again, and such a cycle repeated again, and again, and again, before he suddenly turned to Rune and concluded his explanation, “Just like that.”
…
‘Punch! Listen… Punch! Listen…’
Once he started, Rune understood that everything was just a matter of repetition, hard work, and willpower in its purest sense.
Using every punch to better your next, using determination, determination, and even more determination to not let a single piece of advice slip by, and carve into your body everything you did to not forget it.
Yet, once he got the gist of it, it was a little different for Rune…
‘Ah!’
[Your leg was misaligned from your torso and arm extension, your torso was…]
‘Ah!’
[You didn’t let your arm reach full extension, losing 20% of the exerted strength, your breathing was disordered, control it by exhaling when punching, to maximize your pun…]
‘Ah!’
[You didn’t properly…]
‘Punching is life! Ah!’
Rune was releasing something he never knew he had in him. Repressed feelings or something, he didn’t know or care, he didn’t even feel like caring about it.
Just punching and punching again was liberating him from an invisible weight.
He only marginally included the advice given to him as, during the first few days of serious training, he had already learned the optimized punching form for “Still punching”, and now on the third day…
He was having the time of his life.
Rune wasn’t an isolated case to something like this. With the revitalization spell, sports took a very different turn as of lately.
Infinite energy led to infinite endurance, and now, stimulant-excluded, always sprinting during a marathon of hundreds of kilometers wasn’t a joke or cheating, it was just this simple spell being used.
People starting exercise and not stopping because moving at their limit without suffering from exhaustion was addicting was not even on the news anymore, it just became normal.
After an entire day of punching like a punching addict, Rune changed exercises and did the explosive ground movement one, using his legs and sometimes his arms, to help accelerate himself at the maximum speed in the least amount of time.
It was similarly as exhilarating as the punching exercise.
From his understanding, even if what he was doing was beginner training and the later halls would have completely different kinds of exercises, those beginner fundamentals were fundamental for a reason, they were used in every training later.
So while learning to punch while standing still and taking his time to have the best impulse to move was not useful in a fight, it would become god-given when he started learning the follow-up and understood what was useful in fights.
As time passed by, Rune easily attained 75% and above strength exertion in the simple exercises, but with tens of exercises to perfect, he couldn’t be satisfied with attaining amateur on only a few exercises and the virtual assistant advised him to attain 75% in every exercise before going to the next hall.
It also advised him to not try and “perfect” the beginners’ move as it wasn't necessary for what he was going to do next.
The martial supreme dojo had an optimized training path, and this path wasn’t the path of simply punching and running.
2 weeks later, Rune was finally given access to the amateur hall after attaining 75% minimum strength exertion on every exercise.
He didn’t redo the test as it was only for newcomers and the supreme dojo virtual assistant already knew his progress.
He wasn’t disillusioned about his talent, it was average, so having concluded his body control talent, he only continued because competent level body control was the best level to start close combat training as designed by the dojo.
The 2 paths of body control and close combat had to be joined at some points. Punching during extreme situations, actively planning how to use your body and strength and so on were shared applications of fighting and body control after all.
The entire physical path was integrated into one organization for a reason.
‘It gets harder and harder… So 2 weeks is good, probably? It only took me 9 months and 2 weeks for me…’
Feeling sudden lethargy at the mention of how much time had already passed, he couldn't help but stop thinking and relativize for a moment.
‘9 months and 2 weeks… How could time pass so rapidly? Normally, I should’ve soon sent my job application to different companies, but here I am, all the studies I did being nothing more than soon-to-be illusions, I'd have to relearn everything or nearly everything with the Ether Law changing the entire Universe.’
He smiled after thinking that however. In fact, with everything that had happened, he had forgotten how to be a good exploration engineer after so much time passed thinking intensely about how to be part of the new era and train in newly opened fields…
Entering the amateur hall while thinking about how his life had been upturned, he realized that the amateur hall was more crowded than the beginner hall. So either he was unlucky and got sent to a packed hall, or the supreme dojo had more people at amateur than at beginner level.
Once he began training at the amateur hall, he was soon introduced to new mechanics that were in between true application and fundamentals.
The punching machine was still here, but it stood on a treadmill-like surface, being motionless was for beginners, now he had to punch while running.
Same for apparently every exercise he had done before, evading by a hair thread? Now the ground moved under your feet.
Trying to run? Do it on a soaped floor.
Stay balanced on a pole? What am I saying, it’s not a pole, it’s a vibrating thread.
‘Are they taking me for a shonen protagonist or what? I can tell you the answer now if you really want it, I’m not!’
Thunderstruck by what he was doing and the difficulty added as he followed his virtual assistant’s hall tour, he couldn’t help but try and see if he was the only one surprised by the absurdity of what he was doing.
[Rune: Did anyone train at amateur level body control in the martial supreme dojo? I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you if you didn’t.]
[Gar: I think I read something about it, you coming to bother us means it really shocked you, so the fact that it’s completely stupid is probably true, thank you.]
[Arik: The amateur level is famous on some obscure forum for causing a feeling of desperation, but those who passed tell the tale of even more nightmarish training in the following hall, so be humble and accept your fate.]
[Nelo: Astryde completed it one week ago and now she keeps complaining that it was easy, Utopia is also at an amateur level, but he stopped talking 2 weeks ago, probably focused on that level, maybe you’re in the same hall?]
‘It didn’t help at all!’
Smiling stupidly from understanding what he had embarked on, the silly thought of steady and linear progression got erased from his mind.
‘Maybe I’m in fact a genius in all spirit-related training and techniques?’
Shaking his head a few times, he eventually resolved himself and began his journey through the shonen protagonist's basic hell amateur body control hall sponsored by the Ether Law.
…
The IGS had a solid enough administrative system to just keep every unknown civilization call coming and answer each at their best ability. There was no stopping it, it was part of their core civilizational tenets after all.
However, as it was happening, the far-sighted IGS assembly, leader, every department’s head, with the support of all the administrative region’s head and with their lot of competent people, they all just never stopped anticipating what could happen.
If there was one sector fusion, there would be a second one.
So with that in mind, the budget linked to joining the newly integrated civilizations was slowly being increased and a new market was created for the private sectors to also contribute and invest.
The traditional way of first-contact had been thrown out the window long ago, leaving the stage to a much more different methodology of the unknown civilization having to take the first step by making them build a special device transmitting signals to theoretically infinite distances.
The problem of such a device however was its chance of failure. The signal being so weak meant only special ultra-light automated spaceships with calibrated and custom-made drive could be used to follow it. Such was the price for such a signal.
And even then, it had a high failure chance. It had only been designed as an emergency solution after all.
The pros of doing it that way though were that by exchanging multiple such cargoes, trust was being built over time. In the end, the far unknown civilization would agree to assemble a special signal emitter to increase the correspondence.
It was the same special signal emitter that was used for intergalactic travels, making it possible to take only some hours in place of the years spent traveling through the intergalactic empty space creating a network as they advanced to link 2 galaxies together.
Everything being so complex at this scale, the IGS leader wasn’t even being made aware of the progress of contacting other civilizations, he had much more important responsibilities, like securing the future of the consolidated whole IGS.
Even an anomaly such as an entire solar system being discovered in the Void Dimension only entered his most superficial pile of documents about unimportant but remarkable discoveries.
And the undeniable result of his leadership was the current information-sharing setting.
The 3 path organizations were open to anyone, the Adventurer’s Society was becoming a hegemon at a frightening pace, the patrollers were receiving their due reward and lowering crime rate to such an abysmal degree that any true and dangerous criminals were all apprehended and put into a coma permanently.
He of course wasn’t the one behind everything, and the assembly behind him could be attributed most of the merit, but even then, such a smooth transition was what proved again and again that the IGS was on the right path.
As the predictions about the effects of the ether density increasing became clearer, the leader delegated more and more of his work to join the assembly made mainly of rululus, trying to come up with ideas to have the IGS do an even smoother transition as early as possible to the Interdimensional Era.
As gravity proved itself deadly for anyone, even to those with maxed stats, without any choices, permanently livable stations using only ether technologies were already in the prototype testing phase.
Resources trading accelerated, new generation battleship-class and titan-class spaceships were being deployed inside the Void Dimension to allow the government to gather funds and re-inject them into the surroundings of the rifts, all while the Void Dimension map kept expanding and dangerous grounds were found and avoided.
It all wasn’t smooth nonetheless, some experiments, like etherized weapons, ended in utter failures.
“Ancient” physics laws, or it was called critically defective law now, weapons ended up being more effective than the few ether technologies anyone came up with. Sending a bullet at 100 000 kilometers per hour seemed enough to be enough to annihilate even ether reinforced matter.
They tried to attain at least the same result using newly learned ether principles as the physics laws’ principles they had relied on for all their technologies were fluctuating more and more as time went by, but the returns were highly pessimistic.
With the help of administrative-class AI core, the future education reform kept being perfected. The new generation was always the defining factor deciding whether civilization would perpetuate on or not, and they were going all-in on this plan.
A leader, an assembly, department heads, and more widely an entire civilization that became able to use all their intellectual capacities for a whole month without break was just a heaven-sent opportunity for the IGS.
So many different activities were happening and the number of missions being ensued were increasing so fast that long-retired veterans of all departments were called back to lead missions they never had had in their entire career.
Already, rumors about the rululu’s assembly ascending from brain overload were circulating in the forum, but the truth was much worse…
It wasn’t only the leaders and the high decisional sphere that was impacted, there was just no more break anymore anywhere.
With a seemingly infinite registry of backlog issues that hadn’t been cleared but could now be seen and resolved with ease, the more months passed, the more like an old man returning to his prime the entire IGS felt like.
That was the current era.
From fundamental geniuses creating the firsts energy-efficient spells, still not attained by anyone, to average citizens revealing themselves to be talented monsters awakened by the ether increasing around them, going on their way to destroying entire nests of monsters still considered untouchable by the majority…
It seemed as if before that moment, it had only been the premise to the true beginning of a golden age of discovery.
The transition was so gradual however, that no one seemed to see the reality they were transitioning into. Everyone was now too filled with their own ambitions.