‘Disappointing.’
That was what was on Rune's mind as he kept failing to evade, block, or divert correctly in the competent body control hell’s room.
Every time the gravity turned to zero, he thought about the same situation happening to him in the Deep Void Dimension, and even trying as hard as he could, he failed more than he succeeded.
Even after all this time, he still wasn’t ready.
Watching a simulation on how he could have done it and listening to the advice given was becoming very frustrating as it didn’t seem to allow him to progress.
‘How in the seven hells am I supposed to know that to evade I’ve got to use the goddamn burning pillar coming straight at me with the speed of a spaceship as support?!’
Of course, he was being a little too harsh on himself, his true progress speed was astonishing, even a donkey would have learned something from all the tries he had done in the hell’s room.
And it was even more true now.
‘Maybe sleep is my talent…’
Every time Rune woke up from his monthly sleep, he realized that for a short period of time, he progressed rapidly and without stopping. It was already the third time he was experiencing that, so he was completely sure it wasn’t his imagination.
‘I should ask.’
So he asked the Tireless forum, where the helpful and friendly lurkers were always here to answer your questions.
[Rune: After every monthly sleep, I feel like I became a genius overnight and keep progressing. Should I sleep every week in this case? Or is it due to an entire month of withheld accumulation?]
[Helpful and friendly lurker4: The more you train during a month, the more your spirit will have to organize the experience in your sleep. You're not the only one, but it seems you need to be very dedicated to your training for it to happen. If you remembered the dreams you had, you would realize they were probably all about the training you did.]
Having the answer that sleeping wasn’t his talent, he continued with another session of hell’s room.
…
“I’ve long heard of the masters of the martial supreme dojo, you’ll see Astryde, they are at a completely different level. One of the fighters is an ancient galactic fighting league champion, I’d never have thought we would be so lucky!” Utopia excitedly explained the reason he gathered everyone.
He was leading a group made up of 4 people, Atsryde, Nelo, Rune, and the newly arrived Gar.
Gar wasn’t someone from the 5 leading species of the IGS. He had told everyone he belonged to a minor civilization that was integrated a few millennia earlier than the Rululus.
But as they didn’t have anything impressive like supreme natural and optimized intellectual capabilities, they were simply integrated, and from their ancient culture, only their homeworld located in a fringe galaxy made them remember that they hadn’t belonged to the IGS for that long.
As for his appearance, he was a giant of 2m10 of height with a bald head, bushy eyebrows, and white-pink skin. Everyone knew though that his external impressive appearance would melt in seconds the moment he started talking, he was an enthusiast in everything and was happy to share his enthusiasm with anyone.
“Don’t underestimate it because It’s only one round, it’s played more as an advertising coup than a true demonstration of competence, but! One contestant is an ancient galactic fighting league champion, so he started a step ahead of everyone in terms of mastering the physical fundamentals. He’s even already a master in 2 out of 3 physical mastery knowledge!” Gar's level of enthusiasm as he spoke could perfectly rival that of Utopia.
Rune and the sister-brother duo weren’t here because Utopia had been very insistent, it was actually because it was an opportunity to see what true fighting looked like at master level through the physical path.
Taking a speed walk, they arrived at the master reinforcement level hall, a place they would only see today and then far in the future unless one of them was a hidden genius of reinforcement and combat in general.
A crowd of privileged people of all ages was already gathered there, standing around a 50 by 50 meters ring.
Once the group of 5 found a place from where they could easily see the ring, they continued discussing for 5 minutes before the famous ancient galactic fighting league champion arrived accompanied by his showmatch adversary, also a master of the supreme dojo, just without a prior stellar record.
They were discussing amiably like old friends as they stepped on the ring, seemingly without a care in the world about their upcoming match.
The one who looked just past his prime, with short gray hair and sports clothes, was once the galactic champion.
His casual friend and opponent was a human, he had blond hair, brown eyes, and was as average as anyone could imagine an average human with no defining features to be.
“He’s just as average as me…” Rune remarked in a whisper after seeing him.
“You have a weird definition of average,” Nelo answered to his whisper by raising a brow.
Surprisingly, the 2 masters started getting ready the moment they entered the ring, as if what they were doing was a chore and they wanted it to be over as soon as possible.
When the 2 masters were ready, they each went to a side of the ring and the blond human started introducing in more details what was going to happen, “All energy manipulation fundamentals are forbidden. Passive perception sphere and optimized awareness allocation are authorized, as is the creation of energy platforms through the energy compression fundamental used to move. Energy armor and weapons are also forbidden.”
He was talking slowly as his voice was amplified not through technology, but by an infusion of energy, it was a simple energy-infused voice spell. He was clearly flexing in their face that he wasn’t only good in the physical path.
And like it truly was a casual fight for them, they finished positioning themselves on opposite corners and waited for the virtual countdown to declare the start of the match.
Soon after the start, Rune felt the air around them seemingly vibrating with his perception sphere, but the 2 opponents were just staring at each other.
“They’re starting to use reinforcement,” with the eyes of a fanboy, Utopia described what was happening, “This is the last fundamental of the physical path, and if one of them was late by even one second in activating their reinforcement, they’d lose a lot during the first exchange.”
A few seconds of waiting was followed by an erupting impulsed jump from the human contender’s side, rushing with astonishing velocity towards the former champion.
A simple blink of an eye, and the first exchange happened.
It felt like Rune was the one fighting, the feeble energy vibrations spreading in the air caused by their exchange were like ripples in a lake.
But maybe it was normal at their level to be able to do that? From the spectator's perspective though, they were trying to literally kill the other.
Rune knew what changed the most compared to fighting during the Intergalactic Era, or alternatively, the Defective Physics Laws Era, it was that your entire health, your life, only needed a single minute to go back to full.
What did such a change mean concretely? It meant that if you could use 90% of your health to deal with 100% of the opponent's health, it was more than worth it to go for it!
So much strength was condensed in their punches, kicks, and blocks that the air shimmered a bit around the zone of impact.
Before the eyes of Rune, he discovered why the breakthrough of discovering reinforcement had put the physical on the path to glory, crushing literally everything in battle.
Some tried to argue that they could still flee, that the energy path only needed time to develop, but there was always a solution for those people, they didn’t want to accept the idea of reinforcement being the king of the offensive fundamentals.
In this very fight, after the first few moves, Rune saw them start flying by stepping on the air. It was a very basic technique of the energy compression fundamental, the only exception about the energy path in this fight.
They literally made a platform appear, locked it in place, and used it to transform their strength into speed. Rune understood why fleeing while kiting them wasn’t a correct counter, that was because from the beginning, they could catch up to you.
“Reinforcement is energy applied internally, it uses the same principle as the revitalization but by using energy as a booster to do anything. The only reason it’s not classified as an energy fundamental is that the support to use it is strength, which belongs to the physical path,” Gar commented as fast as his mouth allowed him to.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Oh! And also it functions on a very different principle compared to regular energy spells and techniques,” Gar sounded like he was well-versed in the subject, so tuning your hearing to his voice was like having a live commentary by a professional.
“Ah! That kick applied a difference of at least 5 health, but the retaliation took 15, it was a masterful counter move, impossible without reinforcement. The blond one is attempting a risky move and… No! He was led to a trap! Maybe it’s coming to an end, the difference should already be 30 health. Yeah, he’s trying to wait it out, but the former champion is not going to let him, he created 2 platforms to try and confuse him, but it didn’t work…”
‘Considering 50 health is the maximum without integrating with one’s avatar and benefits from tier 1 state full stats, it's really a tidal wave of aggression… Wait… Is that snack a protein bar? Really the dojo of strength and testosterone here…’
As for Rune, he just enjoyed the demolition with his friend’s commentary from just next to him.
The fight ultimately ended up with the former champion winning by what appeared to be a landslide. His exquisite combo and flawless moves impersonated what the majority of people here intended to reach and be one day, Rune wasn’t an exception.
“It’s really frustrating that some people have attained such a high proficiency not even a year after the Ether Law awakening, while for us… Sigh…” Astryde was clearly letting her frustration and envy take over, not bothering with hiding them at all.
But no one in their group corrected her that those people had already trained for years and all, they knew she knew.
“Trying everything is the priority, isn’t that right Rune?” Utopia tried to divert the subject.
“Yeah, do your tutorial and complain that your talent is average after working for months on one specific fundamental. That will be more sensible for those who have below-average talent or are completely blocked by awareness or momentum training,” Rune answered as honestly as he could, sometimes being frank was for the best, and he knew Astryde also liked it.
“Maybe soon the ether density will open a new power like a masteries window? Or maybe a way to activate the ether soul specialty? A way to gain independence maybe? We can only train and train more, nothing else we can do,” Nelo retold the current trending theories before finishing on a comforting note.
The group soon split again with Utopia saying he’d soon post a message on their forum saying he planned to reschedule the fighting camp to later as he hadn’t started his energy fundamentals training yet, and wanted at least the basics before truly fighting.
‘The fight really motivated him, but my motivation isn't any less than yours kid.’
Finding himself in the competent body control hall again, as he had done during the last month, Rune put his entire being, except the 30% of himself that was busy farming, to the task of pushing his physical fundamentals further.
…
Strangely, the Ether Law was something that had proved to the Universe Dimension that all lives were equal against nature. Be they talented or talentless, rich or poor, young or old.
Universe Dimension Ether Density (Deep Void Dimension Opening Basis): +9%
Nothing came easy, even the talented couldn’t be talented in everything. And being rich meant nothing against a dimensional event.
Reaching for tier 2 was like pushing for an unattainable dream at the moment, but for youth like Rune and Utopia, who still had a hundred years of natural biological lifespan to their knowledge if it even still worked like that, even with the worst-case situation where life-prolonging treatments had completely stopped working, it was only a question of hard work from their point of view.
Since its awakening, lifespan had remained a shadowed domain in the Ether Wiki, countless tried to reveal what the Ether Law knew about possible lifespan increasing treasures birthed from the whatever, but to no surprise, ether was just that: Ether.
Once farmed it could increase your stats, once transformed into energy through your ether soul it could be used to do magical things. The ether also allowed your spirit to indirectly affect reality, increase your perception, and a lot more…
It really looked like everything was possible.
Universe Dimension Ether Density (Deep Void Dimension Opening Basis): +10%
As always, it increased by a round number, a complete percentage point, but with each increase of the ether density, the Ether Law regained, or gained, more power.
And as part of it, the compensation law which was working hard in the background to help this “critically defective dimension”, also gained more power.
This threshold of 10%, however, was a point that historians would mark as a true turning point in the IGS history into the new Interdimensional Era.
Because this increase demarcated a moment where the wiki could finally confirm that tier 2 was something universal to everything, tier 2 had always been present, it even marked the first step in a journey towards something more.
And that tier 2 had also something to do with lifespan.
With its new statement-verifying power that had seemed to come from nowhere, the Ether Wiki started checking contributions sent by countless seniors in the Universe Dimension, with the majority of them being similar to some who were refused, but a simple refusal wasn’t enough to dissuade sapient life.
And coincidentally, a competitive informant that saw the update made on the tier section couldn’t resist posting it on his personal forum as a strange oddity.
Followed by many who did the same.
It was how the Interdimensional Era was, if you wanted to be part of it, you just had to have the strength and determination to carry the consequences of your own decision.
And soon, decisions would be made, very heavy decisions. For lots of people.
Talented or talentless.
Rich or poor.
Young or old.
Mainly old.
…
Rune won the challenge against the amateur close combat hall guardian of the martial supreme dojo and was now officially a competent close combat fighter.
It was the objective he gave himself and he had done it. He didn’t regret using nearly the whole 11th month to succeed, because he had done it properly and soundly. He knew he had improved massively.
The competent level of close combat represented more than just going to the next hall, from this stage onward, the only reason you would use an AI puppet was to try new techniques and moves. Other than for doing that, you had nothing else to learn from an AI.
For this reason, the competent hall was completely different from the previous lower level halls in that there were no more simulation rooms. Now, there were only hundreds of 20 by 20 meters rings where you fought all day and increased your fighting experience by going at it with fellow sapient opponents.
‘Well, that’s for another time for me!’
But that was it for Rune. He could see that the majority of the fighters in this hall used some measures of reinforcement. As strange as it sounded, the close combat hall didn’t forbid reinforcement.
For them, it seemed that close combat at a competent level should stop being training matches only, external energy techniques were still forbidden, including energy platforms, but that was all. Everything else was authorized.
It was the start of the odyssey of blood.
‘Time to start energy training.’
There were still 5 days before his monthly sleep, so he could either start his energy training fundamentals or focus on competent body control and not become proficient because he didn’t have enough time.
‘Say less!’
Dreams of magician and epic spells spontaneously appeared in Rune’s mind. More than anything, his ideal for what a mage should be wasn’t represented a lot by what he read on the board.
He was a lot more… Childish?
He wanted total control of fluent shining, colorful, and flowing energy. He wanted to control colors and shapes like they were part of his body, he wanted… Not a pragmatic energy mage training!
He wanted magic! Energy magic!
After sharing his dreams, his friends called his idea an “artist entertainer dream”, and if you forgot that the fundamentals included spells like energy beams and energy bullets, then it was exactly what Rune wanted.
He wasn’t in it for proficiency, he was in it for passion and dream. He hadn’t started training before that point because in the end, it was only a small part of his dream.
He wanted to be an adventurer journeying across different dimensions first, a magician controlling energy shapes of different colors second.
Since the time when the first “comprehensive” energy fundamentals training was released, it has been optimized a lot to clearly separate fine manipulation, grand manipulation, and energy compression, the 3 discovered fundamentals of the energy path.
After getting back to the training building rented by Utopia, he got to the giant simulation room where they did their momentum technique training months ago.
Taking control of the energy in his original body, he willed it to get out and form a stable sphere at the end of his raised finger, and…
His energy training began with nothing but energy flatulence.
‘Ah~ Finally!’
2 hours later, Rune succeeded in forming a clump of energy.
The only problem was that it was only visible by using his perception sphere. Eyes designed to be used in the original Universe Dimension had become useless for this part of the new era.
It was theorized that only when it became possible to recreate his own body into that of an ether life form, when the ether density increased enough, the sense of sight would become useful again for more than just observing matter in a flawed 3D manner.
Avatars were only energy embodiments, they only copied the appearance without copying the function, so their eyes were similarly useless when it came to that.
‘If only my ether sould could regenerate my energy faster…’
Feeling his nearly empty energy pool, Rune lamented about his lacking energy regeneration stat with his original body and wished his ether soul could transform the ambient ether into energy faster than it was doing it now.
Ether and energy were different words designating the same thing, but the wiki had long explained everything in detail.
Energy was ether refined by his ether soul. Once energy was used and dissipated after accomplishing its goal, it returned to the ether, forming a cycle that didn’t involve ether being destroyed or created.
This single-sentence explanation from the wiki was pretty clear for Rune.
‘The ether…’
Thinking about this new word made Rune fantasize about lots of things. Ether was theoretically infinite, when it became infinite enough, it formed condensed ether resources, but he didn’t know what laid beyond that point.
Maybe another form different from volatile ether existed that started to be created once a certain density was reached? Or maybe the density could continue increasing endlessly? Or maybe the answer was just inconceivable with his current knowledge?
‘Why is the ether red in my farming ground? Something game-changing must happen later, something that changed the ether’s property or even function… It’s frustrating that I can’t know why.’
Concluding on his inability to know more about the Ether Law, he moved on from the frustrating subject and returned to manipulating his energy as delicately and intensely as he could.
He knew that the more time passed, the closer he was to entering the Deep Void Dimension and start fighting in earnest for his avatar’s life.
And energy manipulation was one of the keys for an amateur such as him to truly deal damage and protect his own life.
Additionally, he was absolutely certain that if he didn’t have talent in every other category, then he had to have one in the energy fundamentals!
If even once he finished trying all the energy fundamentals he still didn’t find his talent, then he had necessarily missed it! Or he had approached one of the fundamentals in an unsuitable way, unsuited for his talent.
5 days later, after getting the energy manipulation basics a bit further, Rune went to sleep while thinking about how manipulating energy felt good.