2 months of gathering resources in the red ether dangerous ground had allowed Rune to gain a total of 5 860 597 EP, including the 14 special crystals and 10 special stones he ended up finding.
Being in a zone with special resources was just so balance-breaking, every time he found a special resource, it was worth more than all the normal ether crystals he had gathered starting from his last special resource.
Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)
EP: 11 685
Stats Total: 4 120
Health: 500
Health Regeneration: 500
Strength: 500
Cohesion: 500
Energy: 220
Energy Regeneration: 200
Purity: 200
Affinity: 500
Momentum: 500
Perception: 500
In those 2 months, after maxing his physical stats, he had focused on affinity and also maxed it, then he invested the rest into energy, making his energy pool bigger.
The week he had spent training in the reinforcement fundamental had been very fruitful, with enough practice, it finally became fast and smooth enough to use in a real high-speed high-intensity fight, and he intended to use it.
Leaving his room, he walked to the main living room by walking along the corridor, ultimately walking into a simply furnished room.
It was the room he had first arrived in and did the hero scene with Utopia. Compared to when he saw it for the first time however, there was now a fridge, a minibar, and even some arcade games just to form the ambiance.
Utopia was already here, as well as Gar the giant, Nelo of the brother-sister duo, and who he supposed to be Adreana, a pachin with dark brown skin and smooth black hair tied in a practical sports cut, she was slightly taller than him, standing at 1m75. Still average though.
They were discussing around a table full of drinks of all types, sodas, alcohols, energy-infused waters, with some appetizers too.
Soft music was playing but was purely for the background, so it was just peaceful piano and ambient sounds without any rhythm jump.
“And then I punched the machine so hard that I reached 87% for an unknown reason, and of course I couldn’t do it again, so I thought too much training was leading me to dementia!” Utopia was talking merrily while drinking a popular orange soda.
“Hahaha! I’m still at amateur level and doing all these things seems just so stupid, energy is so much simpler and direct, create a spell matrix, eject energy, blast things!” Gar the enthusiast responded in kind to Utopia’s anecdote.
“Yeah, different aspirations for everyone. I only focused on energy spells, I also searched for ways a pure spellcaster like me could keep warriors like Utopia out of my zone, and it’s a bit maddening,” Adreana followed with a sweet high-pitched voice, her end-of-the-world and permanently stressed attitude wasn’t here, nor was her seriousness.
She just seemed chill.
Joining them, Rune was simple and direct, “Yo.”
He then sat down on an available chair next to Utopia and served himself a drink he loved, peach iced tea, he also had that at home and it was just a staple drink for him, if not his favorite drink. Even some energy-infused drinks he tasted on the Duke of Andromeda couldn’t compete with its legendary taste.
“Hello Rune, that’s Adreana right there, Adreana, this is Rune. With this, you’re only missing Astryde and Arik, they’ll arrive soon,” Utopia introduced the two to each other and then continued on his subject.
It wasn’t like they needed to talk to each other now, they had months of camp to do it, so Rune let the conversation be led by Utopia, the less he needed to talk the better. Observing other people talk was one of his personal life choices.
5 minutes later, Arik arrived with Astryde in tow.
The group of friends made through the information board of the new Interdimensional Era was now complete.
Utopia, a 16 years old rululu, a typical handsome specimen of what their entire species consisted of: Blue hair, blue eyes, and blue skin. His youth only explained in part his fascination for heroes and his enthusiasm for their associated strength and duties.
Nelo and Astryde, the brother and sister duo, kajos with platinum blond-white-ish hair, very white skin, and white eyes.
The brother Nelo was above his species' average in height. As for Astryde, she perfectly embodied what a kajo should look like.
They loved to clash with each other but still had very distinctive traits, with “soft and amicable on the outside but methodological and stubborn on the inside” Nelo and the “instinct following” Astryde.
Adreana, a pachin with dark brown skin and smooth black hair, her eyes were also black. On their private forum she had always appeared serious and stressed, but as expected, her social persona was a lot more relaxed, her true personality still unknown.
Gar, a 2-meter giant who was completely bald with pinkish white healthy skin. His species was integrated relatively recently in the IGS history, but his open and simple enthusiasm made others feel like they could ask him anything.
He was one of the 2 informants of their group along with Arik, they always gathered info and seemed to love doing it.
Arik, in complete contrast to his brother-in-arms, was short, 1m40, he was too young to look like a legendary fantasy dwarf but he informed the group that his whole male family side let their beard take over their face when it arrived.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Though he didn’t intend to let it take over his face at all for now.
His apparent personality was also in high contrast to Gar’s,he was to the point, factual and matter-of-fact, so much that he appeared sarcastic.
When he joined with his fellow informant brother they became talking machines, insufferable on the board forum, but reliable in the moment of important events.
‘And me.’
Rune was happy with this group, he had long lost contact with his ancient circumstance friends from X125 like Jules, Peter, and Romain.
‘My journey has already started, and my life has already changed…’
Thinking about it all, there was no precise reason for the chain of events that ultimately led him to sit at this futuristic table today.
His asocial personality had allowed him to make friends with someone rich enough to pay for intergalactic tickets to gather a group of 6 friends he made onboard. Even if maybe not everyone here needed an intergalactic one to travel to this planet, it was still impressive.
‘And there’ll be so many more in the future… Let me stop thinking about it, live in the present, not in the past or the future.’
Rune finished his inner monologue and, as a neutral observer, started to listen to what his friends were talking about.
“No, true heroes said they regretted not learning everything, they trapped themselves in a sub-optimized and limited fighting style. You just have to account for everything, momentum technique, close combat, close combat with reinforcement, and energy spells, the last two consume enough energy that only using one is possible in a true fight,” Arik was correcting Nelo and Utopia on how to approach the creation of a fighting style.
“That’s why I rescheduled the camp, now I have all the tools and Rune does too. The earliest you learn every fundamental, the best. In all cases, true fighting will say the truth,” Utopia was defending his opinion with conviction.
“I only concentrated on momentum and grand energy manipulation, and as long as the Ether Law doesn't create an access to a masteries window, I’ll continue this way,” Adreana seriously believed in her choice too, and as a result the severity she had only let appear on their forum surfaced for the first time.
“I followed my instinct and went all-in on reinforcement, so I had 2 additional weeks compared to Rune and Utopia to practice it. The energy expenditure is so no joke that only by stopping farming I could practice as much as I wanted with consequent reinforcement. Oh yeah! Some don’t know reinforcement here, hu~ Let me explain…” Astryde in the end repeated what the instructor said, or maybe what all instructors said.
“You’re underestimating the next-generation spells, less time wasted, more efficiency, more accuracy, more variety, that’s the future of the IGS. Teams of patrollers covering for one another with one focused on only grand energy manipulation is monstrous, the moment rifts leading to the Deep Void Dimension appear, you’ll see the truth,” Nelo’s smile couldn’t hide his stubbornness on his thought and opinion, that was the true him.
“I’ll soon beat your ass then, you’ll learn that you can’t only do spells,” his sister didn't let it go and answered in kind, maybe it was her instinct?
“Maybe in 1 versus 1, but the moment I’m teamed up with Rune or Utopia, I’ll just atomize you so much your instinct will tell you to learn spells from now on,” Nelo reciprocated instantly.
That was some quality exchange and arguments Nelo had used there, and it flattered Rune’s ego in a good way too.
“Oh. I didn’t even think about 2 versus 2, that’s possibly the answer to my predicament, thanks Nelo,” Adreana seemed enlightened. She had probably been preoccupied with what was coming, she wasn’t resigned to losing every 1 versus 1, but now she realized she could shine in other configurations.
“Don’t worry, I planned around every possible situation, even the most improbable ones like,” Utopia helped her feel in her element even more, “If one wants to try an ambush situation, everyone here will want to help and be the practice target, that’s what friendship is for.”
Utopia really touched a point they all agreed on, opposed to their opinions on fighting style, training time, and fundamentals, making everyone smile.
‘Hehehe, what were the lyrics again? We should fly together as one, now’s the time to move forward we’ll be alright, through the tears that fall like rain up in the sky? Something like that?’
Rune could only think about a song he stumbled upon not long ago over his energy fundamentals training.
(One Piece OP 5 Kokoro no Chizu - Studio Yuraki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEtzmsGZTn0)
As the situation evolved, artists never let culture down, new themes with very poetical meaning were posted onboard, and true singers popularized them once they got enough private traction.
‘Let us stand together while we look for the light…’
Rune magically started remembering nearly every sentence with the rhythm right.
‘There's a sun inside you shining burning bright…’
The casual talk continued for an hour, even Rune wasn’t spared from questions about his life, love, hobby, and family, but as he was equally curious about those same subjects but for others, he answered them with as much detail as he could to satisfy them.
After enough time passed, however…
Rune could feel tension begin to appear, Gar fidgeting, Nelo breathing deeply, Astryde sharp glances, so he hinted at Utopia.
“Hu-hu! Fighting camp, Utopia? Hu-hu!” He coughed as he said that. Okay, it wasn’t really a hint, but he had never been a subtle-communication type of guy to begin with.
Looking at everyone, feeling like he had made a fool of himself, Utopia stood up, “Excuse me for the wait. We’re here to fight, right? So let’s fight! We have an entire month of energy to use, and I also want to establish the fact that you’re all sidekicks for my magnificence!”
‘Yeah he also has a considerably sized ego. It’s part of his personality at this point. He’s still young nonetheless, so he can get away with it, but only if he can keep up with everyone punching him the face soon.’
Rune stood up and walked to the stairs as everyone followed Utopia in toe.
…
“As it’s only the beginning, we’ll be starting with you-know-I-know relaxing 1 versus 1. As I said, I prepared lots of scenarios for true practice, but let’s all get warmed-up before that point.”
“It’ll be the first true fight for everyone I think, with no hard restrictions in place,” Utopia was doing the speech, the legendary speech.
‘I think he’s ecstatic inside, his smile says it all.’
Rune observed it, but didn’t interrupt.
“Losing is when your health goes beyond 75% lost, or when you have less than 25% remaining. The fight will not stop before that, in fact, please give me your health stat and health regeneration, as well as cohesion please. If you give the right number then the assistant will stop the match automatically when the right conditions are fulfilled.”
At that part of the speech, the non-reaction from his friends told him to explain further.
“Hu, yeah, sorry. That’s government educational tech, I heard they were giving their everything to develop educational techs that precisely assure that future students could go all in relative safety, and with a new experimental ether probe attached, it can somehow precisely measure the health damage you did, and so calculate everything.”
“Woah, that’s seriously amazing when you think about the potential implications. I wouldn’t be surprised if they prepared super patroller suits with integrated AI cores that literally control the owner to have an invincible peak tier 1 fighting instinct and body control,” Gar told of an intriguing idea.
Unfortunately, it would only be possible to execute in rift-linked dimensions, so not the Deep Void Dimension for now.
“50 in everything,” Rune took the opportunity to say his physical stats.
“Okay, next?” Utopia asked.
After everyone inputted their stats, it came to no surprise that like Rune, everyone probably had more than 3 000 total stats. Though, some had been unexpectedly unlucky and still weren’t able to find a correct farming ground, so they were a bit lower on their stats side.
Finished with gathering the physical stats of everyone, Utopia finished the opening speech, “And now we can just fight. As I said, just fight, no advice, nothing, just beat the hell out of anyone opposed to you, everyone has to create his own fighting style by using their own preferences.”
On those wise words, Utopia entered a ring and waited for someone to come and fight him like the man he was.
As if he had forgotten something though, he quickly turned back and said something else, “Don’t forget to turn off your sense of pain!”