A minor problem was that his storage of EP was already maxed out.
Between absorbing rare resources and absorbing tens of cores at every nest cleaned, and now absorbing special resources, there would be a problem if he didn’t have full storage.
Rune Tudor (Tier 1)
Specialty: Dimensional Perception
EP: 100 000 000
Stats Total: 5 000
Health: 500
Health Regeneration: 500
Strength: 500
Cohesion: 500
Energy: 500
Energy Regeneration: 500
Purity: 500
Affinity: 500
Momentum: 500
Perception: 500
Not being able to keep them for later was a shame but he didn’t have a choice, so he just let them return to floating in the Void.
And now that he completed the Void initiation event, he had nothing more to do here.
The only remaining things were leveling his spiritual fundamentals, finishing maxing for some, and then fighting to the end of time against a whole nest at the same time to level his tier 2 physical fundamentals.
The only regret he could potentially have was not keeping his soul-awakening event reward in wait, but what was done couldn’t be undone, so he didn't let it bother him.
Dimensions
Deep Void
Able to bear ether life forms, Can birth life.
Slightly unstable. Dimensional anomalies possible.
Tier 1 Perception: 50% restriction.
Tier 1 Momentum: 50% restriction.
The Deep Void Dimension was born soon after the Void Dimension. It is only a billionth of its size but has a dimensional link to the Void Dimension allowing ether density to come in but not out, greatly increasing its ether density, explaining its ability to produce ether life forms.
The ether life forms born in it ended up becoming ether monsters that propagated more aggressive behavior with every successive generation in search of dominance and power. Few ether life forms escaped this cycle.
Enter?
‘Yes.’
His last adventure in the Void dimension was over.
It only lasted 2 months but who knows, maybe he would return one day to explore the planets with gravity, but it was too far in the future to think about it now.
Feeling his body being reversed and twisted was as debilitating as usual, but like the last two times he kept his calm through it all, and then he arrived back in the Deep Void dimension.
‘I just need to develop a variant fighting style relying more on momentum manipulation, this way I’ll be able to fight more efficiently than with just the minor use I have in my primary fighting style.’
Rune had already maxed his energy fundamentals, it wasn’t that hard as only practice was necessary, and with the IGS prioritizing the young generation, training after training were developed and sent to be tested.
For the spirit fundamentals, however, they had special needs.
Spirit could be exhausted if used too intensely, so developing a passive training method for this domain was something numerous people tried to do, of course, his artificial blackout method had long since been discovered.
But momentum manipulation and perception control were more delicate, not everyone had a sphere resisting what they wanted to do, Rune even found other people with a specialty similar to his, but even with billions of billions of unique specialties, some were rarer than others.
Common didn’t mean less powerful, the specialty of Utopia was statistically very common, but its applications and consequences in battle were far-reaching ones.
Rune’s one was very, very rare, those with it only numbered in the thousands, a number that could not even be expressed using infinitesimal percentage points, but at least they weren’t like those who were the only representative.
His current masteries looked like that.
Masteries
Tier 1 Masteries
Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 2 Level 1
Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 2 Level 3
Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 2 Level 3
Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 1 Level 100
Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 1 Level 100
Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 1 Level 100
Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 1 Level 100
Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 1 Level 96
Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 1 Level 91
If he was to be honest, Rune was becoming bored of the Void dimension and the Deep Void dimension.
There was nothing to do, nothing to discover, if he tried to approach a gravitic anomaly, he would die like everyone else, so there was nothing to do.
Only an endless grind awaited him, a grind that would only further amplify his will to explore, but it was impossible, and to seal this boring fate, he was above what the monsters in the Deep Void could handle.
He reached the end of what the current situation offered, and while this conclusion meant he succeeded at taking the path of his dream and not the dreaded second path, now he could only prepare for the future, the optimistic future.
…
Punching, Rune sent a good old whale monster flying, but his objective wasn’t to kill, so he switched targets.
From nothing to maximum momentum, 8.3 meters per second, in no time, he punched another whale, then he continued, evading everything they tried to do against him.
He was currently in the middle of a whale-like monster’s nest, and he was surrounded by all of the tribe, but he was only playing with them.
Rune locked his movable platform spell, if he wanted to evade he could only rely on clever uses of martial movements or by using momentum manipulation.
He had been at it for 2 days already, and his spirit, his formidable spirit, was starting to feel his exhaustion.
In the end, stats were still a big part of the equation on how a fight would end, and masteries could only use them as an amplifier for different goals.
‘Time to try another nest.’
Rune had no need to, but he started rampaging at the fastest speed he could, some insights could be created that way.
…
A dinosaur-like monster pounced on him, but he evaded using pure momentum, then he kicked the monster in the “stomach” area.
Another 3 monsters pounced, Rune had his right arm slashed by one of their claws, but overall he still evaded successfully.
The monster he kicked came back with yet another squad of 5 monsters who engaged Rune directly with very disturbing teamwork.
Those dinosaur-like monsters were very short, only 50 centimeters in pure height, but they were the deadliest monsters Rune ever encountered in the Deep Void.
It wasn’t the first time he had intruded on their nest, their coordinated attacks, and complex fighting style was something he craved for since he started on this adventure.
He had cleaned 3 nests since he started this moderately meaningful adventure and had long attained peak tier 1 in his tier 1 fundamental masteries, but he still decided to continue, just with a very leisurely cadence.
Energy compression spell matrix creation reappeared, fireworks magic restarted its development, and he was actually traveling to the boundary to try and create slash imitate some ether colors for his collection.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
On the way, he encountered a group of those monsters and was utterly impressed by their fighting ability, so he made a detour to fight them.
Having been at it for 2 weeks, Rune gained some insight on one against many battles, but it still seemed that his variant style of privileged momentum use was lackluster compared to his original one.
A majority of his insights were related to basics he didn’t use enough.
Always moving with posture balance in mind, always readying his hands even when not needed, being aware that all opponents couldn’t attack at the same time, more haste less speed and he’d create fewer weak points, how to compromise between keeping steady or willingly create openings that he wouldn’t be able to respond to.
A fight involved so many basic rules, but only by fighting could one decide to privilege one rule over another, and the more he fought, the more he learned that when his stats increased in the future, those same basics, the fundamentals, would become a true cornerstone of his fighting style.
And it wasn’t “the more the better” at all, it was even the opposite for him, he was more attracted to the “the less the better” school of thought.
Keeping ready, Rune jumped at one of the incoming monsters and kicked it with a 50 energy reinforcement, opening their formation.
He then rushed at the nearest one and knee-struck it to exert more control and send him colliding with another monster.
Simple, no need for fancy moves, useful was the king principle, using what he had to accomplish what he wanted before more variables appeared.
Grabbing one monster, their little size allowed him to, he repeatedly punched it and when another monster came to the rescue, he freed it, locked one of his platforms, and then did a perfect 50 energy reinforced high kick.
Engaging the coming little dinosaur, he preferred not receiving too much damage in too short a period, so he blocked what he could, and then another 4 monsters joined the party.
They did another synchronized strike and once again, Rune evaded by piercing a hole in their formation.
They were the worthiest opponents he ever found, and they helped him push some levels, and as there was no need to kill them to gain EP, he just retreated once he had had enough and could control the fight as he wanted.
They pursued him but once he used the galaxy wings spell, they were left in the dust, never to see him again.
‘Time to create ether colors.’
His detour was really worth it, but now his holidays started, so he checked his leveling notifications and was ready to be done with it.
*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement reached Tier 2 Level 2
*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct reached Tier 2 Level 4
*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Body Control reached Tier 2 Level 4
‘Worth it, worth it.’
Fighting tier 1 monsters to advance tier 2 masteries, that was a happy trade for him.
Getting back on track after this fun little adventure, Rune was prepared to completely stop fighting monsters in the objectives of leveling up, they didn’t provide the correct challenge to make it worth the time used.
Before stopping that completely, he checked his masteries window for the last time.
Masteries
Tier 1 Masteries
Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 2 Level 2
Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 2 Level 4
Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 2 Level 4
Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 1 Level 100
Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 1 Level 100
Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 1 Level 100
Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 1 Level 100
Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 1 Level 100
Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 1 Level 100
But closed it after a brief glance, maybe it said that he couldn’t level anymore, but training never stopped.
What if he stopped constantly bending his sphere or constantly have artificial blackout making his awareness move?
Utopia said that at some point he could even use momentum without thinking too much about it, energy experts told the same story about maintaining an energy ball near them.
Now, everyone could do passive training in fine and grand manipulation as well as awareness division and momentum manipulation, some methods were being discovered or had already been found to also passively train energy compression and perception control.
If it was possible, Rune wanted to learn everything, but the goal of those exercises resided in them being passive and not active, it was a background process.
If he were to class the order of importance of those passive pieces of training, then energy compression would be his go-to training, the 3 spirit fundamentals were just after, with the energy manipulation ones last of the waiting line.
Of course, he would dedicate time to learn them and try to reach a balance, but while it may be possible with the spirit, energy was a lot more difficult in the amount of focus needed, but he would still try, there was nothing to lose after all.
Feeling the change in the surrounding ether, he knew that he was approaching his destination, the paradise of colors, the stained glass shard domain, whatever he wanted to say to embellish its importance in his heart.
For his friends, during their excursion there, they were only impressed, they didn’t have the same hobby and passion as Rune, so they just looked in awe at nature’s beauty.
Rune, however, wanted to take a piece of it with him, new colors for him to play with, make others see what he saw, and experience what he experienced.
Other than for entertainment purposes, there was no benefit, maybe one day he would color his energy in a color of his choice to feel cool, but it was only that, a color.
From his point of view, he wasn’t a defeatist, maybe what he was doing now as a hobby would help him for one reason or another later, just, not now and in any way he could think of.
Going deeper and deeper, his sphere was starting to send him only colors and ether in all shapes and forms, it was approaching overload like last time, he couldn’t take them all into account.
He was thankful that he wasn’t using his eyes to see, or he wouldn’t be able to do what he planned to do, eyes were too limited in that environment totally oversaturated.
Now, it was color creation holidays time, intermixed with passive training learning, and practice.
…
The IGS was ready, they didn’t know what they were ready for, but the 3 path organizations, the dimensional department’s best patrollers, the Adventurer’s Society, the ancient leaders, the most famous sage, and all that could be mobilized had been called.
The future announcement was already prepared, only missing the crucial points related to what would soon happen.
Individuals with unchained desires and a clear path to power needed to be correctly educated and guided, and their education reform worked miracles for this.
Young heroes more motivated than ever, young geniuses developing spells, miracle researchers always pushing the next boundary of reality and fantasy with new technologies…
The IGS leadership and high sphere of command knew that what they were doing had a great chance of becoming irrelevant soon, but their potential was the goal here, not the results.
If no one could make head or tail of the new knowledge that was coming, then the situation would be frustrating for everyone.
Months passed, but the Rululus never forgot, the leader, ancient leaders, department’s heads, more time meant more preparation, from nothing happening to ether monster’s apocalypse, it was all prepared.
The activation of the complete Ether Law had the effect of making gravity fatal, but the critical mass had been calculated, and dwarf planets where gravity didn’t exist anymore had been rehabilitated for permanent inhabitations.
The newly integrated civilizations were being connected to the internet through giant ether fleets paving a path of relay, never have there been factories pumping so many spaceships as now, even a never-before-seen war couldn’t have been the cause of this.
The Kajos’ exploration fleets called for retirees to help, newly arrived juniors from the Kajos Exploration Captain School were promoted to posts with responsibility where they had to teach younger students in turn.
Whole solar systems were ignored in favor of rushing the paving process, all those people manning the fleets dedicated their lives to making sure the IGS prospered.
And one choice they all made was to not awaken their soul, keeping their avatar in the process, separated from their original body.
If they encountered a problem during their high-speed travel and relay construction, then the spaceships behind would be informed and they would be left behind.
When there was no possibility of death, everything got faster.
No need to use an entire week to sweep the sector before them of dangers or anomalies and then send probes, just beeline into it and see what happens was the quickest and most efficient way to do it.
Supply chains were so light with energy replacing everything that lives needed to sustain themselves, they didn’t even need a connection to the internet.
Every spaceship crew of those high danger ships had their other body receive high amenities and remuneration while doing easy jobs.
Thousands of such beelines were made, and sometimes splitting happened because other civilizations were in two corners of the same galaxy.
Quantity was as important as quality, the Universe dimension was so active from the IGS point of view, they didn’t need to do anything else but continue on their initial trajectory.
True citizens only had to worry about increasing their expertise, spell creators, martial masters, energy engineers, energy cooks, adventurers, in the end, they all only had one home, the IGS.
…
‘Sound.’
A very high-pitched sound was playing in continuation, its origin was something Rune created from what one of the forums discussed.
It was a very primitive energy manipulation, but it was new, a way of using energy to create sound from nothing, creating complex tunes was but a dream for this level of manipulation, however, it was useful to train passively the fine manipulation of energy.
It was a very recent breakthrough in the passive training of fine energy manipulation, but not the only one.
Rune was currently sitting on a circular energy platform of 3 meters in diameter, he always exerted a slight momentum gravity, had an artificial blackout, and applied a constant bending on his sphere.
After getting annoyed by the sound, he switched to an irregularly compressed energy cube, and let it rotate around him at high speed, that was the passive energy compression training.
Maintaining a form more and more complex while it was subjected to different forces demanded little focus but that was the goal, a lapse in attention and the cube escaped or dissolved.
‘Let’s continue.’
It wasn’t training for Rune, it was something he liked to do, everything he was doing were things he liked.
‘A fractured burning white, how the f*ck did this color come to be?’
It was a mystery, the fractured effect, he knew how to make it, the burning too, like lots of effects, abstract notions, feelings, emotions, memories, there was always a way to create a color to the level of perfect replication.
But white was different, like black, they were very capricious, being tainted to become a shade of grey with minimal influences, still, he succeeded at making burning black, so why not fractured burning white?
‘A little bit of bloodlust, making it burning, and then… Maybe calm?’ The conflicting emotion created a fractured look to a color, like it was glass that fractured everywhere naturally.
And so he did it, a simple fractured burning white, ‘I really need to proceed steadily, why did I try sun and ocean when I didn’t even try the basic, stupid past self it’s all your fault.’
Chastising himself was a good pastime, with that he couldn’t become arrogant and could keep his ego in check.
There was no universal solution, only similitude between answers, and Rune was proud to say that he spent more time in color creation than in energy compression spell creation.
One was a lot more fun than the other.
From what the board was saying, since the Ether Law awakening, 32 months had passed, he finished his studies at 22, and now he was 25 years old.
Utopia was 16 during their first meeting, and now he was 19 years old, a fine, heroic, and handsome young rululu who has a lot of older friends.
For Rune, sending back news to his family once in a while was enough, he was becoming used to experimenting with the infinite variations of colors that existed at the boundary of the Deep Void dimension.
But the board was boiling, and the reason was simple.
Universe Dimension Ether Density (Primary Ether Sub-Dimension Opening Basis): +742%
It’s been months, but nothing changed, nothing happened, Rune passed 4 months in color paradise and he was only waiting, practicing his hobby in silence.
Exhaustion and recovery of spirit, more beautiful and impressive fireworks explosions, some with patterns, some with other explosions after the first one, he experimented with everything.
But the change that was bound to come finally came, and it started with something that everyone remembered.
A buzz in the head.
A very annoying one, the premise to the Ether Law scanning everyone, scanning everything, even the Universe dimension itself.
The premise to the beginning of a new adventure.