For 6 additional days, Rune decided to train his awareness by trying to do another type of advanced passive training, it was so slow that he wanted to push it a little more.
The passive training of his momentum had no limit to it, as for his perception passive training, the one he used was sufficient, he just had to have a background process of his spirit pushing them both as much as it could.
So he wanted to bring his awareness up to the same level.
The method he was going for involved splitting his ether soul’s awareness and using his spirit’s strength to keep them from fusing again.
The principle of this training was that like magnets, the closer the split parts were, the stronger the force to resist increased.
It was the opposite of the frustration of trying to make 2 same pole magnets touch each other, it was the definition of frustrating.
*Ding* Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division reached Tier 2 Level 54
The reason he had to practice it actively was that his spirit wasn’t used to it, so it couldn’t be done with a thought in the background yet.
6 days got him where he could finally have a pretty stable ether soul separation without them fusing the moment he stopped thinking about it, so when he didn’t see any of his friends come back, he continued to do this training.
It was only 11 days since he woke up from his tier 3 jungle expedition that finally someone came back, it was Arik.
‘Thank Ether…’
He couldn’t go without informing one of his friends, he could have given the info to Riker now that he knew him for more than a stranger, but it wouldn’t have the same meaning.
Arik was coming back in a state that Rune could only compare to what someone who just ran a marathon would be in coming back home at night, it wasn’t ultimate exhaustion but sleeping would be the happiest thing for that person.
‘Bad timing…’
If he was in that state, would he give his attention to the dramatic talk of leaving the group for a long time?
No, clearly not, so he had to follow the old adage, “Don't do to others what you wouldn't like them to do to you.”
So he just continued his awareness training, he was already able to do it passively but gaining this bit of additional mastery over his awareness was also an effort worth working for, he had nothing else he wanted to do anyway.
True to his character, Arik didn’t even say hello, he just arrived near Rune and created his own energy mattress before going to sleep immediately.
‘I would be a true heartless monster to deprive him of such a sweet sleep,’ so he decided to wait till Arik woke up.
And as fate always played with him, half a day later, Astryde also came back.
‘I’m speechless Ether, speechless, you hear me? Speechless!’
Mocking himself and the entire world in his mind, Rune saw the same exhaustion in Astryde that he saw in Arik, so he let her go to sleep without a word.
‘I’m used to it, no worry.’
Remembering the worst moment of one’s life was easier than remembering the best, so from being locked up in a classroom to not knowing why he was in an interview, Rune already transcended the state of embarrassment long ago, only acceptance remained.
Fate seemed to have become bored with him as a whole day later, Arik woke up, and the moment he stood up, Rune could finally say it.
“Arik, you’re the only one that I’m telling this but I hope that you can transmit it to the others in the future, I reached tier 3 in my physical masteries so I intend to go on a very long adventure, only coming back once I hit tier 3 to apply for a loan, you already know about the loan right?”
Arik stared at him quietly, nodding after a moment.
“I’ve been waiting for 12 days now just to transmit the news directly, so now that I’m done... I’m off!”
Rune would not tempt fate, after saying that, he just let Arik staring at nothing and took his first step towards his dreams, and his dreams were towards the north.
He certainly wasn’t going to jump off the straight cliff, better leave that job to the professionals, he had 12 days to decide where to go, so his choice was the only right one for an adventure.
Towards the unknown.
He would go full north and then once he reached the cliff, he’d walk alongside it, this way he would never be lost, and maybe he would know what was its origin, or maybe the topography would change with time.
While he was literally running away from further talk, he didn’t forget to totally ignore the feedback from his perception sphere, he didn’t want to see Arik calling him, even by accident.
After rushing north for 5 kilometers, he let the information from his sphere flow through his mind completely, and no one was chasing him.
“I’m really acting like I’m a fugitive hehehe!” Doing a prejudiced mischievous laugh, Rune adopted a more steady pace.
This steady pace was a bit faster than before, tier 3 of body control allowed him this much, without his 102% reality-breaking boost he would be half as slower than his current 80 meters per second.
For someone relying on 2 000 strength, it was really only a steady pace. If he wanted to use everything he had, he would be able to reach a bit more than 300 meters per second. But at that speed it wouldn’t be steady anymore, it would be just sprinting mindlessly.
‘Oh yeah, if I can disrupt the perception sphere of everyone then their speed will have to be reduced, even my idle thoughts are useful! That’s all thanks to finally going on an adventure for sure!’
What made him confident and so excited, not even fearing the tier 3 jungle that hosted monsters like the tigers, monsters he couldn’t touch, was because his energy armor was now approaching peak tier 2, his current boost was 283%, just this number alone gave him the certainty that he could escape.
Maybe a certainty.
Once his reinforced armor mastery hit tier 3, he would change it to cohesion infusion, and then yes, he would be unkillable in a tier 3 zone.
Probably unkillable.
‘I should never stop thinking about the worst scenarios, it really keeps me grounded.’
Rune arrived at the region transition 20 minutes later, and as it was still day, one moment he had a gentle sun, a ball of light the size of the tip of his finger, and the next moment, a sun the size of a fist replaced it.
He didn’t stop and just continued north.
10 minutes later he arrived at the zone where he had fought for 2 days, but proving that time could change everything, the only remaining traces of what was for him a battle he would forever remember, was a relatively flat jungle area.
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All monster’s bodies and blood disintegrated, all the cores that weren’t consumed would have already been claimed by scavengers or dissipated.
And in some months, the area would be repopulated by the growing jungle reclaiming what it had lost.
This area, Rune passed through it and 5 minutes after it was behind him, leaving his perception, new grounds were appearing before him now.
‘Grounds no sapients ever set foot on…’
With his sphere, he saw tier 3 monsters, alone or in a group, but he ignored them, just accelerating until they left him alone.
The only ones that could annoy him truly were the flying or speedster monsters, their build allowed them to go beyond Rune’s speed limit, so sometimes he received the visit of birds coming at peaks of 500 meters per second or harassing dumb monsters.
For those, he just stopped and made himself an immovable target, and using his energy armor he absorbed all the impact before pummelling the birds to death with the juggernaut style once they crashed into him.
‘By going straight to the cliff from the camp it took me 2 weeks, but I stopped fighting so if there’s no major direction change and it continues like this… Maybe 5 days?’
Of course, he didn’t ignore every monster on the way, when a lone tier 3 or group with very few members entered his perception, he took the time to kill them, it was the minimal commitment to keeping his senses alert.
And part of the adventure was also learning more about how each species of monster behaved and how they fought.
A new environment meant new ways to use it to one’s advantage, all those elements were useful for Rune as they allowed him to adapt.
He read about plant monsters from the board, but they only appeared from tier 4 and higher zones, so it was better to become used to a relatively inoffensive tier 3 jungle than a potentially fatal tier 4 jungle.
‘It’s really like I’m seeing the world from a different perspective.’
He really looked like a botanist enthusiast, he even wanted to take samples from some rocks, and he would do it if he was equipped to keep them, after all, he didn’t have ways to come back here later.
‘In the end, it all comes down to the IGS or companies making equipment available…’
Apart from not being equipped to be a long-distance cartographer or surveyor, his interest in studying everything he came upon was because he liked it.
From the moment he realized he was going to live for centuries, his mentality changed.
Birds had special dives to adapt to the environment, insect monsters were nearly always in groups, environmental conditions like heat and humidity had no visible effects on monsters, nor on his own human body…
Compared to his training period, what he was doing was a leisure trip across the jungle.
Unbothered by everything, he fought a bit here and there and 5 days and a half later, he reached his objective, the straight cliff leading to nothing.
After arriving, he followed it, the orientation of the cliff was the same as what he saw previously, from the south-south-west to the north-north-east, so Rune was going towards the north more than the rest.
Some basic rules about how the Endless geography was were known to him, like the fact that unless ether currents were involved, it was statistically impossible for a tier 9 zone to border a tier 1 zone, even through region transitions that were known to isolate nearly anything.
There were also no rules linking the size or the ether density of Endless regions or zones to anything, everything was decided by nature and all sorts of things could happen as long as ether currents had their way.
If the straight cliff had an abnormal origin, then maybe what was in the abyss was a tier 9 ether density zone, there was also a chance it was a tier 1 zone, the only way to find out was to go there, or use specialists to assess the ether density from a distance.
‘If I find a tier 9 zone or even approach one… 100% chance of instant death, right?’
Among the worst-case scenarios, this one was the biggest one.
He knew that tier 9 zones existed, no tier 9 sapients attested of fighting there, but the board had a large data bank from defective dimensions asking for help after a large disaster, and once they stopped transmitting, all sorts of intel was released as a form of legacy.
‘Nature has its wonders, maybe I’ll stumble into a tier 9 zone with 100% restriction to ether stats? Hehehe.’
Rune was certain that the IGS was using everything it had to gather that lost intel in millions or billions of years old forums.
As for the most popular legacy, Rune already read them all, making him even more of an adventure and discoverer dreamer than he already was.
“How could I find anything boring? I’m just a newbie in all of this, what will I find for my first adventure? A massive purple plain full of flowers? Or maybe ancient ruins of a long-lost civilization?”
And so Rune's first true adventure began, and with a lifespan of centuries of years, he certainly wasn’t going to be hasty.
He’d take all the time of the world to carefully appreciate every tree, every flower, every monster, and every rock that came his way.
…
Looking to the right, jungle canopy, looking to the left, ether mist nothingness, nothing for thousands of kilometers, looking up, no floating islands.
‘Freaking penguins of course there’s no floating islands yet you donkey.’
Rune had a personal habit, something he did since way back during college.
When there was no deadline, like waking up in the morning to do something or an appointment for whatever reason, he would cut off every time indicator, time lost its meaning very rapidly when he did that.
First, he lost the day of the month, then he lost the distinction between morning and midday, then, which was the stage he was at, the measure of the number of days would little by little have its margin of error become monstrous.
3 days was a relatively simple duration to remember, but only if you were paying attention from the start.
Now that he was alone and the only sapient in thousands of kilometers around, his inner predispositions made him just ignore the passing of day and night, this mushroom that was 2 meters tall was much more fascinating.
‘Does a 2 meters tall mushroom mean something? I’m taking a mental note to ask in the future, maybe it means it's an area without much fighting,’ Rune was very serious about this learning, the scientific method was true whatever the circumstances, even in a fantasy world.
‘How did the first-ever sapient to set foot in the Endless do? Or they all died, or they carefully proceeded.’
Rune wasn’t discouraged by the Rululus being able to memorize everything, the entire IGS adapted to it, discrimination against something or someone objectively superior was ruled out early on in education principles, it was part of the philosophy of existence, acceptance.
Only a few at a galactic scale, back when the IGS was governed by the physic laws, had mental problems due to feeling too inferior.
Rune was educated like that, the IGS educated everyone like that, and culture educated everyone like that. He didn’t have an eidetic memory, but he wasn’t going to stop learning for that reason.
Repetition wasn’t boring when you liked it, so for hundreds of kilometers, he tried to find another mushroom similar but didn’t find any, this way he anchored this memory firmly.
With his sphere, he also often analyzed the cliff wall for any marker, but except for what he supposed to be marks due to being eroded by the rain, he never saw something significant.
*Ding* Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control reached Tier 2 Level 70
“Not like I’ll suddenly become able to bend my sphere…” Thinking out loud, Rune was now quasi sure that even once he attained tier 3 of this mastery, it would still be impractical to use it as it’d demand all his spirit’s strength, something he couldn’t do in the middle of a fight.
Continuing steadily following the cliff, something of high interest, for him, finally appeared.
A rainbow flower.
He not only saw it because it was 1 meter tall but more because rainbow colors were emanating from it, it was the first time Rune saw a plant life emanate ether so colored.
Arriving near it, he noted the absence of monsters around, his sphere didn’t see any ambushed or stealthed monsters, so he approached carefully.
The flower was emanating in an area of 5 meters around it, and Rune used his large experience in color observation to deduct something.
There was a certain feeling of staleness to the colors, and once he observed the surrounding trees and bushes, he finally discovered a new characteristic that he never saw before in a color.
It was like the color itself was breathing, very faintly becoming denser and then fainter, it was an effect that he never saw even at the Deep Void dimension’s boundary, and possibly something crucial, a new way to determine if something was plant life or not.
To make sure, Rune lingered on every different tree and bush, observing if everything had the same very subtle effect on the ether they emanated.
After 30 minutes he confirmed it again, the same effect everywhere, but so subtle that he admitted that it was very, very hard to see without paying attention.
“Now… You, my dear,” focusing back on the flower, he noted the stability at which it kept the color flow, no mixing at all, no mixing at all…
“No mixing at all? What?”
With his sphere, Rune could see that the different colors behaved like water and oil, but with 7 different liquids that didn’t mix.
His mind couldn’t play tricks on him, so he tried to do something he of course tried before, he manipulated a cloud of simple red, then a cloud of simple blue, and made them fly next to each other, with as much proximity as what the flower was doing.
And as expected, the zone “in contact” adopted a mixed color, as he used the physic laws as the principles behind those colors, the mixed color was purple.
“Hahaha! My first stop is about color creation! What a life!”
Rune couldn’t believe it but it happened, something surpassing his understanding was before his eyes and using simple observations he couldn’t understand it, so there was only one way remaining.
Theory, experimentation, and practice.