The Tireless forum, that was the name taken by the private forum Rune was part of.
It was only one amongst millions, maybe even billions of similar ones, but it was the one he joined, so it was special.
Already, 1 month had passed since the government’s announcement, and while for Rune it didn’t change his planned path in any way, for some, it had been a grand period of change.
From what he read, the emergency education given by the IGS was for everyone to find a place they belonged to in this rapidly changing world, even those who put all their stats into not perception, momentum, or energy regeneration, making farming either tedious or impossible.
As those people had been disqualified from participating in the ongoing farming rush that was the only way to increase one’s EP, they could only sell their capability as full stats users.
Fortunately, it was enough for them to make a living, a very fine one even. At least it would work until the farmers caught up to them in terms of stats.
During this one month, the thing that changed for Rune, apart from sleeping two days ago after feeling for the first time the effect of an exhausted spirit, was that he had ended up socializing much, much more than he thought with the members of the Tireless forum.
Regarding his “friends” from X125, he didn’t contact them anymore. Their relationship hadn’t been strong enough, and he didn’t feel the need to invite them to this new forum he belonged to. To each their own path. The drift had already started when they all graduated anyway.
On the Tireless forum however, which was slowly gaining more members by the hours, and to his greatest pleasure, he really hit it off with 6 others. Thus, as everyone else who hit it off, they created their own separate private forum to not have their discussion be seen by others.
[Utopia: Oh My Ether! If you have 500 PER and MS you can gather 3 000 000 EP a day!]
[Arik: No, you’re not misunderstanding what I just said…]
[Gar: My fellow informant tried to tell you that the spreadsheet was true but only if you take into account you can only absorb one resource in one minute. So it f*cked up the yield result line.]
[Adreana: Oh My Ether! Do I still need to farm for months?! I’m so fed-up.]
[Rune: Poor you.]
[Nelo: That spreadsheet is blowing my mind.]
[Astryde: Blow your mind then little bro, test if your health can make you survive losing your head. That would be an interesting and selfless experiment by the way.]
Everyone in this small group of 7 friends was unique, and that was maybe what ended up making them become close enough to create a private forum just for them, to express themselves without hiding who they were.
Utopia was a dreamer, initially it was unknown if "he" was a he or she, though he let escape the fact he was a man eventually as his intent couldn’t lie. He loved to theorize everything to its ideal version and colored with enthusiasm every minor event that happened.
And even if he didn’t want to admit whether he was a man or a woman, it wasn’t their problem as what he was against was a group of 6 who had already decided who he was: He was a male brat rululu.
How could someone be like him if he wasn’t one? He argued like a rululu, gave info like a rululu, he had everything in his mind and never told something approximate like a rululu… That had been enough proof for everyone.
Arik and Gar were a duo of informants, they were obviously less interested in farming than navigating the intriguing vast information board, bringing all sorts of news to the Tireless forum. They became friends first with each other and then with the rest of this group.
Nelo and Astryde were a pair of little brother and big sister, they were always arguing, but their complicity was too apparent to really believe in any other relationship than close family.
Always trying to one-up the other and rubbing it on the face of their seemingly lifelong rival, they ended up in this forum for the hard farmers who never stopped farming.
As for Adreana, she always appeared stressed, awkward, and serious. She called for the end of the world every time something weird took place and asked for help for any reason, including end-of-the-world conspiracies.
For Rune, Adreana was the same as him in that she was asocial. Where they diverged was that he had accepted this side of him while she was still trying to talk. And for an asocial to try and be proactive socially? It was a bad idea.
At least she was unique and fun.
As they had only ever discussed using the information board, maybe all those personas they showed were completely unrelated personalities compared to their original one, but who didn’t know that communicating from behind a screen had this effect?
[Utopia: No really, I only need to ask the wiki and I’ll find a solution to that 60 resources per hour limit! You’ll see!]
[Gar: We already searched… There’s no solution. It’s just not possible, it's capped.]
[Arik: Yup, what he said. Impossible. Etherly impossible.]
[Rune: Sorry to interrupt, but did the big brain change their speech about the optimal perception-momentum distribution?]
Rune brought up the subject as he thought about it.
Knowing when to stop investing in perception or momentum didn’t mean he would not continue investing in those stats, but as long as he couldn’t absorb ether resources faster than one per minute… Well, he would then have to follow the predicted model of the theoretical maximum of 60 ether resources per hour.
‘Maybe it gets better with time? But even the wiki says it's pretty much capped…’
If the wiki didn’t give a solution, and nobody in the forum claimed to have one, then it was maybe for the best to plan for a future where a yield of 60 ether resources per hour was something that couldn’t be increased further.
[Arik: Their answer is still 120 MO and 200 PER at a regular density of 75 ether resources per cubic kilometer, you should get 67.8 resources per hour with those 3 numbers. It’s largely above what you’d be able to absorb, but with eventual unplanned loss of time it should all come together just right. Reduce your momentum to 80 MS and you get 45.2 resources per hour, a lot more realistic if you ask me.]
[Gar: Do the math yourself, the maximum is 60 per hour, with an average of 70 EP gain for each ether resource, how much do you get?]
[Arik: 4 200 EP per hour, or 100 800 EP per day.]
[Gar: I wasn’t asking you.]
[Arik: Too slow.]
[Rune: Ok.]
The spreadsheet their group was talking about was the confirmed EP yield model by the Tireless forum.
It seemed the reason why so many of the models they used before didn’t work perfectly was due to too many people “rounding up” their yield. Even using intent communication, it was still possible to lie by omission, by removing precious pieces of information from the end result, and that was precisely what happened.
Misplaced pride was an intelligent being's nature in the end, Rune could completely understand that.
As a result, they only took into account the confirmed members' yields and, compared to some yield indicating over 9 000 ether resources per cubic kilometer, an absurd density, they instead found an average of 75 ether resources per cubic kilometer.
A lot more realistic if he considered that what they were arguing about was another dimension called the Void Dimension.
With this ether resource density as a factor, they calculated how much volume in average needed to be scanned to find at least one resource, then with the simplified cylinder volume formula with its radius being that of one’s perception, and the height being the momentum movement speed, they established the ultimately simplified but totally usable divine yield spreadsheet.
[Nelo: With those numbers… Well, cheers for the following months of farming, and don’t forget to sleep at least once every month.]
[Utopia: My snowball effect… I’m devastated…]
[Astryde: You really believed in the 3 000 000 EP per day? Reality is for the hard-boiled, go back to farming.]
[Rune: Pray to the asteroid god, brothers and sisters, pray for his death asteroids to not cross your path. I’m out.]
[Utopia: Yes brother, except I’m the chosen of the asteroid god, I’ll soon unlock the luck stat!]
[Adreana: No comment.]
Having awkward fun with friends was the perfect answer to bring his mental health back in check.
Rune had farmed for 1 month straight and slept 2 days ago. Over this month of continuous farming, he had gained 232 636 EP with his gathered ether resources. It would have been an impressive number to see on his avatar’s status if he hadn’t invested in his stats the moment he gained enough EP.
As for his main investment target, it was his momentum. Every time he had enough to afford a stat point worth 10 000 EP while keeping his security respawn deposit, he did it. Why would he keep his EP and not invest them directly?
Apart from the EP he gained through direct resource gathering, he had also completed some Void Initiation event objectives, which he similarly directly invested in his momentum stat.
Steadily, a stat point there, another stat point here… It had ended up boosting his yield continuously over the whole month.
Event
Void Initiation
Gather a total of 100 ether-rich resources from the Void Dimension: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Gather a total of 1 000 ether-rich resources from the Void Dimension: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Gather a total of 10 000 ether-rich resources from the Void Dimension: 1 000 000 EP
Travel more than 100 kilometers in the Void Dimension: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Travel more than 1 000 kilometers in the Void Dimension: 100 000 EP
Travel more than 10 000 kilometers in the Void Dimension: 1 000 000 EP
Survey the Void Dimension for 100 hours: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Survey the Void Dimension for 1 000 hours: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Survey the Void Dimension for 10 000 hours: 1 000 000 EP
Discover a special resource: 10 000 EP
Discover 10 different special resources: 100 000 EP
Discover 100 different special resources: 1 000 000 EP
Use 10 000 total energy in any way: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Use 100 000 total energy in any way: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Use 1 000 000 total energy in any way: 1 000 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Attain 100 in any individual stat: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Attain 1 000 total stats: 1 000 000 EP
Completion Bonus: 10 000 000 EP
‘Sigh… Not even 100 kilometers yet…’
Sighing mentally, Rune could only continue to invest in his momentum.
To his dismay, he realized that in the Void Dimension, his speed was so very relative compared to what he could easily achieve in the Universe Dimension with his original body.
100 kilometers in the Universe Dimension? Easily done with a hovercar, a train, a plane, or a spaceship.
But here? His speed was slow, only a few dozen meters per minute if he believed his momentum stat. As if it hadn’t been enough to delay his traveled distance, he also had to account for all the ether resource absorption breaks and his decreased speed when he was focusing on something else.
Which happened a lot more than he could ever expect.
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After calculating his average momentum and expanding it to cover an entire month at maximum speed, he should have optimally moved a total distance of about 2 000 kilometers, probably slightly less.
In reality though? He hadn’t cleared the second level of the Void Initiation for traveled distance yet.
Facing this fact that he couldn’t change no matter how much he wanted to, he could just continue hoping that as his momentum increased, this objective would become nothing more than a joke.
‘If I had 500 momentum… I’d only need what? 14 days?’
Fantasizing about the situation was something he did rarely but every time he did, he felt a bit more frustrated. Especially when he thought about people who went all in on their momentum and had already completed this objective.
‘Or maybe someone successfully hung onto a death asteroid? Oh, that’s a genius idea! I’ll send it to the board later.’
With an additional 220 000 EP from his event side, he considered himself as now being part of the top 10% in terms of total stats.
And that was only because he didn’t dare claim the top 1% or top 0.1%, he never knew what could be happening in another part of the Universe after all… Or the Void Dimension in this case.
Opening his new avatar’s status window, Rune smirked without realizing it.
Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)
EP: 10070
Stats Total: 266
Health: 10
Health Regeneration: 1
Strength: 1
Cohesion: 1
Energy: 10
Energy Regeneration: 65
Purity: 10
Affinity: 1
Momentum: 68
Perception: 100
By investing 5 additional points into his health, he doubled his survival chance or something like that. At least he was now sure that health would be present everywhere in his avatar, so should he not be pulverized instantly, his avatar was now immune to small death asteroids.
Overall though, he was more into farming by investing in his momentum stat than avoiding a potential loss of 240 hours, meaning ten days of farming, because his avatar got killed in action.
It wasn’t logical, but humanity had never claimed to be a purely logical and rational species, and it seemed that every other intelligent species were equally able to be stupid and irrational.
Compared to when he started, he had invested an additional 40 stat points into his momentum stat. Obviously, it hadn’t been a sudden leap, it had been a progressive one with his yield increasing over time.
With 68 momentum and 100 perception, his yield should theoretically be 15 905 EP per day, with 9.5 resources per hour, according to the latest iteration of “the most precise spreadsheet” available on the Tireless forum.
It was very unfortunate that he only reached this yield 1 day ago, but comparisons always hurt, and they hurt even more when they involved a 3 times yield difference between the past and the present.
‘I wonder if Arik and Gar have reliable info on what’s going on at the dangerous grounds.’
Thinking about a recent event that captivated the board more than it should have as he kept his focus at the same time on his perception sphere and his momentum, Rune felt both happy and dismayed that a breakthrough was clearly imminent with the dangerous grounds.
Gar and Arik had been the ones to inform everyone of what was happening, and it all started when some supposed d*mbass claimed to have found a special ether resource in a dangerous ground.
And his description of this special ether resource destroyed every concept of balance.
[D*mbass Guy: Guys, look at this, Absorbed ‘Tier 1 Health Crystal’, gained 20 Tier 1 Health.]
Intent communication didn’t allow lies, so unless this d*mbass found a way to lie, then it was real.
And when you told hundreds of trillions of people that “special resources” could be found in dangerous grounds, and that they were worth tens of stat points each after absorption, then… What should have happened, happened.
Currently, all the avatars who judged themselves able to survive approaching a dangerous ground were searching for one like moths to light during the night. With the comparison being much more literal than Rune wanted.
[Rune: Special resource update?]
[Arik: More deaths than proofs.]
[Gar: Nothing concrete.]
For him, this event hit where it hurts.
He wasn’t a perfectionist, but reading about a random guy, randomly entering a random dangerous ground, and then getting a random crystal that gave him 20 random stat points…
While he had to farm an entire month to get the same…
‘It’s pretty frustrating.’
Rune didn’t cringe at the situation, but being frustrated was the minimum even for a happy-go-lucky guy like him.
Not to mention for someone like Adreana, which was denying reality as strongly as she could, hoping everything would go her way.
Something he gained from the situation despite all the odds nonetheless, was an opinion. As he would never intrude into a dangerous ground even if he had the chance, Rune maintained a clear overview of the situation.
And what he observed from his point of view as an uninvolved spectator, a point of view he had used for all his life, was that the dangers of the dangerous grounds were being largely underestimated.
The number of people dying to them had explosively increased in a very short time. It was a fact. Too many people were complaining about dying for there to be another explanation other than that they attempted to enter a dangerous ground.
Yet, as long as he wasn’t acquainted with someone who lost his avatar due to that common misconception… His mental health kept recovering with the amount of misery being thrown on the board by those who tried to skip the farming process he was working hard on.
They didn’t really die after all, so even if it was a bit apathetic, he knew the truth of the situation inside himself: They attempted something and failed.
One month spent the Void Dimension had affected his psyche a little, he became a bit more petty, or more like, he became perpetually irate at his surroundings because the perpetual silence was heavy even for him.
Fortunately, for himself, he wasn’t such a hard worker that he never got back to drink something when he wanted it too much or hear some music.
Maybe it was one of the reasons he still hadn’t reached the second level of distance traveled?
It had been one month and thirteen days since the awakening of the Ether Law, and breaking the monotony of gathering resources with such news relieved a lot of the accumulated invisible frustration he got from pushing his momentum speed to his spiritual limit every day.
Supporting such a way of life was the urgency level shown by the ether density progress bar.
Universe Dimension Ether Density (Void Dimension Opening basis): +3%
It had “only” gained 3%. For others, maybe it was a piece of unremarkable news among many others, but for him, it was an indicator that going through with his slow and steady farming was correct.
‘Stop lamenting and focus on farming.’
Chastising himself for being so much concerned about something that wasn’t linked to him in any way, he pushed his momentum to its limit.
In the end, he was certain his slow and steady strategy would pay off. He wasn’t like Utopia who only saw the best in every situation, but still, he was certain what he was doing wasn’t worthless.
Few came back from the dangerous grounds for a reason, and whatever was inside them, special resource or not, for him it was an avatar honey trap that he wasn’t going to taste.
‘Even if a special resource can give you a whole 100 stat points, it’s still not worth the risk… I think. Yeah, definitely.’
Rune had always lived his life like this, not talking and only reaping the advantages, and he applied his way of life and logic again here.
If that news was real, then he’d wait till ten thousand people succeeded, and only then would he prepare his stats to have a 100% chance of not only surviving, but also do what they did in a better way than they did.
‘Yeah, that’s right, I don’t care about being surpassed by the few lucky ones. I’m not a lucky one and I don’t want to become one. I’m a steady one.’
With a renewed and adjusted plan and mentality, he found his inner peace again and continued to follow what he had planned: Farming forever and ever until something more important than farming came to exist.
He was only a freshly graduated university student, he was young, he had nothing to fear, not even death by the asteroid god.
…
One month was a long period of time, it represented 720 hours of time for those who, like Rune, learned to create an energy loop and didn’t need to cater to their original body’s needs.
With the increased estimation of now 95% of the IGS population having created an avatar, and an estimated 40% of them being active explorers, using their avatar daily, the amount of activity and gathered EP at the dimensional sector scale was ginormous.
One billion people could gather 70 billion EP if they only refined one piece of ether resource each, and considering that it wasn’t simply billions but tens of trillions of active gatherers, it could only be imagined how huge the numbers involved were.
With those tens of trillions of avatars actively exploring the Void Dimension, some forums gathering statistical enthusiasts had started wondering what were the chances, in terms of probability, of infinitesimal rare events involving anomalies having already taken place.
And the answer they came up with was that it was, in fact, largely above 100% chance.
Luck wasn’t seen as unpredictable for those statistical experts, because for them, luck could be explained scientifically.
For them, it was simply a question of choices and decisions ultimately to events which all had a probability of happening, such as “If you hadn't turned 10 meters to your right, you couldn’t have seen the floating special resource”, or “you would have been hit by this death asteroid passing by if you didn’t stop here for no reason at all”.
The combination of all those choices and decisions, all made uninfluenced by anything other than yourself and your environment, were what made a situation an opportunity, a disaster, something to be remembered, or something you missed but would never know it.
A “lucky” person was only the one person making the best choices one after another, be it by feelings, irrational guesses, instinct, or intelligence. In statistics, the end justified the means in that case.
Ethan for example, belonged to the “stupid” ones, or so they were called because they were the overly courageous and proactive ones who decided to create their avatar before knowing what they were embarking on.
Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)
EP: 10945
Stats Total: 99
Health: 15
Health Regeneration: 18
Strength: 30
Cohesion: 30
Energy: 1
Energy Regeneration: 1
Purity: 1
Affinity: 1
Momentum: 1
Perception: 1
With a grim fate on the horizon, and despite the odds, Ethan never lost his last ember of determination, with his 1 meter per minute speed, and using the rare asteroid to try and propel himself, he continued to move.
Tediously.
Slowly.
And from this decision, fueled by nothing but his resolve to farm despite his completely inadequate stats.
Statistics had its way with him.
After 26 days of effort, he still hadn’t found or absorbed any ether resources whatsoever, but following those 26 days of forging ahead despite the odds… He felt something.
It wasn’t death, nor ether light, it was something he read about on the information board and on the wiki, something still unexplained and feared, he felt gravity.
Ethan wasn’t stupid as his decision about creating his avatar at the start without any information could make anyone believe, he knew that gravity would only kill him, but he was also in a desperate situation, and a similarly desperate choice had to be made.
So he forged ahead, towards the faint gravity.
What he didn’t expect, however, was that this decision would change his life. Forever.
Approaching the direction gravity took him, 1 meter per minute, it was still enough to resist and escape, but while every avatar in the forum would have long died, his choice of stats allowed his avatar to persist and attain something that was only theorized on the forum.
An asteroid belt.
And for the first time since he entered the Void Dimension, accompanied by ether-rich asteroids and pure ether crystal, he saw ether lights with his perception.
…
A young man was slowly moving in the direction of a dangerous ground he found during his previous farming travels, only ambition and confidence could be seen in the black eyes of his avatar.
This young man had followed the exact same path as Rune did from the start, taking the energy use event objectives path, but he diverged mid-way by investing in his physical stats.
Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)
EP: 10 870
Stats Total: 257
Health: 10
Health Regeneration: 17
Strength: 2
Cohesion: 17
Energy: 10
Energy Regeneration: 70
Purity: 10
Affinity: 1
Momentum: 20
Perception: 100
‘I shouldn’t have invested so much in energy regeneration, I could have just done it for 14 days straight.’
With his burning ambition and the objective to be acknowledged for who he was and not who he’ll be, Sivan had a clear and ruthless mentality.
Being the familial successor to a universe scale company, this sort of mentality was instilled in him since his childhood.
‘Only with risks comes opportunities and rewards.’
This principle had guided his actions for more than a month now. He wanted to take a risk as soon as possible.
Investing in his physical stats to reduce the absolute risk of avatar death had already reached its limit, and now he needed to make his attempt. Either that or being left behind by the forerunners who took risks and succeeded.
He had learned everything he needed, different dangerous grounds did different amounts of damage, some were impossible to survive in unless you had hundreds in the needed physical stats, a number of stats that shouldn't be possible to have at this stage.
Some others though, were fatal, but only “fatal” for those without the corresponding physical stats, needing dozens of stats. Others, as had already been proved, could be survived, barely, or easily, at the current general avatar’s stat development.
All of this knowledge wasn’t secret, it had just been deduced from everyone who died approaching dangerous ground and told different stories, be it about the times before they died or the very various amounts of damage they took.
Some dangerous grounds dealt damage continuously, some dealt it irregularly, some had a long timer, some were completely random, with no rhythm or precise amount of health taken per hit.
For those like Sivan, they saw in that not danger, but opportunity, the opportunity that possibly, one of the dangerous grounds they encountered was a totally inoffensive one.
One of the reasons explaining the craze about exploring dangerous grounds was that no extra-dimensional life existed in the Void Dimension, no big bad beasts and monsters were waiting in ambush.
This fact, translated in ambitious and proactive people’s minds, meant that only tanking and surviving the damage dealt by the environment of the dangerous ground was enough.
And that led to the attraction of the dangerous grounds growing exponentially with time.
‘I’m still not taking damage?’
Despite having entered a dangerous ground, perfectly recognizable due to the ether being everywhere, visible, and slightly colored all through one’s perception sphere, Sivan felt nothing.
There was no way to know his own health, whether it was decreasing or not, but he didn’t feel pain, he also didn’t feel anything different from when he moved through the Void Dimension.
And once 10 minutes had passed without his awareness being sent back automatically, he became more and more ecstatic as he continued to scan the dangerous ground.
Maybe he had hit the jackpot.
Dangerous grounds were the most notable anomalies, gravity planets and asteroids were also considered anomalies by the wiki as the Void Dimension shouldn’t have anything except ether in it. Matters shouldn’t exist in it.
If the Void Dimension had been a completely stable dimension, it should have contained nothing except flying condensed ether in the form of ether crystals.
The point was, everything that wasn’t a floating piece of ether crystal was an anomaly.
‘So it was true.’
6 hours of farming later, Sivan found what he wanted.
Contained in his right hand was a perfectly round stone, but what really confirmed it was what he wanted it to be, was that once he looked at his event, he had just completed a Void Initiation’s objective.
A minute later, the time it took to absorb it, he opened his gathering log.
Absorbed ‘Tier 1 Momentum Stone’, Gained 50 Tier 1 Momentum
His gamble had paid off.
‘Let’s continue.’
As he restarted his sweep of the dangerous grounds, his mind reveled in the fact that his gamble had paid off and now, he was going to join the ranks of people having hundreds of stats and a profusion of EP.