After farming, as the gamer faction called the act of gathering resources without stopping for a long time, it seemed really suitable for some reason, for over 24 hours straight, Rune was now sitting on a “pile” of EP.

3 to 4 resources per hour was his current yield.

A majority of the ether resources he gathered were ether-rich asteroids worth 60 to 80 EP, though sometimes he stumbled upon floating pure ether crystals worth around 100 EP, those were too rare compared to the number of ether-rich asteroids he got.

From a specialized forum, he was now an official member of, 70 EP which was the average number that could be used as a reference to determine your approximate yield per ether resource.

This specialized forum Rune became a member of was newly created.

The ambition that motivated its creation was to gather lots of potential future hard farmers, people who decided to really invest in only farming, comparing their gains and sharing all the intel they acquired with each other.

But after days of being polluted by random outsiders, the true members decided to create a private forum and chose the ones that were invited based on if you were judged as a long-term participant or just a passer-by.

Rune just had to release a copy-paste of his last 24 hours before being invited to the private forum, he easily proved that he belonged there.

The private forum held 52 active members, it was a very cordial forum where everyone shared their EP yields and tried to create models and spreadsheets that transcribed the Void dimensions farming process into true predictions.

Rune saw at least fifty different spreadsheets that tried to calculate the yield by taking into account the density of resources by cubic kilometers, the perception stats, the momentum stat, and different formulas that tried to determine in what way volume should be determined to get one resource.

The members were fighting about who was right and why, but Rune didn’t want to be part of it, so he just posted his last 24 hours notes under his personal yield section and continued to do his own thing.

After this day of farming, Rune gained 6 024 EP, compared to the currently elected best farming model of this private forum, he was a little above what his calculated yield should be, at 5 880 EP, but not really enough to say the model was completely wrong.

Now sitting at 17 434 EP, it meant he didn’t gain enough to increase his stats without infringing upon the security deposit amount of 10 000 EP.

Such a conclusion didn’t annoy him, not having needs made his already go-happy and stress-free attitude never have downtime.

Farming seriously with full focus and having access to some entertainment when he wanted was what could be considered his best life and even when he tried to find complaints, like being alone and isolated, he ended up rationalizing them to be good things. For him.

‘Maybe that's one of my talents.’

Anger and stress were very distant cousins of his, loneliness was his best friend.

While friends like Jules and Romain hung out often, Rune preferred the isolated style, for him, there was so much to be happy about with only an internet connection and free time that he could never really see all the genius that resided in the entertainment domain in one life.

Back to the fact that he didn’t get a single stat point worth of EP after an entire day of farming, he soon rationalized it.

‘Not like one stat point would change anything in the short-term,’ Rune thought after a moment, ‘Maybe 5 points will start to have a noticeable effect.’

He just had to continue doing his best, keeping his maximum momentum speed and absorbing every ether resource as fast as he could.

Never stopping and always praying to the death asteroids god not to visit or see him, Rune followed up his simple farming schedule of never stopping.

*Ding*

10 hours after he started to farm again, a notification went off and was heard by Rune.

The notification function was popularized only some days ago by an emerging news forum proposing a special sound that was transmitted directly to those who accepted.

Rune discovered it only some hours ago and subscribed to this pioneering news forum as a result, he could see no harm in doing it.

The objective of this notification was to alert when important information or events took place that wasn’t directly related to the Ether Law and so wouldn’t get any dedicated announcement.

This special news forum promised to not abuse it and, at least, the guy who said that didn’t intend to betray this promise as he couldn’t lie with the “intent” revealing his true thoughts.

Surprised by the sudden sound, Rune dropped some speed, he was in a rush as he would soon have enough EP to buy a stat point.

He of course decided to open the special news forum he subscribed to and read the reason why it was worth sending a notification.

[Roger’s News: I’m notifying you that the government just released a big announcement and that it’s a big one]

‘The government?’ Incomprehension was written on his avatar’s face, Rune could think of nothing that the government could announce that would be important for him.

Unless, of course, it involved a little rural planet like X125 or that it concerned the Ether Law and the changing era.

Opening Roger’s News forum for more info on where to find this announcement, he found what he wanted and then searched for a forum called “IGS Official Government”.

He stumbled upon the right one immediately and its numbers were climbing at extreme speed.

The number of current readers not having the time to refresh itself, already surpassing hundreds of billions of readers, was all the proof he needed to be sure it was the right forum.

Opening this forum that was put on “visit only”, Rune started to read the big block of text that was the announcement in his mind.

[Dear Citizens of the Intergalactic Society and Unknown Civilizations that will soon be contacted here is the summarized version of the announcement we made.

This is an announcement to express our opinion and stance on the recent event of the Ether Law awakening.

Firstly, only those disobeying the Intergalactic Charts of Rights and disobeying the Law installed by the IGS will be punished, you’re free to decide how you act and want to act, it isn’t in our right to decide your life for you.

As current competent personnel is hard to come by, you are asked to personally come forward as referred to the IGS principle “Assistance to endangered persons”, and help in case of a major case like insurgencies, stats abuse, prison break, or anything going below the bottom line we have as a civilized society, happening on your planet or somewhere near you.

You have the duty to help as long as the situation goes above what can be controlled by the overworked authorities, help them and they will help you in the future.

Special prisons are under construction and will be ready in 5 hours in every inhabited administrative sector.

Diseases and deaths (except old age) being non-existent from now on, the health department will soon pass new directives to its personnel, do not leave your post yet and enjoy this unexpected holiday.

Emergency education on information gathering and scientific approach to analyze a subject will be available to everyone who so desires from today on and will include current school students.

Unknown Civilization can personally contact the IGS Government to establish a link and hope for help depending on distance and location precision, for more complexity, follow the communication protocol that is detailed in a supplementary announcement.

With the support of major companies, in-depth experiments on stats have been realized and will be published on the Ether Wiki. Please help yourself on the following subjects: All Stats Individually, Physical Stats, Energy Stats, Spiritual Stats, Ether Point, Energy Use.

To end this announcement, as the new era is down on us, as the current leader of the IGS, I am proud to be the one who will help our civilization have a smooth transition to the Interdimensional Era, and hope that your hard work will be rewarded.

Don’t be left behind, the IGS Leader authorized this announcement]

Stationary in the Void, having long stopped moving to focus on reading the message from the government, it wasn't stupefaction that Rune was feeling, it was astonishment.

In only 13 days or so, all this had been done and published.

That was very unusual in the Intergalactic Era, and even in the now Interdimensional Era, it should be unusual.

Rune was almost sure they rushed some parts of it, or even that they were just publishing what they had and were actually continuing their experiment.

‘Reasonably, nothing I’ll learn now will affect what I must do, so let’s just read leisurely.’

Starting to move again, Rune opened the Ether Wiki to understand what caused the rush of the announcement by the greatest authority of the IGS.

…

Stats were divided into three parts.

The physical stats, composed of health, health regeneration, strength, and cohesion.

The energy stats, with energy, energy regeneration, purity, and affinity.

And finally, the spiritual stats, with just momentum and perception, for a total of 10 individual stats.

The health and health regeneration pair, as well as the energy and energy regeneration pair, were what they said they were, health is a power that couldn’t be explained, it just existed, it was the same for energy, it just existed.

It was, however, important to note that despite what logic would say, they weren’t the basis upon which relied the other 2 stats of each category to be used, every stat was independent, completely.

Strength was the contained force of ether that could be used by your body and subsequently, your avatar.

10 points were already inhuman territories, obtaining the capability to break non-etherized materials as long as enough time was given.

Precise comparisons were impossible as technique counted as a factor to know how much of your available strength you could really use.

Cohesion was the resistance given by your body against foreign forces trying to harm it, more precisely, it represented the resistance of your health.

This stat was used not only to resist environmental damage, but it’s also the primary and easiest way to resist and survive a death asteroid collision, or in the future, damage caused by extra-dimensional life.

Purity stood for the innate strength of one’s energy, it influenced the efficacy of everything you did with it, but even more, it made it harder and harder to bring out all the hidden potential of your energy as it increased.

Affinity depicted how synchronized you were with your own energy, making it more easily manipulable while also becoming able to read the ambient ether more easily, making it possible to know which direction showed an elevated ether density, helping to find very rich resources.

Perception's first use was of course to have a perception sphere, seeing the world through your spirit, it’s completely different from seeing the world with your biological senses.

So different in fact, that they couldn’t be compared, one belonged to the physical realm, the other belonged to the spiritual realm, a new realm that couldn’t even be said to have its excavation started, a completely blank domain.

This stat wasn't limited by brain capacity or similar concepts, it also enhanced your reaction speed and your ability to take more information and details into account while observing a situation in a shorter time.

Momentum wasn’t what it seemed to be.

In fact, the ability to move by yourself with only your will wasn’t something mystical like a resonance with the Ether Law, using the surrounding volatile ether to create acceleration or something like that, no.

Momentum belonged to the spiritual stats, so it simply represented how much your spirit could push its physical incarnation by sheer will, with the only ceiling being the stat itself.

It was possible to accelerate from zero to your maximum in no time, literally a nanosecond for some, it was even possible to change direction completely without keeping any of the prior momentum and go back as easily as just wishing for it.

Momentum was the stat with the greatest visual impact, it bent previously acquired physical concepts to allow for something intangible like a spirit to make force vanish.

…

Rune really didn’t expect that, like Sherlock Holmes puzzling out an entire case from seeing pieces, he combined facts in his mind and added them to an expanding repertoire of knowledge belonging only to him.

However, despite the ether stats being explained in great detail, it wasn’t the most detailed subject released, the Ether Points, the EP, were the most complete subject.

The government, or more probably the companies, did everything they could to try and control this new currency.

And fortunately for the majority of the citizens, EP was utterly untradeable, at least for now.

Once absorbed from a resource, they were forever and ever yours to do what you wanted, the Ether Law didn’t want you to trade them, the only possibility to pay in EP was to use an ether resource directly.

But as long as there was no physical link between the dimensions, meaning the Universe Dimension and ether resource-rich dimensions like the Void Dimension, it would not happen.

Rune also understood why no one did an energy laser or energy bullet yet, energy stats worked completely differently from the others, not only was long training necessary, massive amounts of EP must also be invested before those stats became usable.

Avatars with the greatest success at using energy were those with balanced energy stats allocation, and even then they were still useless compared to avatars that balanced their physical stats.

They were only capable of launching an orb of energy not stronger than a punch containing 4 points of strength, and then they had to wait a whole minute for their energy to come back. A whole minute.

In the end, everything pointed to farming being the key, a flood of relief passed through Rune’s mind when he concluded that.

‘Everything’s fine, EP can’t be traded, they can only be acquired with effort, that’s probably the meaning behind the end of the announcement “and hope that your hard work will be rewarded”, or perhaps I’m just overthinking as usual?’ Finishing his ruminations, Rune was alerted as another ether light appeared.

‘Let’s go, I’m not even tired yet! Hehe!’ A little fired up from what he just learned and deducted, Rune continued his farming with a little inside joke, only making himself laugh.