The Tireless, that’s the name given to the private forum Rune was part of.

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 was an opportunity.

From what he read, the emergency education given was for everyone to have a place they belonged to, even those who put all their stats into not perception, momentum, or energy regeneration, making farming impossible.

As they were disqualified from the farming rush that was the only way to increase their 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.

During this one month, the thing that changed for Rune, apart from sleeping two days ago, was 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, to each their own path, though if there was a reason as to why they weren’t as buddy-buddy as before, the reason probably resided on Rune’s side.

On the Tireless forum, and to his greatest pleasure, people who bonded together and were like-minded formed their own group, and Rune really hit it off with 6 others.

[Utopia: Oh My God! If you have 500 PER and MS you can gather 3 000 000 EP a day!]

[Arik: No, you’re not understanding 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*ck up the yield result line]

[Adreana: Oh My God! Do I still need to farm for months??? I’m so dead]

[Rune: Poor you]

[Nelo: That spreadsheet is blowing my mind]

[Astryde: Blow your mind little bro, blow it forever with an energy orb]

Utopia was a dreamer, he or she, it was unknown, though he let escape the fact he was a man, loved to theorize everything to its ideal version.

And even if he or she didn’t want to admit it, it wasn’t their problem, Rune and the others already deduced he was a male brat rululu.

How could someone be like him if he wasn’t one? He argued like a rululu and gave info like a rululu, he had everything in his mind and he never told something approximate. That was enough proof.

And if he desired to hide his gender? Why not, again, it wasn’t their problem.

Arik and Gar were a duo of informants, they were less interested in farming than just bringing news and info to the Tireless forum, they became friends first with each other and then with Utopia and the rest.

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 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.

As for Adreana, she was always stressed, she called for the end of the world every day and asked for help for any reason, including an end-of-the-world conspiracy.

For Rune, Adreana was the same as him in that she was asocial, but she tried to talk, and for an asocial to try and be proactive socially? Bad idea.

As they only ever discussed using the board, maybe all those personas were only the front or a completely unrelated personality compared to their original one, but who didn’t know that communicating with only messages 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 you’ll see!]

[Gar: Arik and I already searched… There’s no solution, just like searching for a mountain on a plain, it’s just not possible, it capped]

[Arik: Ya, what he said]

[Rune: And what’re the analysts saying? What's the optimal Perception-Momentum mix ratio?]

Rune was very curious about that subject, 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…

Then he would 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 60 ether resources per hour were something that couldn’t increase.

[Arik: Their answer is 120 MO and 200 PER at a regular density of 75 ether resources per cubic kilometer, then you get 67.8 resources per hour, 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 maths 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 yield model by the Tireless forum.

It seemed the reason why so many of the models they used before didn’t work was due to too many people lying about their yield, misplaced pride was intelligent being 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 you considered that what they were arguing about was another dimension called the Void.

With this ether resource density as a factor, they calculated how much volume 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, 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 noob]

[Rune: Pray to the asteroid god, brothers and sisters, pray for his death asteroid 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!]

[Astryde: Nothing to add you, weirdos]

Having 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, as a result, he gained 232 636 EP with his gathered ether resources, it would be an impressive number if he didn’t invest in his stat the moment he gained enough EP.

Because yes, he invested in momentum every time he had enough to afford a stat point worth 10 000 EP, why would he keep his EP and not invest them directly?

Apart from the farming side, he also completed Void initiation event objectives, which he similarly directly invested in his momentum stat, a point there and another point here ended up boosting his yield continuously and steadily.

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

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

‘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, his speed was so very relative compared to what he could easily achieve in the universe dimension side.

100 kilometers in the universe dimension? Easily done with a hovercar, a train, a plane, or a spaceship, but here? The speed was slow, so slow that after a month he calculated that he only moved a distance of about 43 kilometers.

It wasn’t even half of the first level of the Void Initiation event for the first reward of traveled distance, he could only hope that as his momentum increased, this objective would become 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 little frustrated, even when he knew it just wasn’t possible for anyone to have completed this objective as of yet…

‘Or maybe someone successfully survived a death asteroid collision and even gripped them? Oh, that’s a genius idea, I’ll send it to the board later.’

With an additional 210 000 EP from his event side, he considered himself as now being part of the top 10%.

And that was only because he didn’t dare claim the top 1% or top 0.1%, you never knew what could be happening in another part of the universe… Or the Void.

Opening his new avatar 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: 67

Perception: 100

By investing 5 additional points into his health, he doubled his survival chance or something like that. Probably not when he thought about it, still it’d help.

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 always been like this, and it seemed that every other intelligent species were equally able to be stupid and irrational.

Compared to when he started, he invested an additional 40 points into his momentum stat, obviously, it wasn’t a sudden leap, it was a progressive one with his yield increasing over time.

With 67 MO and 100 PER, his yield should 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,’ at the moment, Rune was thinking about a recent event that captivated the board more than it should have.

It all started when some supposed d*mbass claimed to have found a special resource in a dangerous ground, and his description destroyed every concept of balance that could have been involved.

[D*mbass Guy: Guys, look at this, Absorbed ‘Tier 1 Health Crystal’, gained 20 Tier 1 Health]

Intent didn’t lie, 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 resource” could be found in dangerous grounds and they were worth tens of stat points each after absorption, then…

So, currently, every person who judged themselves able to survive approaching a dangerous ground was going there like moths to light during the night, with the comparison being much more literal than Rune wanted.

[Arik: More deaths than proof]

[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 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 guy like him.

Not to mention someone like Adreana, probably pulling her hair at the possibility of it really happening.

He could only feel relieved that the danger of the dangerous grounds was largely underestimated, though only as long as he wasn’t acquainted with someone who lost his avatar due to that.

His mental health would recover with the amount of misery being thrown on the board by those who tried to skip the farming process.

One month in the Void 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, 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.

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 frustration he got from pushing his momentum to its limit every day.

The urgency was very low, in all this time, the ether density progress bargained only 3%, it was only a piece of unremarkable news among many others.

Universe Ether (Void Dimension Opening basis): +3%

‘Stop lamenting and focus on farming.’

In the end, he was certain his stable and constant strategy would pay off. He wasn’t like Utopia who only saw the best in every situation, but 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 Rune it was a newbie honey trap that he wasn’t going to taste.

‘Even if a special resource can give you a whole 100 points, it’s still not worth the risk… I think.’

Rune was leaning to the side of the neutral observer, not talking and only reaping the advantages, and he applied this 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 better than they did.

‘Yeah, that’s right, I don’t care about being surpassed by the 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, Rune found his inner peace again and continued to follow what he planned, farming forever and ever.

Rune 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 free 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 estimation of 95% of the IGS population having created an avatar and an estimated 50% of the population being active explorers, using their avatar daily, the amount of activity and gathered EP at the 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 billions but hundreds of trillions of active gatherers.

And with hundreds of trillions of avatars exploring the Void, what were the chances of infinitesimal rare events happening in terms of probability? It was, in fact, largely above 100% chance.

Luck could be seen as unpredictable, but experts begged to differ. Because luck could be explained scientifically.

Simple choices and instinctive decisions led to “if you just turned 10 meters to your right, you could have seen a floating special resource” or “you could also have been hit by this death asteroid passing by if you didn’t stop here”.

The combination of all those choices and decisions, all made by only yourself, was what made a situation an opportunity, disaster, something to be remembered, or something you missed.

A “lucky one” was only the one making the best choice one after another, be it by feelings, irrational guesses, instinct, or intelligence, the end justifies the means in this case.

Ethan for example belonged to the stupid ones, or so they were called because they were the overly courageous 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, he continued to move.

And from this decision, fueled by nothing but his decision of farming despite his completely inadequate stats, redemption had its way.

After 20 days of effort, he didn’t find any ether resources whatsoever, but after those 20 days of forging ahead despite the odds, he felt something.

It wasn’t death, nor ether light, it was something he read about from the board or the wiki, gravity.

Ethan wasn’t stupid like 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 in a desperate situation, a desperate choice had to be made.

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.

Full of ether-rich rocks and pure ether crystal.

…

A young man was slowly moving in the direction of a dangerous ground he found during his previous farming travels, only nobility and ambition could be seen in the black eyes of his avatar.

He did the exact same path Rune did from the start, taking the energy use event objectives path, but he diverged mid-way by investing in 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 ambition and the objective to be acknowledged for who he was and not what he’ll be, Sivan had a clear 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.

Investing in his physical stats to reduce the absolute risk was only for his peace of mind.

Different dangerous grounds did different amounts of damage, some were impossible to survive unless you had hundreds in the needed physical stats, some were hard, needing dozens of stats, and some could be survived, barely, or easily.

All of this wasn’t secret knowledge, everyone who died told different stories, be it about the times before they died or the very various amounts of damage they took.

Some were continuous, some were irregular, some had a timer, some were purely 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, no big bad beasts were waiting in ambush.

It meant that only tanking and surviving the damage dealt by the environment was enough, so the attraction of the dangerous grounds grew exponentially with time.

‘I’m still not taking damage.’

Despite having entered a dangerous ground, perfectly recognizable due to the ether being everywhere and visible through one’s perception sphere, Sivan felt nothing.

Having his health before his eyes, he noted the absence of change and awaited the inevitable change.

But after 30 minutes of exploration, he became ecstatic as this change never came, so he continued to scan the dangerous ground. Maybe he hit the jackpot.

Dangerous grounds were the most notable anomalies, gravity planets and asteroids were also considered anomalies by the wiki as the Void shouldn’t have anything except ether in it, matters shouldn’t exist in it.

If the Void was 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.’

2 days 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 was the notification having just completed a Void initiation event 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 paid off.

‘Let’s continue,’ he thought as he restarted his sweep of the dangerous grounds.