A week later, the IGS government put onboard, the online word equivalent for the information board, a specialized forum dedicated to creating a Void dimension map, with the reason of preparing the logistics for what was to come.

This week also gave enough time for the most reckless to enter the Deep Void Dimension and get exciting and horrific news out for every true explorer of the dimensions.

“The beasts in the Deep Void dimension can be killed, they should be of the same tier as us, tier 1 with a 500 individual stat limit, so as long as you can overcome their health regeneration and their cohesion over 1 minute, they’ll die.”

With 6 months of preparation under its belt, the IGS sector had billions of avatars ready to fight, the fusion of the universe’s sectors by Ether just made those billions become a bigger billions, the number remained approximative.

The fusion the Ether Law did gathered 5 sectors into one in the case of the IGS sector gathering.

Fortunately or unfortunately, no major power similar to the IGS appeared to exist, all previous sectors’ civilizations communicated and shared intel but without anything more, even if they wanted to do something, they didn’t even have interstellar scale travel available.

So for the IGS, it meant that their unknown civilizations integration department, which had not been affected that much compared to some other departments like the internal stability department, became corked by demand for shared technologies and possible help.

The ancient Azorans tradition of free transmission and sharing of technologies, with no conditions attached, wasn’t affected by the Rululus climb to the highest seat of power of the IGS.

It was even considered one of its core tenets, so the government just opened an only-view forum where they shared all the technology by writing it down.

It was greatly inefficient but what else could they do when so many others were suffering from possible extinction-class cosmic events?

One day maybe, the board will allow for images and videos, but it’ll at least have to wait for the next Ether Law power-up.

Until then, civilizations too far to profit from personal help will have to be satisfied with the step-by-step guide to the galaxy made by the IGS.

The advertisement from the now recognized 3 paths had the expected effect of popularizing a platform accepted by everyone, a place where what people hoped where masteries knowledge, was shared freely despite its importance.

The ether density didn’t make the Ether Wiki all-powerful either, it still couldn’t answer ether soul and tier related too deep knowledge, so self-discovery was still the answer.

And amidst all this.

Rune, being only a human, from a simple background, wasn’t ready to fight at all.

His current plan included intruding and farming in dangerous grounds, participating in the dangerous grounds landmark IGS plan, as well as practicing bit by bit his masteries and seeing if he had a particular talent in any domain.

After farming for a whole week, gathering 478 697 EP while primarily trying to deform his perfect perception sphere, he decided to stop and prepare his proof and civilian papers, as well as every document that he did or didn’t prepare for his previous professional life but will never get to use.

He packaged everything as well as the adequate adhesion request paper and sent it to the 3 path organizations.

As the system was mostly automated, he received an account and was added as a member to different private forums on the board, he also received invitations to the newly created group of those 3 organizations, which he accepted.

“Sigh, finally sent everything, that was a pain in the ass,” Rune just finished candidating for the 3 organizations, the Martial Supreme Dojo, the New Energy Institute, and the Psychic Union.

He just had to send proof that he was really involved in the whole dimensions exploring thing and confirm that he never acted against the law and whatever, it was a typical IGS administration template where everything was managed more on the side of the organization than the side of the individual.

To Rune’s greatest pleasure, of course, he just had to send a minimum of info, link his civilian ID, send an indication to his proof and that was it, no massive paperwork was involved.

After all that, he immediately accessed the psychic union website and downloaded the freely given prepared guide.

…

A few hours later.

On a second open screen, this time not of the system type, more like computer type screen, advertisements for the Adventurer’s Society and the Dimensions Department’s Patrollers were playing, and they were catchy as fuck.

Sentences like “It’s only the beginning of the journey to your dream” or “We will advance together and shine or fall together” were mixed together in a 3 to 4-minute long video that was really optimized to make your hot-bloodedness take over.

It could even put shonen opening themes to shame, the themes of power, adventure, and friendship were put forward for the Adventurer’s Society, whereas righteousness, military order, and unbreakable principles were the central points of the new patroller position.

Why was he watching that? It’s of course because he entered a period of discovery and needed some background noise to be at his best.

“Maybe I’m just doing it wrong?” Rune was doing training that was available in the psychic union guide, the perception sphere manipulation, or perception sphere deformation for the intimate.

He ended up in the same situation he found himself when he just started to manipulate his awareness, except that he had his perception sphere active nearly permanently since 6 months ago.

6 entire months and he could do nothing with it, his sphere boundary was like a concrete wall, not at all like imaginative walls that could be moved like the guide and the board said.

The guide was very worldly in its description of how to begin, focusing not on the whole, but on only one direction, ignoring but focusing at the same time.

“The start should be an easy step! Why is my sphere so solid? Hell! Anyone with 500 stats like I do can do it! Why isn’t this working… That’s it! Penguin yourself! I’m out!” Of course, Rune didn’t stop his farming just because of this.

The principal reason was that Utopia and the brother-sister duo of Nelo and Astryde decided to do a get-together to train in the momentum technique and encounter each other in real life.

And to join the place where they were going to do it, he had a spaceship ticket to take, and it wasn’t a normal one.

“Ok, just find him on this app, and… Here it is,” on a messaging app, Rune found Utopia and added him, he then received a link to download a ticket for the place of their meeting, the capital system of the IGS 56th administrative sector of the Milky Way galaxy.

Despite being what Rune considered to be the “top 10%” of all dimensional explorers, he wasn’t rich.

He gained a little by contributing here and there, private message confirmation between others, but he never did a truly rewarding activity.

This led to him not being able to pay for an intergalactic trip from the X125 rural planet, part of the Andromeda galaxy administration, to the meeting planet located in the Milky Way galaxy.

Yes, the Azorans renamed their own galaxy with the fun name they found in ancient Humans astrology.

Got a problem with this lore? That’s what I thought.

It was in fact a surprise that Utopia, Nelo, and Astryde all lived there, as the Andromeda galaxy had thousands of billions of stars and was the economical and cultural center of the IGS, having 5 times as many stars as that of the milky-way and multiple that of the other major galaxies discovered and colonized.

The only thing the milky-way had for itself was being the birth galaxy of the IGS as well as possessing the homeworld of 3 of the 5 leading species and also of hundreds of major species.

But each of these places was so protected that it was only possible to visit them by reserving decades ahead of time.

Anyways, intergalactic trips involved special spaceships, so it meant they also involved special prices, for special people, with something special to their name.

For Rune, it was close to becoming a monumental event in his life, he was going to another galaxy, and with only an 8-hours expected arrival time from embarking, he’s going to enjoy the special treatment as much as he possibly could.

“Let’s just relax for today and ignore this stupid shi… Penguin sphere,” catching his words in the middle, he stopped thinking about training, and fighting, and stats, and sphere, yeah, mainly his sphere.

…

The next day, he embarked on a shuttle that took him to the orbital space station, the only other time he got there was during a primary school trip.

It was so long ago that he didn’t really remember it anymore, so he acted like a tourist, carefully observing everywhere and everything upon arriving.

His family had a… Big disinterest in where he’s going.

He talked to his mom before departing but either she thought he was joking, or she clearly understood but the recent dimensional entertainment was too powerful and she didn’t care about her son’s life.

After 6 months locked up in his room, maybe it was only normal for him to be a little alienated, but his mom and dad sending him personally once the shuttle arrived was very comforting and erased his inner alienation.

They sent him like he was still a child… Wait, that’s pretty bad, isn’t it?

Like he was a grown-up leaving the home for the first time to go to his first job, after all, during all his absence, they could still come to his room and see his inert original body if they so desired.

But from now he will be gone for at least a month, maybe more, depending on the training time.

His ticket was to be used at a capital class space station, so he first had to transit at the transportation hub of his sector, then go to an IG dock.

Those docks deserved spaceships capable of abusing the laws of physics so much that they created the situation where 8 hours was enough to go from one galaxy to another.

At least they needed the support of the entire IGS to be built and maintained.

The number of companies taking part in this type of business could be counted on the fingers of one hand, there were 3 companies, a public one belonging to the government and military, the other 2 were Kajos’ investments that worked pretty well.

In X125’s space station, he first embarked on the hub road by walking after exiting his shuttle, this road took him to the docks where plenty of people were gathered and walked by like it was just another normal day.

He ignored the people and tried to see where hub dock 3 was, finding it 10 minutes later.

Using his ticket, Rune was allowed to pass the security barrier and, as the second barrier didn’t start an alarm, he continued on the path that ultimately led him to a gigantic cruiser class commercial transport ship.

Corvette, destroyer, and cruiser were the spaceship sizes authorized for civil use, above that were battleship-sized and titan-sized spaceships, controlled by the military or used as administrative sector projects for the economy, culture, or entertainment.

This cruiser class transport ship was going to take Rune and the other passengers to the transport hub, this trip took 20 minutes once they departed.

Embarking as part of the late ones, he searched, then sat on the designated place marked on his ticket, and 5 minutes later, the ship started to vibrate.

Rune could feel with his 50 meters perception sphere that they were moving, in a typical flight like this one, there was a 5 minutes acceleration and safety, followed by 10 minutes of actual travel, and finally, 5 minutes to anchor themselves to their reserved dock.

During the 20 minutes trip, he thought about something, rich people, and more widely, special people wanted special things in their life, and the spaceship he was going to take was the epitome of specialness, for him it could easily be named the pioneer of the luxury spaceship.

It was named, the Duke of Andromeda, one of the five active private transport cruisers with intergalactic reach contained in its engine compartment, designed for civilian use in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Only when he reached the entrance to the IG dock did Rune get ousted from his familiarity.

Ornate fast walkways, bodyguards watching him with the corners of their eyes, celebrations going on, celebrating their return or their departures for another galaxy…

It wasn’t the place for an asocial person like him.

‘I’m not going to like this…’ Rune never learned how to manage this type of stress, he never stressed for anything involving not interacting with other people, to begin with.

He tried to use logic to control his reptilian brain and suppress his nonsensical thoughts, but so much activity around him made him feel like he intruded in the after-marriage party of people he didn’t know.

[Rune: If I die, make Utopia join me in the Heaven dimension]

Rune didn’t even wait for answers, he found a corner, put on his isolating headphone, and started blasting music into his ears.

‘Compensate me for this compensation law god, I’ve never sinned before, why inflict this divine punishment! Why can’t I just enter and visit the Duke of Andromeda’s inside, I don’t care about what everyone thinks of me, just please don’t make a stranger come talk to me!’

Rune having a mental breakdown was maybe what fate used as a reason to ignore him, not bothering him at all.

Nobody sent more than a glance at his corner, and from that glance, they only saw a special young man focused on reading air.

40 minutes after Rune arrived, the Duke of Andromeda opened its door and the passengers entered.

The first thing he did after embarking was going to his cabin and drop off his travel gears like he wanted to go to the toilet.

Except he wanted to go on an adventure, the plan of the ship was so exciting, a game room, a free bar, a 10 stars restaurant incorporating the new energy cooking technique in the drink and meal at the same time, a training room, a swimming pool room, you could find everything you wanted.

But he only had 8 hours.

‘The companies nowadays… Really a bunch of business geniuses, so awesome.’

Praising the Duke’s owner for his insight into the situation, or more likely the group of employed people that kept having ideas because it’s their job.

Rune started his adventure by first haphazardly walking everywhere, his sphere of 50 meters made him able to more easily find the most interesting corner.

He was far from a true country bumpkin, but his curious personality and the large difference between the chosen path of his rural planet, limiting large-scale modernization of a large majority of the planet to instead invest in the whole natural territory's beauty had impacted his life at its foundation.

If civilians from a true IGS industry center were to come to X125, they would be like Rune now, because vegetations and trees were all artificials there, a whole continent of flowers and zoos? Unthinkable, too much space wasted.

…

7 and a half hours later, Rune finished one of the best meals in his life, it was accompanied by a lot of drinks he had never tried before.

After this delectable moment, he returned to his cabin to gather his gears while doing the last ship tour and taking pictures for his family.

Pictures that, like every trip, he did before, would likely be forgotten and erased.

Soon the ship was going to exit hyperspace and arrive at the sector Rune wanted to descend at, the transport hub of the 56th sector.

He was, unfortunately, one of the first few stops, maybe the first actually, others were going to continue profiting from the amenities available for hours, while he had to take a third ship and transit to his final destination.

The capital system of the 56th Milky Way administrative sector.

Half an hour later, everything happened as he expected them to, he transited to another cruiser civilian ship, went through a similar-looking hub as the one he had seen at Andromeda, then after another 20 minutes trip.

Before his eyes, a planet worthy of being the capital of an intergalactic power, A56, sprawled till the horizon, with no ocean blue or vegetal green to be seen from the bay window of the orbital space station.

It was a completely artificially managed planet, optimized to allow perfect conditions for life, and just from the view he got, the planet was a mix of grey, white and black buildings everywhere.

Taking a shuttle going to the 5th district, he descended at the nearest spot to the meeting point.

‘It was enjoyable, but after pleasure comes effort, I just had a third of a day off, so it’s time to go back to training… And this stupid sphere training too.’

Looking all around him could at least make him forget the perception sphere manipulation training.

The most notable thing here was the people floating. Having just arrived, Rune didn’t dare take off but he could, his 500 MS stat equaled 8.3 meters per second, and the gravity of this planet was 7.2, perfect for no health problem and greater height in the buildings.

Every capital system was chosen from the most special planet of an entire sector. This planet, A56, had an enormous size but kept a weak gravity compared to general telluric planets.

Rune didn’t bother searching for the explanation, he just knew it was a perfect planet even before it was massively changed and adapted to suit the role of capital planet.

[Rune: I just arrived at A56, I’m in front of the building indicated to be the meeting point, do I fly to the top? There’s no door]

[Nelo: It’s Utopia’s responsibility, me and Astryde are still 4 hours away]

[Utopia: Only a true hero can fly, and only a true hero can enter this building, take the heroic path or take the path of shame and beg me to open the hidden door]

[Rune: It’ll be my first time flying in the universe dimension, I think I’m a true hero inside]

[Astryde: I don’t have maxed out MS, Nelo’s the same]

[Utopia: As false heroes treading the path of the energy heretics, you’ll have to walk the path of shame]

Rune closed the system and instantly started to float up from the ground.

‘Easier than I thought.’

With a difference of 1 meter per second, he only had to accelerate a bit and then he could do the same movement he did in the Void dimension,

The building in front of him was 500 meters high, and 5 minutes later he surpassed the top and did an ungraceful twirl before landing.

‘I’m just born cool, nothing I can do.’

The feeling of flying by his own means made him completely overexcited.

However, upon seeing a flat top with only a single door on what appeared to be 200 square meters of concrete grey surface without anything, he felt really bored.

‘That was probably too unimpressive, let’s just train a lot after seeing if Utopia is a boy or a man.’

Walking to the door, it opened without a hitch, and inside was an elevator.

Taking the elevator, its door closed as it started to descend without command before reopening the door 10 seconds later, to a simply furnished room.

In this room, there was only a single boy, looking about 9 years old if compared to a human’s size, but considering the long light blue hair and white-blue skin, the perfect Rululu indicator, Rune could revise his judgment to 15 or 16 years old, if this boy had normal growth.

The boy was perfectly still, so Rune, being a true friend, did the most responsible thing.

[Rune: Want a hero meeting? A villain meeting maybe?]

And seeing the boy agitate his fingers in mid-air to reply, a smirk appeared on Rune’s face.

[Utopia: Yes please, the hero one!]