2 weeks of amateur body control training later marked the end of the 9th month since the Ether Law awakening.

During this whole month, Rune had farmed at 50% efficiency, with 30% of his awareness in the Void dimension.

In total he absorbed 2 930 299 EP worth of regular resources, he also found 8 special crystals worth 20 stat points each and 4 special stones worth 50 stat points each, excluding the first one he found.

Stats were stats, even if he didn’t control where they went, however, the consequence of getting stats, previously a lot harder, so easily, was that he wasn’t alone in feeling that stats farming was in fact, very easy.

As such, theories couldn’t help but fly from every mind on the board.

‘Maybe at tier 2 you need 10 million of EP to increase your stats by 1 point? So scary, who wrote this?!’ Like reading a spooky-scary story, Rune was scared away and stopped reading this particular forum.

He then opened his avatar status to comfort himself.

Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)

EP: 19 501

Stats Total: 2 069

Health: 200

Health Regeneration: 240

Strength: 100

Cohesion: 204

Energy: 80

Energy Regeneration: 135

Purity: 30

Affinity: 80

Momentum: 500

Perception: 500

Having discovered more than 10 special resources, he also got a reward of 100 000 EP, but his current status looked a bit in a mess due to them.

He was happy of course, but his little bit of a perfectionist side was hurting, at least he could rationalize it and see it as preparing for his future energy training…

He could of course skip the body control training and go test his close combat talent, but it would be like putting the cart before the horse, his training would be slow because he’d still have to properly learn how to move and so, have to come back to body control.

Of course, Rune updated his data every time his stats increased, if he had something to sell, it was honesty and integrity, and going from 78% to 88% strength use in a short time often meant a stat increase for the assistant if it didn’t detect a major change in the form or proficiency of the user.

Rune really thought his life was exhilarating, using his body and reaching for every additional strength, tapping into forces he didn’t know he had, approaching perfection with every step.

He would never have done those things if not for how much effort he put into his objective of continuing to be part of the top 10%.

But as he’d soon have to go have his monthly sleep, he stopped his training and contacted Astryde and Utopia, they should also be in there.

They already planned a meet-up to discuss their training before going to sleep, and so half an hour later, at the entrance of the martial supreme dojo, they saw each other again after 2 months of individual schedule.

They greeted each other like old friends and went really deep into the subject of physical path training, what they felt was coming, and their expected timelines before switching mastery training.

It was just a typical talk in the new era, and they ended up separating after reaching the training building to go to sleep.

…

At the beginning of the 10th month, after normal monthly sleep and activating the revitalization spell to wake up properly, Rune was back to the martial supreme dojo branch in 20 minutes, and another 5 later, he was punching things and kicking more things.

After sleeping he had to re-send his awareness back to his avatar side, and he was surprised by his own progress.

He was now around 1 hour and ten minutes used to send 1% of his awareness, an upgrade compared to 5 hours to send 4%, even if it was only 5 minutes relative per percent.

With a renewed mind for the month, Rune was perplexed by thinking how gravity-restrained exercises would and could help him in Void and Deep Void fight, but if everyone was doing them, there was probably a reason.

It’d anyways eventually become useful as he didn’t intend to stop at tier 1 restricted to empty space, he wanted to be part of the top 10%, those who would eventually lead a deep exploration into newly opened dimensions, and maybe gravity expedition too.

Yes, Rune was starting to have ambition.

Where before there was only “gathering resources to not be left behind”, the feeling of pushing his boundary ever beyond was something he could appreciate now more than he ever had.

From only seeking to keep with the changing era, farming for one month straight because he thought himself above average, to really understanding the consequences of the Ether Law awakening, he couldn’t stay passive forever.

From forgotten memories of adventures and fantasies he had during his childhood, he awakened similar dreams of maybe one day, not as a citizen, but as Rune Tudor, becoming something that would mark him, define him, as someone special, though he still didn’t want fame.

It was like when he freed his hidden frustration by punching endlessly, now, and never before, he could do things that people dreamed about their entire life but never got.

And this precise thought helped him in solidifying his nascent ambition of not having a goal, but just going forward till he couldn’t anymore.

Anything else was just part of his life and journey to the unknown.

From that, Rune realized that this journey had already started back when he created his avatar, and he still considered he was just starting, because, at a primitive age, where everything was blurry and cloudy about the future, the only thing that could elevate someone was hard work, talent, and opportunity.

And then again, it was just a simple guessing game.

He didn’t find his true talent, or even his calling, he also wasn’t strong enough to search for opportunity in the Deep Void.

So he only had one thing for himself.

‘The only thing left is hard work, always the same conclusion, but it’s different this time, the meaning and reasoning behind it changed.’

Reflecting a little more he arrived at what he would call this part of his life in the future, ‘I’m still in the tutorial when the Ether Law ultimately gives us access to a true fantasy dimension, I want to be as ready as I can possibly be, only then will I start my true journey.’

Deciding to not lose any second, Rune punched and kicked, if he wasn’t forbidden from using his momentum stat, he would have abused it as much as he could.

…

With his new determination to complete the tutorial part of his life as efficiently and quickly as he could, he only thought about 2 paths he’d end up taking in the future, and he couldn’t create a third path.

First, the path where he completed his tutorial, a path where he climbed to the top 1%, maybe even the top 0.1%, and belonged to the path he wanted to be in.

And second, the path where he didn’t put in enough hard work, leading him to be left behind by those who took the first path.

He already completed the balance training, the impulse training, the punching and kicking training, everything he could do, he did, and he only took 10 days.

He pushed his original body beyond what he did in the previous month, and comparing his result to that of Astryde, he took one less week.

Without relaxing, he directly switched to the competent hall and learned that from now on, alternating between the close combat mastery knowledge and competent level body control was the best.

He also learned that if he wanted to train reinforcement at the same time, he would be eating more than he could digest as reinforcement wasn’t a simple spell, it was a true physical path mastery knowledge, one spell defining an entire path.

So deciding to start with the competent body control exercises, he found himself in a hall with plenty of cubic individual rooms, each room was an enclosed environment simulating room of the new generation, designed specifically for pushing previously unknown boundaries of individual strength.

But more shocking than hundreds of cubes, was the sight of completely beaten up people with despair flowing out of their eyes getting out of those rooms, leaving behind a cloud of gloom.

Remembering the rumors he heard his friends talk about, he was more curious than scared and decided to see it for himself immediately.

Entering into an empty room, the training started with minimalist instructions, “Fight and Evade, score given at the end of every 15 minutes session.”

And on those words, the impossible competent level training started.

Astryde and the others weren’t joking, he could even be a supreme genius that nothing would change.

It was perfectly adapted to his increased stats and ability, he was like an insect fighting a never-ending storm of obstacles and painful bullets.

It never stopped and just continued for 15 minutes, expecting him to measure up to an evolving storm that only targeted him.

The ground sometimes suddenly had no grip at all, gravity changed in the middle of him evading, there was, of course, no pattern repeated like a video game, invisible threads that his sphere couldn’t even see inflicted pain that made his body react instinctively, leading to even more pain.

15 minutes later, he exited the room.

The virtual assistant advised 5 minutes of break after every session to properly reflect on the decisions made in it, it also advised to do 3 sessions before going to the close combat hall, so that’s what he did.

3 sessions of hell’s special later, he decided to follow what the assistant said and was led to the beginner close combat hall.

There was no test for close combat, only fighting true intelligent opponents could allow you to go to the next level, fighting virtual AI-managed puppets didn’t count, you only used these to gain experience.

But that was the first thing Rune planned to do.

AI could be as powerful as you wanted them to be, but their techniques depended a lot on what you gave them.

The martial supreme dojo gave their AI an absurd amount of ways to beat you in pure martial arts, again, the goal was to cultivate your fighting instinct, a humanoid opponent would probably not be the majority of your enemies, but instinct needed to be cultivated, and using what was the most researched about, humanoid body martial arts, was the best way to do it.

“Start,” Rune said the word and the virtualized AI body obliged.

It started with a simple punch, a fast one, probably not much strength behind it, but he never knew, evading was never a bad choice in this case from his experience.

Applying strength to his legs first, his whole body rotated seamlessly, and he tried to follow it with a simple kick to engage the hostility, but the AI had already changed his punch to an impulse to his lower body, probably trying to strike with a low-kick.

But with gravity helping him, Rune stood his ground and responded by making a jump forward, and without gaining too much height, he encountered the AI body milliseconds after jumping.

They crashed and then tried to bring the other down but their strength was the same.

Even when he tried to execute what he learned in body control, the AI was designed to be at the same level, so they just continued exchanging moves and 20 minutes later, Rune was declared loser by time forfeit.

After that, he saw a replay of his match, but red illusions appeared to show alternative moves he could have made to bring an end to the fight.

‘I did my best, I only need to do it again and again, it’s even more of a tutorial than the rest.’

After-fight analysis, Rune knew they existed, but being shown how much you sucked was disturbing.

Fortunately, it didn’t put a damper on his track, after 20 minutes of analysis he fought again with the same opponent.

And he lost again by time forfeit.

He couldn’t learn patterns because they didn’t exist, the goal of this training was accumulation.

His assistant advised him on 100 hours of simulated fights before challenging the beginner guardian, those that decided whether you reached the necessary level to advance or not.

Following 8 hours of fighting training, he returned to the competent body control hall and did 3 sessions of hell’s room training.

If he said he did better, he would be straight-up lying. The reality was that he ended up as miserable as his first time, a storm of pain, instinctive reflexes taking over, only some shocking lucid moment where he realized how much he couldn’t do anything, that was it.

But it was his level, and he didn’t reach a competent level by luck, so he persisted.

20 days later, Rune was already in the amateur close combat hall, and he progressed notably in the competent body control, evading 4 out of 10 obstacles and punching or kicking correctly 3 out of 10 times, though his jump impulsions were nearly all failed, that was just a detail.

One month of farming at reduced efficiency gave him 2 941 586 EP, and the dangerous ground being a 200-kilometer sphere, at normal resources density, he could expect millions of resources being contained inside, so he didn’t worry about running out of them.

But even if it was a small dangerous ground, as it was also rich in special resources, he would still farm there.

He found an additional 7 crystals and 5 stones, truly making him understand how heroes had already reached the stats cap of tier 1 of 5 000 total stats.

His has increased, but the situation didn’t change that much.

Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)

EP: 11 087

Stats Total: 2 754

Health: 300

Health Regeneration: 299

Strength: 140

Cohesion: 500

Energy: 80

Energy Regeneration: 185

Purity: 100

Affinity: 150

Momentum: 500

Perception: 500

This time he focused on cohesion, investing 196 points worth of EP this round, and officially reached the half total stats of a peak tier 1 avatar.

Although his attribution of stats was not optimized, he knew that he wasn’t starting his energy training before reaching competent in close combat.

Energy training also wasn’t really dependent on precise stats distribution as it was hinted on the board, even with only 1 purity and affinity it was possible to train, but only the energy pool could really block your training, so you had to make sure to have enough regeneration.

And anyways, Rune could remedy any stat-related problem that appeared in only a few days if it was urgent enough by farming with his full awareness.

‘Another month, just another month.’

He predicted he would be over with basic physical mastery next month, but things were progressing fast for everything and everyone around him.

To keep updated about the situation, he just had to enter the Tireless Group’s private forum for the now more than one hundred thousand members to inform him about the recent most important events by reading what they were discussing about.

As some were at the “full-farming” stage, they had too much free time, as much as Rune when he was at that stage.

‘A city being built on the two sides of the first rift discovered, other rifts discovered and used, resources trading impossible to monopolize by anyone, another solar system discovered, monster nests destroyed, peaceful ether beasts encountered, …’

Nothing could escape the scrutiny of the Tireless, and if he wanted more info on a particular event, he could ask Arik and Gar.

As the end of his month drew closer and closer, Rune decided to go back to his room and deactivated his revitalization energy loop as he entered it.

The moment he laid down on his bed, he fully focused on bending his sphere.

It wasn’t training, he really tried, it was one-try only true perception sphere bending in action, using all his spiritual strength to try and deform his sphere as much as he could within a very short period.

‘Push! Again! More! So f*cking hard! Ah!’ But what followed was what he expected.

“Hu!” Like he retained his breath till now, he expired brutally and before he knew it, he fell asleep.