After the third announcement from the Ether Law, the IGS had a lot to do. In the precedent era, the government usually had more of an overseer role, but now they had a completely proactive and responsive role, where everyone waited for “official” support.

Making a new announcement for the newly integrated information board universe sectors was the first thing everyone thought about, but now the new picture information form just added more, maybe a lot more, work to make the announcement more formal.

The imminent activation of the Ether Law was a disaster, fortunately, it was only imminent, so the whole IGS just accelerated the evacuation of the babies as they didn’t have the capabilities to make an avatar yet.

But with babies came parents, then with parents came close families, and the industrial capacity of the IGS, despite being able to change entire stellar systems in months, was limited.

What that meant was that they sent orders to haste the construction of the refuges, the parents would have to live in the pure space around them, that was the plan they had to complete before gravity started to kill everything.

There was of course an ambiguity as to whether “Ether Law activation” meant “ether erosion” or not, but nobody really wanted to take a risk regarding that. Surprisingly?

The new rifts leading to the Deep Void dimension were the least of their problems, same for the rest of the announcement, the forces the IGS built would demand respect even from the Ether Law if it was conscious.

Their whole hierarchy had already been adapted to the new interdimensional era, with all government agencies being moved to be out of every planet's evaluated gravitic field.

Patrollers and adventurers were responsive and increased the average individual prowess of their civilization at a fast speed, geniuses were never lacking in quantities, new professions, new spells, new applications, new technologies.

Companies couldn’t be ignored in all this, a competitive and not monopolized market was a thriving market, the economy was adapting, IGS normalized credits had their value fall as time passed, to the profit of ether resources.

The economy department was already thinking of a way to compress ether resources in a coin-like way, parallel to that they were prepared to establish an official resource to IGS credit exchange rate after accumulating enough ether resources.

That would stabilize the economy.

The Adventurer’s Society was not on its way to becoming a behemoth, it already became one, initiatives after initiatives were taken to respond to the now trillions of members who were official members.

The 3 path organizations were the ultimate center of individual powers, the martial supreme dojo was the brightest star, their reinforcement technique forging the path for the birth of true warriors, those only heard in tales and legends.

The new energy institute was the most brilliant repository made by hand, they concentrated so many experiments in their database and had an insane rate of researching all the subtleties associated with spells while they never forgot a single anomaly, leading to new spells matrices being archived for further research each day.

The psychic union was a background actor, a silent force, they didn’t have any offensive knowledge but while some ignored the physical or energy path, nobody ignored the spiritual path.

They advanced silently with the few leads they had, a boosted momentum technique, a refined awareness, a more advanced sphere manipulation, there was no end to their path.

In the week following the Ether Law's third announcement, the IGS released their own announcement, showcasing their attitude to the entire board.

[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, stance, and undertaken actions after the recent event of the Ether Law third announcement.

Given the recent second sector fusion, this message is destined for any major forces that are possibly open to negotiation, as well as less technologically advanced civilizations, this forum is open to every plea for help, the IGS will answer to its best ability.

I ask for the cooperation of every inhabited planet under the administrative management of the IGS. Every young citizen without an avatar will be fatally affected by gravity once the ether erosion, possibly linked to the Ether Law activation, starts.

As such, every such young citizen must be evacuated to the nearest evacuation point to be brought to safety, no parent will accompany them as not enough ether space stations have been built. You’ll have to reside on simple open space platforms if you decide to accompany them.

For unknown civilizations, as you’re now under the same information board universe sector like us, and time is short, special schematics will be linked to this announcement, allowing the evacuation of every young member of your civilization to outer-space, having their original body in prolonged sleep far from the fatal gravity that is to possibly come.

If your current civilization level is too low, a special IGS support forum will be created to accompany you in elevating your technology in the fastest way, be it by making a beacon to call for us or for you to build the evacuation cabins.

As ether monsters still cannot enter the universe dimension, no change will be made to the current established order, please continue on increasing the individual power of the IGS.

The current education reform will be accelerated and students will be put to safety in special education buildings to become contributing citizens as soon as possible. It is asked of their families to not lose contact in those turbulent times and create a special family forum through the Information Board.

Every administrative region will manage the production of new ether spaceships able to take over intergalactic transportation following approval from the transport department.

To end this announcement, as the new era 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]

The IGS was stretched thin, the fusion of sectors seemed to have incorporated what felt like billions of galaxies, compared to the 2 000 billion evaluated to exist, it was a petty number, but the IGS couldn’t respond to all the demands for help.

As astonishing as it was, no major civilization like the IGS was found, making the Azorans, founders of the IGS, and the historians really wonder if something happened in their early days that allowed them to develop technologies enough to not be like the Pachins and be locked on their home planet.

The number of civilizations that were at the threshold of interstellar travel was a lot, and the schematic sent by the IGS was god-sent for them, it was the case for the first information board sector, it was also the case for the first fusion, and now it was the same for the second fusion.

No other major power increased the help demanded by a lot, but also facilitated the future integration of those civilizations into the IGS.

A bad for a good?

…

On every planet, babies were evacuated, private family forums were created, on X125, Rune’s home planet, the whole family was creating a family forum and were using it.

[Mikael: Everyone writes something]

Mikael was Rune's father's name, he was the silent but responsible dad type.

[Florence: No problem]

[Floria: Doll]

[Rune: Ok]

[Miro: Master]

[Victoria: Bird]

[Miri: I’m hungry]

From Rune's perspective, after the announcement of the IGS government, he really understood the gravity of the situation. (pun not intended)

He wasn’t an administrative employee, so of course, he didn’t think much about the situation and what the Ether Law activating would do to babies without an avatar.

He just thought that he would requisition an automatic air purifier and then wait for the IGS to complete all the ether space stations.

But now his two little brothers and two little sisters became the Tudor family’s anchor point, they would all be going to a special station and then have a direct family lodging.

Rune let his parents manage the situation, he would only follow and not question, their family was overall pretty relaxed, imminent for Ether meant from some weeks to an entire month, and they were departing today.

As a spectator, it looked like war mobilization against an unbeatable enemy, so the situation was thrilling for Rune when he knew that nothing would really happen.

‘Maybe it’s the best time to do sphere bending training.’

Rune was pragmatic, he already knew that the management of their administrative sector prepared the evacuation of rural planets first, so he for sure wouldn’t become a rebel.

He heard from Miro that X125 had patrollers and that they were the community heroes, if he understood it right, then they were as powerful as he was.

‘It’s not a reason to stop training or relax, maybe I should use the big brother authority to motivate them.’

The current situation was anxiogenic, so sparing with his eager little brother should diffuse a part of it and make it lighter.

“It’s been 3 weeks since we last spared, want to see the result of your studies little bro?”

Maybe not used to being called by his big brother, he took time to process the request.

‘Maybe it’s family genetics that made overloading our brain easy?’

“Only if I can take you on with Miri…” Or he didn’t want to lose too badly or he was too shy… Probably the first.

He convinced Miri to join him in “training” for close combat and body control.

“Come when you want, I trained with monsters all day till yesterday, so I’ll expect you to have at least half of their ability to dish out damages!”

They were currently at the evacuation center, waiting for the transport spaceship to come and embark, so his talking loudly attracted some attention, but he was not shy in this particular case, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

And so Miro and Miri tried to assault him to put him down as he only defended, he even used his 35% efficiency energy armor with 50 energy, momentarily stopping his nurturing mode of reinforcement that he used to replace the revitalization spell.

The 17 health armor was impressive, covering his whole body in a white layer of energy under a perception sphere, but even more impressive was Rune’s use of it.

After hundreds of beatings, he could feel the reduction of his health through his awareness and sphere, and blocking sometimes gave strange results, the Ether Law used a similar approach as its defective counterpart, the physic laws.

To block damages you had 2 choices, to exert an equal force, or redirect it, if not your body health would be used to protect you.

But in the same manner, Rune discovered that energy armor functioned on the same principle as plate armor, the energy compression only functioned as a solid second skin.

What was amazing about its properties was the omni-repartition of damages and the complete nullification of knockback, if he wanted to like the armor was a single piece anchored to another dimension, taking a hit to your head equally affected your legs and arms armor but didn’t affect what was beneath.

It meant that if the energy armor was correctly created, with dexterity and ingenuity, you could completely substitute your health with your energy without fail and become unstoppable.

Rune was not at a level where he could innovate a new spell by himself to make himself a true juggernaut armor, and at the current spell development rate, well… Forget it.

But for now, as long as his energy armor was on, Rune could go hand to hand and block any damage without suffering from knockback, the true primitive form of an unstoppable juggernaut.

Miro did a low kick to his shin, but using counterforce he nullified it, Miri attacked from behind and punched his energy armor, shaving 4 healths or so, Rune observed his armor with his sphere, and judged instinctively.

He didn’t react to the attack because Miro was clearly preparing a reinforced punch, the energy vibration was really obvious, maybe he judged that his big brother was tough enough to use something like that?

And he was right, when Miro delivered his punch, using purely his stat, Rune grabbed Miro’s wrist and used momentum to create gravity in the punch direction.

Using this gravity he successfully redirected all the punch power and Miro was sent flying with his own strength.

After this move, Rune stood like nothing happened and waited for his little brothers to come back, they were all training here.

To taunt them he even started to make mini firework explosions using energy, he recently found how to do it in an optimized manner that didn’t consume much.

The thing about his personal energy training was that he forgot spells, he only did pure energy manipulation, so to create explosions visual effect he had to have pushed his mastery a lot higher than he thought.

Where he only did it by luck previously, just making spheres crash into each other to make an artificial explosion of colors, this time he only created a single sphere with a high degree of fine manipulation mechanism put into it, the result was a very impressive but totally inoffensive colorful explosion of 20 centimeters of diameter.

It was only useful for training and entertainment, but now he used it to provoke.

“You can do better than that, use momentum, no, target my center of mass, this way I’ll be forced to respond,” advising that they immediately applied, they spared for 30 minutes.

They only stopped when the spaceship arrived and everyone embarked, everyone here was among the first to be evacuated.

20 minutes later they arrived at a very, very peculiar structure, a giant honeycomb-looking cube, with engineering ships busy constructing things all around.

When the ship asked the passengers to acquire a set of air purifier masks while advising that using the revitalization spell would help facilitate future logistics, the door to the airlock opened and people started being ejected into space.

‘A true surrealist nightmare.’

Who would have thought that citizens would be dropped off into nothing and had to use the virtual assistant of the zone to know where they had to go?

15 minutes later the Tudor family arrived at their accommodation, a floating cube attached with metallic threads to a giant pillar that had its foundation in the giant cube.

‘The low-budget of low-budget, not gonna complain as long as I still have air for music to propagate.’

There was no privilege or treatment of favor, everyone had a cube corresponding exactly to their family size, theirs had 7 rooms to sleep in and a central living room where it was possible but not advised to eat and drink.

Rune never thought that to enter his home he would have to pass through an airlock, it needed 30 seconds to enter and 30 seconds to get out a pretty annoying security measure, but the excitement made up for it.

Going to his own future bedroom, he immediately discharged his computer and all he brought.

5 minutes later, music started and his new bedroom already felt like home.

[Rune: I’m going back to train in the Deep Void dimension, I turned on the notification function for this forum so you can call for me if needed]

[Florence: Later]

…

‘40% efficiency.’

Rune evaluated his energy armor to now be worth 200 health, but considering the fundamental difference between the 2, he began to call the armor health simply armor.

Armor didn’t have cohesion in it, but it wasn’t like its resistance was equal to 0 cohesion, it was more like purity did a much worse job at creating defensive value than offensive value.

500 purity maybe equaled 100 cohesion? Something like that? Rune didn’t find a rigorous study on this subject, so he only had his instinct to use as a reference.

‘Intensive use makes my efficiency go up a lot faster, like grinding a skill.’

The new energy institute used precisely what Rune was experiencing to base their potential on.

The gamers union from the primitive energy manipulation age developed to give birth to a lot of geniuses and revolutionaries, entertainment was their source of inspiration and drive to progress, and Rune considered himself one of its distant cousins.

There were no levels, no titles, no administrators, no cheaters, only reality and the hard work necessary to progress.

Hundreds of billions of avatars called themselves adventurers, but the adventurer’s society internally classified each avatar in different public and known categories.

The hero adventurers were the front-liners, those who dared or were too lucky.

They were people who dared dream big and dared to follow through with it, only a few millions were classified in this category, but they were active permanently and never stopped training, so the adventurer’s society gave them their due respect.

The true adventurers, this category designed those who were not as daring but were as strong as the true heroes.

Their goal was generally more personal and their reasons for seeking power were varied, they were the definition of what the adventurer’s society was created for, though paradoxically, they weren’t the majority.

The late-comer adventurers, those who recently distinguished themselves, the geniuses far from attaining the current peak tier 1 power but were as invested as the previous 2 categories, they’d transit to one of the 2 categories as long as time passed, if not, it meant that their drive was overestimated.

The common adventurers were not that much involved in the increase of the IGS individual power overall but made up 90% of the adventurer’s society members, and the number only kept getting higher.

Comparisons were unfair, but with hundreds of trillions of sapient individuals, the drive and dedication shown by some, which made the 3 other categories, was enough to prove that those belonging to this level were indecisive and lazy if their goal was the same as that of the 3 other categories.

As everyone was tier 1, the adventurer’s society had it easy as they just used friends, forum commentaries, age, social activity and background, a large database of the citizens of the IGS to correctly classify a person.

Rune had his registration confirmed to the Adventurer’s Society recently and was classified as a true adventurer.

His whole life from the moment the interdimensional era started was farming, training, and learning, so he deserved to belong there.

The end of the 15th month was coming, and life for him and his family was stabilized, Rune, his father, and his mom were content with keeping to their new home.

Every day the 4 juniors came back and sometimes, instead of playing in the backyard, they trained in empty space, or played, it depended on the perspective.

During the last week, Rune really pushed his sphere bending training to become his main activity.

‘Push! Push! Push! Relax…’ As he had to prepare, he pushed himself to the limit, in only a week he attained the maximum spiritual exhaustion he reached at the end of the previous month of training.

His efficiency was worse but he wanted to attain the point where not only a ripple, but a truly visible deformation happened in his sphere.

Ultimately, his exhaustion reached an impossible level and he activated his awareness switch, and upon coming back he used energy telekinesis to cut his computer and the music, before falling into the serene darkness of sleep.

…

The 16th month began with Rune starting to raze the nest he used to train himself with.

His schedule was simple, 1 day of soft but continuous sphere bending, 1 day of killing monsters, there were no worries and no difficulties, only hard work and spirit’s sweat.

With a 200 energy reinforced punch, Rune could kill every monster he encountered till now in one shot.

He even stopped using galaxy wings and downgraded to leisure wings, a spell matrix he learned to use after seeing how stupid his choice of only learning galaxy and battle wings was, as they were unusable by his original body.

‘Independence…’ Rune was currently razing a nest at the speed of his energy regeneration, but the subject of awakening his soul came back to his mind with this specific word in mind.

Rune had Utopia tell him a summary of what the latest conspiracies were, and one of them was the independence acquired after awakening one’s soul.

No primary ether sub-dimension appeared yet if the one that caused the universe dimension to suddenly gain +30% in its progress bar was excluded.

Evading a murder-munch monster bite, Rune replicated with a reinforced kick, which sent the head monster colliding with one of its approaching friends.

They tried to slow him down but he erased their nascent intention by rushing and colliding with them using a 300 energy reinforced impulse, galaxy wings, and everything.

With the second monster being badly damaged by the collision, Rune chained normal punches and some 10 energy vibration punches.

Finishing off 2 monsters at the same time was not usual but neither was it exceptional and compared to the number living in the nest it was negligible.

So he continued punching, kicking, evading, blocking, and rampaging with his always increasing martial techniques.

The thrill of dominating to this point was fascinating, Rune always felt a sense of self exhilaration during his days of battles, like he was born for it.

‘Death… Maybe I should train with my original body integrated with my avatar? This way it would become true life and death?’

Insane but coming from deep desires, he put this idea in a corner of his mind, he at least wanted to try and see what facing death with one's own eyes would result in.

‘Will I cower, will I face it bravely, will I be overtaken by fear? Why am I so philosophical?’

The more he thought about training with his life on the line, the more he wanted to do it.

[Rune: I want to integrate with my original body and train with my life on the line, can someone dissuade me?]

[Utopia: If you really do it, I’ll follow in your steps]

[Rune: Stop motivating me]

[Arik: Only true warrior would arrive at this conclusion, I don’t think you’re the first who want to really dedicate himself to this path to the point of using your life as a boost to learn more, if you feel ready then do it]

[Astryde: I don’t feel ready yet, so unless you accelerated your training or is a hidden genius then you should also not be ready]

[Rune: Okay I’m gonna do it, I’ll communicate my progress in real-time once I integrate, you can judge yourself]

[Gar: Good luck]

The original body of Rune stood up from his bed.