Rune was in the zone, his own style of fighting was coming together, though it was still easier to define it by saying it than to do what he wanted with it.

He had to consider every future breakthrough, so he couldn’t finish his learning.

At some point maybe, the juggernaut fighting style, the most simple and brutish style of fighting Rune could think of, would become better than the most complex style he wanted for himself, who knows?

Maybe an intrinsic symbiosis between the energy armor spell and reinforcement?

Or a new spellcaster style will destroy every opponent it is put against, forcing everyone to shift their way to incorporate some of the new spells and movements used.

Rune, like everyone, was pioneering a path, some may seem similar but every style was unique, so the associated path was also unique and demanding of some degree of considerations, even if the first impression was that it was the stupidest one you ever saw.

Rune for example encountered an enemy that made him realize that normal strikes sometimes weren't enough.

The monster he was colliding with was what the board called with enthusiasm, “slime monster”, they did have a core so common sense would tell you that physical strikes should be able to kill them.

But the core wasn’t the heart, it wasn’t synonymous with a critical hit or other gaming terms, and the “slime” wasn’t really slime, it was translucent and gelatinous flesh.

Like the ether soul, Rune had, every monster had an ether soul and their core was only a result of being an ether life form and according to biologists, also to sustain themselves at a reduced cost.

Once Universe life forms could remake their body to become ether life forms, they would also give birth to a core to automatically use the surrounding volatile ether and sustain a very small part of their body needs naturally.

Such cores were different from those you could absorb and gain ten thousand EP from, they could be ripped out and nothing would happen, like it was only there for decoration.

To kill a slime monster, you had to use energy and directly attack its body cohesion, and with that information, you had free will to decide how to do it.

Rune was trying using his own hand covered in energy to rip out slime pieces, but once he freed them they returned like magnets to their source body.

As the board said, you had to use energy to “burn” the slime, this way it would eventually cause a critical mass loss and the slime would die.

Confronted with a monster that caused his prospective fighting style to fail didn’t shock Rune, it only added a note in his brain that he couldn’t be limited to one fighting style, he also had to have “maybe less powerful but capable of answering specific situations like this one” fighting style.

The best way to have one was to create a variant to his original fighting style, and in this case, a simple adaptation was that after scooping slime mass from the monster, Rune used energy to burn it before continuing or retreating depending on his energy reserve.

The strike of a slime monster was fast, it deformed its body and tried to absorb you into it, then literally the slime monster could exchange 1 point of energy for 1 point of health, the theoretical apex of tier 1 efficiency.

Confronting multiple slimes could quickly lead to death, and Rune wasn’t a master in body control and evasion yet, so he already experienced the feeling of being swallowed and “digested”. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

To never be in that situation again, he decided to develop a variant style, especially for physically immune monsters.

He didn’t know if he would encounter more like this, but the board clearly said that wraith-like monsters, invisible monsters, and slime variant monsters existed in lots of places.

Some monsters even mixed the 2, with sometimes a slime-like skin and bones to support themselves, it was a true nightmare circus.

As he was trying to find the nest of the slime monsters and fighting them, Utopia still didn’t respond to his theory leading to jokes about him being kidnapped by the IGS government to know where they had a leak.

Rune was slowly losing sense of time.

He could only distinguish between an instant, a moment, and a long time, anything more precise than this was impossible for him.

And it didn’t surprise him, he knew long before it came to happen that he wasn’t someone who kept a rigid schedule, he didn’t care about it.

He estimated that he started to develop his variant fighting style 4 days ago, but he wasn’t sure.

The constant pressure he exerted on his sphere had become a habit, and while he considered that he could awaken his soul whenever he wanted and not suffer any consequences, sphere training was the only training that he could do passively.

From what he learned, others' perception sphere also opposed their change, the only difference was the strength of the resistance. If they stopped maintaining pressure on it, it would slowly go back in place, not snap back nearly instantly like his own sphere did.

So Rune was now 100% sure that his specialty was at least useful this way, so useful that maybe it would become a true talent of his after months of work. However, it was a talent that didn’t have any use as of now.

It also meant that he had to live with the constant pressure at the back of his head like the buzz everyone suffered from when the Ether Law awakened… Or assimilated their Universe dimension…

Finding another slime monster, Rune approached and prepared to fight, he always hoped that maybe he would encounter a peaceful beast, but never put his expectation high.

Because as usual, it was once more a mindlessly aggressive beast, a monster.

He waited for it to come, and like every slime monster he encountered before they did the same opening move instinctively, they tried to swallow him.

Rune was so sure it would happen that he already prepared a platform that he was going to use to escape, to attain the speed needed to not be bothered, he needed to do a 40 energy reinforced jump.

Like an experienced slime hunter, he jumped to the side, and using pure momentum after using another platform to stop himself, he reappeared to the “side” of the slime and used punches reinforced with 10 energy each to start his work on diminishing the slime’s mass.

A few minutes later the slime stopped moving and Rune decided to absorb this core.

Doing the same with 8 other slimes, he, at last, saw the slime’s nest, with squads of guardians patrolling around it.

His perception sphere could see that the ether around the nest had a dark-green shine to it, it wasn’t disgusting, ether colors were something Rune liked, and even more when it was an ether color, meaning a color that couldn’t be created with technology and could only be seen using a perception sphere.

He didn’t want to admit it, but his special energy training had a very special place in his heart, and seeing such a special color, he couldn’t remember ever seeing such a color in the Universe dimension.

And a stupid idea dawned upon him.

‘If I can replicate the color perfectly, can I do an infiltration of the nest?’

His mind told him that it was stupid, but he wanted to try, if only for the heck of it.

‘It’s an adventure goddamnit if I want to do something, even if it’s stupid, I’ll do it! I’m the one controlling it!’

So Rune got to work, with his personal energy training as a foundation, he already had experience with coloring ether, it wasn’t part of the energy mastery path, just a minor manipulation trick.

Coloring ether meant tainting it with thoughts, Rune knew what red was so he could taint his ether, his energy, red if he wanted, it was almost instantaneous.

As Rune never saw this dark green shine, he had difficulty using his thoughts to define it. Before, he used the physic laws method of the 3 primary colors, but he couldn’t replicate the dark green he had at the border of his perception sphere.

He immediately knew why, it wasn’t only one color, it was like his own skin, it wasn't a pinkish-whitish-beige-ish combination, it had depth, intensity, and variation to it.

The same as looking at a gem, a certain translucence was here, and like light was coming from within, the intensity was different point to point.

If he had to give a name to the color, it would be shining emerald slime green, and Rune really wanted to be able to create such a color.

Like an artist, Rune mixed different ether colors, like he was using paints, in complete silence.

The ether was flowing, like a living thing, exposing more of the emerald slime green to him, after an hour he knew that simply tainting with color would never give him what he wanted.

He needed more, Rune didn’t know what, feeling, emotion, the slime monster wouldn’t have them, but art has always been used to represent nature through a different lens.

A happy green, a sad green, those were merely names before, but maybe for the ether colors, they could become real.

A living green, a windy green, infusing feelings and abstract notions into the ether, the color subtly changed, not unlike what it looked like with pure color tainting, but much more subdued, like using a drop of light green and carefully blending it in something pure white.

Rune still had much to do before creating from his own hand a new ether color, but he considered what he was doing as training, a branch of his colors and shapes energy training.

His very own special energy training.

…

The psychic union, was for sure considered as part of the 3 path organization, but it had always been silent, acting like a supporting or secondary character, that day, however, near the end of the 17th month, this habit was broken.

The psychic union published a research paper containing everything they knew about the momentum stat and momentum manipulation.

That paper included pure scientific contents for ether technologies and thousands of experiments led using the stat and its ability to be exploited in all fields, be it fighting, transport, or economy.

As one of the 3 path organizations of the IGS, they had duties to fulfill, and what they issued explained and diverged on a lot of new problems that the Ether Law would bring.

The issue of why traveling in the Void compared to traveling in the Universe space always slowed or didn’t affect things at all was the opening experiment explained in the paper.

Ether was present everywhere, but it affected etherized matter, matter containing ether, differently from non-etherized matter, matter not containing any ether.

The moment etherized matter moved, so pretty much any sapient having created their avatar, it would provoke a reaction from the surrounding ether, as the object needed to push ether to move.

That was the reason as to why when you accelerated in the Void or Deep Void, this acceleration disappeared the moment you stopped using your momentum or whatever made you move, like a jump or a throw, your matter acted like anywhere with enough ether density was filled with gas molecules.

This explanation was backed up by thousands of tests to prove their points, non-etherized matter versus etherized-matter spaceships, rocks catapulted with or without energy armor… So many tests that they proved their own claim confidently and boldly.

An annex subject was an application of future momentum manipulation, the boosted momentum, which they successfully replicated, and they transmitted its workings to everyone.

While Rune wasn’t connected to the board at the moment due to his color experiment, his theory was a weekly subject for his friends.

According to the date, Astryde and Utopia recalled their avatar 3 weeks ago, so in only a week, they would become able to enter the Deep Void dimension to train with their one and only life.

Utopia sometimes appeared and told that he was still confirming Rune’s theory, he also said that he involved his mother, the 5th district head of A56 and that she was seriously using her connection to the IGS administration to hint that she knew the theory of Rune and believed in it.

But with the new momentum research paper, Utopia left all the work to his mother.

He had to prepare as best as he could, Rune was 3 weeks ahead of him but Utopia didn’t want to compare himself to his friend, he was just that confident in his ability.

The same went for every member of their little group, Astryde was as confident as Utopia even if she didn’t show it.

Those who didn’t do the same weren't because they didn’t want to improve, but because they had other plans for their training.

…

‘A little more… Depth?’ After a long time, what for the rest of the world was 1 week, Rune was still immersed in his color creation slash imitation process.

He wasn’t beelining the color creation, he was also experimenting with everything he thought of. He recently made a flowing flamboyant red, an ether that looked like it resulted from an explosion and was still continuing its course.

But colors were capricious, even more, when they involved feelings and artistic meanings.

It was like he couldn’t create something he didn’t believe existed, because the ether would keep its white color or take on a color that was far from what he wanted or expected.

It was only a color imitation, he even had a model before his eyes, but he couldn’t copy its appearance, and that was the only thing he cared about.

‘Maybe it’s just impossible at my level.’

The ether that Rune was sensing had this alien feeling, he came to create something that approached the color and the sensations he felt, but after so long of a time analyzing the color, the thing he missed should be impossible for him to sense or imitate…

‘Time to stop, emerald slime explosion to celebrate.’

He manipulated his energy to take on the new color and by carefully compressing some part and creating a second layer, the moment he released the intricate sphere, it exploded in a colorful blast, and after that, a second mini flare appeared thanks to the compressed piece he incorporated within.

‘Fireworks Magic, it’s official from now on.’

His energy training gave birth to the beginning of something important for his being, amateurish but completely magical fireworks.

If someone was here to see his face, that person would see that Rune’s eyes were glittering like he was realizing a long-held dream.

‘I hope this feeling never goes away.’

With what he just created, he just wanted to continue, but he also knew that it was far from complete, it was like the color he just created, it had the appearance, but not the effect.

A firework without a shockwave and sound wasn’t his dream fireworks, and with those 2 problems, Rune had no idea how to replicate them.

‘Let’s try this 0% chance of working infiltration and stretch those stiffened limbs from inactivity.’

Rune had a whole slime monster nest to clean, so his short-term schedule was full.

He first re-applied his energy armor, then covered himself in a veil of emerald slime green, his fine energy manipulation was strong enough to keep this veil around him as he approached the slime’s nest.

Maybe the idea was right but the application was wrong?

After Rune entered within one of the slime’s perception sphere, they didn’t appear to hesitate and rushed towards him.

‘I didn’t expect anything else.’

Maybe feeling a little bit of frustration, he prepared a 50 energy platform beneath his feet and when the slime was 50 meters away from him, he used a 200 energy reinforcement and rushed in its direction.

The impact, Rune didn’t feel it, he only knew that the slime was dead, and his core, which was now a true tier 1 monster’s core, was in his hand.

‘Let’s be a juggernaut for a bit, just for a bit.’

And Rune rampaged near the slime’s nest for a whole week.