‘It’s like a horror movie in a fully immersive virtual theatre.’

Rune wasn’t shaking, he was only having some cold sweat, there was no reason to of course, everything that could not be undone had already been confirmed, but for those 3 slots…

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 2 Level 2

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 2 Level 4

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 2 Level 4

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 2 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 2 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 2 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 2 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 2 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 2 Level 0

Tier 2 Masteries

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‘Let’s check the fundamental masteries now that I became a reality-defying tier 2.’

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

The use of energy to affect the body, not only to answer its needs but also to go beyond its physical limits, largely beyond them.

You have mastered this fundamental, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any reinforcement manipulation. Increase efficiency of reinforcement by 2% (1% per level).

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

Experience gathered fighting with your life on the line, the ability to make accurate judgments and plan ahead of time how to react, respond and plan for the worst, your ability to manage every aspect of a fight.

You have mastered this fundamental, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any combat observation. Increase efficiency of combat comprehension and observation by 2% (1% per level).

Physical Fundamental: Body Control

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

Your ability to control your own body, use only a fraction of your strength when the situation asks for it, but also instantly use all of it when required, your ability to perfectly transmit all your natural strength and even enhanced strength when intended.

You have mastered this fundamental, giving you a maximum of 100% efficiency rate with any body control. Increase efficiency of body control by 4% (1% per level).

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

The fine manipulation of energy, simple threads lifting more than is imaginable, making intricate constructs, reducing the loss of energy when used wastefully by its grand counterpart.

You have mastered this fundamental to its limit, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any fine energy manipulation. Increase efficiency of fine energy manipulation by 0% (1% per level).

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

To manipulate your energy and do with it as you wish, to let your imagination go wild and make it a reality.

You have mastered this fundamental to its limit, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any grand energy manipulation. Increase efficiency of grand energy manipulation by 0% (1% per level).

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

Compressing energy and using it for what is impossible to do with other forms of manipulation, use energy as matter to become the sharpest and hardest material.

You have mastered this fundamental to its limit, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any energy compression. Increase efficiency of energy compression by 0% (1% per level).

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

Your ability to exert control on your own spiritual perception, deforming your senses to receive information beyond your limit, but also modifying your senses.

You have mastered this fundamental to its limit, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any perception control. Increase efficiency of perception control by 0% (1% per level).

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

The careful art of dividing your own awareness, controlling your body through your ether soul, knowing your ether soul more than anything else, and finding what is hidden in it.

You have mastered this fundamental to its limit, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any awareness division. Increase efficiency of awareness division by 0% (1% per level).

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation

Fundamental Mastery (Tier 2)

Controlling your own momentum at the maximum limit your spirit can allow you to, flow like ether and use less focus to reach your maximum momentum speed.

You have mastered this fundamental to its limit, giving you a 100% efficiency rate with any momentum manipulation. Increase efficiency of momentum manipulation by 0% (1% per level).

‘Now that’s the correct depiction of the fundamental masteries.’

They were fundamental for a reason, they affected all aspects of the Ether Law, you couldn’t act in a way that made every single one of them useless.

That’s why they were named fundamentals, everything was based off of them, every masteries that Rune intended to choose used them as a foundation, further amplifying the consequences of correctly choosing his slotted masteries.

‘If only all-in could work…’ As long as you could make sense of a mastery in your mind, then you could create it, everything existed.

From specialized masteries allowing minor stat manipulation to become usable, like allowing you to manipulate your own health regeneration stat, to elemental specialization allowing you to change all your energy to an element, to basic masteries, focusing on only one particular application of the fundamentals.

It was possible to make a mastery allowing for a momentary boost of regeneration, slow down their natural one to amplify it later, make an additional reserve of health or anything imaginable.

The only limiting factor was that pure manipulation was very weak, only by making the desired aspects into a mastery could they really take a role in a fighting style.

‘I’m only tier 2 anyway, so I can’t take anything besides basic masteries. Maybe you know how to guide newbie Ether, excuse me for my previous... personal appreciation, of your person, thank you for making the choice easier on me.’

Spell masteries were very common, even if redundant, if someone took an energy laser mastery, it would just increase the efficiency of grand manipulation for everything, then they could base themselves on pure overwhelming power associated with less energy cost to barrage an opponent’s position.

There was no usual way of going at your initial slotted masteries.

And because life was never easy, abuses were nonexistent, because to abuse the system, you had to cheat yourself and the Ether Law itself, and that was impossible.

You could have a compressed energy weapon mastery, an offensive energy compression mastery, and an energy compressed sword mastery, but the result wouldn’t be an apocalyptic offensive, it’d be only an increase in the energy compression.

Because energy weapons depended on an initial strength to do damage, not the energy weapon itself unless it’s a special spell that allowed the weapon to have a certain sharpness.

You couldn’t create from nothing, you couldn’t be general, general energy mastery didn’t exist because it touched on more than one fundamental, and that was impossible, not unless it was a tier 4 provided mastery, and even then it wouldn’t really “touch” upon more than one fundamental.

In the complete Ether Law, fine and grand manipulation were completely different, they may look similar but they’re completely different, therefore an energy manipulation mastery similarly didn’t exist.

Perception control and awareness division are two fundamentals of the spiritual fundamentals, so a spirit manipulation mastery doesn’t exist.

‘Energy armor mastery, defensive energy mastery, and reinforced armor mastery, 2 energy compression domain, 1 reinforcement domain,’ he thought back to his choice.

That was Rune’s choice, 2 defensive masteries, 1 offensive mastery, no perception-focused mastery, no pure fighting mastery.

They were easy masteries to get, no months of learning, no minor stat manipulation, no imitating another soul specialty, only having learned your fundamentals correctly.

‘Let’s get to it.’

To fill one of your empty mastery slots, you only had to think about filling one of them and then execute the content of what you wanted your mastery to be about.

‘First slotted mastery.’

Thinking of the energy armor spell, something that was going to protect and was a part of his fighting, he gathered all his energy, his 1 000 energy pool exited from his body.

It was pure manipulation, so no loss was involved, then he created a spell matrix of a regular customized Rune’s energy armor.

With 1 000 energy and his tier 2 energy compression mastery that was still level 0, he would have a 1 000 damage dampener, so he sent all his energy into the matrix, and he put the matrix inside the armor.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor?

‘Yes.’

That was the first step.

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor

Basic Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

The basic spell of the defensive compressed energy school, only by understanding it can you comprehend all the intricacies and the potential hidden by this spell.

As it was a tier 1 mastery, it didn’t give a boost like tier 2 masteries did, he had to first invest time into it to make it enter his fighting style as they truly deserved.

‘Second slotted mastery.’

Rune then waited a minute for all his energy to come back, then did the same manipulation, but instead of using a spell matrix, he just compressed it all into an energy-compressed wall with the intention of a defensive barrier.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Armor?

‘Yes.’

And now he was more than half done.

Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Armor

Basic Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

Using compressed energy as an additional defense, you want to master the mysteries behind this while also pushing its potential beyond what others thought to be its end.

Now that his 2 defensive masteries were learned, he only had to train them to become a true survivor, impossible to kill just like that, and with a high enough energy regeneration rate, he would effectively gain more armor every second.

‘Last slotted mastery.’

This mastery called reinforced armor was counter-intuitive, his armor would enter the reinforcement of his body-shaped nurturing form but it wouldn’t gain additional armor.

The reason it was an offensive mastery was that reinforcement by itself was called the “Greatest killing tool of the Ether Law” on the board, reinforcement could of course be used to jump, block, strike, or even sustain your body’s needs.

But once reality-breaking increased efficiency was taken into account, reinforcement became something a lot more simple.

It was the use of energy to break your strength limits.

And Rune loved that, his planned build didn’t include reinforcement in it at the end, but with what he read from the board, he at least wanted to make up for his future tier 2 lacking offensive by taking it.

So he stood up, moved away from the group a little, and started to transform his body-shaped nurturing form to encompass his armor, then he repeatedly jumped with a 10 energy reinforcement, and after using 800 energy, the last mastery he wanted came up.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Reinforcement: Basic Reinforced Armor?

‘Yes!’ It was over, he now filled all his empty slots.

Reinforcement: Basic Reinforced Armor

Basic Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

Your armor is an extension of your body, it also amplifies your power if you know how to use it properly, you want to explore this potential and unearth all its possibilities.

The spike of power associated with tier 2 was monstrous, and Rune wasn’t even offensive focused, someone he knew, however...

Arik had a specialization in his strength stat and he wanted to become a dare-devil, a reinforcement dare-devil, focusing all he had on attack, he glanced that from the few talks they had together.

Fortunately, he wasn’t a suicidal dare-devil and still said that he had a balanced mastery in mind to increase at the same time his offensive and his evasion, probably a body control mastery, it’s a perfectly balanced mastery.

Everyone knew what they were doing, and they all had a path in mind, Gar was a spellcaster focusing on fine manipulation, Utopia was a speedster who wanted to become untouchable, Nelo wanted to be the best damage dealer with spells that ever existed.

There was still a day before the deadline put by Utopia to go on an adventure, and more precisely, an area reclamation on a very long term basis, their plan was to reach a tier 2 zone to fight and become used to their new ability.

The barrier to advancing tiers wasn’t EP, it was masteries, and fighting was the way forward for the Undecided, education was possible, teachers and mentors coming to teach everything were even realistic from what the board said, but it wasn’t their path.

Once they reached sufficient individual strength, they would separate, but for now, they’d stay together.

‘Now now now, what do I do.’

The easiest thing would be to train actively on a limited number of things, but he had something else in mind.

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 2 Level 2

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 2 Level 2

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 2 Level 4

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 2 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 2 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 2 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 2 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 2 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 2 Level 0

Tier 2 Masteries

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor: Tier 1 Level 0

Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Energy: Tier 1 Level 0

Reinforcement: Basic Reinforced Armor: Tier 1 Level 0

‘Let’s go back to what I always do.’

His sphere had now become like steel, and his spirit’s strength was that of a teenager, so he had to restart his training, and he knew the perfect training for that.

‘Push! Compress! Relax…‘

Rune was going to actively train multiple of his masteries, 4 of them to be exact, encompassing 2 fundamentals, Perception Control, Energy Compression, Energy Armor Mastery, and Defensive Energy Mastery.

The process was simple, for every push he made to his sphere, he had to compress energy, give it a defensive property and then create a new energy armor spell matrix while dissipating the previous one.

Every sequence was 1 minute long, it was one of the basic moves to his way of fighting, the faster he could do it the better, the more fluid the better, life wasn’t a video game, he also had to train and know what he was doing.

So Rune waited and trained until Utopia announced the end.

…

“Everyone helps me deliver the last batch, we’ve all become tier 2 so let’s change mission,” Utopia stood up and called for everyone.

Gar stood up and used energy telekinesis to take 20 stone bricks, Nelo took 20 others and Adreana also took 20, the remaining 40 were split up in batches of 10 for Arik, Rune, Utopia, and Astryde.

Seeing that all the remaining bricks were floating, Utopia announced their departure, “Let’s go!”

The outpost was located 5 kilometers down the north road, the environment was still a forest, an endless forest without an end, that’s what you would see if you took a look from the air.

During this short time of training, Rune still got levels.

*Ding* Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression reached Tier 2 Level 1

*Ding* Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control reached Tier 2 Level 1

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor reached Tier 1 Level 1

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor reached Tier 1 Level 2

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Armor reached Tier 1 Level 1

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Armor reached Tier 1 Level 2

Every one of these levels could be attributed to all the training he did before, his spirit’s strength was above tier 2 level 0, as was his ability to exert force on his perception’s sphere.

Now that everyone has chosen a different path, their way of moving at high speed was different, they had to level their newly acquired slotted masteries.

The 3 spellcasters Gar, Nelo, and Adreana were using energy wings, not the galaxy wings, this was a primitive spell of the engineering path.

What they were using was the true energy wings spell that the board knew from thousands, millions, of years ago, a spell that transformed energy into acceleration at a constant rate with only its foundational energy as a limit.

It was how normal spell worked, if Rune created his energy armor with 500 energy at the beginning, then he could only ever reach 500 armor points in it without tier 2 coming into play, it was the same for energy wings if you created them using 200 energy, then they would be able to consume up to 200 energy per minute, that was the same principle.

With their energy wings, they were going as fast as the other 4, Rune and Arik used traditional strength transmission to the ground, running, and Utopia and Astryde used momentum as an important piece of their speed, mixing it with a little bit of jumping, it was like they weighed nothing.

Their speed doubled now that they all reached tier 2, around 60 meters per second, a regular gunpowder bullet's speed, a slow one, only had a speed of 180 meters per second, so they were a third of the way to going beyond slow bullet's speed.

Whenever they passed by they would catch the eye with this speed because everyone would understand that their whole party was either tier 2 or tier 1 who wanted to show off.

2 minutes later they arrived at the outpost, a crude wooden structure, its appearance was purely deceptive, however.

Of the patrollers who reached tier 2, a majority would be sent to do area reclamations, but as those outposts were the current administrative centers of the IGS, they were heavily protected by some too.

All the stone bricks that were delivered were used somewhere the Undecided couldn’t see, so they just approached the deposit area and a manager came to receive them.

“100 stone bricks, payment 5 000 EP, accept the payment please, here’s a mark for your mission,” it was expeditious, but Utopia wasn’t done.

“Is there a place to receive an area reclamation mission here? Or do we need to go back to the north branch of the Adventurer’s Society near the landing zone? Things are really messy aren’t they?” He spoke like they knew each other.

“Yeah, at the moment everything is all over the place, just enter the building there are 2 general desks where you can give your mission’s paper back and receive another, it’ll be sad to not have you anymore, good luck,” the manager said his piece, confirming they knew each other, then pointed to the entrance, then he left the group to do what they wanted.

“Let’s complete our quarry mission and start another,” Utopia led the way and entered the wooden building.

Once Rune entered, there was no surprise, his sphere already scanned everything, it was just a gigantic hall with desks and people walking around, but compared to what was behind, it was the tip of the iceberg

There was a secondary hall, and that place was bustling with activity, employees sorting papers everywhere, even on the ground, wooden drawers opening and closing with satanic identifications names on them, that was all the IGS could do at the moment.

Utopia and his group advanced to one of the desks in the more leisurely but still lively first hall with a wood piece engraved with the “General Desk” words on it, as there was no one before them, they just approached the female employee behind it.

“Hello, we’re here to give our quarry exploitation mission back, we also want to take an area reclamation mission please,” Utopia handed their mission paper and waited for the rest.

“Thank you, do you want a special area reclamation mission?” After putting their mission paper in a similar pile of paper, she started to ask procedural questions.

“We’d prefer to take a tier 2 zone or suspected tier 2 zone as we all reached tier 2, if you do not have such then a very long straight line area reclamation will do,” being prepared, Utopia knew what he wanted, and what the group wanted.

“We still haven’t reached any tier 2 zone in the north to my knowledge, the east branch seems to have found one in the mountainous region but it’s outside my jurisdiction to give you this area reclamation, do you want a straight line going north, northeast or northwest?” That was surprising, but it didn’t concern them.

Utopia kept silent while reflecting but ended up deciding after 10 or so seconds, “Straight northwest please,” and then completed the mission details with the receptionist.

…

Once outside the building, Utopia summarized their mission seriously, “We’ll advance at a steady pace without breaks, use the sun to know which direction is the right one, as we advance we have to cut a 20 meters road by cutting and destroying all the trees in our way.”

That was a simple plan, but he wasn’t finished.

“Everyone should be ready for a battle at any time, so Rune and Arik at the front, punch the trees as you advance, tree uprooting task will be going to Nelo and Adreana, pushing them out of the way will be only Gar, as for Astryde and I, we’ll be at the back doing direction adjustment and path cleaning, don’t hesitate to cut more than the minimum necessary and help push them out, we’ll all have surplus energy so practice as we keep our advance steady, objections?”

“Nope,” Nelo answered first, followed by everyone else, no one had an objection.

“Then let’s go!” The serious look melted from his face, replaced with a slight smile, “The Undecided begin their first true mission in the Endless! Yeah!”

Rune also had a slight smile, it took more than 2 years to arrive here, always training, but it was worth it.