‘A genius at momentum manipulation right?’

Rune could think of some explanations for what Utopia was attempting to do, but clearly, it was working, even if it took more than a hundred exchanges before he succeeded at going further than one exchange.

Those hundred exchanges also allowed him to progress in his new temporality. Every new move he tried had an effect, and more than ever he could capture the behavior of his opponent. The more he fought, the easier “predicting” became.

He engaged with a punch, Utopia learned that blocking was the worst idea, so he evaded. He knew he couldn’t evade for long as Rune would know when he wanted to try a long-term move.

The only solution he came up with was that when it’s impossible, he had to reverse the board, so he used an energy bomb to make the situation too chaotic for Rune to see and react to everything.

Of course, Rune tried to block his energy bomb use, but Utopia was successfully interrupted so many times in his attempts that he didn’t care anymore and even launched an energy bomb behind him, damaging himself more than his opponent by the same occasion.

As for the other bomb, Rune used energy bullets to destroy or destabilize them before they exploded, the shockwave coming from behind Utopia was his only enemy.

If he adapted his strategy, however, It could also be an opportunity. From what he deduced this time, Utopia planned to ride along the shockwave to do something. It was simple observation skills mixed with his fighting instinct mastery at work.

As a pre-move, he charged like a mindless monster with his two arms ready only for attacking, not defending.

Utopia finally detonated his energy bomb and charged a little towards the side of Rune.

‘What’s his breakthrough point this time? My legs? No, it’s even the most improbable one, let’s assume it’s a side move.’

Observation was more important than anything else right now, he was the one attacking so his goal was to strike.

Utopia’s goal was much more flexible, he could escape, strike, block, delay, anything, his goal was purely to react to him, and all means were good if they supported a positive issue for him.

Unraveling the true from the false was Rune’s objective, and he was goddamn good at it.

From a momentum dash, Utopia transitioned to a strength side-step just before Rune reached his position.

This allowed for so many different movements that it had the potential to confuse him, and as a mark that he knew he couldn’t react to Rune before he even arrived, Utopia clearly exposed his intent.

If Rune entered in a range that allowed him to disrupt him, then he would lose, it was absolute, and fighting against the opponent’s greatest strength was foolish.

Rune could only over-extend his attack, he couldn’t stop and reposition himself, and he still had the advantage anyway.

When Utopia invited an attack by showing his move, a side-step to the right, Rune planned accordingly and prepared a true strike to the right and a possible feint in every other direction.

From strength side-step, Utopia changed direction and used the imbalance Rune had to create to cover each of his moves to start an attack in the center.

But the moment he started to move, Rune already started his attack at the center, and two fists collided.

From this collision, Utopia slipped to the side, not only was his fist ready for a follow-up attack, but he instantly reached maximum momentum velocity, which was beyond what Rune could do as he didn’t have a soul specialty or masteries dedicated to momentum as Utopia did.

However, his fighting instinct mastery allowed him to see what Utopia was going for, a shoulder tackle, one that he couldn’t aVoid.

The best decision he could come up with was something he did as a joke, the hug posture.

When Utopia finally struck him, before he could retract, Rune’s two arms embraced him, and then he was slammed to the ground violently.

“Hahaha! Rune wins, hahaha!” Nelo who was spectating the fight was having the time of his life at their antics.

“Suicide striker Utopia strikes again! Hahaha!” Even Astryde joined in on the fun and joked about this exchange.

“Ah! Let me go! Again! Again!” Utopia struggled like an overexcited child, and Rune could only acquiesce.

“Yes, again, ok,” he obliged.

…

After hours of sparring, Rune decided to stop. He still had things to plan out before dedicating himself to training, so he got back to the balcony while Utopia and Astryde started a communal search on why they didn’t hear anything about temporality advantages.

And while Rune said he wanted to plan things out, the reality of his activities was a little different.

‘Oh my… The first sapient born from ether reproduction, there’s even a video.’

Losing himself on the internet was his way of entertaining himself, one he was very experienced in.

Watching the strange time-lapse video of months of rululus doing the act of giving their energy to a “rululu’s nest”, finally the first Endless native was born.

There was even a video of a “mixed nest” where humans, pachins, and kajos created a nest together, and similarly, a child was born, an ether life form that took different characteristics from his parent’s ether.

The result was a beautiful humanoid-looking baby who had tens of dads and moms, as for what he gained or lost, only time would tell.

‘Did I just watch p*rn?’

Realizing what he just watched, the definition could apply, but there was more confusion than satisfaction in the end.

“So…” Looking at Nelo who was working at manipulating different elements, Rune joked about the situation, “I can have a baby with Nelo if I want to?”

“Prrrr!” Completely shocked by what he just heard, Nelo completely botched up his surgical elemental manipulation.

Only after realizing what he just heard did he follow up, “Utopia is a better partner for it, look how handsome he is,” and acted like a lovestruck idiot while looking in the direction of Utopia.

“Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot we got a specimen so charismatic and handsome in our group, I’ll go propose to him to create a Rune-Utopia nest and have lots of babies.”

“Ask my sister if she wants to join too, back on the board I read about some seriously f*cked up stories involving ether reproduction.”

Clearly, Utopia and Astryde were hearing their jokes and did their best to ignore them. Society was sufficiently chaotic as it was now, adding a baby to the mix would only bring about a perfect drama story.

‘Why did they feel the need to test the ether reproduction when they have so much legacies’ data to go through? Well, I’m probably too stupid to understand.”

Finishing the ether reproduction parenthesis, he continued to go through the most important events that had their web announcement.

‘First militarized patroller squad... Woah! There are so many specializations, what the mango?’

In the next article, he was interested in, the dimension and defense departments made an announcement, revealing part of what was going on behind the veil.

As a result, they partially unveiled some legacies’ data about ultra-specialized builds and militarist synergies, and Rune loved seeing those numbers, they were so huge.

‘Oh my God! The scout specialization is so f*cking cool! 100% dilatation of one’s sphere, doubling one’s range only take 100% efficiency to offset completely, and with a class and 5 masteries dedicated to the only perception, it all ends up at a perception of 72 500 once it’s dilated to 1 350%, with 1 300% efficiency and reduced resolution to 50% at peak tier 3!’

The build was so specialized that Rune couldn’t even comprehend what having a perception sphere spanning 72.5 kilometers entailed.

Of course, such a specialized build was a very precise thing, and also very hypothetical. A class that provides a 100% efficiency boost, one specialized mastery that allows the dilatation till there’s a loss ratio of 1 to 1, then 5 peak tier 3 masteries, each bringing 200% efficiency, and then the fundamental mastery giving another 200%, totaling an efficiency of 1 300%.

‘The guy I encountered back at the camp who seemed to focus on his eyes probably needs an even more specialized build. If I wanted to make a pure sight build what would I need? A special awareness division mastery to focus more on my sight sense and specialized sight perception masteries? So many possibilities! Good luck guy that I don’t know…’

And tens of other builds were publicized with it.

Like the rapid reinforcement speedster build, with a momentum reaching 80 000, meaning going beyond the 42 000 stat point necessary to completely break the stalemate and completely overwhelm the energy and strength-based speedsters, once they brought 6 masteries to peak tier 3 and a class only to reach this speed.

The anti-behemoth build, with specialized reinforcement build attaining 1 500% of efficiency with their reinforcement fundamental efficiency, capable of striking one time at 415 000 equivalent strength stat in the best condition.

‘Woah! They even published some of their support builds!’

Support wasn’t really appreciated by the Ether law, Rune learned it during his search back on the board.

There was a reason he couldn’t cast his energy armor spell on someone else even if he tried, and this reason was the same as why support builds were so hard.

But as he read more about those builds, he ended up disappointed, they were only para-support builds, not true ones.

From one of their build ideas, Rune himself could become support if he learned to create walls of compressed defensive energy and to do that he didn’t even need to take a specialization, only create his own spell matrix.

The goal was to allow the more offensive build an easier time dishing out damages.

Of course, the majority, if not all the builds presented were reserved for military usage, not by law, but because they weren’t viable builds for anything other than organized teams supported by a network that could switch specialists for others when not needed in the area anymore.

‘Maybe I should try one someday, it seems fun. Next!’

‘The culture department is soon going to release the first wave of idols and singers with the corresponding platforms at the same time on the internet and in the real world for their works to circulate everywhere?! Heck yeah! Music for life!’

This was good news for him, maybe he could even give a generous donation to this fabulous cause that was music.

He also checked if there were concerts or when the first music would be published, he didn’t want to miss that at all cost.

‘The legendary Pachins Exploratory Front is taking action and their first accomplishment is discovering a new dimension… Oh yeah, Astryde told me about that, let’s see, a tier 3 empty dimension but all the energy stats are fully restricted…’

Thinking for a moment, he linked it with another issue.

‘Maybe it’ll help with the impending problem of not enough explored areas to train immigrants from our native dimension, yeah that’s just generic thinking, no thank you.’

As of now, or so Rune thought, he was planning to go through all his tier 3 training in the Endless, the true Endless, not some empty useless dimension that was… Empty.

The fact that it was qualified as empty meant there was even less attraction to go there, an empty dimension was one composed mostly of emptiness. It was the case for their native dimension, the Void, and Deep Void dimensions, the three were empty dimensions.

He then continued to read and read, and everything was fascinating.

‘First tier 4 ether density zone discovered, the temperature is decreasing fast… A group of adventurers reported the existence of a tier 4 zone, they lost true heroes by fleeing back from this misadventure… Huwah, such bad luck, impressive.’

‘The south capital sector will soon have all the resources necessary to build it… Not interested.’

For him, it didn’t matter how the capital construction was going, so he skipped this one.

‘The sponsored tier 3s are updating the Endless world map in real-time, come and see how large the world truly is? Oh dear oh gorgeous that’s freaking amazing isn’t it?’

The Endless, whenever someone tried to see if there was a limit to it, there were only 2 issues possible.

One, they weren’t heard of anymore.

Or two, they lucked out and came back centuries, sometimes millennia, later with a diary telling tales of advancing billions of kilometers without deviating.

Some advanced towards the sky, some towards the horizons, some others towards the depth, and not one time a region was similar to another.

This Endless map was an issue with far-reaching consequences, even if the IGS already transmitted their intentions to everyone.

What they wanted was not to become a hegemon or an unmatched peak civilization, they only wanted everyone to have the opportunity to choose their own path in life, and Rune respected this choice.

Unfortunately, their efforts to join their strength with others ended up failing as they couldn’t locate themselves amidst the millions of Endless maps available on the information board.

The scales of those maps covered hundreds of regions minimum, and the IGS, as a newcomer, found hundreds of maps that could correctly layer with their explored area.

Nonetheless, they couldn’t be sure, and that’s why so much budget and incentives were given to the enthusiast adventurers who wanted to go on long-distance expeditions.

It reminded Rune that when he decided to go back adventuring, he wanted to pierce through the radioactive zone and know what existed beyond.

After reading this news, he continued.

‘Modesty doesn’t exist anymore, the IGS released a way to block perception spheres easily due to global pressure… Well, I became quite used to just using energy clothes, but they’re probably referring to a more “sexual” type of modesty, yup, that’s creepy just thinking about it...’

He wasn’t really concerned, at least not for now. His whole being was dedicated to pursuing his path and not once did he feel the need to evacuate his frustration or have fun in such a manner.

‘The privileged tier 3s, on the front-line with top of the line equipment, pure innovations from lost legacies... Now that’s some clickbait title! I’m choosing you!’

This article was all about multiple interviews with different tier 3 that went on a deep expedition, and they didn’t hesitate to speak about all the goodies they received.

From monster’s clothes that retained a small part of their dead owner’s cohesion to the analytic ether tower used to compress data and send them back to the IGS, the IGS and the Adventurer’s Society were going all-in on this plan.

‘I’ll discover everything by myself when I decide to go anyway… Should I stop browsing and start to fill my empty mastery slots…?’

After careful consideration, Rune concluded.

‘Not yet, let’s see what the IGS had to offer other than that… hehehe.’

It was a very entertaining way to inform himself.

‘The economy department is starting to inject EP into the market and new companies are rising every day, thanks for the tip but no thanks.’

‘The predictions from the defense department are going to come true, soon the eastern tier 2 mountain zone will have its first massive repopulation! I hope some people film it so I can watch how it happens later, maybe it’ll be relevant later.’

‘Adventurers with unusual elements and strange builds spread chaos in the north capital sector, not my problem, good luck patrollers.’

‘The first tier 3 monster meals are as succulent as heaven, and only the Adventurer’s Society sponsored restaurant chain Galaxy Inn has them… Hum, let me think about this later future self.’

‘A million galaxies have been reached, but it’s only the beginning, proclaims the development department’s head Deval Grimes, a really encouraging sign of the total unification of our native dimension… But the latest estimates put the number of galaxies in our Universe at 2 000 billion, don't they?’

As the major power of their native dimension, pretty much all intelligent civilizations shared their intel with the IGS, which in return announced that the majority of those civilizations couldn’t be reached even with special emitters.

What they did to answer that provoked a small polemic, but the IGS was conscious of the risks. They shared all the technologies with the objective that in some centuries, some of those civilizations could gather together in their own far-away bubble of civilization.

In the end, every civilization will have to enter the Endless, so all the technologies shared would only affect their defective dimension development, not the Endless one.

‘Perception control specialist Jedd will soon reach peak tier 3… But only in this mastery? Why did he persist so long? All the theories are here… Not interested in this lunatic, next.’

‘Reports of hundreds of tier 3 stealthed monsters have reached us, current location west forest… Not concerned, next.’

‘The register of amazing magics will soon be published! From time manipulation to teleportation, come and read about all the most peculiar and powerful paths of the Ether law! I pretty much read the basics about everything awesome, so impressing me is a very hard task, but I’ll check it out if I can.’

…

Back when he wasn’t really concerned by how the world was evolving, Rune didn’t care about news sites. Only now did he understand why they were so important and the market around them was so important.

He didn’t worry about the news being false or true, exaggerated or underwhelmed, important or unimportant, because it didn’t matter. What he was soon going to do wouldn’t be impacted by what general news outlets could find.

What it accomplished, however, was entertaining and reassuring him that he wasn’t the only one striving for his dreams.

Some overly driven people were considered eccentrics, but Rune critically knew that for some people, all those who became tier 3 so fast were eccentrics.

‘Come on Rune! Time to think about how you’re going to fill your masteries slot.’

Rune closed everything and turned off his connected lenses.

It was time for some deep thinking.