‘An entire month and some days to arrive back, for what reasons would I ever do a month-long journey prior to the awakening of the Ether law? Nothing.’

Standing in the air with an energy platform under his feet, Rune was looking at an entire forest that radiated light, not the general white ether mist that wasn’t even light, but a neon white light.

At regular intervals, his armor lost some tens of points, it was a regular event the more he approached the radiation land, like pulses of something.

After reading the guide, he learned that monster density could be an indicator of a lot of things, but the danger was one of the main factors governing an abysmal density of monsters.

Rune easily corroborated the fact that there was no monster at all at the border of this zone with this fact.

‘No monsters at all indicate an inauspicious environment, a zone with clear dangers, it checks out.’

Closing the guide after confirming some thoughts he had, he waited till he got to the true zone border, the one where the very air started to damage anything foreign and alive to it.

40 minutes later, he arrived at where his vision previously stopped, and soon after reaching the true black and white forest, he passed through a limit, the limit to where what he called “radiation” appeared.

Making the mini ether tower appear, he activated it and waited for it to complete its scan.

Using this interval, he used his connected lenses to read a very low traffic and minimalistic news site that the IGS specially prepared for adventurers on faraway expeditions, optimizing the data connection they required.

‘The first massive repopulation by the Ether law happened in the eastern mountains, it’s been confirmed that now every tier 2 zone will be marked as an infinite source of tier 2 monsters for training or studies.’

‘The first massive observation project on nest creations and monster’s reproduction has started under the supervision of…’

Some were just seemingly sensational news, but for everyone who read the board it was only starter knowledge, though confirming it was true wasn’t that bad, Rune wasn’t annoyed by that.

‘Massive influx of immigrants from our home dimension, beyond all expectation, there’s no explanation for this sudden spike…’

‘Heaven’s Voice got their first concert down on the occasion of the first cultural event and the first completed business street in the south capital sector, a once in a lifetime experience… I’ll ask if this was uploaded online.’

‘A late tier 4 rampaging monster taken down, 6 patrollers lost, review of an inevitable disaster… Oh, this one is interesting.’

Deciding to check this one, Rune was more interested in knowing what a true tier 4 monster could do, tales and story weren’t sufficient to satiate his curiosity.

And so for the next 5 minutes or 10 minutes from his perspective, Rune read about a giant bird with a wingspan of 6 meters that had a speed superior to 1 kilometer per second which used the lighting element to accelerate itself to 1.5 kilometers per second and bombard to smothering a squad of patrollers.

The patroller squad used a special cage box made out of compressed energy wall to force it to go down, using its mindlessness against itself and finally realizing that a tier 4 monster was a monster that could become berserk in seconds and empty its own health just to eat the beings in front of it.

In the end, when the first patroller died, the still inexperienced squad had big weak points appear that the bird, or eagle from the report, completely exploited with its instinct, leading to a total of 6 deaths.

After recounting the event, some people started to say general things about how more drill would have helped or more coordination bla bla bla, Rune then heard the alarm from the tower and decided it was enough.

Not forgetting to take the tower, he checked that his armor was full and once that was done, he once again entered the radiation land, the holy land of energy armor training and also a place where he’d be the first to see what was beyond.

Probably.

…

‘It has nothing to do with optimizing my path.’

Advancing through the empty zone of weak radiation, he thought back to some info he got back then but only now really realized what they meant.

‘It’s all about suitability, everyone says it and I completely agree.’

The news he read was about the true prospects from the IGS, people who worked tirelessly intending to become the strongest. From the few news he read about them, they reached tier 3 before even the first tier 3 adventurer who reported did.

‘Who am I to judge, the majority of them probably love fighting as much as I do, just that they don’t have this adventuring needs I have. If one day I discover something I’ll maybe be contacted by their support team announcing they are coming, hehehe.’

The summary of the situation was that by not taking the path of optimized training, Rune was already behind by months of work compared to the prospective future powerhouses, and it didn’t bother him. Everyone had their path, he knew that the Undecided knew that, the IGS knew that.

‘Ah, my first radiation monster! Come see daddy!’

Interrupted by a monster appearing in his perception sphere, he changed his trajectory to collide straight with it, it was alone and had neon white fleshy balls on its body, proving its belonging to this land.

This one looked like an armored horse, a kind he already fought and understood in detail, and they were weak as hell.

The moment it detected Rune, it changed direction and seemed to also want a direct and brutal fight.

‘Nothing under the earth, nothing in the sky, no holes in my sphere, then you’re dead.’

Confirming everything was normal, he and the armored horse monster collided at full force.

Rune knew at this moment this horse who was near the border was not a newly born tier 3, he was a late one. The collision was a true one, with the two of them not moving one step after it happened.

And to resist being pushed back, he had to use all his strength.

‘More like a middle soon-to-be late tier 3, it doesn’t show overwhelming strength and I only have my fundamental mastery boosting my strength at the moment.’

The next moment, the horse showed signs of using its ability, and in an instant earth spike appeared from below Rune’s feet, scrapping 600 armor points.

The slight instability in his footing then led to him being on the losing side of their pushing contest, so he decided to trade a quick jab against the push from the horse, losing more than he dealt as he was sent flying, but now the situation was back to zero.

With his extended time perception, Rune quickly approached again.

He was the one with an advantage to exploit, so he had to force the horse into fighting his strongest, which was exposing weakness and countering quicker than it could react to.

A biting attempt followed by a fast uppercut opened the death sentence of the horse, who was stupid enough to allow Rune to punch its head.

The slight stun ensuing, he exploited it till the horse’s death. To make sure, he dealt another two punches to its head to stun it even more, then a sweeping low kick to make it fall.

In position to deliver his most belligerent punch, Rune kept his whole body on top of the fallen armored horse’s one and with an unnecessary 500 energy reinforcement, his punch created a cavity on its head.

This wasn’t a stun anymore, it was at least a 30-second unconsciousness, and that was if he didn’t continue attacking its head.

Which he didn’t need to do, the fight was already over for him, he just kicked its much larger and heavier body to simplify his task of emptying its health.

After 10 strikes, Rune knew it died as it suddenly stopped emanating energy and its head didn’t show obvious signs of regenerating. To confirm it, he sent its body into his ether pocket dimension, awarding himself a second confirmation of its death.

‘What kind of crazy maniac would expose its head like that against a seemingly similarly powerful opponent? If only this weakness wasn’t easily resolved by learning how to do a minor health regeneration boost…’

Making his way back some hundreds of meters to get the straight cliff back into his perception, Rune departed again, he had tens of thousands of kilometers to do.

As if the armored horse marked the beginning of the true radiation land, the place where Rune could easily be pushed into its most desperate state if the air decided to never stop increasing, monster squads started popping up like mushrooms, as if all the cleaning he did a month ago served no purpose.

‘Because it really doesn’t.’

He even encountered new species, in a place he knew they shouldn’t exist because he already swiped them, the Endless really seemed to mock intelligent beings attempting to understand what it was and how it worked.

‘30 armor per second…’ Rune couldn’t help but always have a part of his mind on how much damage the air did to his armor.

Having traveled more than 2 700 kilometers in less than a day, Rune was only slowed down by every monster he encountered. If he rushed at his maximum speed, he would have only needed 2 hours to arrive where he was.

As he already studied the area during his first visit, he didn’t need to stop for anything less than monster extermination.

As for why he didn’t confirm his theories and observations on certain plants with the guide? That was because the guide wasn’t omnipotent.

No normal plants could live in such an environment, so back then Rune did the only thing he could, an observation scale recording different properties depending on the radiation density slash intensity, which even after reaching his previous limit of 6 800 kilometers, was judged to be inconclusive.

‘The only thing I learned was that the Endless could never be illogical, there is a reason for everything. This radiation land has a linear increase of its special property, which means that there’s a source behind it all, and that’s probably another zone. If I see a sudden increase, then there’s a possibility it comes from a tier 7 or superior monster mindlessly releasing its element into nature.’

The guide was helpful to help him form fundamental reasons.

‘31 armor per second…’

In the next 90 kilometers, he fought a squad of 6 late tier 3 big lizards, they showed a certain understanding of coordination but once he juggernaut-ed 2 of them, the rest got berserk, paradoxically making the fight easier.

He also encountered a lone bird that tried to dive on him, to which he responded by using the immovable wall tactic, pummeling it to death after losing 1 000 armor.

At the 90 kilometers of the 32 armor per second band of the black and white jungle, he encountered another squad of monsters, or more like an army of monsters, as there were 60 individuals in it, 60 black and white big cats.

As they were charging towards him before he even sensed them, Rune understood that in them, there was one monster with a special build, leading to it having a boosted special sense.

He could retreat, but why would he say no to such an enjoyable fight? So he also charged.

Adopting a moderately careful approach, he decided to make a practice run for his personal fighting style, his apex state where the enemy would only realize it lost after hours of fighting.

Once he truly engaged, he realized it was an army of late tier 3, encouraging him to not take the situation lightly after one of them achieved an empirical exchange in the first few seconds of him not paying attention.

‘Tier 4 survival style, first practice run, 442 armor per second, 0 health per second, rationally it should take less than 10 minutes per big cat, so maximum 10 hours, completely manageable.’

The unexpected situation became something else, a true training.

It was Rune’s first time engaging in a challenging fight with peak tier 3 stats, and despite knowing all the monsters before him were objectively stronger, having stronger fundamentals and masteries, with even specializations that could surprise him, it was only training compared to the true thing.

In his different temporality, he carefully evaluated each move, planning his next and the one after. When the number of opponents increased past 15, it wasn’t possible anymore to go willy-nilly full juggernaut style, his balance would be pulverized by taking multiple strikes every second.

The one big cat closest to him was backed up by 4 others, so Rune opted for the one pouncing on him at the moment, deciding to take the hit in exchange for using it as a shield to block the advances of the rest.

Letting it crash onto him, he did a quick arm block to reduce the strength impacting him by using a spring-like defense.

After being pinned to the ground, he grabbed its neck and one of its front-limb, ending up in an overpowering posture while it could do nothing to him.

His friends quickly arrived at the rescue but not without him delivering 3 kicks to the stomach area beforehand.

5 other big cats were rushing at him from a very close distance, prompting him to pretty much do the same, securing his armor, except this time he already had some move planned. Unfortunately, they became useless as he wasn’t that experienced with fighting tier 3 monster army yet and his pre-moves got wrecked.

Every time he moved, he didn’t stop and tried what he ought to do, but he still hesitated as sometimes there just wasn’t a “right answer”, just the one his own experience told him to follow.

But it ended up being wrong.

After evading a 4-way attack, he thought and planned audaciously about trying to get his first kill.

But when he decided on the target and acted, at literally the first punch, like he poked a beehive, it reacted hysterically and the whole army too by using what Rune could only interpret as all their energy in a wave of absolute chaos.

The resulting blast created a crater where he was and not even a time perception extended by 100% would have allowed him to escape it, so he lost more than 24 000 armor in this blast, shocking him silly.

‘Oh my f*cking god I was so f*cking right to not approach monster armies before!’

The emergency was so unexpected that he stopped any offensive attempt for the next 30 seconds, re-establishing his energy pool and energy balance that should normally have been a constant positive line but now had a massive hole in it dating back to 30 seconds ago.

Being back to his peak state, Rune once more attempted to recreate the situation that provoked the massive elemental energy spell chaos. But when he once again tried to kill one of them by evading a major attack and little by little eroding his target health, he only needed 6 minutes before it died.

‘Who was the one I targeted? Was he special?’

Searching for his previous target was futile as he didn’t remember it so clearly as to find it now with his sphere, though now that he accomplished his first kill and knew about this apocalypse strike, he was ready to continue and plan for the worst.

2 hours in, after killing 8 big cats, a certain chaos started to spread, announcing the monster’s instinct was starting to breach on the berserk point.

From 60 to 52, this reduction had literally no effect on Rune’s situation, he was still dancing in the middle of death.

With an armor of now 30 000 points, he truly understood, in practice as well as in theory, how to use his advantage against their weakness, so his balance was still fully positive with only some energy missing from his maximum 5 000 energy pool.

True to his words, he never used reinforcement or anything else than the bare minimum, fighting instinct, body control, and energy compression.

He didn’t count his still active passive spiritual training as it was after all just a test run, not his first encounter with a tier 4 where he was going to die in 30 seconds.

The battle continued as Rune kept trying things out, making mistakes, and resolving himself to never engage in a dangerous move when he wasn’t fully sure he wouldn’t activate their major elemental chaos response.

When there were only 32 monsters remaining, however, he once again touched something. This time it was worse as while he started to erode the health of his target and thought it would soon die, the whole army suddenly started to shape massive spells in mid-air.

“Son of a penguin!” Rune planned sort of an answer for such a heavy commitment move, but 30ish monsters targeting you with all their energy wasn’t something he had an absolute answer to, and in his minor panic he fumbled a little.

The next moment, all the monsters backed up a bit and all sent their spell at him, only allowing him to prepare himself for the imminent bombardment.

In such a sudden critical situation, Rune decided to not suppress anything and jumped as fast as he could, the further away from the chaotic collision zone the better.

Gaining only some meters before the spells arrived, he was then taken by a blast of elements and energy, pushing him towards the sky without any control.

His energy pool emptied rapidly as he tried to keep his armor alive, and himself by the same occasion. If a flock of birds was there, it would really have been a nightmare first practice run.

Finally, with only 1 200 energy left in his pool, Rune survived the strongest combined attack in his life.

‘More than 40 000 armor reduced to nothing, that’s at least worth a tier 4 all-out attack right?’

Using the time he was in the air to regenerate, he acted like a flying corpse and even slowed his fall a bit… A lot, using momentum. While falling, he thought back to which big cat he targeted, this time he knew, and he was going to act as if it didn’t exist from now on.

He didn’t spot any visual difference or a special behavior, he just knew it was a monster he couldn’t touch till he eliminated the rest of the monster army.

Landing back 30 seconds later, he immediately stood up, announcing he was alive and provoking the big cats to start their regular berserk attacks again.

And so he started to eliminate them one by one again.

When there were only 15 remainings, he changed his style to be a lot more aggressive. For him, it was the moment he couldn’t be killed anymore, even inadvertently. Of course, he didn’t switch to stupid juggernaut fighting style, he still had some respect for this monster army.

Unstoppably, he chose the best moves that allowed him to strike his target, even when the exchange was equal or slightly on the losing end for him. A berserk army was easier than a rational army in some aspects, and the lack of coordination that opened all the weak points Rune needed was one of them.

His target deciding to jump above him was a typical downside of berserk monsters' behavior, with such moves that broke his tempo so many times he became used to the unexpected happening.

Every time something like that happened, it allowed not only his target to regenerate, but it also let him learn there was no way to be 100% sure what he planned “perfectly” would happen.

With his only constraint being striking at least 10 times each minute, assuring himself that his target had a negative health balance, he didn't need to do slow heavy punches, just quick perfect strikes were enough

Another monster downed led to an unstoppable fall, and only when there were only 5 big cats remaining did Rune target “the one”, the one responsible for nearly causing his death.

And again, when he eroded its health till he judged it to be nearly empty, for no reason at all, no signs and no signal, the other 4 monsters started to prepare an all-out spell.

Not understanding what was happening irritated Rune.

He tanked the attack and went on to kill 2 big cats other than “the one”, and then came back to it. This time, he was engaging in surgical observation in juggernaut never retreating mode.

Rune pushed it till it did whatever-it-did, and under his eyes, with time slowed by a factor 2, Rune felt the mildest of changes in the air. A simple pulse, an energy shockwave so weak it was useless, followed by the other 2 monsters charging another all-out spell.

As a way of confirming it, he did it another 2 times, and upon confirming it, he killed “the one”, expecting its death to have some effects on its remaining 2 companions, but nothing happened and Rune could only kill them while noting nothing abnormal.

Now that he could breathe, figuratively breathe, it was a total victory.

‘The close to death situation doesn’t count, yes, it’s a total victory.’

And from this victory; Rune was now harvesting the disintegrating spoils.

100 cubic meters was a lot larger than he thought it would be because only now did he realize that soon he’d reach its limit, after less than 2 months of travel without seeking to fill it, the density inside had long reached the necessary one to keep any tier 3 body untouched.