Following 2 days of free-fall, Rune finally decided to stop.

One moment he was letting gravity take him down, and the next, an explosive sound resounded in the kilometers large tunnel.

“Stopping like this is so cool,” he mumbled.

From terminal velocity to nothing, he didn’t feel anything. If he really tried to push his falling speed beyond what he could achieve with his maximum strength, only then would he have problems like taking some armor damage.

“Well, I’m alive, that’s the main thing, I’m also still alive, so that’s the second-best thing, and for the third-best thing… Huuu? I didn’t lose anything, so in the end, it was more fear than harm… Hahaha…”

With a demoralized laugh at the end, he still felt goosebumps all over his body when he thought back to what he just experienced.

“First thing first, flat compass, no, the first thing is ether tower, yeah it’s ether tower.”

Observing the wall of the tunnel, he didn’t see any space to secure the tower, so he just had to make one.

Approaching one of the walls, he punched repeatedly and made a large indent into the previously mostly smooth wall.

After he punched… Dug, a space of about 10 square meters of area and 50 meters of height, all the debris were pushed down the tunnel, he got the ether tower out and activated it.

‘At worst I’m… 6 hours at 640 meters per second, plus around 40 hours at terminal velocity boosted by permanent momentum gravity, I believe I’m sitting at a maximum momentum of 250 meters per second? Yeah, looks like I was going approximately at that speed, maybe 260 or 270…’

Unfortunately this time Rune didn’t take note and his memory was surprisingly absent.

‘So that’s… Sh*t, it’s a lot to make.’

Opening a calculator app on his connected lenses, he proceeded with doing the maths.

“50 000 kilometers, 50 000, well well well,” lifting a brow and bringing one of his hands to his chin to bring the thinking man pose to life, he started to process the consequences.

Turning his head, he confirmed that the tower could still reach the surface and was sending all the scan’s information back.

‘I’m going down, right? Do I tier up now? Yeah probably, it’s just that I keep my specialty’s advancement pending while opening my stats for further investment, maybe I can become able to fight a strong middle tier 4 monster if I combine my temporal boost with tier 4 perception?’

With a decision made, Rune only had to apply it.

*Ding* Reached Tier 4, proceed to advancement?

This notification had been here for more than a month now. He delayed accepting it because he didn’t want to do it in the middle of nowhere, but fate had its way of making regret appear for any decision that had another choice.

‘Let’s go, yes.’

*Ding* Your class has matured with you and you can once again select your own class ratio, additionally, you can choose to refine or expand your class path

Class Ratio (1 stat point = 800 000 EP)

Health: 1,0

Health Regeneration: 0,5

Strength: 0,5

Cohesion: 0,5

Energy: 0,5

Energy Regeneration: 0,5

Purity: 2,0

Affinity: 2,0

Momentum: 2,0

Perception: 0,5

Class Path

Energy Compression I

Refine? Expand? Change?

Confirm? Class cannot be changed after confirmation

Once again, the Ether law left you with a choice to make.

You could totally redo anything you decided till now, if Rune selected “Change”, he would have the possibility to change his first selected path and then refine this path like he had selected it from the start.

‘Refine, your evil temptations will not touch me vile heretic.’

Thankfully he already knew that would happen, and between having another class path, refining his current path, and changing his style completely, his indecision couldn’t find any purchase, it was set in rock long ago.

Class Ratio (1 stat point = 800 000 EP)

Health: 1,0

Health Regeneration: 0,5

Strength: 0,5

Cohesion: 0,5

Energy: 0,5

Energy Regeneration: 0,5

Purity: 2,0

Affinity: 2,0

Momentum: 2,0

Perception: 0,5

Class Path

Energy Compression II

Confirm? Class cannot be changed after confirmation

‘Yes, confirm,’ Rune directly confirmed, doubling the gain of his energy compression path and therefore gaining another 100% efficiency at it.

*Ding* Your class “Steady Pathfinder” tiered-up to class “Armored Pathfinder”

*Ding* Maximum EP storage capability has been increased to 100 000 000 000 EP

*Ding* Soul specialty is being upgraded to tier 4, choose its path

*Ding* You opened up an additional 3 empty mastery slots

‘I can do with a quick peek right? It’ll not hurt me to see the choices I got…’

Curiosity overflowing, he couldn’t resist and prompted the soul specialty advancement window to pop open.

Soul Specialty Tier 4 advancement paths

Sacred Dimensional Perception

Soul specialty (Tier 4)

Your perception is something sacred, anything entering it or interfering with it needs to be controlled or eliminated, to accomplish that your perception doesn’t need to be defensive anymore, it only requires the birth of an offensive property. Your birth foundation will be completely reshaped and every unused potential will be excavated to make this path a “Reality”.

Perception-based spiritual powers become capable of influencing the realm of perception and damage spirituality. Perception-based spiritual powers receive a boost of 600% in spiritual intensity and spiritual strength. Any foreign spiritual power entering your perception can be countered depending on your will, this counter is instantaneous and its efficiency is increased by 300%

Confirm?

‘I saw nothing, it’s just a quick peek after all.’

Innate Dimensional Perception

Soul specialty (Tier 4)

An ether soul never really changes, it can only mature, what you were born with, the friends you got across your life, what you experienced, what you did. After maturing you decided that the initial path only needed a little refinement to become what you are meant to be. All the potential remaining in your ether soul will be unlocked and used to create your own path, a path where your perception is an impregnable fortress that affects all of your spirit.

Your perception sphere resistance to external and internal changes is increased by 800%. Your awareness resistance to external and internal changes is increased by 300%. Your spirit ability to create momentum is reduced by 100%. Your perception’s resistance to abnormal perception changes is increased by 600%.

Confirm?

‘Tier 4 is really someth… No! I saw nothing! I didn’t even read correctly I’m sure!’

Temporal Baptism Dimensional Perception

Soul specialty (Tier 4)

You tried to see things under a different temporality and realized that this path was one you could see yourself walk further, time is a fickle property but you’re ready to make the necessary sacrifice to become intimate with it. Taking this path for the second time will allow you to completely change your birth foundation remaining power and use all the potential that exists inside your ether soul.

Permanently change your perception of time to be extended by 40%. You can at any time choose to depart from your current temporality and enter a different temporality with 150% extended time without suffering from any consequences. You can choose to undergo a time-baptism that will allow you to live for an uncontrolled time into a temporality with 300% extended time. You’ll be able to sense any time-affecting events that leave traces.

Confirm?

“Nothing! Nothing! Not attractive at all! Oh, my short memory is acting up! Ohhhh!”

Rolling on the ground to evacuate something he didn’t know, he rolled and rolled without stopping for a breath.

“Dismiss! Dismiss! I’m not making a choice! Your evil temptations will not tempt me you devil!”

Like he was assaulted by a swarm of bees, he waved his arms in vain to disperse the advancement screen.

“No! I’m not thinking about what I just read! Nothing about an extremely attractive spiritual power path that can be used to cater to my future composite element training, nothing about the unbending path that completely adapted to what I wanted and got the dimension bonus out, and even more nothing about the most supreme loner protagonist path that I just read! Nope!”

He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stop his overflowing imagination. After 5 minutes of distracting himself by writing in his diary, he thought of another way to stop himself, so he opened his status.

Rune Tudor (Tier 4)

Class: Armored Pathfinder

Specialty: Temporal Dimensional Perception

EP: 1 095 215 643

Stats Total: 50 000

Health: 5 000

Health Regeneration: 5 000

Strength: 5 000

Cohesion: 5 000

Energy: 5 000

Energy Regeneration: 5 000

Purity: 5 000

Affinity: 5 000

Momentum: 5 000

Perception: 5 000

Observing his situation and the number of EP he had on him to invest, Rune was forced to think carefully about what he wanted to gain and lose by not investing in one of his stat.

His overall fortune came close to 1 900 000 000 back when he returned from the white zone expedition, but he took with him only 1 000 000 000 because he was half-farsighted and half sure he was going to go back before hitting tier 4.

“Maybe perception is actually the stat I need right now? It’s not like what I have on me will actually matter…” Back to the thinking man's pose, he muttered in his hand to look cool, he was just missing a dashing look to reach apotheosis.

With his tier 3 soul specialty, his perception was what allowed him to survive battles against low and middle tier 4 monsters till now, and with that taken into account, his strength was just a little behind his brain with his reactions, perfectly to his liking if he was to be honest.

“Energy regeneration is also tempting! Hu!”

Dramatizing his movements for no reason, he even imitated discontentment by heaving a breath at the end of his sentence.

“It’s just more worth it to go for more energy regeneration than to go for energy or cohesion… Is it in the guide? Let me see, let me see… Yup, in every possible situation, if you have to choose between energy regeneration and cohesion, the former wins in every case, interesting!”

Locked in what he considered to be an arrogant noble pose, with his chin lifted high to the sky, his eyes wide open and his arms crossed, he looked over all the tables that proved why this statement was right, though he looked a bit glazed.

“Ok, ok, then let’s do maths! 800 000 EP per stat point, a ratio of 0.5, so just divide 1 095 215 643 by 400 000 and… 2 738 stat points! More than halfway towards maxing one tier 4 stat if I invest everything in one, hum… I may have underestimated the impact of one billion EP…”

Frozen in the middle of doing the illuminated man’s pose, he slightly admitted to his fault, no one was there to correct him so he could admit it like that, no shame.

“Let’s see, 7 738 energy regeneration… That’s 129 energy per second, and my current efficiency at energy compression is… 1 021%! I didn’t even realize I got above one thousand, awesome! So 129 equal... 1 445 armor per second…”

His fit of weird imitation poses ended once he got to this part.

“And that’s versus increasing my base reaction speed to half that of a peak tier 4, further enhanced by my 100% extended time temporality,” doing a dumb face, he already made a choice before saying that.

“Yup, energy regeneration is better, thank you for your information precious guide, but you’re dismissed! See you later!”

Rune invested everything he had in energy regeneration.

Rune Tudor (Tier 4)

Class: Armored Pathfinder

Specialty: Temporal Dimensional Perception

EP: 15 643

Stats Total: 52 738

Health: 5 000

Health Regeneration: 5 000

Strength: 5 001

Cohesion: 5 001

Energy: 5 000

Energy Regeneration: 7 735

Purity: 5 000

Affinity: 5 000

Momentum: 5 000

Perception: 5 001

‘And that’s it, I’m a tier 4 now, I needed to prove it by pumping one stat point into those, nothing else below that could satisfy my arrogance, now let me see my masteries.’

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 2

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 6

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 6

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 6

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 0

Tier 2 Masteries

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor: Tier 4 Level 5

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Defense: Tier 4 Level 5

Cohesion: Specialized Cohesion Infusion: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 3 Masteries

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Structure: Tier 4 Level 5

Body Control: Basic Humanoid Body: Tier 4 Level 5

Body Control: Basic Prolonged Body Use: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 4 Masteries

[Empty]

[Empty]

[Empty]

“Oh dear, actively leveling my masteries is just so absurd… I… Want...”

Running out of inspiration to continue his little act, he decided to stop here with a sigh.

“Ahh, let me switch to some more chill music, maybe a piano background one would do the job,” he scrolled through all the music he downloaded, “Ok, Derek Paravicini, don’t disappoint me.”

He wasn’t disappointed.

“So… Do I take some provided masteries? I don’t have anything else to do apart from that really. If I successfully get one provided mastery to peak tier 2, it’ll equal a peak tier 3, and if I get one level per day…”

Entering the subject with all his brainpower, he started to think about different plans, choices, and their associated consequences.

He absolutely couldn’t switch all his build now, it would leave him vulnerable to even a tier 3 monster. At the same time, he still wanted to do the easy optimized move of switching everything at once and leveling all his new builds as one.

‘Life isn’t perfect buddy, I think in my situation, I just go for 3 provided energy compression masteries. I really want to see what’s at the end of this tunnel so no going back, and maybe the stupid bird is stupidly waiting for me do stupidly come back.’

With 3 slots open, he couldn’t just leave them empty, it was the greatest “For” argument he could think of, the second being that they would still be created later on if not today.

Breathing deeply multiple times, Rune opened the guide that he just dismissed and went to the “Masteries” section, then the “Provided Masteries” sub-section.

From that, he found a guide to how to create a provided mastery once again, he had, of course, read one before, however, his memory could fail him and it only took a few minutes to check, so he did it to be sure.

‘Normal provided slotted mastery method, run in parallel the target for the "providation", mental image of plundering the target…’

The only limitation for having a provided mastery was the fact that before becoming a tier 4 entity, they just wouldn’t be created even if the same thing was done in the two cases.

Some theorized that before becoming a tier 4 entity, as an entity you couldn’t bear the process of creating even one of them and that only thanks to the exponential growth brought by tiering up could you reach the threshold to finally be able to handle the process.

‘Ok, let’s start with… This one obviously, who am I kidding.’

Rune activated a reinforcement worth 500 energy, this way he couldn’t miss it, and in parallel he dispersed his energy armor, only to remake it from ground zero and started to feed all his energy to it.

At the same time, he mentally visualized his flow of energy providing for his reinforcement being crushed and swallowed by the passing stream of energy going to his energy armor spell matrix.

It was as easy as that.

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

‘Yes,’ he acquiesced inside his mind, it was exactly what he wanted.

‘Let’s see what the system has to say about it,’ he wished for a detailed information window to appear.

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor

Provided Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

A simple spell with great potential, by taking from your reinforcement fundamental you opened the door to a new way to use and master it.

‘As concise as usual I see,’ Rune concluded.

‘Let’s just copy the rest too, maybe the tier 1 and 2 knowledge I got from their non-provided version can help me at least a little.’

Still, with a massive flow of energy dedicated to his reinforcement, he started to use his energy to create the most simple compressed energy wall with the purest intent of defense infused in it.

With his mental image of absorbing the reinforcement energy flow, the mastery notification popped up a few seconds later.

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

‘Yup, show me the details.’

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense

Provided Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

By taking from the reinforcement domain while also refining your intent contained in any energy with the objective of protecting yourself, with enough practice you’ll be able to truly understand what defense means.

‘Ok, next then,’ once he finished reading, Rune went on to fill the last mastery slot that remained.

Without even trying, he created a compressed energy orb with defense in his mind, then next to it, he created an identical orb but with a different internal structure.

Once he created five of them, all with the mental image of taking from his reinforcement energy flow, he started to smash them.

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

‘Don’t change something that works fine, yes, details please.’

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure

Provided Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

Not just compressing, but also organizing your energy. You’re able to make untapped potential emerge, applying this logic to your energy compression fundamental and taking from your reinforcement fundamental, you will make your defense even greater.

‘Masteries please.’

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 2

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 6

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 6

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 0

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 6

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 0

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 0

Tier 2 Masteries

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor: Tier 4 Level 5

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Defense: Tier 4 Level 5

Cohesion: Specialized Cohesion Infusion: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 3 Masteries

Energy Compression: Basic Energy Structure: Tier 4 Level 5

Body Control: Basic Humanoid Body: Tier 4 Level 5

Body Control: Basic Prolonged Body Use: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 4 Masteries

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor: Tier 1 Level 0

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense: Tier 1 Level 0

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure: Tier 1 Level 0

‘Looks amazing, with this done I’m all good, as for the tower…’

Rune turned his head and looked at the ether tower, it was still sending data.

‘Yup, I’ll report it directly in case they think those data are completely stupid or they’re a bug,’ with only some information to transmit, he called Olivia.

Even 50 000 kilometers beneath ground zero, the connection wasn’t blocked or even slowed down. For ether technologies, tens of thousands of kilometers were non-existent as long as the correct transmission method was used.

After some minutes of waiting, Olivia finally answered.