“Congratulations on completing your come back ceremony,” Rune had timed this announcement precisely, “Now, my friends will try to teach you self-control, even though we all know you don’t need to learn to control your strength.”

“Be honest Rune, you want her to beat us up!” Astryde made his inner thoughts visible to all.

“I knew my friend Rune to be someone who never lied… He died today,” Arik added layers where they weren’t needed.

“He’s a compulsive liar, where did you get this ‘never lied’ idea from?” Adreana was confused and asked.

“Don’t teach Lounae things she doesn’t need to know!” Utopia exclaimed from the side.

“Concerned with her wellbeing?” Rune's mocking smile was so obvious anyone would recognize it.

“Of course no-”

“He’s probably entered prince charming mindset, he’s grasping at straws,” Nelo cut him off and cheered leisurely from the side.

“What do you think, Lounae? 1 versus 7 is a little weak but it should still be right for you?”

She nodded as she put down her glass, the air around her appeared to shimmer a bit more than before.

“The rules are very simple, you beat us all, nobody exits the fighting area that you can see just 500 meters from here and delimited by this rushed wooden wall, the fight starts in one minute starting from… Now!”

Despite Rune planning to be the first to depart, Utopia and Arik seemed to have foreseen this as they rushed before him, followed by everyone else, Lounae included.

“Do I need to plan for a spectator stage around the fighting area? But I would have to move…”

From the front, Rune heard the mumbling of an Utopia who was gaining insights on how to make the training park evolve, if he really applied those insights, however, was another story.

The moment Rune neared the border of the fighting area, he started to release cosmic mist in prediction of what was bound to happen.

Once everyone entered the fighting area, Nelo seemed to have forgotten when Rune implied that they couldn’t win and started to gather his energy in plain sight.

‘Still as stubborn as ever, but maybe it’s best to just go all-in? I’ll become your support then, Mr. Stubborn.’

Moving as much cosmic mist as he could, a surge of cosmic mist invaded everything around Lounae.

And she didn’t react, she was assessing the fight.

In her mind, she was only thinking about one thing.

Should she go all out?

…

Despite believing they could understand what a prospect was, who could really believe that someone was so determined that they never really took a break?

Comparing oneself to others was something strongly unsuitable when the person you compare yourself to had completely different circumstances.

Months before Rune even started to think about advancing to tier 4, Lounae had already switched to her provided build.

She had been leveling it up for more than a year now, and she leveled it up within the erosion anomaly.

She had also maxed her stats the moment they could be increased, allowing her to push ever further into the erosion anomaly.

Her build was overly simple, one cohesion infusion, five energy compression, three body control.

It was all she needed, she hadn’t even considered changing her build before reaching beyond.

Only when she achieved beyond and joined the rank of the Abnormals would she maybe change one mastery slot for something else than behemoth-related masteries.

But until then, she would continue to pursue this glimmering and fantastic ambition that had been born in her childhood.

Finally deciding to not hold back, she let her soul specialty act, solidifying her energy and the ether around her.

With her class path giving her 200% efficiency in energy compression, her fundamental giving her another 242% efficiency, and 5 provided masteries adding 324% efficiency each, she rounded up at 2 062% additional efficiency.

In practical terms, she had a regeneration of 3 600 armor per second, and her 10 000 energy stat translated to an armor of 216 200.

On the strength side, she had her fundamental giving her 339% efficiency, then 3 provided masteries giving an additional 301% efficiency each, totaling to a reality-breaking efficiency boost of 1 242%. With her 10 000 base strength stat, she could exert up to 134 200 strength.

And 134 200 strength used purely for speed meant she could go at 1 600 meters per second purely based on it.

It was a strength-based speed that couldn’t be supported by anything other than a tempered tier 4 zone or an energy-compressed platform worth a few hundred armor.

…

Between the moment Rune supposedly blinded her and Nelo was ready to launch his first attack, the others had also prepared to go all-in.

And then a gigantic boom echoed around as in the cloud of mist, a hold appeared, and Utopia, who was standing in the sky accumulating momentum disappeared.

In his place, Lounae was standing.

(Unstoppable - Eva Under Fire, https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=R2lcnAlJtU &list=RDAMVMR2lcnAlJtUY <3)

Rotating her body, she kicked the air, vanished, and reappeared on the ground like nothing happened.

Only the ambient ether, moving air, and the sound waves informed them that something had happened.

The slightest grin appeared on the perpetrator’s face, as she turned and fixed Arik who had adopted a mixed defensive position with her eyes.

The Undecided nonetheless tried to react as Arik was covered in cosmic mist the next moment, but that only made another more accessible person the target, and that person was Gar.

Nelo launched the first wave of attacks, but even as some hits correctly, it didn’t seem to have any effect and Gar had to confront a behemoth with 130 000 strength who didn’t care about his energy threads.

His energy got sapped quickly and he got grabbed by Lounae who then brought him with her as she propelled herself towards Nelo, the only member not yet hidden by Rune’s cosmic mist in the few seconds that passed.

So Lounea just repeated the same thing, but with Gar accompanying her against his will.

She vanished, then reappeared before Nelo, who didn’t hesitate to attack with everything he had.

True to her path, she ignored everything and grabbed him, reversing and stunning him when she flattened him like a log onto the ground.

After making sure their energy armor weren’t broken, she kicked them with all her power and sent the two out of the fighting area, joining the sullen Utopia.

Uncaring of the consequences, she dived right in the cloud of cosmic mist hosting 4 people the next instant and proved that she was right when Adreana was sent towards the sky the next instant.

She was in a totally new environment where she was blind, deaf, spiritually suppressed, so her answer was to simply sweep over it repeatedly until she found a target.

Adreana was only the first unlucky victim, followed by… Rune.

Then Astryde, and finally Arik.

In under 1 minute, she expelled all the Undecided out of the fighting area, prompting sincere cheers from the users who kept to the living area, observing from there.

When the Undecided came back, they received the jeers from everyone daring enough, those who knew that they were mellow tier 4 without even a properly started provided build.

“Well, well, well… Lounae, dear Lounae, why don’t you tell me the maths of your build? I’m really interested!” Rune was acting like a sycophant next to her.

She didn’t say the number, but then he received a message from her after 5 seconds, detailing her current 2 062% reality-breaking energy compression efficiency and her 1 242% equivalent efficiency for her body control.

“Oy, oy, oy…”

“What, did she send her complete build over?” Observant Astryde asked from behind.

“If you want to know what I received, then become friends with her.”

As Rune was bit by bit making her join the friendship circle of his group, three of those concerned were discussing stealthily at the back. Though everyone that focused on them would hear what they were saying.

“So we got everything?”

“Yup! Filmed in 4K, 3 points of view, slow-motion option enabled!”

“That’s buzz material, I think I can make people come after editing it a bit to show the mist and single star dome…”

“Make a glimpse of the momentum obstacle course’s sign appear! More mystery and teasing is better!”

“I prefer EP over mystery!”

Those at the front tacitly ignored Utopia, Arik, and Gar, preferring to discuss lighter subjects as well as prepare the third step of Lounae’s civilization integration.

“You can’t change the food step! She’s my guest!”

“But she looks like a savage patroller! Let us dress her, recently a new fashion shop opened, and we already thought of going there anyway,” Astryde, supported by Adreana, was fighting Rune at full force.

“I’ll teach her how to become pretty the behemoth way, with colored energy armor and all the accessories I developed! That’s the fourth step, you can come to judge and help at that time.”

Lounae reacted a bit at the mention of the behemoth way, and the two girls didn’t miss that, but they had a high difficulty fighting him on that part.

“So you’ll teach a young and innocent girl your warped sense of fashion? Disgusting! You’re disgusting, Rune!” Astryde really didn’t want to let him have his way.

“Everyone has his own sense of fashion, and my sense of fashion is the behemoth path fashion!”

Little stars appeared in Lounae’s eyes the more she heard him say that.

“Then show her…” Adreana ambushed him.

“Ok! Look properly, cause I’ll not do it again, this is my latest research into behemoth fashion.”

Focusing, Rune started to send his energy to his 4 extremities, and from there, glowing cosmic mist elements started to draw lines.

With his simple shorts and t-shirt, they were obvious as they continued to draw simple crossing rotating patterns as they reached higher.

His clothes also started to change from their simple black and grey colors to a more uniform but still contrasted grey.

The glowing lines stopped at his neck, the energy starting to condense a pattern in his eyes instead.

Like it had always been there, from the center of his 2 irises, a simple vertical and horizontal line appeared, leading to a circle of cosmic mist unveiling itself.

“It’s useless! But it’s cool!”

…

In the end, Rune had his way and took Lounae to his planned 3rd step, the restaurant tour.

Touring 10 restaurants took them half a day, and the night had already settled by the time they left the last restaurant.

She was then brought to the Secluded Corner and introduced to Lenya the bartender and Angeni the barmaid. Rune tried to convey his love for this place and all the subtleties linked to it, but the emotionless Lounae didn’t make known her satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Once back at the training camp, who had received the visit of a lot of people, Rune, Adreana, and Astryde helped her change her image from a prospect in patroller uniform to a fashion prospect of the new age.

She was strangely fast in grasping how to use her energy to make her own clothes and accessories, succeeding at her first eye accessories in 8 hours only.

She had more difficulty grasping making artificial colors than the rest, but even this only took her a day.

And then Rune announced she finished her introduction with him, and he was leaving her with Astryde and Adreana to learn more girly things.

He sent her his restaurant list again and made sure she understood that she had to try them all when she wanted and that after that, she had to perpetuate the tradition of going out of the main paths and flushing out the fabulous hidden places.

Afterward, he symbolically bought her a month of membership to their training camp, explaining she was welcome to train here, and that when the next cultural event was announced, they should go together.

Then, he left to tinker with his soon-to-be-finished 3rd stage intent.

…

‘The problem, It wasn’t the absorbing intent…’

Like finding the cracked cog in a complex early-industrial steam engine, Rune altered the way the bending intent affected the isolating and interfering intents.

And with just his feeling, he knew that he had finished his 3rd stage intent.

For multiple iterations, people had told him that their spiritual perception couldn’t escape anymore, but his was different, it didn’t have the full range of 7 777 meters anymore, but it could still escape.

The other users currently in the mist dome wouldn’t feel the change as the new iteration took over the dome, but Rune felt it clearly.

He had reached involuntary sense-less, he could still stand up and all his internal senses worked properly, and he wasn’t yet dizzy and confused, this was the role of the chaos interference stage, the 4th stage he would start to work on from now on

‘But before that, last I checked there seemed to be a lot of noise about the opening of the event’s official site.’

Having purposely not made the cosmic mist used in the dome able to stop internet waves, he got access to the high bandwidth made available to all the training camp’s users. And by manipulating the cosmic mist around his eyes, he was still able to perfectly use his connected lenses.

Switching the music to a more jovial one from his ambient one, he felt right in the mood to discover what the IGS prepared with an open mind.

When he opened the first result from his search, he stumbled upon the trailer of the prospects finding event, and directly below it was a big panel with “Participate!” written on it.

‘It won’t be a joke where I’m forced to participate after I click on it, right?’

He clicked on it.

‘Choose your category… Oh! There are so many! Artistic categories, combat categories, commercial categories, service categories, military categories, social categories, politics categories?’

Tens of different categories, without even a clear profession or description, were given, and the subject of the event wasn’t even written, there was no mention of any “prospect” anywhere.

*Ding* Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element reached Tier 2 Level 0

“...”

Pure and simple incomprehension made his way to his mind.

‘What?’

He tried to remember when he reached level 100, but he didn’t find any memory linked to this.

‘How?’

Yet, while his mind was starting a full scan of what he did the previous days, one thing he had to do was clear, so he opened his masteries window.

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 28

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 8

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 9

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 27

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 27

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 8

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 4

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 27

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 2 Masteries

Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element: Tier 2 Level 0

[Empty]

[Empty]

Tier 3 Masteries

[Empty]

[Empty]

[Empty]

Tier 4 Masteries

[Empty]

[Empty]

[Empty]

The exceptionally barren screen welcomed him, but he wasn’t interested in filling the blanks.

Yet.

He was here to see if his adventuring build would change due to a personality effect.

Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element

Specialized Slotted Mastery (Tier 2)

A composite element created from different properties from the mist, mystic, chaos, light, darkness, nebula, signal, and nature elements. With no offensive or defensive properties, this element acts against everything, even its owner, and is catered to act like it belongs to nature.

Now, you perfectly understand how to create this composite element, every part of it, you can replicate instantly without losing any energy in the process, allowing you to transform 1 energy into 1 cosmic mist energy. Doesn’t change the behavior of your energy.

An element taken to perfection can be taken further, but you’re the only one who can discover more use to it, accept what this element represents and become one with it.

Current effects: Disruption, Permanence, Perfection

Looking at each of the 3 effects he got, he opened the guide and searched for 2 of them, disruption and permanence.

He could approximate their use from the moment he saw them, but confirming disruption was truly “disrupt everything better” and permanence was “extend longevity and adapt behavior” made it easier to think.

As for the perfection effect, Rune already knew it. It was a good effect, a great one even, its official description was along the lines of “your element becomes extremely suitable for everything it was designed to do”, and that certainly wasn’t a bad effect.

‘It’s exactly like my cohesion specialization, a path I can look forward to after I brainstormed for a few years, and also when I got some mastery slots available.’

Closing everything, he came back to the prospects finding event website, but his mind was still elsewhere.

‘And now, I can start making my adventuring provided build. Though it should be pretty easy.’

On a whim, he selected military categories and was welcomed by a list of hundreds of different roles.

Military seemed to be the equivalent of ultra specializations and team-dependent builds, and Rune could find everything he thought about, with even more that he didn’t and couldn’t think about.

‘Support energy wall builder, Offensive long-range pure bombardment, Support speedster deployment escort, Offensive reinforcement… Are you sure it’s a prospects finding event? Looks more like an employment window but with the interview done in an entertaining program.’

What pushed this theory even more forward was when he opened one job and the resulting screen was one where anyone could participate as long as they were tier 2, there was even a special tier 1 condition option available.

If he could think of that, then others could, and when he got to his usual forum website, he easily found people making fun of what the event really was.

Reading for a bit and having a heavy dose of fun and nonsense, he decided he had enough and went back to tinkering with his intent creation.

‘I can fill my mastery slots later… And this place is really comfortable once you get used to it. My spirit can do nothing even if it wants to, my senses don’t work, I can only feel the grass and the trees, not see them…’

Just like that, ignoring the outside world, Rune got back to something that he would soon consider as his second passion after adventuring.

Intent tinkering.