‘Mmh… Let’s try adaptation and interaction this time.’

Making another trip to the third layer of his introspection space, he proficiently found his way to the cohesion area and modified the appropriate number of grains.

Then he set up his mental imagery and started the most direct way of fusing everything together with the similarly most direct framework of thoughts.

Over 3 months, soon to be 4, Rune had gained a massive number of insights he added to his framework, he even concluded that once he finished testing everything he had prepared, he could just go back to the start and re-do all the combinations he previously scratched off.

After this framework didn’t work, he started testing the now 89 universal variants, he had added 3 others during his stay here, they just appeared to him as so suitable he felt stupid for not having seen them before.

Following those universal variants came the 16 custom-made frameworks for this precise adaptation-interaction effects duo.

However, this time, when he completed the fusion of the 9th custom framework and looked over the resulting speck of cohesion.

‘It’s… Weird?’

It wasn’t cohesion anymore.

It wasn’t the normal look of cohesion that was warped.

Normal pure cohesion extracted from his health looked like a very slightly grey haze, nearly white, but not. The cohesion under his eyes was neon white.

He could recognize it among thousands of similar colors, he had literally bathed in it in the white zone, and all its details were engraved in his memories, it was also the first time he “saw” with his own eyes such an alien landscape.

All to say, he perfectly recognized the neon white ether in this small bit of cohesion.

‘Is that a sign indicating I did something important? I’m certainly not going to ignore it.’

Repeating the same framework and mental imagery, this time he took a much more important amount of cohesion.

And the result was a sphere of cohesion with its center completely protected from the neon white ether, keeping its original nearly-white grey color.

‘But what is provoking this change? Is it even possible to find what made this change possible? There are dozens and dozens of interactions between the 4 different effects, and maybe it involves a 3-way or even a 4-way interaction…’

Not knowing how to react to this sudden situation, Rune confusedly started to plan.

Regrettably, there was no right answer for him to pick. He found something, but it was impossible to know why it worked a bit and what was responsible for it.

All he could do was write down this combination and the framework he used before going back to testing variant frameworks.

This time he wasn’t as “lucky” and the seven frameworks he tested ended up giving him a bit of cohesion that did nothing, it was just warped.

‘Adaptation, interaction, rejection, isolation, it’s probably not from the rejection and isolation parts, but I’ll still make sure to use a framework identical to this one from now on. And I’ll also use this specific adaptation and interaction framework even when they are separated… I’ll start with that.

That’s how the 4th month of his hard-try at creating a growth mastery ended, with him having gained something concrete.

So he prepared to focus on every combination involving the adaptation effect or the interaction effect.

…

Nearly the same result, nearly the same combination, except this time it was the adaptation-contact duo that caused nearly the same result.

‘Adaptation is part of it, rejection and isolation should play minor roles, and something in this contact framework caused all of it to happen.’

Not excluding the possibility that that contact effect could in fact be responsible for the whole thing, he still went on and blindly guessed it was really the adaptation effect that was at the core of this result.

Hence, he locked the adaptation effect on his list with the same framework that worked two times already.

‘Now, I only need to find the puzzle piece that will serve as my first filter.’

…

Having reduced his scope massively, Rune still tried other frameworks as he could never be sure he was on the right trajectory even if it seemed good.

Though it all ended when he found a piece that provoked a second transformation.

‘The reaction effect… And the resulting cohesion’s sphere, despite its small size already has an unaffected center. What did I use in its framework that wasn’t in the other 2? What has the reaction effect that the other 2 do not?’

With a definitive lead, he momentarily stopped trying other frameworks and started to analyze what he had gathered until now.

‘Twice is happenstance, thrice is a pattern, so I'll definitively seal the adaptation effect in my selection. As for the interaction, contact, and reaction effects, I must find what is the characteristic associated with the framework responsible for this change. Then I’ll only have to push my imagination and creativity beyond its limit.’

From that analysis, he got 9 potential leads that could explain why such a transformation happened.

So he got to work.

…

The 5th month for Rune had been a period of trials and errors, he wasn’t confident enough to just stop doing the possible other frameworks that he prepared in favor of following his adaptation lead to the end.

Still, he encountered another 2 effects that worked with the experimental framework of the “Unrestrained” part, and it allowed him by process of elimination to know what part of it was responsible for the fusion with a result at the end.

Having found the precise concept of “Cohesion turns physical and adapts to a tangible environment, filter everything that interacts with it” to be the culprit, he only had to use this idea as a base to create lots of others and expand it to include spiritual interactions.

He wouldn’t release this puzzle piece that miraculously worked until it had been completely exploited.

This time, after he finished revising his planning, and despite not knowing why, he decided to take an abnormally long break.

This break lasted for 2 days, and he did nothing else apart from admiring the scenery after removing his 2nd stage intent from his cosmic mist.

He stopped thinking about his growth mastery, and while he thought about doing some intent tinkering to relax, he refrained from it in the end. He would be able to do it as much as he wanted when he went back to the training park.

After this long break, he dived back into his introspection space, knowing he was only getting closer and closer to success motivated him.

…

‘It’s already the 30th time something is different, do I continue obstinate like that? Or do I go back to crossing all the frameworks that caused anomalies to appear?’

…

‘The moment I change this isolation part it doesn’t result in a weird cohesion anymore, but I can change this rejection apart as much as I want and it doesn’t change the end result…’

Rune thought about changing his direction a bit after so many failures.

‘Maybe the problem was the rejection framework from the beginning? But no, I clearly tried changing it before and its Changement provoked a failure…’

…

‘So it really was a concept conflict between the first “restrictions” filter and the second “rejection” filter. It’s a little frustrating that I probably already passed by the answer without seeing it.’

…

Half a year, 6 months had passed since Rune started his growth mastery creation seclusion, and now he knew, he was certain it was soon going to be over.

With the adaptation, self, isolation, and rejection effects, he started his mental imagery. The result was 4 very different orbs orbiting a much larger and still orb.

One of them, the adaptation one, exited its original trajectory as a thread was established with the larger central orb.

‘With the hope of endless adaptation, give my cohesion the capacity of getting to know everything. But be restrained as I don’t want to adapt to the fundamental restriction that no one must touch, not now, not in the future.’

Then, the self orb charged straight at the adaptation orb and fused with it.

‘Make my cohesion take any form necessary, physical or spiritual, and interfere with anything that wants to restrain what defines my self. I want to be able to go anywhere, be able to see everything the world has to offer.’

Next, the rejection orb fused with the changing adaptation orb.

‘Yet, my focus is only exploration. Infringing upon the domain of another isn’t my goal, there are plenty of other lands to step foot on. My goals are much grander than adapting to another, I reject this adaptation, they don’t deserve to be part of my list, only nature itself is worthy enough.’

Finally, the fourth and final isolation orb fused with the much different adaptation orb.

‘However, if someone or something wants to block me from discovering more of the Endless, then as long as it isn’t expressly intended for anything in particular, an untargeted harm, then I’ll forcefully add you to my list and be isolated from any effects that would block my advance.’

With all his effects fused together, Rune thought about the final total framework.

He added links between the different filters, gave examples that perfectly obeyed all his filters.

The bone region didn’t need to be included, the ether stats restrictions too.

If it only looked like an environmental effect but was in fact someone clearly blocking him consciously, then it mustn’t be included.

All those details that made his framework be possible were defined.

When he focused back on reality, his perception made him see a sphere of cohesion that had the same appearance and feeling as what his better results had looked and felt like. A sphere with only the most surface layer that adapted to the neon white ether, and everything inside being protected.

He focused on filling his empty mastery slot.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Cohesion: Specialized TBNS?

‘To be named specialization… I think it can be considered a success then.’

As if he had prepared for that, the spell matrix that kept the cosmic mist gathered around him and supplemented it when it was reduced too much was turned off.

After doing that, he scaled the cliff back and landed on its edge.

“Your name will be ‘Endless Adaptation’,” in his most natural state, no energy accessories, pure-energy white-colored clothes, and a completely idle spirit, Rune gave a name to his own growth mastery.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Cohesion: Specialized Endless Adaptation?

“It’s a yes.”

As a way of making a clean slate of the past, he decided to test it immediately.

His energy armor started to disperse much more quickly than it should be eroded by the neon white ether as he brought up the detailed window of this growth mastery.

Cohesion: Specialized Endless Adaptation

Specialized Slotted Mastery (Tier 1)

A secondary specialization made from the fusion of the adaptation, self, isolation, and rejection effects. It has been specially designed to be able to grow as long as one’s cohesion fights against environments that restrict its user.

Based on a very precise set of rules, with time, this mastery can adapt one’s cohesion to resist any given environment, in any form.

Adaptations:

Erosion Ether Adaptation: 0%

After seeing that, he truly felt rewarded for his effort.

He voluntarily let everything go away, exposing his skin to the erosion anomaly and admired how his skin started to turn the same color as the neon white ether. More precisely, his health that contained cohesion was continuously regenerating and was fighting against the environment.

‘Not fighting… Adapting…’

When he had enough of admiring this phenomenon, a layer of compressed cohesion-energy appeared, and when it made contact with the ether, it also turned neon white.

‘I wonder what would happen with gravity? Colorless? Surprise?’

He was excited, but at the same time he kept totally calm, it was a mastery that had needed 6 months of nearly uninterrupted dedication.

The most extravagant estimation for his composite element would be 2 or 3 uninterrupted months if he really added all the elemental training, his meetings with the Aleda, his random moment of inspiration outside of his training hour, and entire days dedicated to planning things out.

‘Getting this growth mastery took me as long as a true adventure… I hope Arik wasn’t expecting to go on an adventure soon.’

Now that he was done with getting a growth mastery, his mind focused on what he was going to do in the near future.

‘I have a camera, let me take some pictures of what my growth mastery does. This way I’ll just have to give them to the growth mastery research faculty with the description, and my job will be done.’

Fulfilling his duty towards the person who greatly helped him, Zophia, was pretty high up on his list of things to do before officially preparing for his next adventure.

‘Afterward, massive news reading, become up-to-date, massive entertainment session, intent tinkering until my intent reaches my maximum, use that occasion to fill some empty domes if there’s a need, contact Olivia to tell her I want to go to the bone region, ask for custom made goodies, if they don’t exist yet it’s not important…’

As soon as he started to think about it, his short-term schedule became clear. He had 6 months of golden era development’s speed to catch up to, and he hoped it really was full of extraordinary developments and funny situations.

On that, he went south, making his way back towards the capital.

…

The patroller camp at the entrance of the erosion anomaly on the cliff path had a lot more patrollers in it. What he thought to be adventurers were also a lot more numerous, all along the way back he saw a few, alone or in a group.

In the few hours he needed to get back there, he fought an extraordinary number of monsters amounting to 0. He didn’t know if he had been particularly unlucky or if they had all truly been cleaned, but it didn’t bother him more than that.

After the first patroller camp, it took him 5 days and less than 20 fought monsters to arrive at the second patroller camp indicating the transition between the tier 3 jungle region zone and the tier 2 forest region zone.

Another day later, he was back to being able to see the landing zone’s 10 kilometers high parking lot with lots of neon covering it and an unending flow of people.

He didn’t follow the news associated with migration, but for him, it was only logical that at least 90% of all the people coming out of there were newly arrived sapients.

Nobody in their right mind would join this flow of people if they knew there was a way around it. That’s why Rune and all other people took a detour around it before joining back the main highway axis a little further, and even then they remained high in the air.

A few hours later, he entered the border of the north capital sector.

On a whim, he went to the west sector, to see with his own eyes that the event had truly ended and what became of the main stage area and its surrounding.

The result was that he discovered everything had been transformed into a gigantic commercial zone with a sparring area at the center, where hot-blooded or angry people could come to let off some steam in a controlled and secure environment.

Using the occasion, he bought a few foods he craved for the moment he saw them and departed once again, this time towards the ether labs.

There, he asked the receptionist to contact Zophia Holden as he successfully created his growth mastery and wanted to submit its information to the responsible research faculty. Surprisingly, she turned up after only half an hour of waiting and invited him to follow her again.

…

Once they sat facing each other again in the exact same room, Rune took the lead and got his camera out.

“I filmed the direct effect caused by my growth mastery, I can also submit all the documents I used from the moment I theorized it to its success.”

“I would very much appreciate it. With your contribution maybe we’ll be able to publicize more the fact that creating a growth mastery depends more on time and dedication than luck and destiny as so many others seem to believe,” she answered like it was a normal meeting they were doing.

In turn, Rune didn’t hesitate and gave away the 10-minute long video file containing the tests of his growth mastery, then he transmitted all his “Growth Mastery” related files.

This file contained all the random ideas he had at the start before he knew what he was talking about, all the thoughts he had when he started to seriously consider this path, all the existentialist questions after he visited Zophia the first time, all his pre-planning about hundreds of different effect combinations and the different frameworks he created.

It ended with a time logged document detailing his progress over 6 months of hard work, where he went from blind guessing combinations to getting a first lead but not being able to exploit it, then to having 3 and making guesses, locking his adaptation effect…

And succeeding at the end after a trial and error period.

“I also prepared a file documenting my growth mastery in a true-report way, including the final framework I used, the supposed impact of the environment on my mental state, the effects I used, when those effects came to an end and my cohesion specialization returned back to normal, and the mastery description itself.”

Rune felt completely ok with this level of exposition, he had even been a bit excited at the idea of sharing everything. He wasn’t selfless, but it felt good to know he cleared off one of his moral debts in the best way possible.

“Good,” she nodded to herself one firm time, “We’ll use them as they should be, do you authorize the total diffusion of all those documents on a public platform?”

“Yes.”

“In this case, congratulations on getting your own growth mastery. I hope it’ll forever accompany you and that all the data you provided will give more people the chance to get their own, they’ll know your name and maybe they’ll contact you to thank you,” in a peaceful tone, she implicitly cleared off any distance she created during their first meeting.

Following that, Rune had nothing else to do there, so he quickly left a few minutes later.

By the time he left the ether labs, he got a slight surprise.

‘A message?’

He received a message from an unknown sender, telling him to add this contact number to his list and that he could contact it when he wanted.

The sender was obviously Zophia, and to reciprocate the feeling of expanding his contact list with prospective new friends, he sent her his restaurant list.

‘I don’t think my contact list is up to the likes of Gar or Arik, but at least I have one. And that’s already a massive achievement isn’t it?’