At 580 meters per second, without the reaction speed granted by their 10 000 perception, it would be a feat for them to only be able to stay next to each other.

At such a speed, using energy platforms to use their strength in the air steadily used their energy. Arik and Astryde who didn’t have bonus efficiency to their energy compression had to use a bit of momentum to aid them at not using tens of energy armor at each step.

Fortunately, the Ether Law was built finely, and they wouldn’t have problems using this way of moving until they reached the 100 000 of equivalent strength.

From that point onward, for them to move at maximum potential using their strength would need a compressed ground only found after special construction, or the natural ground found in most tier 4 zones.

Tier 1 to tier 3 zones weren’t able to resist such strength without a special region warping things around to accommodate it, it belonged to the true Endless domain.

“It’s truly amazing, and just think about Lounae. I don’t even dare imagine how much energy she must have used on her energy platforms to use all her strength, 1.6 kilometers per second? I’ll only reach such speed when I’m halfway to tier 5.”

“It’s already been a few months since she left, so I would bet more on her having already reached 1.7 kilometers per second. If she didn’t reach beyond that is,” Astryde had become a true friend to Lounae with Adreana when she was still there, so she didn’t hesitate to talk like that about her.

“My little sister is just that amazing, why don’t you say something about her too Arik?”

“No.”

“Ok,” Rune didn’t even try to counter.

“Sigh… Let’s just rush through the early tier 3 zone, finding challenges there is possible but it wouldn’t be consistent like what we will find deeper,” Astryde appeared used but fed-up with only this single exchange between the two most asocial members of the Undecided.

“We need to change our axis to find a not yet cleared path,” Arik inputted.

“We’ll do that once we are deep in the tier 3 zone, it’ll add more monsters to our path,” she acquiesced to this choice too, their trajectory was decided.

With their itinerary prepared, it hadn’t been that hard, they started to make their personal last-minute preparation.

Rune prepared his music playlist, then brought up his masteries window.

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 33

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 8

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 9

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 33

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 33

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 8

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 5

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 32

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 2 Masteries

Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element: Tier 2 Level 39

Cohesion: Specialized Cohesion Infusion: Tier 4 Level 24

Cohesion: Specialized Endless Adaptation: Tier 1 Level 5

Tier 3 Masteries

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense: Tier 1 Level 43

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure: Tier 1 Level 43

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor: Tier 1 Level 43

Tier 4 Masteries

Energy Compression: Provided Quick Compression: Tier 1 Level 16

Body Control: Provided Humanoid Body: Tier 1 Level 22

Body Control: Provided Prolonged Body Use: Tier 1 Level 22

‘Hehehe, 3 specializations, I really got my own exploration immortal path. I don’t think my endless adaptation will get the work it deserves any time soon, but who knows?’

6 months of working with his cohesion hadn’t been an empty period, his tier 4 cohesion infusion had properly leveled up, so it wasn’t a total loss for Rune.

His few fights had been enough to boost his tier 1 provided masteries by a few levels, and his stunt at filling a normal dome and a gigantic dome while doing intent tinkering had made his cosmic mist mastery rise by a bit too.

‘Now I need to switch to passive training of reinforcement and momentum, during fights I’ll actively level my energy compression, body control, fighting instinct. The rest can wait for an occasion, the cosmic mist occasion.’

The training schedule he had theorized more than a year ago now as he exited the hole tunnel was finally coming to a use, but with a slight change.

His dilemma about how to train his awareness and his momentum in another way than by being passive or random with them still hadn’t been resolved, but he had the beginning of a plan.

‘Grand manipulation, fine manipulation, perception, and once I truly have time to clear one of my slots, awareness minor manipulation specialization… But I’ll only do that when I complete the first round of my 5 stages intent.’

It was the most direct way of leveling his awareness fundamental: Making it fight with his 2nd and 4th stage intent. Honestly, he had been a little reluctant at doing it this way at the start due to not having the clearest of plans about his composite element.

But with his cosmic element under his eyes now, it could even be touched, he knew including awareness training into refining the intent was possible.

Though, same as using masteries to massively boost his perception power, it was something that belonged more to the specialized spiritual powers domain than the provided masteries domain.

‘I guess the low danger level will allow me to play with my momentum a bit, and it can’t hurt me to use it more.’

It was to be noted that, while his plan had transferred his awareness training to be included in his cosmic mist refinement, it also made him reflect on what was the first core of his cosmic mist: Totally blocking perception.

Blocking physical senses and other tracking or following measures were things he only added later on due to them being relevant to fulfill the second core: Escaping higher-tier entities.

‘Not having to worry about gathering EP is really changing my mind. I don’t have to worry about maxing my stats anymore, and only my masteries are to be leveled for me to advance, is that how the prospects feel when they’re at the front?’

With a clear mind, Rune finished preparing. He copy-pasted his current masteries into his diary, made another entry, wrote down notable things, and then the group reached the region transition.

It was still as full of activity as he remembered, it was the industrial center of the IGS after all, so the group passed by leisurely with nothing happening, ultimately breaching into the tier 2 zone a few hours later.

And even then, as they went deeper and deeper into the zone, there were still a massive amount of people using the highway like them.

“Why are they here when the major expedition front is only for tier 4? If they want to fight tier 2 or tier 3 monsters, going south would be better, no? Maybe this is exactly the same situation down south and I missed that info?” His curiosity made him ask his more informed friends.

Astryde didn’t say anything and pointed at Arik, who in turn felt forced to explain, “The tier 3 mountainous region has resources, and prospecting is a high-pay job when you can find tens of veins, even more when they are rare-earth.”

“Oh…” Was his only answer before relapsing into silence, his momentary curiosity satiated.

…

Getting to the tier 3 zone from the tier 2 zone took them a week, the mountainous region was larger on that side than the forest or jungle region.

If a teleportation node was to be built next to the tier 3 zone border, so still technically in tier 2 ether density, meaning completely possible, it would have cut all that time off. It was unfortunate that the teleportation network wasn’t ready yet.

If their trip to the bone region took as much time as they thought it would, however, the teleportation network would probably be up and running by the time they got out, just not to the point of it being expanded to the tier 3 zones, as it would require a tier 5 space beacon specialist.

With the size of the tier 3 zone of the mountainous region, the group of 3 didn’t hesitate to continue going deeper for an additional week before turning perpendicularly and entering the true wilderness.

There, they finally encountered the first monsters. It seemed that they had timed their exit of the highway right too, as the monsters they encountered were middle to late tier 3.

They were a good adventure-start challenge, good enough to get back into the proper mindset that they knew was primordial to level efficiently.

It also allowed Rune and Astryde to observe the foldable strength specialization of Arik in a real fight situation. He was the only one to have a fighting specialization in the group of 3, and it truly didn’t disappoint them.

As the objective of taking this roundabout itinerary was to level their adventurous build to tier 2, Rune decided to not use his cosmic mist as it wouldn’t allow him to level his energy compression masteries efficiently.

He also didn’t use his own slow and steady approach but opted to use a half-behemoth fighting style, taking a reasonable amount of damage in exchange for finishing a fight a bit quicker.

Astryde, from Rune’s point of view, still had exactly the same style as before: The balanced close-quarter style.

A few momentum masteries, a few energy compression masteries, a few body control masteries, and to complement her time watcher specialization, she took a few perception masteries, and maybe a few fighting instinct ones?

Being a time watcher was all about seeing more things during her time rewinds after all, and the research faculty behind this path had probably given her a lot of coherent advice.

As for her precise build, however, it would have to wait until she reached tier 2 with her chosen provided masteries, only then would her true balance be shown.

And then, there was Arik.

Having infused his purity and affinity into his strength, it had become an immaterial sludge he could sort of manipulate. And as it kept its identity as “strength”, it was still influenced by body control efficiency, so still perfectly under the registry of Arik’s build, and probably class.

However, delving into all the changes the foldable strength path brought would take hundreds of documentation pages, and Rune was more content with just observing Arik who had distilled everything and was applying it practically.

So while he punched a dark green-furred bear-like monster who was 5 meters high and received a reinforced paw-strike in exchange that he didn’t bother to evade, he observed how Arik kept a constant cloud of strength around him, and that cloud moved to follow him and amplify all his strikes and blocks.

His fighting style had completely changed from back then, now his every block wasn’t block anymore, they were counter-attacks. He was using all the right properties of strength, purity, and affinity, to optimize his moves.

As for the visual aspect, the most telling of it all: Arik was exchanging punches for punches with a monster 4 times bigger than him, and he was relentless in it.

He was clearly the one who had the easiest time among the 3 of them, fighting was exactly his area after all, and conventional fighting was, even more, his area.

‘His soul specialty probably plays a big role as well…’

Looking at Arik acting more like a behemoth than himself, Rune was reminded that tier 4 was universally known and recognized as being the starting point of nearly every legend and myth.

Tier 4 indicated an entity had been independent for long enough to have learned what it wanted to do, and looking at himself, Rune felt it was so fitting it was disturbing.

Lost in thought, he acted by instinct when the big monster attacking him tried to flatten him with all its body and using the pure ground, he supported the whole weight as he kicked it with all his strength, sending the monster weighing tons flying tens of meters high.

‘Oh… Forgot to keep him near me…’

When the green-furred monster realized its own situation, it used momentum and did a classic dive.

‘Well, what was I expecting? That it started using spiritual powers suddenly?’

In terms of intensity, he considered this fight a warm-up. It wasn’t possible for him to not care at all, but he also didn’t have to act like his life depended on it.

As the big monster dived on him, Rune didn’t opt to receive him like it was a game, he wasn’t using the behemoth fighting style after all.

He moved to the side and used momentum to move 50 meters every tenth of a second to confuse the monster.

With an effective momentum of 30 000, he could totally do that, he even found it a bit exhilarating to move like that.

A game of cat-and-mouse started as the big monster tried to catch him, and they once again started the half-behemoth fight, where every time the mindless monster caught Rune, they each lost thousands of armor.

The fight ultimately ended a bit less than 10 minutes later, Rune being the last to finish. He took the core, joined his friends, opened his leveling notifications, and they departed once again.

*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct reached Tier 4 Level 9

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense reached Tier 1 Level 44

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure reached Tier 1 Level 44

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor reached Tier 1 Level 44

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Quick Compression reached Tier 1 Level 17

*Ding* Body Control: Provided Humanoid Body reached Tier 1 Level 23

*Ding* Body Control: Provided Prolonged Body Use reached Tier 1 Level 23

‘Feels good.’

“Well, we have a few minutes to talk before another fight starts, so let’s use them wisely.”

“Rune,” Astryde took him for his words, “If you used your true fighting style, how much time would you need to conclude a battle against the whole squad we just defeated?”

“Oh, you just made me think that I found a perfect name for my true fighting style, it’s called the exploration immortal fighting style. And if I truly go all-out, cosmic mist included, half an hour, close to no damage to my armor as a result.”

“Without?”

“1 or 2 hours, I don’t have the necessary strength to finish them off quickly. Arik! Is your strength specialty a monolith?” He also had questions to ask, one he got after he observed Arik fighting.

“No.”

“Am I wrong to say your tier 4 specialty is in part the reason you took the foldable strength path?”

“Yes.”

“Penguin.”

“I think Utopia already made that guess,” Astryde added from the side.

Guessing why Arik had changed from his reinforcement variant path to the foldable strength path had been a big subject from the moment he had refused to say the reason.

Their investigation had gone so deep and they wanted the reason so much that they even once used one of the heaviest alcohol-taste to get him drunk, trying to get the answer directly, but it seemed that even himself didn’t know the reason why he did it.

“Are you lying to me with a straight face?”

“Monsters.”

“...” At this answer, Rune made a dumb and blank face, feeling like it was a trap to gain a few seconds.

And the worst was that there really was a squad of 19 monsters that entered his perception.

“Is your secret protected by the Ether Law?”

“Yes,” he replied with a poker face that failed at hiding his grin.

…

For 4 days they went straight towards the north, changing their hole tunnel approach axis to make it pass through untouched wilderness.

What they didn’t expect, and it was a first for them, was that they encountered other groups of adventurers on the way, and it wasn’t an isolated event.

For the Undecided, pioneers who literally never had to worry about not having enough monsters to fight when they went through all of their tier, they happily brought up the unique subject of the young generation, those that came a few years after them, catching up to their progress.

It was really something only possible due to having switched to provided masteries, but they ignored that point and acted like seniors who graduated long ago from tier 3 and were only there for sightseeing.

Or at least Rune did.

He tried to convince his 2 adventure companions to act like him, without success.

And with only a few minutes to talk between each fight, which were becoming harder and harder as they entered deeper into the tier 3 zone, he couldn’t even start an argument about why going crazy and acting crazy when they still could was a good thing to do.

That’s when he started to pout a bit and explain mid-fight that his idea of an adventure had changed and that it wasn’t how it used to be, so he had to tell everything now before he regretted it.

Because having regrets before their joint adventure even began was unacceptable.

He explained that he had already started to make concessions in his mind without them even realizing, starting from fauna and flora analysis, then to interesting points of study.

And as their adventure wasn’t started with the objective of leveling but with the goal being to explore a new region with extremely special rules and an even more interesting archeological background, he started to ask what they clearly wanted.

That’s how he learned that Astryde wasn’t participating only due to wanting to use her time rewind at different archeological sites.

Arik similarly explained that for him, the archeological background wasn’t what interested him.

And then, they all found a common point that Rune also wanted.

They primarily just wanted to experience the special rule of the bone region: The bone transformation.

Using this extraordinary common point, it was like the flood gate had been opened, and they decided to have a break to discuss the subject.

A subject they hadn’t needed to bring up when they just arrived in the Endless, because back then their goal was simple and common, but this time it wasn’t that simple.

This time.

No one here wanted leveling to be their objective. It had to be a consequence of what they would be doing.