“If we want to optimize our EP farming rate then we need to be fast, but we should still try to have an optimized and repeated masteries leveling while still privileging EP farming, it’s only a short term loss for a future where the same training can be done in a higher difficulty situation.”

Nelo was discussing different optimization with Utopia.

And after thinking, he agreed with Utopia on some points.

“The two leveling paths have globally the same worth, but safety is more on the EP farming path,” discussing subjects like those was to confirm that they were on the relatively most optimized path.

“We’re only tier 2, maxing our stats is still relatively easy and farming is also easier, from tier 3 onward it’s the big leagues, monsters with extraordinary powers are the norm from there on, that’s why this farming method still work for us at tier 2.”

Exposing some of his thoughts as they were mapping the tier 2 zone approximate border, Utopia defended and argued in favor of his own plan.

As they traveled, discussing long-term matters, Nelo sometimes launched an energy laser to the ground, as a way to remember the way back.

“So the ‘adventure alone’ training type is more worth it from tier 3 or tier 4?” Rune asked.

“I think tier 3, the power spike at tier 3 is more meaningful because it means your slotted masteries reached tier 3, so you have considerable efficiency bonuses affecting your own fighting style,” Nelo seemed very knowledgeable about the path and build he wanted to take in the future.

“The tier 5 or tier 6 that gave their stories on the board often had an area in which they excelled at, they put all the chance on their side before even engaging in a fight, but maybe that’s why they stopped at tier 5 or tier 6,” revealing something he probably theorized but considered important, Utopia continued looking forward.

“I’ll never confirm my path before having it under my eyes, if eventually, my style has a weakness that cannot be resolved, then…”

Utopia seemed to really be ready for the worst to happen, ready to restart from zero if he had to, having the possibility to purge one’s own slotted masteries was something that was on everyone’s mind.

‘I think I’d also not hesitate, if I have to purge all my energy armor masteries, I’ll do it.’

Rune could try and relativize, saying that because he only started 2 years ago he was still in the newcomer situation, excited about everything.

But for him, what he was doing now was his calling, he didn’t even need to remind himself of his dreams, he just had to look around him, sense the ether, and he would be filled with the will to continue, to go and train, kill monsters and level up.

And fate was ready for his current mindset, as he suddenly felt a disturbance from the top of his sphere, and a lot of intruding things were rushing toward them rapidly, Rune saw their approximate shape and reacted immediately.

“A flock of birds approaching at bullet speed, to the ground!”

Immediately, he dropped to the ground, with Nelo and Utopia reacting soon after.

But their effort didn’t appear to stop what was coming, a cloud of white birds with red plumage was plunging toward their position and didn’t seem to hesitate even a bit.

“Nelo, launch something to disturb them! Preserve your energy!” Utopia gave his command and Nelo followed it.

Nelo prepared 5 pulse spells, and after a few seconds, he sent everything towards the approaching flock of birds.

Sending 5 shockwaves at the same time made the air in front of them vibrate too much, and when the birds entered it, their previous trajectories couldn’t find any purchases.

“Nelo you keep them away! Rune with me, we kill those who fall, they are monsters so they’ll not retreat!” Utopia rushed to those who were so destabilized and made them fall, then rushed towards them.

Rune rushed towards a bird who fell, they were white with a wingspan of 2 meters, lines of blood-red feathers marked their plumage, they also had eagle-like claws prepared to cut whatever approached.

Using its confusion, he locked it on the ground then relentlessly tried to kill it with perfect punches and ripping grabs with weak reinforcement.

If they didn’t have wings, they would lose a major part of how they were used to fighting, in the same way, that losing an arm impacted so many things that one never considered before.

As its cohesion seemed very low, he succeeded in ripping one of its wings and then used normal punches to kill it quickly.

Going to the next, the aerial situation above was stabilizing, prompting Nelo to once again wait till they plunged again before sending another 5 pulse spells, allowing Utopia to continue plucking the more foolhardy ones and sending them to the ground.

The group had the perfect answer to the situation, Nelo did nothing else but destabilize the air, so his balance of energy was only moderately affected, he could continue for days if needed.

Utopia and Rune were the same, killing as quickly as possible, they achieved it to their own expectation.

As many birds that dared enter the chaotic area were killed, Rune used 20 seconds per kill on average.

Only, there didn’t seem to be an end, with his sphere he could see hundreds of birds circling above, so they started a routine killing machine that they couldn’t stop.

With surgical strikes he ripped off a wing, then he punched their head, health regeneration was supreme, but without the head, the body couldn't respond, then he emptied their health as quickly as he could do it.

Nelo kept focusing on those making circles in the sky, only awaiting his lack of vigilance.

Rune never evaded a bird strike when he engaged, they couldn’t correctly use their strength on the ground, so he just had to strike their own impulsive and desperate strike for it to be nullified and at the same time create an opening which he used to kill them.

At some point, however, in his perception sphere, Rune felt new disturbances, “Utopia! Big monsters coming from the North! Slow but steady, 2 minutes before they arrive!”

“Nelo! Provoke them! We need to kill them faster and make them berserk!” Utopia gave another command and Nelo prepared a sound bomb, which he immediately activated.

This spell produced a sound so irritating that they would all plunge by instinct to stop it from continuing.

Even Rune and Utopia grimaced when they heard the sound, it was so high pitched, it was also transmitted to their whole body, nothing could stop it, not even cutting their sense of hearing.

But it worked, so Nelo launched pulses everywhere, making the air so disturbed that even Utopia couldn’t stay afloat.

The sound bomb now turned on, Utopia and Rune were already killing to the detriment of their energy pool and energy balance, accelerating their slaughter speed by 3 times, but after 1 and a half minutes, Utopia changed his tactic.

“Regenerate all your energy, they are coming in 40 seconds, we’re going to defend this place to the death!”

Rune stopped using reinforcement and loaded his armor to its current 1 020 armor maximum, or did it go up to 1 030 yet? It didn’t matter, he prepared to confront the incoming 10 massive bear-like monsters.

With 1 000 strength, he could overpower the birds with skills, but emptying their health quickly was another matter, so he switched to his usual fighting style of steady health erosion and blocking or evading everything.

“Nelo, stop paying attention to the birds and only concentrate on killing the bears with Rune, Rune you protect him!”

With the bears that could be heard rushing over, Rune retreated to Nelo’s side while Utopia killed the rest of the downed birds.

Nelo preemptively launched an energy laser towards a bear, attracting one to their position from beyond the trees.

To stop its charge, Rune prepared a medium reinforcement, one worth 400 energy, and stood his ground.

From the lush foliages, a massive 3 meters tall nightmarish bear emerged and charged towards Nelo, but Rune stood in front.

Nelo started to dish out damages instantly while disturbing the charge as much as he could, but ultimately Rune had to use his 2 arms to grip the bear from the front and his feet started to slide in the earth trying to stop it.

‘So f*cking heavy.’

It felt like stopping a car with human strength.

He could feel his bones cracking under the pressure, so he injected another medium reinforcement worth of energy, finally reaching the strength necessary to stop it, and it was violent.

From behind, Nelo sent an energy drill to the blocked bear’s head, trying to incapacitate it quickly, but after a moment he informed Rune of the result, “Its skull is too thick or its cohesion is too high!”

‘What to do? There’s nine more like it to deal with, it's truly a dangerous situation…’

Still blocking the bear from the front, he started to kick its underside, there weren't that many solutions to how to kill a monster once they reached this stage.

“You dish damaging spells as much as you can! I’m taking his health regeneration with me and blocking it!”

Rune allocated 800 energy per minute to a permanent reinforcement, making a hole in his energy pool of the corresponding size in seconds, he felt his nurturing form fill with a trickle of energy without him having to do anything.

Anything he did now would have the effect of reinforcement with a minimum of 13 energy in it if he acted every second without missing one moment, a lot more once he correctly prepared every action.

To block the bear's health regeneration and immobilize it, he had to put all the chances on his side, so he decided to target its legs, no matter the leg, he had to annoy it so much that it wouldn’t pay attention to Nelo bombarding it.

Breaking its front limbs was a pipe dream, but it was perfect to block and disturb, so he kicked and kicked, the bear was still trying to bite him, the bear was a monster, that was clear.

It didn’t think, he had this human before him, so he was single-mindedly trying to kill him, Rune didn’t mind blocking the situation like this but after 30 seconds, the bear changed its approach and stood on its 2 back legs and used its paws to try and flatten Rune.

Rune answered by acting like a boxer, exchanging punches against paws and evading before making quick jabs when he could.

The other bears were occupied with killing all the berserk birds still alive and chasing after Utopia that made turns everywhere, delaying them.

“All-in Rune! It’s nearly dead!” Nelo concluded that they nearly finished this one and exclaimed.

Rune used a weak reinforcement to hit it with all he had, and Nelo used yet another energy laser.

The bear finally stopped moving, until its last moment, only bloodlust occupied its mind, and there were still 9 others to deal with.

“I’m engaging another one!” Right away Nelo sent an energy laser at another bear, the nearest to them that wasn’t pursuing Utopia, making it charge towards them.

“That’s what I’m talking about! Oh!” Rune immediately braced himself for impact, they were here to farm, not to train, but if they could mix the two, he wouldn’t say no.

…

No birds were left alive, and the 8th bear was on his last leg.

Rune and Nelo concluded the fight and this bear stopped moving, like all the others before it.

“Utopia! Get the 2 last here!” Nelo called for Utopia who had been running in circles for more than an hour now.

30 seconds later, enough for Rune and Nelo to completely regenerate whatever they used previously, Utopia rushed past them with the 2 bears in tow.

These 2 bears rushed heads down into Rune, who accumulated all his 1 000 energy into a massive reinforcement, once again blocking the bears charging at the same time, “One or two! Changes nothing!”

But blocking 2 bears at the same time, one with each hand was in fact a little taxing, his feet slipped on the ground for 5 meters before stopping.

However this time it was a 3 against 2, with Rune occupying them from the front, Nelo bombarding from behind and Utopia coming back to strike from behind and the sides.

The bears went berserk but they only pushed more recklessly against Rune which was ready to not even counter-attack, just block them.

He wasn’t a damage dealer, Nelo was, and his masteries didn’t even start to amplify his spells so he was at the same level as Utopia who was a balanced fighter.

The major difficulty Rune had was keeping the bears focus on him when Utopia literally sent a reinforced kick that made them take off a few centimeters from the ground.

By happenstance, the two bears sent a paw strike at the same time so he blocked one with a double punch and uncovered the part where the second paw arrived from, using his health to tank the hit.

The paw he blocked, he grabbed and used a weak reinforcement to bring it to the ground and keep it there, destabilizing the bear, Nelo and Utopia used this opportunity to empty its health till death ensued.

With only a single bear remaining, he used the same technique, blocking its move once an opportunity showed and allowing Utopia and Nelo to empty its health, till it stopped resisting.

It died.

Feeling the lack of resistance from the bear, Rune didn’t let his guard down, better, he used his sphere to know if something was approaching, but after 5 seconds of feeling nothing, not even little lifeforms, he finally relaxed a bit.

“Nothing in a one and a half kilometer around here,” Rune gave his report, and he knew what followed.

“Let’s gather all the cores, we’ll absorb them as fast as possible, nobody absorbs them by disconnecting from their sphere, safety, and steadiness before everything.”

Utopia gave his instruction and they all dispersed, starting to gather the dispersed cores, there were hundreds of bird cores and 10 bear cores.

After 5 minutes they piled them all in a pile,

“Just divide it equally, it’s not 100 000 EP that will make a difference,” Utopia separated the pile in equal numbers with the extra bear core being tossed at the end in exchange for 2 bird cores taken from the other 2 piles.

Then they started to absorb their gains.

…

Nothing happened while they absorbed their gain, Rune’s part was 3 bear cores and 79 bird cores, his gain totaled 3 632 244 EP, which he invested in his perception because he wanted to max it first.

Rune Tudor (Tier 2)

Class: Frontline Pathfinder

Specialty: Shelled Dimensional Perception

EP: 1 041 525

Stats Total: 7 595

Health: 500

Health Regeneration: 500

Strength: 1 000

Cohesion: 500

Energy: 1 000

Energy Regeneration: 1 000

Purity: 500

Affinity: 500

Momentum: 500

Perception: 1 595

With his first fight against the wolves and this one, he accumulated 75 additional points to his perception, for him it meant he gained at least an additional second to respond to rapidly approaching threats.

Now, how did such an intense fight influence his masteries?

*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement reached Tier 2 Level 5

*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct reached Tier 2 Level 6

*Ding* Physical Fundamental: Body Control reached Tier 2 Level 5

*Ding* Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression reached Tier 2 Level 3

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor reached Tier 1 Level 8

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Energy Armor reached Tier 1 Level 9

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Armor reached Tier 1 Level 9

*Ding* Energy Compression: Basic Defensive Armor reached Tier 1 Level 10

*Ding* Reinforcement: Basic Reinforced Armor reached Tier 1 Level 7

*Ding* Reinforcement: Basic Reinforced Armor reached Tier 1 Level 8

*Ding* Reinforcement: Basic Reinforced Armor reached Tier 1 Level 9

Seeing the level up, Rune was satisfied, he knew it was the beginner level up, that once done they would not bother him again, but it was still satisfying to progress so rapidly.

Now that he was done, he stood up from his seated position and checked that his armor was complete and that everything was fine, then he only had to wait a few minutes before Nelo and Utopia stood up too, having finished checking their own status and leveled masteries.

“Here we go again,” Utopia took to flight and followed by Rune and Nelo, they continued mapping the border.