Following the announcement by the presumed Compensation Law, or the Ether Law? It was still confusing for everyone, the world that should have panicked just sighed in relief after the buzz in their head finally disappeared and got an easily explainable reason.

Who other than the Ether Law’s scan could have been the reason?

As for those era-changing announcements, it just became a talking subject in all households as well as the source of endless fantasy on the internet, which Rune joined with gusto.

From the IGS government side, they only published an article calling for calm and expressing a “wait and see” attitude, or in other terms, exactly how the government was expected to respond by the Intergalactic Society Principles.

The only visible and possibly alarming change that could be seen as the deployment of the orbiting defense fleet, of every inhabited planet, in case the situation took a turn for the worse.

But when nothing happened even after a whole week, the school that temporarily closed reopened to the despair of every child and teenager calling for the end of the world, hoping to be released from their fate of waking up every day at 8 AM.

The buzz similarly didn’t reappear, like it was only a dream.

After analysis and word dissection by a lot of smart people, the moment everything was going to change should be during what the announcement called ‘Law Initiation’, not that it told what would happen.

Having been released from the buzz, Rune continued to enjoy his days of emptiness and happiness.

He wasn’t apathetic towards the situation, but being scared would change nothing, the wait-and-see attitude adopted by the IGS government corresponded perfectly to what he wanted.

Being the eldest of the family, however, sometimes thwarted his plan of doing nothing when his mother could just call him and tell him, or order him, to go pick up his sisters at the exit of the school, to which he would of course respond.

“Ok.”

And his mother being used to his characters would just go do her thing.

So his days perpetuated on, sometimes a gaming night with friends, similarly unpanicked by the situation, sometimes a video day alone.

Until finally, after 3 weeks of waiting, the Ether Law made another movie using the same means as the previous time.

Compensation Law Quota Announcement

Law initiation

Opening of the global system imminent, access will be granted by being a dependent sapient being.

The global system allows ether to be used by non-ether life forms and is therefore currently your only way to manipulate ether.

Open the compensation in the global system to see the result of your scan, the Compensation Law will always be here to see to the equality of the situation.

Access created to Dimensions, Information Board, Ether Wiki, Event, Status, Gathering Log, and Compensation through Global System.

And after that, what was the first reaction anyone interested in and dismissing the potential danger would have?

“Hu-hum! System? Global System? Ether Law? System Cadabra? Hello, world?” Saying those things aloud would be normal in a special gaming room, but in reality, Rune was alone in his bedroom.

After this announcement and during the next 5 minutes or so, he tried in vain to invoke the global system spoken about in the announcement, but even after calling it for what felt like hundreds of times, physically and mentally, nothing happened.

“It probably means that a "very soon" for the Ether entity equals more than 5 minutes, no problem, no problem at all bro,” exasperated and not ashamed at all, Rune could only evacuate his frustration by talking to the air to justify what he just did to the universe itself, or maybe he was talking to the Ether Law now?

“If you hear me, bro, can you give me access? Maybe? No? Ok no problem, not like I really want it, I can wait like everyone in the universe, don’t prioritize me I got it,” and on those words, Rune opened his messaging app and made sure it was on notifications with sound.

He wouldn’t miss the moment the access was given right?

Every time there was a message he couldn’t help but check it, hoping it was the right one, but after 2 hours he just let it go and only tried to access the global system when he thought about it.

Meaning not one time before he got sleepy and concluded it was enough for today.

Nothing could go wrong after all.

...

Waking up at who knows what hours and repeating his routine, Rune came back to his freshly booted up computer, and after turning on his app, he saw 999+ unread messages.

His first reflex was trying to access the global system by thinking about it, and on the first try, maybe even the zeroth try, considering it was instant, he saw texts appear in mid-air.

Dimensions

Information Board

Ether Wiki

Event

Compensation (1 pending)

Not stunned at all, Rune started to experiment with that. Thinking of having it close, it just closed, then reopened with another thought, not a drop of sweat involved, everything happening exactly as he wanted.

Before opening his compensation or any other options, he checked the conversation his friends had. They talked about compensation being equal to money and that everyone would soon lose their jobs…

‘Not like I was expecting my career to be something to look forward to.’

Accepting what they said without thinking about it, Rune didn’t even try to understand

Without waiting, he opened his compensation.

Compensation

Defective Law Knowledge

1 200 EP

Soon to be fantasy, this knowledge will be of no use and will from now on only be useful as a foundation to learn the properties of the Ether Law.

Defective Law Strength

200 EP

Unfortunately, the exerted force of your living matter is associated with a defective law that will soon be rendered unusable by the complete Ether Law.

Defective Law Possession

10 EP

In comparison to the size of the universe, your possessions are meager and do not affect others.

Compensation Total

1 410 EP

Rune certainly wasn’t expecting that, but if the Ether Law, or maybe the Compensation Law judged him like that, then there was no way to complain.

Maybe only by reflecting on himself could he explain the why of this compensation, so he did just that.

‘The knowledge probably comes from my studies on exploration engineering? My strength comes from regular exercise and my possession…’ The last subject made him pause in his reflection.

Rune still lived in his parent's house so, yeah, meager was the right way to describe it kindly.

Checking his app, he realized that the last message was from 1 hour ago.

It said something along the lines of “Yup it’s possible”, and above that was one of his friends saying they created a forum in the information board, followed by the name “X125 and friends”.

Reopening his system and accessing the information board without hesitation, he could only describe this “Information Board” as a traditional forum of discussion.

Names that he could understand, obvious references to the IGS pop culture, jokes he could read and laugh too.

Searching for the forum called “X125 and friends” was instinctive, he found it after just thinking about the name, it was the same reaction speed as when he wanted to make the system menu appear or disappear.

After finding it, and in the same manner, he searched for it, instinct or thoughts, he didn’t know, the forum opened before his eyes.

[Jules: Yup really I have two screens open, just try it and it happens]

[Romain: Ya and all other forums are talking about who has the best compensation]

[Jules: From what I’ve just read, some people have already created their avatar and now have super powers]

[Peter: You can also choose to not create your avatar, personally, I’m going to wait for a little and see what the front liners have to say]

“Sigh…” Heaving a sigh of relief after seeing his friends talk as they usually did, he decided to join the conversation by asking the first question that came to him.

[Rune: Yo guys, I just woke up, how the hell did you have the perfect timing to open the system? Did you pull an all-nighter?]

[Jules: Yo Rune, and yup for the all-nighter, you’re just weak-willed for not doing it, we played the whole night and tried to open the system all the time, and then it worked]

[Jules: What was your compensation Rune? I got 1 350 EP, Peter got 1 480 EP, and Romain got 1 390 EP, you should be around that amount right?]

[Rune: Yup, I got 1 410 EP, do you have any comparison to make? Like a super-duper scientist or a universe company owner?]

[Romain: Some of those yeah, they talk about thousands of points, and you forgot the strength compensation, they’re the same, just a little less from what I have before my eyes, wait I have the number on the next screen I’ll copy-paste them]

Rune waited for 20 seconds before Romain sent his next message.

[Romain: For strength, I have one who has a compensation of 8 510 EP, but the best of the best are the company owner, some have compensation climbing up to 25 000 EP! What a load of horse sh*t, how are we supposed to own a planet as freshly graduated average citizens?!]

[Peter: Don’t have a seizure, at the end of the day it’s too little to make a difference, just a stat point cost 10 000 EP, and everyone has the right to a loan of 1 000 000 EP for their avatar creation]

[Jules: Fortunately they aren’t tradable, or the rich would buy everything, we still have a chance!]

[Jules: If you don’t know Rune, you can open a second or even a third screen, just go and participate in our effort of gathering information]

[Rune: Ok]

As they continued talking about what they found, what was happening and all, Rune navigated the board and started to find some interesting information.

For example, the 10 EP compensation for possession was given to everyone, even children. There was also an average for strength compensation for the greatest at around 6 000 EP, the system calling it the apex of the defective law or something like that in its “apology” message.

However, even if he tried, Rune couldn’t contain himself for long. Finding information and all was fine, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do after understanding a little more about the situation.

So after confirming that as long as you didn’t agree to anything, nothing would happen, he opened the dimensions of the global system.

Dimensions

Universe

Void

It was slightly lackluster compared to his expectations but still, Rune knew it was all but that, so he checked the Universe by mentally focusing on it.

Dimensions

Universe

Not able to bear ether life forms

Fully stable, dimensional anomaly impossible

No restriction on ether

The Universe Dimension is the first dimension birthed by a critically defective law, as such the ether density doesn’t allow an ether life form to survive.

This dimension is composed at more than 99% of emptiness, only the most fundamental part of the Ether Law has allowed this Dimension to birth sapient life and to exist in its current state.

Enter?

‘Hum, yeah? I can enter the dimension I’m in? Ok, ok, why not, as for the lore…’

it was pretty useless as of now, but having it was better than not having it, context was always welcome.

Of course, Rune already knew that everything would come from the next dimension, the game-changing one, the dimension that would bring a new era because it had what was missing in the Universe Dimension.

The ether.

Dimensions

Void

Able to bear ether life forms (Cannot birth life)

Slightly unstable, dimensional anomaly possible

No restriction on ether

The Void Dimension is the second dimension birthed by a critically defective law, it developed parallelly to the Universe Dimension. It was birthed to allow ether density to increase without the turmoil of the Universe Dimension taking effect.

Basic ether resources can be found floating about everywhere, dangerous grounds and anomalies coexist with better resources.

Enter?

Compensation Law Quota Guidance

To gather and absorb resources you need to use your spirit to assimilate them once you get one.

Create Avatar?

‘I think… I’ll let smarter people decide whether the Compensation Law is our mother or not, for me, it’s really trying to help us.’

Seeing once again a quota something, it really made Rune think about what ‘critically defective’ really meant.

With the week of the break between the first announcement and that, the world, as in, the netizens, already came up with hundreds of explanations about the situation.

The vast majority of them did pure words and sentences analysis to make sense of what they were told, but only time would tell which explanations and theories were right.

But for lots of people, ‘critically defective’ probably meant that the defective law they lived under till now was missing nearly everything, and more precisely, it was missing the “Ether”.

Having learned that even after choosing to create your avatar, you didn’t have to create it now, Rune mentally selected to create an avatar.

Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)

EP: 1 410 EP

Stats Total: 100 (Exchange ratio 1 for 10 000 EP)

Health: 10

Health Regeneration: 10

Strength: 10

Cohesion: 10

Energy: 10

Energy Regeneration: 10

Purity: 10

Affinity: 10

Momentum: 10

Perception: 10

Compensation Law Quota Guidance

You can modify your avatar before its creation, see exchange ratio, you can also invest your compensation.

The loss of your avatar, Health attaining 0, will be followed by a choice between rapid access after 10 days for the price of 10 000 EP or waiting 100 days to let your avatar regenerate naturally with the ambient volatile ether.

Your avatar is your single and unique safe access link to the Void dimension, it can only be modified at his creation and can then only be upgraded using EP following it.

Your avatar is linked to your ether soul and can be used in every subsequent dimension opened as long as you remain a dependent entity, 10% of its capacity is transmitted to the other side of the link, your original body.

This transmitted capacity is always rounded down (9 gives 0 and 19 gives 1), you can integrate with your avatar to receive 100% of its capacity.

The Rank of your Avatar decides the percentage transmitted, increasing this rank is possible but is not advised due to the Avatar Add-On being something you’ll lose after gaining independence.

By accepting to create an avatar you allow the Ether Law and its constituent Compensation Law to treat you as a dependent entity, allowing for dependent entity protections.

As long as one of your two bodies exists, the other will naturally regenerate with time or with a price, in case of original body death, your awareness will be totally contained in your avatar till original body regeneration, with the same methods of regeneration available as your avatar.

The needs of your original body are maintained as long as they aren’t satisfied.

Warning: By creating your avatar you will receive a debt equal to the amount of EP used, with a maximum of 1 000 000 EP debt, refundable during the next 10 years, without interest.

Confirm Creation?

Rune didn’t want to admit it, but seeing those stats and reading the informative guidance text, really made him feel like a teenager with hot blood again.