‘I don’t care, right? Prospects finding event? My talent is still unfound! I don’t want to show myself on stage either! Why would I want to anyway?’

Unpausing his video, he only gave a bit more attention to Gar’s side, where Utopia began to discuss the why and how of a prospects finding event.

“Insiders tells of something similar to the equivalent of a talent finding show, just with hundreds of categories and with more than just fighting prospects positions to be filled,” reading the bits he received, Gar shared everything with his conspiracy friend.

“So they’re starting to develop the secondary fields? Maybe the appearance of a neighboring Arcadia region changed their plan and allowed a larger colonization advancement process according to their criteria? Or maybe they secured all the surrounding tier 3 zones? Seems a little far-fetched this one.”

Utopia directly theorized the most likely reasons for him, not only reading the outside but also deciphering the inside.

“I think it’s more likely to be executed with an economic goal, once food prospects or singer prospects are officially recognized, the IGS will be able to release the manpower currently used to maintain them, leaving everything to the private sector.”

“Oh! You’re so smart Gar! But releasing them so early…”

‘I think it’s time for some urban exploration…’

Rune stood up and departed.

They were just too enthusiastic for him, so as he was used to, he would let them marinate themselves and receive the complete story later.

…

Revisiting the same streets again and again didn’t phase him, Rune got used to everything changing a bit.

With a perception sphere unbothered by 99% of the perception-blocking energy structures, he learned things he knew he shouldn’t have heard, but it wasn’t his fault they were talking about secrets so openly.

For the majority of them, he didn’t even make the effort to note them down, what he privileged were the gathering places of weird people and the places his perception couldn’t go through.

The former, he forgot quickly. The latter, he noted seriously.

Making new acquaintances was a task he hardly actively did, sometimes new restaurant owners came to talk to him when he was the only customer or when there were only 5 customers, though overall, it was a very rare situation that didn’t happen often.

With millions of EP on him and his bank account, he didn’t hold back and ate lots of new things he couldn’t find at a festival.

Navigating only the south capital sector still unexplored areas was enough to occupy his 10 hours of free time, forcing him to come back to follow his training routine.

As for his findings, he would only share them when it was his free time period again.

Not bothering to climb to the balcony, he just started his reinforcement practice when he arrived.

He had one hour where his goal was to make his heartbeat more than the next 23 hours combined, so he didn’t skimp and started pumping his energy into his body.

After reading specialists’ advice, the best reinforcement training was to be explosive, and the main way to simulate that when alone was to create a rubbery ball of energy and punch or kick it with all of one’s strength.

And then repeat with a different body part.

Minimal body control, no fighting instinct, just getting the most strength out of one move without considering more than this one move.

Without masteries to boost things, however, a tier 4’s training looked just like an experienced tier 2 or normal tier 3, no cracks appearing on the ground, no air vibrations, just sweat.

1 hour later, Rune got back to the balcony where he actively trained his awareness for another hour, more relaxing physically, more taxing spiritually.

Afterward, he was back on the ground initiating yet another composite element creation, refining his elemental dissociation, and diving deeper, or trying to, into each element's properties.

Where before he couldn’t manage too many instabilities, he had now gotten tips and tricks to do it, it wasn’t just a question of being quick and isolating the problematic areas, it was more about perfectly maintaining and enduring until it all came back together.

Solving the problems only came at the very end, when you had all the properties necessary to create the whole composite element.

And precisely this stage, called the elemental fusion process, was “The” stage Rune had to become more than an expert at.

Because his future theoric element formation totally depended on this stage to see if somehow or somewhere, things weren’t right, and he had to change things completely.

Invoking a mist element sphere and a mystic element sphere, he cut off every physical interaction properties he could find, every energy interaction properties he could find, every aggressive mechanism properties he could find…

He cut and cut, again and again, reaching the stage where instabilities formed in a few minutes.

Judging he properly made the properties he wanted vanish, he made the two spheres merge with each other.

Balancing the volatile ensuing sphere started by correctly shaping it, steadily increasing the rotation speed, and focusing more than ever on linking two crippled elements missing half their initial properties.

This moment was the most magical for him because he couldn’t just link them and be done with it, he had to feel the result, feel with his instinct and minimal information output that it was the composite element he wanted.

Once the weird shining grey sphere was completely stabilized, the composite element creation was complete, he took half an hour to do it.

Then he thought of filling one of his empty mastery slots.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy: Specialized Volatile Mist Element?

He dismissed it immediately and kept the sphere in a corner as he resummoned a mist and a mystic element sphere.

His goal was to reproduce the exact same element as he just did.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy: Specialized Veiled Mystic Element?

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy: Specialized Shining Mist Element?

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy: Specialized Mind Mist Element?

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy: Specialized Volatile Mist Element?

With an example to follow next to him, it still took him 4 tries to succeed.

…

“The announcement is here, it’s a video and a big block of hundreds of pages, check the official IGS website, should we watch together?” The calm voice of Arik came from inside the apartment, informing everyone here that the latest grand discussion subject was even more of actuality than it appeared to be.

[Direct Streaming Link Request received from Arik Tiddeldom. Accept? Refuse? Dismiss?]

It wasn’t so much a request as it was an order, really.

The number of participants went from one to four in an instant, only Gar was absent but absent were always in the wrong so Arik didn’t hesitate and mercilessly launched the trailer.

And it was a badass trailer.

Even better than the blood-pumping videos he remembered from when the time patrollers just became a job people could postulate to and the Adventurers Society opened its doors to trillions of dreamers.

The 4 minutes and a half-long video was expertly crafted following a piece of music called “Departure” and interpreted by Galryus at the beginning, and Noar Eel at the end.

(Departure (From HunterXHunter), Galneryus and clearly best cover by Raon Lee)

With inspiring lyrics, the IGS made sure to represent hundreds of different professions, from speedsters to entertainers, to singers, to cooks, to builders, to spiritualists, to teachers…

They all did extraordinary tasks in a short 2 seconds, and there were tens of such professions introductions videos next to each other.

A speedster capable of taking people at 3 kilometers per second, an energy builder making a gigantic energy boat appear in the Spiral Ocean, a spiritualist annihilating hundreds of monsters in an instant…

And the last part concerned something the Undecided were directly involved with, the specialized paths.

Someone manipulating black flames, but it melted the air itself, the sign of it being a true-blue composite element, someone with a 10 meters radius around her covered by a transparent film of shimmering air, and the inside subject to weird changes…

On that one, Adreana said the person was none other than a tier 4 prospect she encountered before at the energy domain research faculty.

The most eye-catching specializations were written in the guide, so why wouldn’t the IGS know about them? They even showed the less eye-catching ones, with Utopia confirming a momentum dancer and Arik confirming someone with foldable strength.

The climax was reached with the typical big title “The Blabla Event Start The Blabla Date!” and the “Check the official IGS website for more information!”

When the trailer dimmed to show the credits with the artists, the staff, the sponsors, and everything, Rune was ready to stop watching until…

“It’s only been 3 minutes, and the trailer goes on for 4 minutes and a half…” Utopia whispered inaudibly.

So nobody left and continued to watch.

And for 30 seconds after the credits ended, the trailer remained a black screen.

Only for it to start flickering like a half-broken light, with another more worrisome music starting to play.

(L’s Theme (From Death Note, of course, you already knew), original and best cover by FalKKonE)

A logo of a humanoid seen from the back appeared, and for the remaining minute, only this logo which continued to flicker was on the trailer.

Until it was over, only a short 1-second sentence if it could be called that, appeared at the very end.

[Adaptation. Organization. Secret.]

When it suddenly cut off like that, Rune and Utopia had the same childish reaction of crossing their arms and miming having goosebumps.

“I want to become a member of a secret organization!” Utopia even dared cry that.

“Too much work for me… Or, if the pay is really good…” Arik also participated.

“So openly recruiting into such a sensitive domain? I think-” Adreana started.

“It’s a trap!” Only to be interrupted by Rune, who followed his instinct and answered her non-question, he then remained silent and only listened to their excited-selves trying to make sense of the last minute and the sentence.

‘If my composite element really ends up like I think it will, I’d be an amazing spy…’

Gar returned 5 hours later and exaggeratedly reacted to the trailer, but everyone knew he probably already watched it and read the whole document on the official site.

The prospects finding event was scheduled to start in 6 months.

And more than ever before, more than when the “Stairway To The Arcadia” project was unveiled and called manpower back, people started to gather in the capital and prepare.

Only such massive activity done repeatedly was worth being called…

A Golden Era.

…

“Now, you’re going to enter the trial period, with all your new knowledge, select properties you want, really theorize what your composite element should have, then reach for it, repeat the operation, write everything down and muse over it before doing it again!”

In a locally reputed barbecue restaurant, Rune, Aleda, and Star Head had a meeting.

“If you know what you’re searching for, then only tier 1 level 1 mastery is enough to take a good look and execute a difficult elemental formation from beginning to end!”

Star Head was the most active one, the fabulous meat probably helped a bit at opening his naive mind and contributing to a greater cause.

Sharing the fact that he knew more, a lot more, than someone else and helping them took someone with a noticeable empathy to enjoy doing it.

“I’m 100% sure you’ll need to change something, once you take a good look after warping your properties, you’ll realize why I say it, you agree too Ms. Calico, right?!”

“Yeah, yeah, agree, agree! Monolith elements are really something else!” She was eating as if her life depended on it.

“And even if it seems perfectly perfect, still try other element interactions! Mainly because similar properties according to the guide aren’t that similar once you warped them, you’ll see that sometimes, what you warped was linked too deeply with what you wanted and that…”

“Yu! I comfetly undestand!” Rune didn’t bother swallowing before answering, it was too tasty to swallow like that without proper chewing.

He was already making an audio record and those points were often brought up before today’s conversation. It was only a cordial meeting, not some serious last meeting before creating his monolith element, so he just enjoyed meeting quasi friends and eating together.

And he knew they liked that as well.

“So if I say the man who’s currently cooking is blind, you’ll be able to explain how his case is relevant to yours?”

“Yu! Yu!”

“Then explain it won’t you because I don’t know how it’s relevant!”

“Hu!” Stopping on his way to take another mouthful of grilled meat with weird cheese and an amazing sauce, he tried to bullshit his way.

“Your spirit and your awareness are plastic, ancient blind and deaf people, once they got access to their spirit through meditation and saw their awareness cloud, they realized it had taken a different form naturally, and activating their lost sense asked for an effort and wasn’t their natural state.”

“And while it’s possible to go back to a natural state where every sense has an equal amount of awareness, it asks for a long period of time. On this point, it’s similar to specializations linked to stats and elements, respectively dependent on your subconscious and your personality.”

He used all his charisma to make a point that what he said completely explained why he said it was relevant in his case.

“Thanks for this explanation Mr. Tudor, but can you explain how it is relevant to creating your composite element? I’m naive enough to believe some of your lies so try, you’ve got nothing to lose trying to innovate a reason,” Star Head looked on calmly as it was his turn to stuff his mouth.

“Hihi, more meat for me!” Aleda was enjoying it.

It didn’t work as he expected.

“Well, it means that… Some people will permanently have a focused sense able to know when something is happening around them… So… I really need to focus on making my element something completely integrated with the environment and the ambient ether…”

Bullsh*tting on the slot under the scrutiny of two experts in what he was talking about was pretty hard, Rune realized.

“And maybe there are other senses I never learned existed, for example feeling the vibration in the air or the earth, so my element must fuse with the ground and dampen everything…”

He couldn’t go further.

“That’s it,” he said with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude and took another bite.

“It’s…” Faculty research leader Aleda Calico started.

“Remarkably insightful!” Her assistant Star Head finished, and she nodded in turn.

“I’ll dress a list of unique senses and send it to you as soon as I’m back, I’ll also include elements that have very specific properties that are able to counter them. I’ll also try to find statistics about the potential massive use of sensory deprivation for…”

And he was gone again on a journey of dedication to his job.

…

Arriving back at the apartment, he knew it was the communal free-time period, so he sat and started to listen. But he didn’t even sit when his name was brought up.

“Rune! There’s a point on the map that is named ‘Special Region Research Center’ very close to where you said you found the hole tunnel. I think that for it to be officially marked, you have to have made a significant discovery!”

Gar bringing this news up prompted him to check his personal internet address, but there was nothing.

“They probably just confirmed it was a true point of interest,” off-handedly replying, he got to his corner and once again laid down just right after a heavy monster meat meal.

“And what if it is? Like I’m going to ask for employment in a company and say it there?”

“Hehe, it would be fun if you did that, but no, it’s just that Utopia and Adreana just started to search for a cheap plot of land away from the capital, and your contribution should be useful to negotiate the price,” a surprisingly serious justification exited Gar’s mouth.

“Ohhh…”

5 minds were better than 1, and while Rune contributed all his ideas to a common document, his made only a tenth of the total size, that was because of how inspired someone like Utopia could be.

From totally crazy ideas like “Undecided Academy” and “Undecided Sect” to weird ones like “Undecided Zoo” or “Undecided Fashion Center”, the slightest idea going through Utopia’s mind resulted in something with the Undecided franchise name on it.

In the end, they decided to go with something they used themselves and worked correctly with all of their specializations: The Undecided Training Park.

Utopia expanded the idea of using Adreana’s energy domain capability of emptying the nature of a zone and filling it with a new one.

The basic ideas were to fill emptied areas with exceptional conditions to train themselves in while selling monthly, weekly, or daily membership access to others, with the end-goal being reaching an apocalypse-class equivalent of a chaotic zone.

To accomplish that however, they needed a really big area where the transformed zone could correctly take the necessary traits at its center.

The subjects of Rune’s composite element and Nelo’s single star element were of course evoked and made essential to approving this plan and putting it into action.

Thorny parts were nonetheless present, as neither Adreana nor Rune finished developing their planned specializations, so it could potentially complicate the task of buying a large plot of land, even far away, without the necessary tools.

‘If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll have finished mapping my theoric element formation in one or two months…’

For him, there were just too many possible unpredictabilities.