*Ding* Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element reached Tier 1 Level 78

Without him seeking to, he once again leveled his tier 1 elemental specialization.

‘Yup, that was the correct decision. Not leveling it actively allows me to refine my intent, this way, when I finish my newly created 5th stage, I can start the grinding of my perception against my own element.’

Having just come back, he had put down all the insights he had gathered during his terror unit’s operation before diving back into expanding his intent to foster an additional 3 intents.

Apart from having to expand already present intents, like the absorbing intent, he had decided he needed to add the isolating intent, the blocking intent, and the bending intent.

If Rune’s 1st stage intent had started with a lever-level of complexity, the 2nd stage had been a waterwheel with strength transmission, and the 3rd stage he was starting was the transition to steam-powered mechanisms.

He wasn’t sure where he stood in terms of intent creation and manipulation compared to other users, but thinking about that made him remember that comparing himself to any other person than himself was useless as it didn’t hold any use.

So he continued to improve in the densest part of the mist dome.

Not far from his dome and still in his perception, he saw Adreana starting to empty yet another area, he saw Nelo filling his own dome, he saw Utopia bringing hundreds of crates and starting to assemble metal constructs, he saw Astryde starting to practice her time watcher path, he saw Arik and Gar fighting each other, comparing their progress.

No one brought up the subject of the assault on the HQ, and they didn’t even talk about their plan to become trouble-makers anymore, maybe some already received their invitation to the civil unrest unit?

Anyway, for Rune, his life had come back to what it ought to be.

A journey without a goal

He was done with making life-changing decisions on the fly, now, he wanted 2 months of peaceful tinkering, maybe birthing another passion in his life other than adventuring.

When ideas started to overflow in his mind, he reopened his note document about his cosmic mist path and wrote everything like he used to do.

Still in a corner of his mind, the firework path and the hazmat suit path remained.

One day, he would explore them further, he had even continued to add some flesh to their frameworks when he had ideas on them, and after years of accumulation, it led to some breakthroughs.

The best example was the idea of going for a growth mastery in the hazmat suit path, a very ambitious idea, but one that was challenging enough to make it interesting.

Another example was his idea of linking different paths together, like using the hazmat suit path to resist the effect of the cosmic mist.

His firework path was more of a dead-end than he wanted, even the crazy ideas that sometimes popped made him have no idea how to change that, from creating a new composite element to fusing it with his cosmic mist path, the possible bridges all led to disappointment.

Rune was certain it would be an amazing path, but it would have to wait.

And like this, days passed, with every day fruitfully reducing the range of his spiritual perception outside the dome.

5 days after he settled down, Utopia came to fetch him and put him in the center of a newly emptied area that was going to be named “Momentum Obstacle Course”.

Once there, he started to do the same thing he did in the past 5 days, releasing cosmic mist and tinkering with his intent.

‘I wonder what an obstacle course with chaos interference intent would look like, not only you’re blind to everything and have to react the moment something hits you, but now there’s a chance the thing that’s hitting you isn’t where you think it is…’

Even when he stopped for a break, he kept thinking about how many exciting things he could do, and how he could accomplish them with his current understanding of how intent worked.

‘Maybe I should really take an intent-related mastery? But it would defeat the purpose of only using one slot for my cosmic mist and keeping the rest for adventuring.’

Before he knew he had a talent in intent, he hadn’t entertained the thought of something else entering his life.

He was an adventurer inside and outside. That’s what led to his choice of creating an anti-perception element.

Reading the guide to fulfill his curiosity, he learned that as he expected, he could make his intent 100% stronger per specialized mastery tier, not including tier 1.

‘Yeah… Not interested anymore…’

Losing a provided mastery slot for something he could do… It was hard to explain how he was viewing it, but the easiest way to explain it was that he liked the journey, not the goal.

Creating powerful intents thanks to a reality-breaking and unexplainable boost in efficiency, not being able to exponentially increase the complexity of his intent cocktail due to not being able to pierce through his cosmic mist anymore…

All those reasons, with some difficult to put to words, led him to definitively remove the possibility of intent-related masteries being included in his adventuring build.

With this decision made, he felt a boost of motivation and cut short his break as he brought up a new sphere of cosmic that he infused with the latest iteration of his intent.

And he went back to feeling, observing, learning, and solving stuff.

…

“I’m a mist bender, you can’t do anyth-”

Said Rune before Utopia kicked him in the stomach in the newly created fighting dome, which wasn’t as much of a dome as it was a 500 meters by 500 meters area created for the Undecided training park’s users to let off steam.

Its creation had been delayed due to the planning of the overall park not being finalized. The Undecided were very ambitious with this plan after all, so everything had to be perfect.

Out of their 5 by 5 kilometers piece of forest, the central square was meant to be the living area, with places to sleep, drink, eat, be entertained, socialize, all sorts of things that would keep the users satisfied with their stay.

From this central square, the land was divided into 500 by 500 meters plots by dirt paths, and then the organization was to have the impressive dome close to the entrance and the less impressive free area in the back.

“I can do that!” The heroic Utopia who had recently finished getting his momentum dance specialized mastery and was bullying the poor Rune exclaimed.

Without the needed stats and masteries, Rune was sent flying.

Fortunately, he still had his class to give him a 200% additional efficiency to his energy compression, and with his tier 4 energy compression fundamental giving him another 200%, it brought his energy armor to 25 000, an amount he regenerated in 30 seconds, or in other words, 833 armor per second.

The momentum dance specialization allowed someone to manipulate their momentum to such a degree that it could be accumulated before being released, transferred forcefully with a simple touch, or even affect a larger area than only the body.

And against that, even an energy armor was useless, it couldn’t block any transferred momentum without a special mastery.

In an instant, Rune flew beyond the border of the fighting area and had to use all his momentum to land, then his strength to stop himself.

Disregarding the rule, the moment he stopped, Utopia once again appeared before him and ejected him further beyond.

‘Well, looks like I’m not the only one who’s missing some serious action.’

To prevent a second ambush, he covered himself in 2nd stage cosmic mist and rolled on the ground, this way, he was still able to react when Utopia once again crashed only a few centimeters away from him, laughing crazily.

“Hahaha! What can your measly element do against me! Think you can restrict me?!” His energy-infused voice pierced through the few meters separating them.

‘He hasn’t started leveling his provided build, so the difference is only that he has double my base momentum, plus a cool momentum specialty. Nothing that I haven’t overcome before. Even more now that you can’t locate me precisely.’

But a few meters, with equal reaction speed? Utopia would have to have already engaged in a full retreat to avoid contact.

The next second, the two started to fight completely blindly, only their respective fighting instinct led their hit where they should be, but their style was different.

Utopia added momentum everywhere, he was even progressing in real-time, using his newly acquired ability to forcefully transfer momentum to make Rune his puppet.

In answer, Rune abused his behemoth foundation to resist the hits as he tried to ground the slippery Utopia near him.

The moment he succeeded to flatten him below him, however, an enormous amount of accumulated momentum was all transferred to Rune, ejecting him towards the sky beyond sound speed.

It was clearly an exceptional trap move as the ejection was so strong he left the bubble of cosmic mist completely and Utopia was already onto him a few moments later, preventing him from returning.

‘If I had a way of bringing the whole cloud with me…’

Being harassed in mid-air by someone with more than double your momentum wasn’t a funny experience, Rune remembered.

The end of the fight came a lot faster after that, Rune just didn’t have the kit necessary to win against Utopia.

Still, getting this fight done had proved that making this fighting area had been the right choice.

On the way back towards the living area with Utopia, he saw that he had a leveling notification waiting.

*Ding* Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element reached Tier 1 Level 91

‘Oh? Even simple sparring allowed it to level even though it already leveled not long ago. Should I change my training schedule? Replacing my 2 hours of… No, I can't really replace the awareness training session with something else other than…’

Going on a tangent again, he refocused directly.

‘Yes! No! Yes? Replace my hour of reinforcement with reinforcement-based fighting? Sounds good!’

Updating his training schedule on a whim, they reached the living area where precisely 73 users were, excluding the 7 Undecided.

73 didn’t represent all their users, but only those that decided to socialize here due to the good atmosphere and the fact that it was a park created by a tier 4 adventurer group.

This point had been something made known a few weeks after the opening of the park, a delayed advertising move planned by the informant duo to keep their camp known.

And it worked.

A bit more than a month after the park opened, they had secured 354 memberships, with half of the first few dozen adherents having maintained it for a second month, adding to the prestige of the park.

Leaving aside the advertisement campaign, Utopia and Nelo were now fighting to have the training park be recognized as affiliated with the Adventurer’s Society, and the prestige of the group was close to securing the demand from the get-go.

When they entered the living area, they went their own way.

This time, Rune had something to do. He had an appointment with someone at the entrance gate.

40 or so minutes later, the person he expected finally arrived.

She had finally come back from the northern expedition front, Lounae Mera, IGS prospect of the behemoth path, cohesion specialty, a very young but ruthless rululu girl whose parents were still on the other side.

Though Rune observed that maybe she passed from very young girl to simply young girl, on the limit of being a teenager. As a rululu, it wasn’t easy to see as they stopped growing in size very early on in their development cycle.

‘One thing didn’t change however…’

She still had the same patroller uniform and the same viscous air around her, and it was even more noticeable than when she was tier 3, as could be expected.

‘She switched to her provided build, right? Can she explode my armor in one casual punch?’

Having thought a bit about it, it would be perfectly normal for her to have already maxed her stat and have her provided masteries at mid-tier 3, he even wanted to argue it was a conservative estimate.

She was a prospect after all, she didn’t slow down from the start, while he had 12 hours of breaks on his most lazy days, she was never on break, that’s what being a prospect and receiving the full support of the IGS meant.

‘I should adapt my attitude then… Why not the perfect butler? Being the butler of a true prospect is a good thing.’

So he decided to act as such.

He wouldn’t incarnate a butler in style and knowledge, but he would act on in soul and spirit.

‘First rule of the perfect butler, perfect submission!’

“Mistress Lounae, I’m Rune Tudor, your assigned tier 4 servant during your stay in this beautiful city that is the capital, a place where fighting is a rare sight and the best excitement resides in food and drinks!”

Bowing 45 degrees, he welcomed her.

“...” Lounae watched him emotionlessly.

Then the ground cracked at her feet as Rune received the dreaded knee crusher in the face, but was grabbed by the little girl and wasn’t set flying.

‘I’m being bullied a bit too much today…’

“It’s a joke! I’ll stop! I’ll stop! Have mercy!” Failing at containing his large grin, Rune pleaded until she released him.

“Ok, let’s go inside, I’m sure you’ll find the closest thing to a family once you get used to normality again, let’s make the best use out of this 1 month of pure vacation and the event’s duration. You have more than a hundred restaurants to visit and tens of shopping sprees to do.”

And then he discreetly added his own intentions.

“You also have this whole training park to subjugate! Prove the world, and my friends by the same occasion, that you deserve my friendship!”

After this declaration, she only looked at him but didn’t make a move.

Then they finally entered the Undecided Training Park, and not without multiple people having been attracted by the scene, Rune’s friends included.

But Rune didn’t care, he had a guest in need of guidance, and if it was to enjoy life, then he considered himself a professional.

And professionals had their professional pride.

“Here’s the plan Lounae, first, you’ll drink a glass of energy-infused juice.”

Arriving at the living area, they got to the true center of it, a place where hundreds of wooden tables and chairs were haphazardly placed in a mess.

Rune took one table lying top on the ground, as well as 2 chairs, then he got a barrel of his favorite juice out and condensed himself a glass.

“Did you get such supplies at the expedition front?”

She shook her head as she condensed a glass, imitating him.

“It’s my favorite one, but maybe you have a different taste, so let me modify the first step a bit.”

Taking 3 additional tables, he got them lined up and started making barrels appear on top.

“First step! Drink one hundred varieties of fruit juices!”

In answer, she opened her mouth a bit, as if she wanted to say something.

“Well, since when can’t you answer anymore? Is it because monsters don’t care about their prey saying something? It didn’t really happen to me as I enjoyed taunting them with intent or energy-infused voice, it was a good past-time.”

“How can I have one hundred glasses? My stomach will explode, and I can’t digest them fast enough,” finally, she talked for the first time since they met, and she asked a…

Stupid reasonable question.

“Make a drill of energy inside your stomach, this way, you can eat and drink as much as you want without any risk of getting fat, just enjoy the food and damn the consequences!”

Enlightened, the rululu girl, who maybe had truly been single-mindedly pursuing her path since the Ether Law pieced itself together, served herself a drink for the first time.

Like Rune, she was ignoring the curious onlookers, used to it due to residing in an expedition camp where hundreds of prospects circulated by.

“A little too young to be here, isn’t she?”

“Maybe she’s a protegee of Utopia? Hard to differentiate between two rululus.”

“Why did he say she had to subjugate the park? She’ll train here intensively?”

“She didn’t even know how to have an infinite stomach? I’m not saying she’s sheltered, but…”

As the environment was completely different, however, the people also acted completely differently, and some were brazenly pointing out the fact that she was too young to be here. It was, after all, very rare to see young rululus anywhere other than in administrative buildings.

“Drink! Drink more! Beating them all up is the second step! It’ll be your rehabilitation to living in a civilized community. You can beat everyone here without a problem, and you’ll understand that… After you drink 100 different varieties of fruit juices!”

And the onlookers only looked more interested after that.

“Has Rune lost a bet?”

“Maybe she can beat me, but beating everyone here?”

Maybe she was a bit more affected than she let on as in under one hour, she went through more than one hundred barrels.

And by that time, not only had Utopia joined Rune’s table and was introduced to Lounae, making him realize he had been drinking next to a true prospect, nearly making him spit his drink, they were also joined by Astryde, Nelo, Gar, Arik, and Adreana.

An impromptu Undecided gathering took place, and the other users also started to gather and call their friends due to the fact that someone found out Lounae’s identity half an hour in.

A wild prospect wasn’t something you could find when you wanted to.

A wild prospect in a training park where they could fight wasn’t something that ever happened, and not just because training parks weren’t common.

“There are only 2 barrels she hasn't tasted yet, does she want to beat us up that much?”

“She probably just really likes them all?”

In under 2 minutes, she finished a full glass from each of the last 2 barrels. She then pumped her fist to the sky, she had really gotten in the mood.