After Hosirha departed, it was Arik’s turn to come to his table.

“I’m not receiving guests… Should I make a sign with ‘Purge Undergoing’ written on it to be left alone?”

“Even if I punched you, your purge wouldn’t be canceled immediately,” it seemed he didn’t have any urgent things to say and just got here for the heck of it.

“My purge being interrupted or not isn’t the most important part in what you just said!”

As an answer, Arik got a big barrel of not-juice on the table.

“It’s water…” Even his comment seemed to disgust himself, he wasn’t a very good liar.

“Probably water that interrupts purge then.”

“Possibly a side-effect, but it isn’t intended to do that at its primary goal,” a smart counter escaped his mouth as he served himself a mug of “water”.

“How much did you pay for it? I didn’t read anything about the energy taste industry starting mass production,” ignorant about how Arik came to possess something like that, Rune’s curiosity flared up.

“The Cell has benefits for everything as long as you ask, so we, as in Utopia, Gar, and I, asked for it to supply a sponsored tavern we’ll set up here.”

“... That’s pure genius if you want to make alcoholics become regular users, though I doubt they’ll use the other facilities as much as this ‘tavern’ you’re talking about.”

After he said that, both of them had grins on their faces, speaking in riddles and with hidden meanings was a fun activity.

“With the official affiliation with the Adventurer’s Society underway, Utopia and Gar are starting to seriously consider making ‘developing the training park’ the next step for our group, not just to gain money, but also to prepare for the future,” still in the same friendly atmosphere, Arik brought up a subject Rune wasn’t aware of as he wasn’t part of the management.

It was followed by an entire minute of silence, as Rune was thinking about what it truly meant and the consequences.

“I’ll let them decide for themselves, going alone or with anyone on an adventure doesn’t matter that much to me. There’s even the major expedition front that will form soon, so I need to wait to make sure I’m not going there.”

“When I brought you and Nelo up as people who couldn’t stay still for too long, they told me that they were thinking about creating a sub-investment fund dedicated to those that will leave. It’ll not be much, but it should be enough to max some high priority stats,” evidently, he was bringing the true reason as to why he came here.

“That’s kind of you to bring us up, but it’s just because we’re more forthright with it, I’m sure if you didn’t have management responsibilities you’d be included. Did you tell them if you agreed to develop the park on a full-time basis?”

“Everything is not decided yet, and I’m not that essential. If I truly want to go, I can just give my work and contacts to Gar and he’ll manage just fine…”

“Well, Can’t say I don’t understand them, did you check the “to-do” list of the park? It’s like we’re entrepreneurial geniuses, if we make all the list a reality, we’ll not have to worry about EP even when we reach tier 5 where every stat point cost 2 000 000 EP,” Rune opened the list and transmitted exactly what he felt when he watched it in its entirety.

“Hehe, that’s true, I can also understand why they came up with this proposition. I can still see the smile on Utopia’s face every time he collects a monthly membership fee,” Arik laughed a bit as he took a sip of his “water”.

“Without forgetting your and Gar’s face when you see the increase in users, hehe!”

“We’re just geniuses at getting more applicants to come, we can’t control our power,” disgusting conceit oozed from his words as he inflated their contribution.

“So, you came here just because you needed a discussion partner? You have a secret plan and you need me? Want to go on an adventure together? I still need to make my growth mastery and wait for my high priority stats to be maxed so-”

“You’re really dense and insightful at the same time, you know wha-” Arik interrupted Rune, but he himself stopped talking as some notification went on in his lenses that cut off his flow.

“Hu… Looks like someone possibly came back to life…” He muttered.

In turn, Rune searched the net for “came back to life” and stumbled upon dozens of news articles having similar titles.

“Prospect Lu Norem, confirmed dead 4 years ago during a peak tier 4 monster attack, came back to life and has been escorted back by a patroller squad, the first case of successful revival? Prospect Lu Norem debriefing under progress, past acquaintances have been escorted by the defense department. A dead prospect came back to life, interviews with people who knew him and saw him die…”

“Stop whispering Rune, it’s tickling my ears.”

Immersed in the news, Rune only realized he was whispering what he was reading in real life.

“Pssss pssss pssss psssss!” And he abused it the next moment by increasing the annoyingness level to the max.

“You brat! Say goodbye to your 6 days of purge after I finish reading this sentence!”

Despite saying that, he didn’t act and continued to read.

“Hehehe, anyway, if he really came back from the dead, it only means he passed his trial in the Afterlife, I’m surprised there hadn’t been news of anyone resuscitating before him. From what I read on the board, everyone should have had a chance.”

“The Afterlife is too unfair, how many people have testified that they only succeeded in their trial due to absurd luck and never by their own ability? And who would believe those who said they succeeded thanks to their skills after all those people told such stories?” Arik had also read about the Afterlife, and he added his own piece of knowledge he remembered about it.

“Just another reason for me not to rely on the Afterlife in case I die, though if we all die together, I’ll try everything to make sure you win and go back to living, in the future you can reach tier 1 000 and revive me, right?”

“Mmh, why not, but let’s not do me, let’s pick Nelo or Utopia,” the short humanoid with the start of a big beard only grunted and said the names of the 2 who looked more likely to have luck on their side.

If they really ended in the Afterlife one day, making sure one of them ended up surviving would be something they were completely able to end up deciding.

After an awkward silence of 5 minutes, Arik still didn’t appear to want to leave his chair, and Rune knew it wasn’t the normal way Arik proceeded in his life.

“So… I’m dense and insightful? Meaning I got your hidden request right but I didn’t realize it? Let me think for a bit and if I can’t find it I’ll ask again.”

There was no answer, and Rune started to rewind the conversation on his own.

‘He can’t say it cause he’s too shy, that’s a certainty. Is it about full-time training park development? But why would he come to talk to me? He also brought me and Nelo up as persons who will go again as soon as they can…’

Thinking about it without the need to answer, he came up with stupid theories and unrelated subjects alike, and not having the need to give the exact answer directly, he asked the most logical one he thought to be right without hesitation.

“You want to go on an adventure with me?”

“Mmh,” and it prompted a grunt.

“Oh…” Rune adopted the thinking man pose and solemnly looked at the ground, then with a deep voice, he said, “I see that you’ve neared true enlightenment my child, and I respect that. If you want to know where my next adventure will take me, and you, if you truly come with me, use all your talent as an informant to learn more about…”

He turned his head slightly and looked at his future companion deeply, “The bone region.”

…

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor has been purged

*Ding* Energy Compression: Provided Energy Dampening has been purged

‘No, I’m not a perfectionist at all, it’s just that the Ether Law is missing a reorganization ability.’

Soon after he started his purge, he realized that if he was to free one of his energy compression slots, he would have to purge one of his 2 newly acquired masteries, and it would be the place his growth mastery would take…

So he decided to just move one of his already leveled provided energy compression mastery to fill the place of the other.

‘I’m just optimizing the appearance…’

With that in mind, Rune immediately summoned an energy armor spell matrix. It was a spell he knew so much and had used so many times he didn’t have to make a conscious effort to make it appear.

Then he focused on the mastery slot he wanted to fill, made the flow of energy take from a pulse of reinforcement he did, and that was it.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor?

‘Yes, even if I have no reason to take a specialized mastery related to you, maybe it’ll one day change. Who knows, something like an armor designer specialization?’

Agreeing to it, his masteries window was primed to welcome the mastery he hoped he could get sooner rather than later.

Masteries

Tier 1 Masteries

Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 32

Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 8

Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 9

Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 31

Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 31

Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 8

Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 5

Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 30

Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 5

Tier 2 Masteries

Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element: Tier 2 Level 23

Cohesion: Specialized Cohesion Infusion: Tier 4 Level 8

[Empty]

Tier 3 Masteries

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense: Tier 1 Level 31

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure: Tier 1 Level 31

Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor: Tier 1 Level 31

Tier 4 Masteries

Energy Compression: Provided Quick Compression: Tier 1 Level 3

Body Control: Provided Humanoid Body: Tier 1 Level 9

Body Control: Provided Prolonged Body Use: Tier 1 Level 9

‘All this walking around and routine training… There’s really a difference between tier 3 and tier 4…’

In a few months, it would have been an entire year since he came back and settled in the capital, or close to it.

If he really wanted to, Rune would be able to calculate all the time he spent training pretty accurately, he just had to check his diary to know when he was undergoing a purge and therefore didn’t train.

‘Sigh… I really did it, now I only have to follow the cliff path once again and reach the white jungle zone. Should I wait until the end of the event? No, right?’

Finding in himself no reasons to assist personally at the event or at the closure ceremony and speech, he decided to not even contact the Adventurer’s Society as, this time, it wasn’t really what anyone could call an “expedition” that he would do.

‘Well, I see no reason to delay.’

His plan to get his growth mastery was as accurate as it could possibly be, he was only missing a truly inspiring environment.

So he departed from the training park, stocked up on new music and barrel when he passed by the capital, and then stepped on the highway leading north, towards the landing zone.

…

Rune Tudor (Tier 4)

Class: Armored Pathfinder

Specialty: Innate Dimensional Perception

EP: 1 009 200 270

Stats Total: 57 779

Health: 5 000

Health Regeneration: 5 000

Strength: 5 001

Cohesion: 5 001

Energy: 5 000

Energy Regeneration: 10 000

Purity: 5 000

Affinity: 5 000

Momentum: 5 000

Perception: 7 777

‘Let’s max my perception, then I’ll keep the rest.’

As he took yet another step which kept him at a steady 330 meters per second, Rune finished deciding what to do with this sudden pain of EP.

Gaining 1 000 000 000 EP wasn’t part of his plan, but he didn’t complain about getting it. Thanks to it, he would be able to make sure his cosmic mist element was really as fantastic as he imagined.

Rune Tudor (Tier 4)

Class: Armored Pathfinder

Specialty: Innate Dimensional Perception

EP: 120 000 270

Stats Total: 60 002

Health: 5 000

Health Regeneration: 5 000

Strength: 5 001

Cohesion: 5 001

Energy: 5 000

Energy Regeneration: 10 000

Purity: 5 000

Affinity: 5 000

Momentum: 5 000

Perception: 10 000

Gaining 2 223 perception in an instant, he put to the test his most powerful 1st stage intent as he surrounded himself in a dense layer of cosmic mist, and as he expected, it passed through.

‘Well, at least I’m done with brute-forcing my way through for the near future… And my specialty probably boosted the gains…’

Finding comfort in multiple ways, he quickly went over the fact that he had to go back to tinkering with his 1st and 3rd stages. He even found some comfort in the fact that his awareness didn’t scale with his perception, so he didn’t have to go back to correct his 2nd stage.

Following that, he passed by the landing zone’s apparently-completed gigantic parking structure, except this time he went around it due to seeing the thing he wanted.

A sign on which “Cliff Path” was clearly written.

He also saw for the first time the special signs used only for one thing, pointing to different project zones for those working on the “Stairway To The Arcadia” project.

The prospects finding event had overshadowed it a bit, but it still came back regularly on his news feed, and the pay was still one of its massive advantages, having been clearly defined so that killing monsters was less efficient than contributing there.

Navigating according to the signs, he quickly went from popular highway roads to nearly desert ones, for his greatest pleasure.

In 2 hours he reached the cliff path and once again saw the infinite emptiness composed mainly of white ether mist, a thousand kilometers in every direction except behind him with nothing, and started to follow it, ultimately entering the tier 2 forest zone another half an hour later.

Even now, he still overtook people as he advanced, and every time he saw a monster, probably a freshly spawned one, it was already being killed.

Not having to stop at all, he used one day to reach the transition between the forest region and the jungle region, there was even a patroller camp signaling that further than that, it was tier 3 ether density.

While it was a pleasure for Rune to certify that the IGS had completely “domesticated” the tier 2 zone, he was still a bit distressed at not having been able to have a single fight, even one where he wouldn’t have struggled at all.

He even read scary news about what would happen when the event officially ended and all the now hundreds of billions, maybe a trillion of sapients, would go back to the different fronts in a massive wave.

It was clearly possible that even the tier 3 zones, gigantic pieces of land that even Rune needed an entire week to go through, would be subject to weekly etheric repopulation.

Fortunately, it didn’t happen yet, and he finally encountered the first monsters he could claim for himself, it was even a squad of 5.

Yet, even with none of his mastery giving him reality-breaking efficiency for his energy compression due to being tier 1 and only his class path and his energy compression fundamental giving him 400%, he still ended at a regeneration of 833 armor per second, with half of it being infused with peak tier 3 cohesion.

As well as a single point into the tier 4 domain if he was nitpicking.

With that, the result of a fight with a tier 3 monster wasn’t a question of having lacking masteries or not, but a question of if Rune wanted to test his cosmic mist or not.

And that’s what he decided to do.

The cosmic mist element hadn’t been created to be used in infiltration operations or as a training tool to refine one’s perception control and awareness division.

It had been created to be used in the wilderness, to allow its creator to change the nature of the environment itself and survive against monsters he would never be able to defeat as he was.