Time passed as Rune got his bone region adventure’s conclusion to a much more advanced stage than it was half a day ago.

To his utter surprise, the hall he was in as well as all the opened and occupied ones he was able to see started a transition as the day dawned.

It was like until now, he had only been able to see half of the changed Secluded Corner as halls that had been empty until now opened in place of those that were being closed, including the one he was in.

‘They really adapted the custom to their customers… What a pleasure to not have to leave, just switch to another place a few steps away.’

Obviously, he wasn’t the only one to have this idea as the moment the futuristic jazz hall lights started to dim, some people transitioned to one of the new halls that had recently opened.

And accompanying those people were newcomers coming from below and leavers that left, proving that the entire floor, and so the Secluded Corner that owned it, had a certain popularity and community base dedicated to it.

Enjoying the unique closing atmosphere for 10 more minutes without working anymore, he ultimately left after sipping the last drop of liquid from his glass.

‘So… Which one?’

Now confronted with a choice, he knew that only his guts could help him in this situation and followed them as he passed through a cloud-like curtain and arrived at the most interesting hall once it had been properly opened.

‘I really wondered why they would use stone street road pavement to make the ground, but now that it’s been “opened”, I can see the genius behind it.’

So what was up with this hall using stone street road pavement as ground?

‘Should I say… Outdoor cafe? Street cafe? At least they kept the jazz music, why change something that works? Though for some of those halls… Anyway! Those are for another time.’

Same as the last hall he visited, he first passed through the curtain and isolating energy layer, and then passed through another intangible and invisible layer, making him appear in this unique hall with one extremely enticing factor.

Its window bay had been replaced by a giant balcony opening.

And this opening wasn’t a small one, it was a gaping one, allowing gusts of wind to make their way to the inside of the hall, “imitating” the real condition of an outdoor place.

This hall seemed to be a popular one with a very different customer base compared to the bar setting, they were globally younger, louder, and livelier, and it was less than an hour since the opening.

Opening the newly refreshed ordering menu, all mentions of alcoholic drinks had been erased, leaving behind only soft drinks and mouth-watering sounding desserts with exaggerated names like “Yin-Yang Chocolate Drop” or “Ever-Sweet Life Cream”.

‘Don’t mind if I do taste everything.’

Not finding in himself the determination to resist having a sweet break after more than 10 hours of working, Rune went on an ordering spree and ended up sitting alone in a corner of the outdoor balcony part of the hall, where the sun who had just passed its dawn stage warmed him up.

He was so focused on having a chill sweet break and becoming used to the new livelier ambiance that when someone started heading his way, he completely ignored it.

He had worked for more than 10 hours and no one had ever interrupted him after all, so why would he keep his attention on every person that passed next to him?

The moment he reacted was when this person didn’t change course and approached his isolated table a bit too much to be a simple passerby.

And then this person took a chair for herself and sat down.

“I see that you’re still alive. When did you come back?” Lenya, the figurehead and bartender of the Secluded Corner, asked him in a voice he had nearly forgotten.

Taking a small mouthful of one of the dozens of desserts he had available on his table, he simultaneously compared it to the others he had already tasted and answered, “A few days ago.”

Now that he had started thinking about desserts-unrelated matters, Rune couldn’t help but notice that a few too many people were sending glances his way. And a few too many was really a few too many.

“There are special areas for VIPs, you know? And we paid a pretty penny to isolate, furnish, and build them according to our highest standards ever,” the new information she brought up made him raise his head and look at her properly.

Lenya hadn’t changed much compared to the memories he had of her, maybe her vestimentary style? Not trying to force himself to find a difference, Rune readily accepted that she was still the azoran he had got to know at a festival years ago.

“I effectively didn’t know. But it’s not like the VIP areas would be astronomically better at creating a chill atmosphere, right?” He reasoned, hinting at his intentions of taking it slow.

“I’m just here to enjoy my favorite quiet secluded corner and do my own things if you know what I mean,” he pointed at his tablet on which he had been writing massively for the entire prior night but was now put off to the side pitifully as its owner was having a break.

“Still as casual and detached I see,” she concluded without caring of the way what she said could be interpreted.

“No, no, you clearly misunderstood my degree of implication. I need to start from the old and familiar to neatly provide feedback on all the new things you’ve done,” Rune justified his action with half-nonsense before giving a tentative opinion.

“For now and since I entered, I’ve been completely hooked by what you created. It’s so refreshing compared to what I experience in my adventures. It’s unique. Probably because it’s not something you can find naturally, it has to be carefully engineered,” he described seriously what he was thinking about the Secluded Corner and what it represented for him.

“Hahaha, receiving unlimited funds helped us out a bit in getting our most unconceivable ideas into reality.” Lenya seemed to really like this feedback and invisibly thanked him for the fund he had in fact nothing to do with.

Rune was too socially inept to read between such an obvious line anyway, so he wasn’t going to say anything.

“We’ve pushed the relaxing jazz concept so far in fact that we’ve even started getting ideas for entirely new fields, one, in particular, has retained our interest. It’s only a conceptual idea for now so don’t get your hopes up that we’ll be putting it to practice anytime soon, it’s relying on lots of new Ether Law specializations to make it work after all, and if we ever put it to the test, it’s going to be very expensive,” she teased.

“Well, if I’m still alive by then I'll be sure to visit again,” following her advice and not getting his hopes up literally, he summarily replied before targeting a yet untouched dessert.

“Sigh… You’re not even asking if what we’re planning is even profitable or not, what can I do with you? Do you really have so much money that you don’t care about it anymore?” She shook her head as it seemed Rune hadn’t followed the scenario she thought he would follow.

But then, she realized something from what Rune said.

“You’re leaving again soon?” She asked, a bit surprised by what she interpreted with her social reading skills.

“Mmh,” he grunted as his mouth was filled with a weirdly good-tasting cream, and confirmed with a nod.

Half-understanding and half knowing there was nothing she could do, she just advertised the VIP halls again, “Make sure to check out all the VIP halls before you vanish then. When I say we pushed our expertise on the relaxing jazz concept to the peak, it was not a joke. Also, some of them are temporary experiments that will not exist anymore once we’re fed up with them or have new ideas to try.”

“Sure,” he answered, unable to think of any scenarios where he wouldn’t visit them all.

“Anyway,” Lenya slapped the glassy wooden table as she stood up abruptly, “To celebrate you coming back alive, let me fetch a VIP drink I’m sure will make you react.”

Leaving Rune behind, she left with a polite grin that couldn’t hide the fact that what she was doing was obviously a prank.

An inevitable prank.

Coming back 5 minutes later, she put down a big mug filled with a blood-colored liquid.

“The name of the base is red sugar orange juice,” she started explaining the origin of what she was pranking him with as she began infusing her energy inside.

“It’s a fruit exclusively grown by an independent farmer path. We got ourselves a regular supply by paying for it with tons of EP, but it’s totally worth it in my opinion.”

In 10 seconds, she finished doing her energy-taste path shenanigans and stopped infusing energy inside the drink with a final explanation.

“For this one, the base itself is extraordinary and overpowering enough, so I only need to create a corresponding taste-accentuating energy taste. Here, have a try,” smiling in expectation of what Rune’s reaction would be, Lenya made the big simple mug glide to before him.

Taking hold of the mug with his two hands and bringing it to his lips, he closed his eyes and took a medium sip.

Then he started shivering.

His own body disobeyed his command as the most sugary taste he had ever tasted in his entire life made its way to his brain that couldn’t possibly have imagined something like that was possible.

It was so sugary that in a single second after it invaded his mouth and his palate informed him of what it tasted like, the strongest bitterness born from an overpowering sugary taste appeared, washing away every notion of “sweet” from his mind.

Putting down the mug after his shivering fit of 5 seconds ended, he looked at Lenya who was smiling from ear to ear, and gave his honest opinion while trying to look the most serious he could, “It’s disgusting.”

Even after years, Rune still remained the same entertainment-nerd that only liked soft drinks he had ever been.

…

‘It’s going to be my first time seeing something like that live.’

(Deliver Us - Prince of Egypt - Chorus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig-4StuBfSE - Acapella by Sam Robson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urfZMIMsYNI - Epic by Caleb Hyles and Jonathan Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD8mZmGSDNc - See! I have everything!)

As the anxious waiting music slowly came to a stop and complete silence settled, the circular main stage giant half-sphere covering that hid from sight what was taking place inside even from perception opened like a flower.

‘It sure changed over the years, I think only the facts that it's weekly and that there’s a main event in the middle are the same. Everything else…’

When the flower dome finished opening, a gathering of more than a hundred people organized in a classic orchestra layout intermixed with choral groups revealed itself.

Then, the main event of this culture festival, a cover of a time-old musical comedy, started.

There was no particular meaning behind it, at least not to Rune’s knowledge, he hadn’t heard of a musical comedy or something like that being released.

So he just enjoyed it as the average open-minded spectator he was.

From the acapella opening to the orchestral transition…

From the original parts to the remixed pieces…

With his knowledge and experience accumulations as well as talent in intent creation, he was able to read and feel the infused emotions and the degree of refinement and involvement much more easily than others.

It was also his first time having to face such an organized chaos of intents.

The dozens of dozens of instruments playing the “same” intent, the cumulative voices harmonizing not only in the physical reality but also in the spiritual one…

So engrossed in the event, he only woke up when the shocking finale started and the overall intent changed from a weary and depressing one to a violent and revolutionary one.

‘Ah~~ It really makes me want to do some color creation research.’

Getting ideas from the fabulous ending, he wrote down some that seemed to be very worth investigating more such as “Baiting orange dome”.

Too early for him, the main event ended and the festival started to slowly head towards its inevitable end.

And not feeling like continuing to enjoy the festival, Rune opted for returning to the Secluded Corner to continue working on his book.

‘Maybe I should visit the terror unit? Or would they have changed location? Probably, right? And what would I do there anyway, it’s not like I plan to do some missions with them.’

Thinking about possible alternative destinations, he went through everything he could think of, including his restaurant list, but even then he wasn’t swayed as he had already eaten to the point of feeling like his palate had been overwhelmed and was combusting.

So he just went with his initial target and returned to the Secluded Corner.

…

Upon returning to the Secluded Corner, a name that was only philosophical now once he thought about it, Rune fully focused on delivering the best conclusion he could to his bone region adventure.

Developing his more than a hundred pages of gibberishes in various directions, he didn’t follow a single genre and went for a very personal and eccentric way of presenting things.

Sometimes he presented a part as a scientific segment where he exacted precision first and foremost, telling of bone monsters' behavior through his lens as an adventurer with prior knowledge in the monster behavior field.

Sometimes he wrote more poetically and subjectively, telling of all the sentiments and inspirations he got from seeing with his own “eyes” an underground pillar, an environmental event, or ruins of a now-vanished civilization.

Sometimes he stuck to the classic diary separation, creating spaced entries about periods of times where he only detailed his encounters with monsters he couldn’t have beaten even if he had gone all-out and risked his life.

As he had really lived through all those experiences and knew what he was talking about in the scientific parts, the only thing he needed to finish developing a rough paragraph he hastily wrote was time.

In between rewriting his travel diary, he enjoyed most thoroughly the different public and VIP halls he had access to.

Without the need to force himself, he followed his own rhythm and changed ambiances and halls when he felt like it.

And it had to be said that Lenya hadn’t overestimated the degree of concept development they had put into creating the various VIP halls at all.

When he entered a VIP hall fully covered in sand and that completely isolated his perception in a way that made him believe the holographic sandstorm illusion created through the walls and the ceiling was real, he was completely subjugated.

If this hall was even still part of the relaxing jazz concept was a matter he of course asked himself, but he wasn’t a jazz purist, so he just enjoyed this “slight” concept variation and went on with his work.

Over an entire week passed like that, with Rune only focusing on 2 things: First, wrapping up his “Journey Through The Bone Region” book, and second, visiting all the halls of the Secluded Corner.

Those 2 activities complemented each other to his greatest enjoyment, and finally, after more than 100 hours invested in concluding his book, he published it online.

‘And… Done!’

Silently exclaiming inside, he celebrated by opening the ordering menu of the aptly named Aquarium Blues VIP hall and ordering a shot of “Arik’s Bone Region Liquor”, a VIP exclusive and stock-limited drink only available in the nighttime halls.

Receiving it a minute later, he took it as it should be taken and finished it in one shot.

‘Ah~~ Now that’s the best conclusion I could have asked for. I really outdid myself on this one, I’m pretty sure anyone who’s even slightly interested in the bone region and finds what I wrote will be fully fulfilled! Be they scientists, patrollers, or prospective tourists!’

Praising himself for his own work, his mind soon naturally wandered to a certain report Astryde sent to him a few days ago, a report she had just finished.

It was of course the report about the tier 7 and 8 intel she gathered from a “retired entity” during their last excursion in the bone region.

‘Now that I’m free from even my own self-assigned duties, it’s time to move on and start a new routine. I need to cram as much knowledge in my head as etherly possible before I regret it, I also need to start making my preparations…’

With the end of an extraordinary adventure came the start of a totally new adventure, that was Rune’s mindset.

He was only a tier 4 entity.

His growth mastery hadn’t even started taking off.

The number of extraordinary views he had personally seen only numbered 2: The white wall of the erosion anomaly and the underground pillar of the bone region. The latter having only marked him as much due to the associated environmental event.

Having now perfectly ended his previous adventure, he started getting excited for his next one.

And it seemed that even the world was helping him in hyping what he planned to do as every day, reports and news about the Unending Mountain Dimension, each more interesting than the last, made their way to his connected lenses.

Controlling this excitement and channeling it, Rune opened the tier 7 and 8 intel report and started reading it.

He obviously knew such a stage was far and maybe he would never need to remember what he was reading today, but he had already learned his lesson about missing the occasion to learn about more things.

Escaping from the disco-ball of death that was the tier 5 titanic bone golem had been a life-teaching experience he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

That’s how, with Astryde’s report not being that thick and being only composed of the most critical intel she gathered, he read and learned everything he could about the tier 7 and 8 that had until now eluded him.

It had to be said that Astryde had really made a comprehensive report and that Rune only had to read to understand all the differences with what he already knew as well as all the novelties he wouldn’t have ever thought would exist.