7 Ether Resources

While praying that no death asteroids desired to knock on his door to visit him, it was now the 13th day since the Ether Law awakened and a new era started.

There was no official name for it yet but 'Ether Era' or 'Dimensions Era' were no-brainer and uninspired names the majority of the people on the information board who wanted to officially name the new era as something used.

Rune had thought that an argument involving hundreds of people was chaotic, but when he saw one involving hundreds of trillions of people, with everyone wanting to say their own piece? It was some nightmarish stuff.

Fortunately, communicating using the information board entirely bypassed the language barrier as one of its first notable points.

The wiki had confirmed that this type of communication was called "intent communication". It was something done automatically on the information board by translating your thoughts into intents with the Ether Law's help.

Intent expressed one's thought with no ambiguity possible, it was proven by some genius who made stringent tests, and some of those tests were truly hilarious when removed from their scientific background context.

The most famous one that had popularized the way intent communication worked was the "scamming test", literally translating to "Do you want to buy my fake spaceship for three times the price of one? it's a one-time offer!"

Intent communication meant that no lies were possible, you couldn't make what you knew was a lie into something real in your mind.

Recently, and more than ever before, the same hilarious situation happened to lots of braggarts, with forum titles ending up being "I just didn't find a resource worth 10 000 EP!"

As the geniuses continued doing their tests, spectators like Rune just laughed.

"You cannot lie to yourself", was the premise of this new form of communication, and even now, its rules were still being explored. Pity the unfortunate ones who had to learn by making a mistake and being hit by reality the next moment.

'Oh!'

After dozens of minutes of searching with his perception sphere at maximum momentum speed, Rune observed a peculiar asteroid entering his perception sphere, emitting what was called in the information board "ether light".

It was a peculiar aura that, if you were giving even the slightest attention to your perception sphere, would immediately be able to see. And this ether light was the sign of an ether resource.

A perception sphere didn't allow him to see bright colors, he had tested that back when he was in his original body, everything was dull within it. This dullness appeared even more appropriate for the Void Dimension than he wanted to admit.

There was only a single exception to this dullness, and it was precisely the only source of light found in the Void DImension until, or what could be equal to one: The ether light.

It shone with a weak pure white light while floating in the emptiness of the Void, like a lantern floating in endless space.

Seeing it for the first time made Rune feel a little strange, it wasn't a regular light, and he wasn't in a regular dark, everything was new to him and everyone else.

Less than 4 minutes later, the time it took to move the 100 meters needed to reach where his sphere detected the ether light, he grabbed an asteroid that looked the same as every other floating rock in the Void Dimension.

Once again following his predecessors' advice, he stopped everything he was doing and concentrated on assimilating what this rock represented as an ether resource.

'I can feel something… A flow? Yeah, it's a flow of something… Is that ether?'

Having relegated to the background all his senses, even his perception sphere, there was only him and what was being assimilated into him, a flow of ether, a flow of ether points.

The Void Dimension was born nearly at the same time as the Universe, except that from the start, due to the different circumstances entailing their creation, its ether density was millions of times that of the Universe.

Their Universe Dimension got the matter and the Void Dimension got what "little" ether remained from the cosmic event that led to the creation of their own critically defective law, giving it a massive head-start in the amount of time where its ether freely replicated itself and increased its density.

How the history of the creation of the Void Dimension mattered to Rune was that, departing from its origin and going billions of years later to the present, the result of the ether increasing in density was the formation of ether in the form of solid crystals.

Summarized, in the Void Dimension, the condensed form of ambient ether, ether resources, or ether crystals, existed, and were even profusely available.

A few minutes later, Rune deployed his sphere again and re-accelerated to his maximum momentum speed.

After absorbing what was important in the asteroid, he just let it go and departed again to continue his ether resources gathering activity.

'Let's see how many EP it was worth, the gathering log should have appeared after absorbing my first piece… Yup! Here it is.'

Dimensions

Information Board

Ether Wiki

Event

Avatar

Gathering Log

Opening the latest addition, the Gathering Log, he saw the asteroid he just absorbed.

Absorbed 'Rich asteroid', gained 65 EP

'My first harvest. A good start, just a little below the average gain of 70 EP per ether resource told on the board.'

Not much needed to be said to describe the satisfaction of earning what he worked and planned for over more than a week.

'My 100 perception stat is a banger really, I think I should write down my ether resources yield and compare it with others on a forum. Like-minded people should have done the same already, or they'll soon start to do the same.'

Opening his notes, he willed to existence the addition of a time log to what he wrote. He just had to wish for it and one really appeared next to his notes.

In his mind, It was inevitable for like-minded people that thought like him to appear, he just hadn't found them yet. He couldn't be the only one to take notes on his gathering speed and EP yield, right?

Rune thought about it and realized that he, himself, was going to continue taking notes for multiple days before trying to find a forum where to share them. It could in part explain why he only found some results after searching for this particular subject of "EP Yield".

Overall, the actual situation for every traveler of the Void Dimension was the same:

Avoiding dangerous grounds because they caused random damage that killed their weak-a*s avatar if they encountered one.

Not approaching gravity sources as they killed your weak-a*s avatar once you got too near.

Gathering resources, for the serious and casual ones alike, and knowledge, for those who wanted and were trying to be a step ahead of others like Rune wanted to be.

The size of the Void Dimension was equal in size to the universe itself from what the Wiki informed him, meaning ridiculously huge, more than 90 billions light-years, a number so huge no average mortal mind would correctly understand it.

If you included the size of an avatar's perception sphere and their momentum speed, without forgetting the fact that the original position where your avatar spawned was "random", possibly even ignoring the dimensional sector limit created by the Ether Law for the Information Board…

Then the logical and rational result was that all avatars were, and should, be alone. Some of course tried to use the dangerous grounds as landmarks, but only those with enough cohesion, health, health regeneration, and luck could approach those without dying immediately and carefully analyze them.

That was if the dangerous ground they entered into wasn't much more dangerous than anyone even with tens of stats in cohesion and health could survive…

Therefore, everyone on the board pretty much scrapped every idea to create a map or find each other in the short term. It was just too soon for this to happen.

'Oh! Another one!'

Ejected from his musing by an intruding ether light, Rune changed trajectory and approached yet another shining asteroid.

The second of many to come.

…

The history of the Intergalactic Society, the IGS, a civilization that had now expanded to cover a few dozen galaxies, was symbolically said to have started six hundred thousand years ago.

This symbolic creation year corresponded to when the Azorans, the founders and the first to reach out to everyone else, took their first steps in the discovery of their own galaxy, the Milky Way, by sending massive fleets in all directions.

At that time, they had already acquired a technology level that allowed them to comfortably extract all the resources they wanted from everywhere, as well as move as they wanted in a reasonable timeframe.

The real year of creation of the IGS as the historian placed it however, while still six hundred thousand years ago, corresponded to the moment the Azorans decided to help every intelligent life they encountered over their expedition.

And the day they really encountered a new grounded civilization, they followed what they had said and created the embryonic form of the IGS.

Disinterested in power or resources since its creation, the nascent IGS back then simply referred to as the "Azoran Federation", was mainly operated as a stellar charity for every intelligent species discovered by chance by the Azorans.

And from all those they helped in their native galaxy, 2 civilizations elevated themselves to become true contributors and pillars still defining the IGS at the time when the Ether Law pieced itself together and ushered a new era.

One was the Human Civilization, a civilization warped by culture.

Until their discovery, their drive to push for the stars had nearly been extinguished in favor of enjoying their life as much as their longevity allowed.

When the Azoran Federation first found them, they quickly realized that any form of government had long since been relegated to autonomous AI even better than the ones they used at that time.

Those autonomous AI were of course still far, extremely far, from the AI cores the IGS knew of today, but at that time, it was a small first wave that indicated they had discovered a civilization much different from themselves.

Being freed from the constraint of their own solar system after the Azoran Federation judged them mellow and inoffensive by their very own culture, the Human Civilization quickly, unimaginably so, adapted to their new circumstances.

The feat they achieved to be elevated as one of the 5 major species was to not simply be integrated and be happy with their new life, but with their previous culture and way of life, they influenced the way the Azoran Federation worked from the inside over an explosively short period of time.

Forever.

Culture and entertainment had until now been simply a cog in the rapidly expanding Azoran Federation, but with the push of an entire civilization, one whose entire foundation relied on those 2 elements, and with no care about resources expenditure anymore…

Entrenched deep into the known territory and colonized planets, full of diverse species, diverse cultures, and diverse histories, what would later become the way the IGS used to integrate other civilizations into the fold, silently came to life.

When culture and entertainment lost their inherent budget and manpower boundaries, anyone became able to partake in it, creating from nothing a cultural loop that forever impacted the foundation of the then Azoran Federation.

The second was the Pachin Civilization, their story a lot more tragic.

Before being unearthed by the Azorans, they were on their last breath after failing to escape their home planet and were succumbing to their own planet's dying breath as its magnetic field gave away in front of their star entering the advanced fusion stage.

Their whole situation was more tragic than anyone could imagine as their home planet was a supermassive one, so no matter how they tried, they never even succeeded at sending people out into space. The gravity was just too high for them to do that.

The situation reversed completely however after they were rescued and given the technology to explore the galaxy.

Their whole civilization attained unity in adversity and became, thousands of years later, with hard work and unimaginably stubborn difficult research, the leading contributor not only to exploration technologies, but also to the domain of professional exploration education.

Even the Azorans, with their research culture that made them become the founder of the IGS itself, the first to discover the way to travel between the stars, couldn't keep up with them.

The Pachins slowly became the pathfinders of the IGS, birthing a tradition of pushing the limit of physics, ultimately leading to the birth of viable intergalactic traveling technology, the greatest turning point in the IGS history.

Departing from their home galaxy, the IGS continued developing with no major obstacles in its path from its earliest records to even now in the current age, with 5 species having been elevated to the rank of leading species.

The Azorans, the Humans, the Pachins, the Kajos, and the Rululus were called the 5 leading species.

All were humanoids with one head, one torso, two arms, and two legs, different inside make-up but overall similar lifestyle and condition of comfort.

Some very unique species such as intelligent molluscs or birds also came to become part of the high sphere of the administration of the IGS, of course. "Some", in IGS terms, meant hundreds of unique amphibian, avian, and scaled sapient species.

The Kajos elevated themselves from late-comers from another galaxy to their current position by controlling investment funds equaling at least 5% of the IGS total economy.

The capitalistic culture of the IGS had allowed such, and they did it, against the common sense of many historians who still had a hard time understanding how they succeeded in this crazy undertaking.

With the IGS representing 12 major galaxies and another dozen dwarf galaxies currently, it meant the Kajos' Investment Fund owned the equivalent of half a major galaxy, if dwarf galaxies weren't accounted for.

As for the Rululus, they were at the same time the newest leading species of the IGS and also a miracle of life.

Discovered relatively recently, within the last ten thousand years, they were pushed to the forefront of the scene by the then 4 leading species due to their innate gift: Intellectual capabilities pushing the boundary of the biologically-possible.

Everyone who wanted to know why the Rululus were different got the same starting point: A natural eidetic memory.

From this seemingly simple point, they didn't appear extraordinary or biology-defying, other species had memory-capability above that of others, it wasn't new, but it was what accompanied this natural eidetic memory that warped the understanding of biology of the IGS then.

This eidetic memory was the most simple way to describe it, as otherwise… It was accompanied by a perfect brain arrangement that allowed them to learn indefinitely and segment their knowledge area, to remember with the precision of a computer, with a body made to burn calories as fast as they wanted to maintain or learn faster than biologically possible.

What sealed the deal was that there were absolutely no consequences.

It was purely and simply a wonder species configuration that allowed them to have intellectual capabilities equal to that of a quantum computer without any of the problems the species discovered until now like humans had when one of their people acquired the same.

Elevated from the tribal age on their unique planet that fostered such as species to the intergalactic age in but tens of years, they were showered with advanced education programs tailored for them with the objective being to have them assume a greater role.

A much grander role.

And the more they learned, the more their unique way of talking, arguments, and living was loved by the majority of the IGS.

Who would say that they were more qualified as a leader than sapient beings who did better only half as worse as AI cores when in their specialized domain?

This led, from the moment of their ascension, to the Rululus becoming a core part of the political and administrative side of the whole IGS in a record time, with every leader apart from unique cases all being Rululus from that time on.

The only way to be more charismatic than a Rululu was to not argue with them. That was reality then, and it still was the reality now.

The progress of biotechnology had never progressed as much as when the Rululus were discovered, and from here on, the IGS achieved the necessary level to quasi-freely modify DNA, with some 90% probability of it working.

Only Rululus rightly deserved the name "Wonders Of The Universe".

…

In the major government bodies, a meeting was nearly over.

At this meeting, everyone was present. Not only the current elected leader of the IGS, but also all the ministers from all the major departments of the IGS, culture, research, economy, defense, education, and dozens of others, not one was absent.

Except the administration… But even the government couldn't hope to summon the black-box administration for such a low-level issue.

"Everyone agrees to the release of the currently held experiment data and gathered knowledge? If you have any objection, say it now," the one who spoke was the IGS leader, a Rululu in his prime.

Rululus were similar in size to the Kajos, meaning a little shorter on average than the other 3 leading species. Their defining trait was the general blue theme of their eyes, skin, and hair.

Genetically, all rululus were blue humanoid with only slight blue variants that existed after ten thousand years of evolution from their tribal equivalent.

A silence lasting 5 seconds took place before the IGS leader spoke again, "In this case, the data will be released tomorrow in an announcement held on the government channel and in a newly created forum on the Information Board. The meeting concluded."

Without any signs of being relieved from the last 2 weeks of urgency, the IGS leader knew that the situation would only continue to change in the near future.

And nobody could do anything to stop it.

He could only react in the best way he and his advisors deduced.