8 Ether Stats

After farming, as the gamer faction called the act of gathering resources without stopping for a long time (It seemed really suitable for some reason) for over 24 hours straight, Rune was now sitting on a "pile" of EP.

3 to 4 ether resources per hour was his current yield.

A majority of the ether resources he gathered were ether-rich asteroids worth 60 to 80 EP, though sometimes he stumbled upon floating pure ether crystals worth around 100 EP, but those were too rare compared to the number of ether-rich asteroids he got.

From a specialized forum he was now an official member of, 70 EP was the average number that could be used as a reference to determine your approximate yield per ether resource.

This specialized forum Rune became a member of was a newly created one.

The ambition that motivated its creation was to gather the potential future hard farmers, people who decided to really invest in only farming, and to facilitate the comparison of their gains while sharing all the intel they acquired with each other.

After days of being polluted by random outsiders however, the true members decided to create a private forum and chose the ones that were invited based on if you were judged as a long-term participant or just a passer-by.

Rune just had to release a copy-paste of his last 24 hours before being invited to the private forum, easily proving that he belonged there.

The private forum currently held 52 active members, a derisory number surely compared to the number such a large theme should have, but it was a very cordial forum where everyone shared their EP yields and tried to create models and spreadsheets that transcribed the Void Dimensions' farming process into true mathematical predictions.

Listed on it were at least fifty different spreadsheets that tried to calculate the yield by taking into account the density of ether resources by cubic kilometers, the perception stat, the momentum stat, and different formulas that tried to determine in what way volume should be determined to get one resource.

The members kept fighting about who was right or wrong and why, and as Rune didn't want any part in this debate, he just posted his last 24 hours notes under his personal yield section and continued to do his own thing.

After this day of farming, he had gained 6 024 EP. Compared to the currently elected best farming model of the private forum, he was a little above what his calculated yield should be, at 5 880 EP, but not really enough to say the model was completely wrong.

Now sitting at 17 434 EP, it meant he hadn't gained enough to increase his stats without infringing upon the security deposit amount of 10 000 EP.

Such a conclusion didn't annoy him however, far from it. Now that he didn't have annoying physical needs to fulfill anymore, his go-happy and stress-free attitude never ceased, it just continued indefinitely, fueled by his dreams and ambitions.

Farming seriously with full focus and having access to some entertainment when he wanted was what could be considered, in all of his honesty, "his best life". Even when he tried to find complaints about how he was living, like being alone and isolated… He ended up rationalizing them to be good things. For him.

'Maybe that's one of my talents.'

Anger and stress were very distant cousins of his, loneliness was his best friend.

While college friends like Jules and Romain hung out often, Rune preferred the isolated style.

For him, there was so much to be happy about with only an internet connection and free time. It had been clear for him from his birth that he would never really be able to see all the genius that resided in the entertainment domain in his single life.

He would need dozens of lifetimes to only brush the surface of the endless entertainment ocean.

As to the fact that he didn't get a single stat point worth of EP after an entire day of farming… He rationalized it soon enough.

'Not like one stat point would change anything in the short-term. Maybe 5 stat points will start to show a noticeable yield increase?'

In all cases, he just had to continue doing his best, keeping his maximum momentum speed and absorbing every ether resource as fast as he could.

Never stopping and always praying to the death asteroids god not to visit him, he followed up his simple farming schedule of never stopping.

*Ding*

10 hours after he started to farm again, a notification went off and was heard by Rune.

The notification function was popularized only some days ago by an emerging news forum proposing a special sound that was transmitted directly to those who accepted.

Rune discovered it only some hours ago and subscribed to this pioneering news forum as a result. He saw no harm in doing it.

The objective of this notification was to alert when important information or events that weren't directly related to the Ether Law took place, and so wouldn't get any dedicated forced compensation law quota announcement.

This special news forum promised to not abuse it and, at least, the guy who said that didn't intend to betray this promise as he couldn't lie with the "intent" revealing his true thoughts.

Surprised by the sudden sound, Rune dropped some speed, he was in a rush as he would soon have enough EP to buy a stat point.

Opening the special news forum he subscribed to, he started reading what was worth sending a notification.

[Roger's News: I'm notifying you that the government just released a big announcement and that it's a big one!]

'The government?'

Incomprehension written all over his avatar's face, Rune could think of nothing that the government could announce that would be important for him.

Unless, of course, it involved a little rural planet like X125. Or that it concerned the Ether Law and the changing era… Which would obviously be the case when he thought about it…

Opening Roger's News forum for more info on where to find this announcement, he found what he wanted and then searched for a forum called "IGS Official Government".

He stumbled upon the right one immediately, and the first thing that caught his eyes was its number of users climbing at an extreme speed.

The number of current readers not having the time to refresh itself, already surpassing tens of trillions of readers, was all the proof he needed to be sure it was the right forum.

Opening this forum that was put on "visit only", Rune started to read the big block of text that was the announcement.

[Dear Citizens of the Intergalactic Society,

This is a summarized announcement to express our opinion and stance on the recent event and complications brought by the awakening of the Ether Law. For further details, please scroll further down.

Firstly, let me remind you all in those strange circumstances that only by disobeying the Intergalactic Charts of Rights and blindly infringing upon the Law installed by the IGS, will you be sanctioned.

As it has always been, you remain free to decide how you act and want to act, it isn't in our right to decide your life for you.

As current competent personnel is hard to come by, you are nonetheless asked to personally come forward as referred by the IGS Law: "Assistance to endangered persons", and help in case of force majeure like insurgencies, stats abuse, prison break, or anything going below the bottom line we all have as a civilized society.

You have the duty to help as long as the situation goes out of control, above what can be resolved by the currently overworked authorities. Help them and they will help you in the future.

Special prisons are under construction and will be ready in 4 days in every inhabited administrative sector.

Diseases and deaths (except old age) being non-existent from now on, the health department will soon pass new directives to its personnel, do not leave your posts yet and enjoy this unexpected holiday.

Emergency education on information gathering and scientific approach to analyze a subject will be available to everyone who so desires from today on, and will include current school students.

Unknown Civilizations that are not the direct intended recipient of this announcement can personally contact the IGS Government to establish a link and hope for help depending on distance and location precision.

For more details, follow the communication protocol that is detailed in a supplementary announcement below.

With the support of major companies, in-depth experiments on stats opened by the Ether Law have been realized and will be published on the Ether Wiki.

Please help yourself on the following subjects: All Stats Individually, Physical Stats, Energy Stats, Spiritual Stats, Ether Point, Energy Use.

To end this announcement, as the new era is down on us, as the current leader of the IGS, I am proud to be the one who will help our civilization have a smooth transition to the Interdimensional Era, and hope that your hard work will be rewarded.

Don't be left behind by the changing time.

The IGS Elected Leader and Assembly authorized this announcement.]

Stationary in the Void Dimension, having long stopped moving through his momentum to focus on reading the message from the government, it wasn't stupefaction that Rune was feeling, it was astonishment.

In only 13 days or so, all this had been done and published.

That was very unusual in the Intergalactic Era, and even in the now Interdimensional Era, it should be unusual.

Upon reading about the in-depth experiments part, his conspiracy side told him that for there to be results already, they had to have rushed some parts of it. Most probably, they were actually publishing what they had while continuing their ongoing experiments.

'Reasonably, nothing I'll learn now will affect what I must do, so let's just read leisurely.'

Starting to move again in search of ether resources, he opened the Ether Wiki to understand what caused the rush of the announcement by the greatest public authority of the IGS.

…

Stats were divided into three parts.

The physical stats: Health, Health Regeneration, Strength, and Cohesion.

The energy stats: Energy, Energy Regeneration, Purity, and Affinity.

And finally, the spiritual stats: Momentum and Perception.

For a grand total of 10 individual stats.

The health and health regeneration pair, as well as the energy and energy regeneration pair, were what they said they were.

Health was a power that couldn't be explained as of yet, it just existed. Same for energy, it just existed because the Ether Law existed.

The complete inner working and interactions of each stats in their category wasn't yet clear as only snippets had been confirmed by the Ether Law through the wiki.

The strength stat, for example, didn't seem related to one's health despite being categorized as a physical stat and was more in line with a magical force of ether that could only be used by your physical body.

10 points assigned to it already signified entering monstrous territory. It meant obtaining the capability to break non-etherized materials from reinforced steel all the way to carbon nanotube rope as long as enough time was given.

Precise comparisons were nevertheless imprecise as technique and martial experience now counted as a major factor to know how much of your available strength stat you could really use.

To explain the cohesion stat, one needed to first actualize their knowledge on how Health had changed the biology of everything.

Health was now the supreme indicator of life, and such an indicator was actually spread all over one's body with no regards to important organs or not.

People who invested all their initial EP loan into health while making sure their original body got 1 health regeneration stat point now found themselves with quasi immortal bodies.

With only 8 points of health scattered all over the body, a number so small anyone would eventually get to it, one could lose entire portions of his body, lose all his blood, have his heart stop beating… That he would remain alive and get back to a working biological state after his health got back to full.

And this same health had a composant called cohesion, which made it more resistant.

This cohesion stat was used not only to resist environmental damage such as heat or cold, it was also the primary and easiest way, along with more health, to resist and survive a death asteroid collision.

The purity stat stood for the potential power of one's energy. The factors that allowed you to push the potential power still weren't all understood, but it could be summarized that as long as you kept trying, the base power would slowly be elevated.

The affinity stat had 2 main uses it seemed, the first of which was making your energy more easily manipulable, and the second which helping reading the ambient ether more easily, making it possible to know which direction showed an elevated ether density, potentially helping to find ether resources.

The perception stat's first use was of course the creation of a perception sphere, allowing one to see the world through his spirit.

The world seen through one's perception was so different in fact that they couldn't be compared.

One belonged to the physical realm, the other belonged to ether realm, a new side of reality that couldn't even be said to have had its surface brushed, a completely new blank field of research.

The perception stat wasn't limited by brain capacity or similar previous biological concepts, it also seemed to enhance your reaction speed and your ability to take more information and details into account while observing a situation in a shorter time.

As for the momentum stat, the second stat belonging to the spiritual stats category, it's main use seemed to be to give you the ability to move with only your will.

Momentum belonged to the spiritual stats, so it simply represented how much your spirit could push its physical incarnation by sheer will, with the only ceiling being the stat and the spirit's endurance.

It was completely possible to accelerate from zero to your maximum momentum speed in no time, literally a nanosecond for some, it was even possible to change direction completely without keeping any of the prior momentum and go back as easily as just wishing for it.

Momentum was clearly the stat with the greatest visual impact of all the stats, it bent previously acquired physical concepts in two to allow for something intangible like a "spirit" to make physical force vanish or appear.

…

Rune really didn't expect all that.

Like a master detective puzzling out an entire case from seeing fragmented pieces, he combined facts in his mind and added them to an expanding repertory of knowledge belonging only to him.

However, despite what he had thought at first, the 10 ether stats weren't the most detailed subject released, this place ended up belonging to the Ether Points, the EP.

The new era money.

The government, or most probably the companies, did everything they could to try and control this new currency that everyone had in common and could farm.

And fortunately for the majority of the citizens witching for equality at the dawn of this new era, EP was utterly untradeable. At least for now it was.

Once absorbed from a resource, they were forever and ever yours to do what you wanted with them. The Ether Law didn't want you to trade them, the only possibility to pay in EP was to use an ether resource directly.

However, as long as there was no physical link between the dimensions, meaning the Universe Dimension and ether resource-rich dimensions like the Void Dimension, such a trade would not happen.

As he kept reading, Rune also understood why no one did an energy beam or energy bullet yet.

Energy manipulation seemed to not only need grinding-like long training, massive amounts of EP also had to be invested before those stats became possible to use externally. And that was on the avatars' side, not the original bodies' side.

Avatars with the greatest success at using energy were those with balanced energy stats allocation, and even then, what they were able to do paled in comparison to avatars that balanced their physical stats.

They were only capable of launching an orb of energy not stronger than a punch backed by 4 points of strength, and then they had to wait a whole minute for their energy pool to fill back. A whole minute.

In the end, everything seemingly pointed towards farming being the key to developing globally everything.

When he concluded this, a flood of relief washed through Rune's mind.

'Everything's fine, EP can't be traded, they can only be acquired with effort. That's probably the meaning behind the end of the announcement "and hope that your hard work will be rewarded", or perhaps I'm just overthinking as usual?'

Finishing his ruminations, he was alerted as another ether light entered his perception sphere.

'Let's go, I'm not even tired yet! Hehe!'

A little fired up from what he had just learned and concluded, he continued his farming with a little inside joke, only making himself laugh.