17 Utopia’s Plan
"Using the Void Dimension map the government provided, I roughly know where I am, so I'm going to enter the nearest dangerous grounds and see if it's a good one. If it's good, I'll farm there, if not, I'll just try another one," finishing his intro sentence, Rune continued.
"I want to max my stats, but Utopia clearly made me understand that it'll come naturally with time, so I'll put more effort into my try everything plan."
"I think I'll start with body control and close combat fundamentals first, I'll then try energy training. Once I'm done with the 2, I'll see if the energy path or physical path have optimized their mastery knowledge and take everything I need," calmly stating the grand lines of his plan, Rune finished his piece and let Nelo have his turn.
Upon waking up refreshed and ready to face another month, the group of 4 had gathered and organized a day off to cool down and clearly think about their plan.
Exiting their training building after all this time had really been different from the feeling of coming back from farming in the Void Dimension for a complete month. It was much more fulfilling.
The place they had decided to host their planning session was a modern and isolated in-house coffee bar
"My original plan was to bring up my stats and focus on energy fundamentals. The recent energy puzzles wave revolutionized energy mastery knowledge and separated manipulation into fine and grand manipulation, so… I'll still continue the energy path! Only later will I try the other paths and look for any talent I might potentially have."
Nelo finished his part and gave the speaking rights to his sister.
"My instinct tells me to go learn the new mastery knowledge of the physical path, using energy to reinforce your body seems dope. I can use my previous work in energy fundamentals to maybe become a pioneer in that new field, and… That's it. I don't like to plan, my instinct is enough," finishing her piece she then looked at the judge of the table.
Acting a little embarrassed, Utopia cleared his throat before talking, "I'm just going to tell you what is the most optimized path for me, not directly correcting you on what you think is best for yourself."
He then started to give his plan.
"First, I'll focus on my awareness training. Everyday I'll redo the manual transmission necessary to have music playing during my farming. The next focus will be perception sphere manipulation training, which I really think Rune should also do more of, it's the easiest to do while farming."
"Once I ascertain my talents in those 2 fundamentals, I'll enter the nearest martial supreme dojo, which is coincidentally located in the neighboring 4th district, to learn the fundamentals of the physical path."
"I'll try myself to close combat and body control first, just the basics. After that, I'll start my energy training with the goals of mastering physical reinforcement. Once I'm confident in my energy manipulation, I'll then have a physical path period only."
"Obviously, ascertaining my plan to this step is already pushing the boundary of believing nothing is going to happen during all this time spanning months and months, but I'll do everything I can to follow this path, and only after all that will I go and verify my energy manipulation talents, with fine, grand and compression training."
Letting all his grand training plan sink into his 3 friend's mind, Utopia didn't say anything else and waited for someone else to talk.
"I'll consider your advice," Rune answered simply after a few seconds of silence, Utopia already knew his personality so they didn't need more words.
"I'll wait for your good news. I don't plan to change my instinct though," Astryde stated that she was clear about her plan.
"Once I've done my first step, I'll carefully decide my next," Nelo let his answer flow along with Rune's and Astryde's.
Observing that his 3 friends had properly reflected on their own plan, Utopia felt it was time to end this strange conversation, "That's it then? I have something else to add, I'll also say it on our private forum, but I plan to wait around 4 months before starting a new serious fighting camp, so you can go back to your home and come back later or live in the training building, the choice is yours."
"Personally, I still plan to use it as my primary training and meditation spot, but we'll only see each other by happenstance or maybe at the end for the monthly sleep. Now! Let's enjoy those new energy-cooked meals and energy-infused cocktails, I'm old enough to drink alcohol too!" Utopia returned to his childish hero-fascinated facet the moment he didn't need to assume his social leader role anymore.
The group had long found his brat-ish personality wasn't an artificial one, it was the true him, only smoothed out by his rululu life experience that he sometimes showed when the situation asked for it.
After a great meal and more relaxed chatting, they all returned to the training building and went their own way with a single "later" exchanged to each other.
This return and split was of course not to go to sleep, as they had just done that, it was because they each had their own path to follow from now on.
And their path, at least the majority of it, were paths that could only be trodden by themselves.
...
'Of course I'll not go back, I have an entire training facility available here… Why didn't X125 go the modernized way? There's so many cool amenities here…'
In his assigned bedroom three times the size of his home's one, with full futuristic furniture and appliances he never got to enjoy before, Rune had already decided to not go back to his home and was getting himself ready to start his dangerous ground's exploration.
Switching all his awareness to his avatar, he appeared in the Void Dimension.
During the last week, when they had all started to farm and do their own thing again, he had only farmed at 80% efficiency due to all the talking and other things that bothered him.
As such, he had "only" gathered an additional 382 958 EP, which he could add to the previous 478 697 EP he had farmed before departing for the momentum training camp.
Obviously, he had already invested everything in his physical stats, his objective was to make his survival a fact, not a probability.
Avatar (Basic Rank) (Tier 1)
EP: 15 349
Stats Total: 1 287
Health: 61
Health Regeneration: 21
Strength: 10
Cohesion: 100
Energy: 10
Energy Regeneration: 65
Purity: 10
Affinity: 10
Momentum: 500
Perception: 500
A simple forum search could now lead to numerous specialized stats guides, and in the category of increased survivability, it was found that cohesion was king. Even the health stat was a lot behind it, with health regeneration following in toe.
Of course, cohesion being the king stat on that field didn't mean it remained the king stats in others. Everyone had their own objectives related to securing the survivability of their avatar.
Cohesion reduced all damages that touched upon the threshold of reducing one's health, it was the king stat when it came to surviving the dangerous grounds.
Health allowed the avatar to have enough time to run and flee in case he took too much damage, it was a base stat that could also never be too low.
Finally, health regeneration was the stat that balanced everything, it mitigated the continuous damage some dangerous grounds and new generation spells inflicted, while helping increase the survivability.
The only mystery remaining non elucidated was the etherized gravity.
Even to this day where enormous progress had been made in the understanding of the new reality ruled by the Ether Law, when your avatar felt gravity, you could only run.
Ethan, a hero who maxed his physical stats, had tried to land on the gravity planet that hosted the asteroid belt that had changed his life, but even he failed miserably and died, losing 10 days of time.
The most accepted theory was that either they were missing something, like gravity taking on completely new properties depending on the ether density, or advancing was the solution to reaching gravity ground.
Maybe they needed to advance their fundamentals? Maybe they needed to gain their independence? Maybe they even needed to become an ether life form?
'Maybe I'll soon finish you.'
Looking at the Void Initiation event, above the Deep Void Initiation event, Rune was sure he was going to get the completion reward someday. In fact, he was sure that as soon as he accomplished the 10 000 hours milestone, he would have cleared this event offered by the compensation law.
Event
Void Initiation
Gather a total of 100 ether-rich resources from the Void Dimension: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Gather a total of 1 000 ether-rich resources from the Void Dimension: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Gather a total of 10 000 ether-rich resources from the Void Dimension: 1 000 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Travel more than 100 kilometers in the Void Dimension: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Travel more than 1 000 kilometers in the Void Dimension: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Travel more than 10 000 kilometers in the Void Dimension: 1 000 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Survey the Void Dimension for 100 hours: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Survey the Void Dimension for 1 000 hours: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Survey the Void Dimension for 10 000 hours: 1 000 000 EP
Discover a special resource: 10 000 EP
Discover 10 different special resources: 100 000 EP
Discover 100 different special resources: 1 000 000 EP
Use 10 000 total energy in any way: 10 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Use 100 000 total energy in any way: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Use 1 000 000 total energy in any way: 1 000 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Attain 100 in any individual stat: 100 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Attain 1 000 total stats: 1 000 000 EP (COMPLETE)
Completion Bonus: 10 000 000 EP
'Maybe the event expected me to be a lot more adventurous? I'll make up for it soon… If I'm lucky and get a good dangerous ground of course.'
After he started to move with his avatar, he called 2 system windows he wasn't going to open in at least another half a year if the situation didn't change until then.
The first was the window detailing the new event.
Event
Deep Void Initiation
Gather a total of 10 000 monster cores: 1 000 000 EP
Clean 10 monster nests: 1 000 000 EP
Reach the dimension's boundaries: 1 000 000 EP
Find 10 rare resources: 1 000 000 EP
Successfully interact with a peaceful ether life form: 1 000 000 EP
Find living ether vegetation life: 1 000 000 EP
Completion Bonus: 10 000 000 EP
There was no notion of progression anymore, only objectives to accomplish.
EP became useless after maxing one's stats anyway, so the rewards seemed a bit lackluster compared to the first compensation event.
But maybe EP would have another use in the future? Or so Rune hoped, he was a professional farmer after all, and gaining EP was one of his joys.
As for the second system window he had opened…
Dimensions
Deep Void
Able to bear ether life forms, Can birth life.
Slightly unstable. Dimensional anomalies possible.
Tier 1 Perception: 50% restriction.
Tier 1 Momentum: 50% restriction.
The Deep Void Dimension was born soon after the Void Dimension. It is only a billionth of its size but has a dimensional link to the Void Dimension allowing ether density to come in but not out, greatly increasing its ether density, explaining its ability to produce ether life forms.
The ether life forms born in it ended up becoming ether monsters that propagated more aggressive behavior with every successive generation in search of dominance and power. Few ether life forms escaped this cycle.
Enter?
'No.'
Entering meant transporting his avatar to a random spot in the Deep Void Dimension. And he didn't want that, he had only wanted to read the description, nothing more, nothing less.
If he entered, he would also end up losing his current relatively known position in the Void Dimension, a position which he roughly knew.
And even if it wasn't the case and he was still completely lost, he didn't want to enter this dangerous dimension now of all time, he wasn't ready at all.
Some had wanted to abuse the teleportation system and had wanted to repeatedly teleport themselves in different spots by alternating between the 2 dimensions, but it turned out there was a one-month cooldown on it, so it wasn't etherly possible.
'Now that I think about it… Anomalies are everything except flying ether crystals, right? I remember reading about it on the wiki before.'
Rune's thought took an abrupt turn as he kept getting closer and closer to the dangerous ground he was targeting.
'And now I also got the other piece detailing the theory about anomalies being pieces of other dimensions that arrived where they were by eventmential dimensional rifts, and that theory explains why the misty system came to exist.'
Remembering something Utopia had talked about in length, he started linking the pieces together.
'Is there any possible drama involving the Void Dimension protecting the Universe Dimension from potentially dimension-ending events? It would certainly complete the previous theory about the Void Dimension being unstable because it was created to protect the Universe Dimension… So deep! So drama!'
On his way to his target, Rune gathered resources, but he only absorbed pure ether crystals worth 100 EP and let the rest continue on with their infinite journey.
Using math, he now considered his time not worth using to absorb those low-value resources worth only 70 EP. What he wanted was double or even triple that. Only if special resources were added, he would finally consider it to be an efficient farming session.
'Top 10%, hehehe.'
On this unimpressive thought, he continued his trip towards his first dangerous ground.
…
Rune arrived at one of the dangerous grounds he hadn't known he had passed by, but the overpowered and rich IGS found it by wasting millions of expensive scouting drones that shouldn't have been meant to be single-use, and much more, throughout all the time he spent in the momentum training camp.
This dangerous ground presented a very impressive sight as a first impression as a dull red aura emanated from it.
It was only visible with his perception sphere, and his now being a kilometer in diameter, he could see this aura being contained in a rough sphere of 200 kilometers in diameter after doing a round around it.
'Large enough that no farming problem will appear, seems that the ether resource density is also similar.'
Casual observation helped him rapidly conclude his preliminary analysis.
'I just need to follow the guide and everything will work out fine.'
Heroes who had exploited dangerous grounds long before he had even thought about doing the same had already prepared a general method to study a ground's potential danger. And as more people had joined in on this project over time, this guide had ended up becoming a classic.
Observation and true test interweaved to produce a 90% complete diagnostic of the dangerousness, the remaining 10% being random pulses of damage that could only be added to the intel by chance or after dying.
After concluding the dangerousness evaluation, he checked the 3 crystals he had gathered from the shallow dive he did as part of the test and started to absorb them.
IThis precise part served to check the richness of the place.
And opening his gathering log, his first opportunity as a top 10% was here.
Absorbed 'Ether crystal', gained 204 EP.
Absorbed 'Ether crystal', gained 196 EP.
Absorbed 'Ether crystal', gained 209 EP.
His farming was now going to become 3 times better, and who knows? Maybe special resources could also be found here.
