Chapter 151: Efficiency Loss Scale
Stepping into the complete unknown wasn't something the group of 3 was unfamiliar with. It could even be said that compared to the first time they did it their current circumstances were like heaven.
Knowledge, experience, pocket dimension, tools, ether tower, free and limitless communication… Each point could be developed by Rune to fill pages and pages describing how the young generation of adventurers had it easy compared to a few years ago.
At the same time, perceiving the world with his perception stretching 10 kilometers in all directions in a completely flawless sphere around him, he dismissed those thoughts as useless ones.
He was where he was thanks to those hard years, and not all those of the new generation had access to everything he considered "commodities". Was it easy to get themselves a military-grade ether tower? He didn't have the answer, but he could speculate it easily enough.
After leaving site 58, their last stop in mapped land, the group, or Rune actually, decided to skip a few thousand kilometers to directly skip any possibly already mapped areas by groups of patrollers who passed by.
From what he could see as he ran in the air, the wilderness below him didn't look any different from the one he saw between the sites in the mapped area. Monsters fought just as intensely, they were just as numerous, and unique ones existed.
The fact that more than 10 different monsters shot him while he was flying, hidden in his comic mist bubble, was something he had half-expected as they didn't take their time anymore.
As fate had it, however, those monsters who shot his bubble couldn't catch up to the group's speed and were left behind even when they tried to chase.
In 1 hour at a steady 800 meters per second, they traveled nearly 3 000 kilometers, putting them amazingly deep in the unknown and unmapped area, as they had hoped, that's when Rune landed after making sure there were no monsters he could see around.
Scattering his cosmic mist bubble, he accessed his big ether pocket dimension and got his ether tower out.
'It's been a very long time since I last did that…'
Pressing the most eye-catching button, the tower deployed by itself, and familiar vibrations started to spread in his perception, going further than he could with 10 000 perception stats.
'The specs say it has a radius of 50 kilometers, truly the wonder of tech…'
"Actually I lied," Arik started to talk out of nowhere, pulling Rune out of his thoughts, "I'm a bit excited at the idea of finally reaching completely unknown grounds, it's so similar and so different compared to when we just arrived in the Endless at the same time…"
His nearly bashful confession caught the two off guard, and not just by a bit. As a result, there was an awkward silence where the two wondered if there was even a need to answer.
That was when the tower started beeping, indicating it finished its scan and sent it. Rune didn't add anything like a message to this scan as he didn't see anything interesting to report.
Just in case, he checked his connected screen to see the scan he also received and made sure there really was nothing interesting.
"Not having a long-range vision is really making finding awesome spots more difficult. If Astryde didn't give potential coordinates, I would have probably returned to the surface out of frustration. I'm capable of doing that!" After he finished checking the scan, he stored the ether tower back and "slowly" started to move.
"Yeah, that's probably why you added probably," Arik said, no signs of his weird confession remained in his words or tone.
"If my build wasn't a variant adapted for fighting and survival, I would have taken the specialization allowing me to compress and expand my perception. But even then, would it have really helped?" Astryde echoed some of her thoughts as she also started to move.
"It's also on my list of specializations to take when I can," her bringing this up made Rune remember his future plan for a cosmic mist-sponsored perception training, "Though I don't know how it'll interact with my specialty…"
"Really?" She seemed a bit surprised, or curious, depending on the point of view, "Well, if you want to know more about this perception specialization, check out the time watcher association's website. Traditional time watchers all use it because it makes any deep dive give much bigger results."
"Oh… Never thought of that."
"The main concern about this specialization is that it just costs so many mastery slots to have an appropriate build to work with it. Expand just a bit too much, and bam! You end up with a perception that tells you the entire world is composed of grey pixels."
"Expanding isn't really my main goal, but what you just described sounded fun to do."
She remained silent for a bit, computing what he said, "Compressing? To train your cosmic mist even more?"
"Yup."
"That's a very pragmatic use of perception compression," she finished the subject.
What she told him, however, Rune was thankful for and added the "TWA website perception compression" item to his to-do list as he started ruminating on what else she told him.
'Gray pixels… A mastery that doesn't obey the efficiency loss scale, unlike my negative reinforcement efficiency.'
As long as he focused on his energy, he could feel that all of his surplus regeneration was used to feed a body-shaped energy layered on top of his bones, but to no effect.
'418% of negative reinforcement efficiency, I'm already at the fourth level of the scale, what can I accomplish with a reinforcement output divided by 16?'
A 100% efficiency deficit divided the output of the concerned field by 2.
A 200% efficiency deficit divided the previous result by an additional 2, so a total division by 4.
A 300% efficiency deficit divided it by a total of 8.
That's what the efficiency loss scale was: A ruthless reflection of one's own choice.
Though, it wasn't the most ruthless as specializations like perception compression and expansion had what was called an equalized loss: Expand your perception by 50%? Lose 50% of what your perception can give you.
'Well, at least I don't have to worry about going all out with it anymore. Even if I use all the energy I can muster at one point, a complete energy pool, it'd only give me a 60% strength boost for one move.'
A sudden presence appeared in his perception, stopping him from continuing brooding on his own.
'If I were to do some stats, isn't an adventurer's time occupied by 90% fighting and 10% admiring the scenery?'
Soon enough, the first fight of a nearly endless list in his true journey in the bone region started.
'Or for others, it is, cause for me…'
The cosmic mist he released started to condense around him, forming a bubble that was now an indispensable core to his most advanced fighting style and survival. Not only his survival but also that of his 2 friends who decided to have an adventure with him.
'I want my life to be 100% admiring unknown sceneries. And every fight I'll pick on my own terms, I need some levels after all.'
…
The schedule the group of 3 established was simple: 6 days of travel, used to advance, train, and find unique spots, followed by 1 day of break, used for all of them to relax, advance their personal projects, and also train.
Reading his own diary after feeling like it, Rune felt mentally content.
Those who read his weekly entries in the future may not feel like him, but he for sure loved how he described 3 months of adventuring, with all the plus, the minus, the zeros, and the weirds.
[1st week: The fascination of adventuring through grounds untrodden for ages by sapient lives kept me focused. This first break is as symbolic as the first monster I successfully killed, a weird bony rock with spikes and 3 articulated limbs, truly the work of something I cannot understand as of yet.
Unfortunately, nothing like a pillar or a massive topographic change took place, but I'm not hoping for one to happen so soon…]
'Maybe rephrasing it to "untrodden for ages by sapient lives, this part of the bone region"… It sounds really good.'
[4th week: An entire month has passed since we started traveling. I'm largely past the minimum safety threshold for becoming more than a bottom-feeder in the food chain, or ether chain? Of a tier 4 ether density heartland.
Fights are becoming easier, I'm able to fight equally with some atypical monsters, my cosmic mist being the key to all of those successful encounters…]
'What a naive past-self. A little boasting never hurts but don't go too far. What if people really start to believe adventuring in a tier 4 heartland is easy? Maybe I should add a few fight descriptions where my life would have been in danger without my cosmic mist?'
[7th week: We found a battle site, maybe a recent one, maybe an ancient one, it remains to be ascertained. Due to this discovery, we forwarded the break, and Astryde engaged in a deep dive to find the truth. With at least 100 hours to kill, I didn't feel like tinkering so I left behind a cosmic mist emitter that lasted until I came back from a refreshing fight…]
[8th week: 2 months now, between Astryde's discovery of something bombarding this battle site to such a mess full of gigantic craters from above her perception only a few years ago, the AREC reform currently taking place and making the news everywhere, and Arik informing us that something very political was going on back at the capital…
I felt happy. It's really fun to be a totally uninvolved spectator. I hope nothing drastic happens, but that's it. I'm not responsible for what will take place after all, and even if I was, I would throw the responsibility aside as fast as possible before running away…]
'And I'm still very happy to not be there, too much learning to do to catch up to the currently still evolving situation.'
[12th week: After 3 months of traveling east, the topography has finally started to change. It's a lot more hectic and lots of what I thought to be pillars started to appear. It's always a bit disappointing when they're just 30 kilometers high near-vertical mountains, but I can live with it, for the day I finally find a true pillar of the underground world.
Progressing as a tier 4 entity, once you adapted to it, is fairly enjoyable. It's neither too fast nor too slow, and I just really feel like I'm progressing a bit each day. Optimizing my training schedule is the best decision I made up until now…]
'It looks alright for me, I can't come up with something else to talk about… And talking about progress, I still need to actualize… Sigh… Should I stop actualizing my progress note document? It's really becoming bothersome even if it takes only a few minutes.'
Switching to the concerned note document, he brought up his masteries window and started copy-pasting the numbers.
Masteries
Tier 1 Masteries
Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 52
Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 35
Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 36
Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 45
Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 45
Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 36
Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 7
Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 44
Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 19
Tier 2 Masteries
Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element: Tier 3 Level 41
Cohesion: Specialized Cohesion Infusion: Tier 4 Level 50
Cohesion: Specialized Endless Adaptation: Tier 1 Level 7
Tier 3 Masteries
Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense: Tier 3 Level 36
Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure: Tier 3 Level 36
Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor: Tier 3 Level 36
Tier 4 Masteries
Energy Compression: Provided Quick Compression: Tier 3 Level 29
Body Control: Provided Humanoid Body: Tier 3 Level 30
Body Control: Provided Prolonged Body Use: Tier 3 Level 30
'Momentum manipulation… Probably due to me not using it as much as before. My strength is amply sufficient for every problem I encounter now after all. Even against tricky ones, I tend to not go for momentum as my answer.'
Thanks to simple mental maths, he easily saw when a certain mastery's leveling rate was reduced, and his momentum manipulation turned out to have gained only 4 levels over 3 months. Just slightly better than background training.
'3 months and no environmental events. Maybe I should add this fact to my diary to prove that either I'm lucky or they're just that rare.'
He thought he had nothing else to write a second ago, and now he got one.
This type of cycle wasn't intended, but his mind had started to develop in the direction of writing lots of things down, so he naturally thought of things to write down.
'I shouldn't complain about my endless adaptation not leveling though, masteries level because they're used… Am I maybe becoming a bit too confident? Like reaching tier 5 is a matter of course and those 3 additional mastery slots will change my life-'
"Rune," a voice belonging to Astryde interrupted his inner monologue, "Let's go."
"Ok."
He answered simply and stood up from his cross-legged position.
The lack of sensory feedback from his body, particularly from his lower body, was but a fleeting thought he had, forgotten a moment later due to its overuse.
Astryde and Arik exited his empty bubble, taking off towards the east and leaving him behind.
It was the natural adaptation of their adventuring formation after they reached what they judged to be a correct and adequate strength.
The two ran in the open, intercepting and gathering any monster's attention while allowing them to scan the bone region in hope of finding things Rune might have overlooked if he was the only one.
Rune, in the meantime, would remain hidden behind and engage in half-support tactics until a third monster arrived.
It wasn't a training-centric formation anymore, it was an adventuring-training hybrid formation that embodied the fact that fighting monsters wasn't their goal. Opportunistic strikes on monsters could and should be taken.
It was after all a fact that even after 3 months of travel, the group wasn't even halfway to the nearest of their 3 coordinate points' objectives.
Soon enough, a few minutes to be exact, the group encountered the first monster of their newly started 6 days of traveling, and Arik was the one to charge first, followed by Astryde and Rune, who would try to conclude the fight as quickly as possible.
It began and ended normally.
Arik, the best direct fighter of their group, was objectively above the monster they just encountered in terms of capabilities. So when in addition he had 2 supports, one in the open and one hidden, who allowed him to use his reinforced strikes fully…
It was like this that the group gained yet another tier 4 core and bone remains. The firsts of their newly started traveling session.
The core was sent into Arik's big ether pocket dimension, the only one saturated enough for the tier 4 materials to not disintegrate while the body was used to saturate Astryde's one.
From start to finish, less than 5 minutes passed.
As no other monsters made an appearance, the group settled in their formation again and moved on.
A bit more than 5 minutes later a new monster appeared, maybe attracted by their fight, maybe not, and nearly the same fight took place, except this monster acted even more stupidly than the last and had less ability.
Killing true tier 4 monsters "so easily" was what worried Rune a bit when he tried to transcribe what really took place behind the scene, but the result was that he only gave it a thought and wrote a warning before stopping thinking about it.
There was a reason for everything, and their group being able to quickly kill a single tier 4 monster with equal or less capability as only a single one of them was… Close to normal in his book.
A few encounters later, the group stumbled upon a group of monsters already fighting and joined in.
Chaotic fights like those were a good reminder about what reality could be, and they had even already agreed between themselves that it was their favorite type of encounter due to the very intense burst of intensity they required.
For Rune, those types of encounters were also a way for him to not lose himself in his own lone fight. He had to keep a part of his attention on what happened around him and another part on his 2 travel companions, in case something major hit them.
But apart from that, it was 100% distilled joy.
It wasn't the traditional "them versus the rest", it was "them versus what comes their way".
Arik and Astryde let their fighting instinct guide them through the mess as they prioritized keeping their health and armor in check while punching and kicking everything they could.
Rune was still pioneering how to apply his cosmic mist in this type of chaotic and large fights, and as of that moment, his best answer had been to become a free-spirit that kidnapped unsuspecting targets and pummelled them with his best combo before going away, escaping their sometimes berserk retaliations.
For this situation, the group didn't have a timer that told them when to stop, they were of the same mind as the mindless bone monsters and would just continue until a unique monster came or too much time passed.
In this case, after a few hours a new monster joined, it was a unique one. It could also be called a "fre*king strong" one in Rune's dictionary.
When it entered his perception, it was just a normal monster with a somewhat standardized body shape… And then a random bone monster that ended up below a kilometer away from it exploded in pieces.
'Spiritual powers!'
The monster that took the brunt of the spiritual attack staggered and adopted a much more defensive behavior, even nearing the stage where it would activate its minor boosts from Rune's observation.
The other monsters, in their immense mindlessness, proving they were spawned tier 4 once again, didn't react at all and continued fighting.
As for the group of 3, Rune had already made his bubble's position known and the 2 were rushing.
It was time for them to leave.
Unique monsters weren't worth fighting against in a chaotic fight environment.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone