The pile of documents wasn’t even coming close to the one he had to go through when he became a super, so Aven didn’t react in any way when it landed in front of him and he was asked whether he wanted the long or short version.

“I think the long version would be preferable?” He hesitatingly replied.

“Well, bad news for you, there’s no short or long version,” the bald military man jested at his own joke before he started on an explanation anyway, “So… For tech supers, and considering you didn’t choose to go to a super academy, you’ll have to go through a period of intense learning.”

Departing from that, he developed things Aven had only heard of in obscure websites, “To be efficient at your tech energy infusion, you’ll need to learn everything about how your equipment works.”

“And as you’re going the mixed route, you’ll have to learn both military production engineering knowledge and military weapon engineering. After all that, you’ll still have to be trained to put into practice everything you heard while receiving basic super soldier training.”

“Sounds fun, right? Hehe,” the way Leonard put all that was as if he was congratulating him.

And he really somewhat congratulated him the next moment, “You need to pay a grand total of nothing, and you can remain in the school we’ll put you into for years if you want, it’s your problem, not ours.”

“You can even give up mid-way if you feel that the tech system is not for you. You really couldn’t have made a better choice though if you really want to become a tech super. That’s pretty much everything about the first part. Questions on that part?”

“No, sir,” having completely understood what was said, Aven shook his head and indicated he was ready for the follow-up.

“Then onward to the second and last part,” this time he took a document himself to not make mistakes, “The moment you’re judged capable enough, you’ll become both an apprentice production support military engineer of an industrial center and an urban intervention super squad soldier.”

Showing a bit of an attitude, he looked more deeply at Aven as he developed, “The former will be an easy transition compared to the latter. Integrating a super squad will demand from you more training once you confirm your choice of taking the mixed route again.”

Aven didn’t relent after hearing that and nodded firmly once.

“You can check the fine details like your salary by yourself later, a copy of the contract will be sent to you in dematerialized form, and you can break it with no consequences until you officially become employed by the military. By then, backtracking will be a bit harder, so think things through carefully,” the way Leonard put it, it seemed as if he wanted Aven to go away, to not continue on this path.

“Yes, sir,” backed up by his perfect theorized plan, however, Aven knew that for him to stop walking this path, he would need a massive opportunity he didn’t even think could exist outside of movies.

“Then sign away,” he waved at the thin pile of documents, “Go to Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering in Ludra whenever you want 2 days from now. Special admission will be used, and as you asked, you’ll be left to your own devices there.”

Not disliking what he was hearing at all, he took one of the available pens and started signing everywhere he needed to sign, grinding through the thin pile in 5 minutes before pushing it back.

“That will be all,” Leonard stood up as he said that, “You’re not yet part of us, but I think you have the motivation necessary to go through with it, so I’ll welcome and congratulate you in advance for integrating the military of the strongest country on Green.”

“Thank you in advance then,” similarly standing up, Aven thanked him before he proceeded to bid goodbye to the 2 men present and leave through the door.

‘Well, that went well.’

Assessing this interview that he had prepared for an entire week after he became grade 1, he couldn’t find anything bad about it. It had just been that perfect for him.

‘I disclosed enough about my innate ability to not be doubted for hiding the inner workings, and me choosing to integrate into the military so soon after my awakening should clearly show my determination.’

Reviewing everything he had said and done from start to finish, he nodded to himself as he leisurely walked through a military-themed corridor.

Reaching the exit soon enough, he pushed through the door and entered the large open court of this military zone. Knowing where he needed to go to exit, he followed the path he had initially taken to arrive there and eventually arrived at the exit portal.

Presenting his identity card to the guard, he was allowed to leave, and after putting on his headphones and finding his bike where he had left it, he rode on it and started his journey back home.

‘I’ll stop to get some congratulatory pastries.’

Thinking about one of his topmost pleasures in life, eating, he started infusing energy inside his bike. With his full understanding of how it worked, the infusion took effect immediately, and he mystically started to accelerate.

The last gear could be pedaled with more ease, the 2 wheels adhered to the ground much more while still feeling like their friction had been reduced, and the wind stopped pushing him back as much as before.

‘Still feels as amazing as the first time!’

His medium-budget bicycle cut through the air at a greater speed than he thought possible to reach without being a national athlete starting a rush on a slope. At such a speed, he swiftly reached a panel indicating that he had now entered Serenis, quickly followed by the first big buildings.

Supported by his passive energy, one not even actively infused and consumed through the martial system, was enough for him to keep his top form for the half an hour it took him to return to his home while stopping to buy some tasty things on their way.

Once he settled back into the comfort of his bedroom, Aven noticed that not even his 260 minutes-long downtime period had ended between him leaving and returning.

‘I’m so freaking fast, and the interview happened so freaking well. My life is going so freakingly well!’

Pumping his right fist, he adopted a glorious and heroic pose with a hardened face. Doing such a thing was the only thing that allowed him to emphasize how good he felt about the whole situation.

Even now, after more than 2 weeks had passed since his awakening as a super, his motivation remained at a steady all-time high. Surfing on this motivation, he stopped his celebration antics shortly and returned to something that was between entertainment and education.

‘I stopped in the middle of the launching phase of the Skylark Project, what a timing.’

Hitting the play button, the documentary about the life of a still alive reputed tech super fairy named Skylark Dove, one of the merely slightly more than 2 000 fairies making up the symbolic royal family of Eland remaining to this day, started playing.

Back when he had concluded the matter of choosing his future path by selecting the Eland’s Military option, Aven had wondered what he should do to continue preparing himself for his inevitable ascension he was sure would happen.

And the answer he had come up with wasn’t to start a physical training routine, it also wasn’t to start watching engineering tutorials, or even to learn as much as possible about how hot weapons worked or how the military was organized…

He had decided that getting to know his successful predecessor supplanted all those options. And it coincidentally turned out that it was also an entertaining option once he approached all those documentaries with his new point of view as a super.

‘It still sounds so crazy that he only needed 4 cycles before increasing his energy cultivation by 1 point… I’m at double that.’

Watching and listening as the documentary developed the part about Skylark’s fairy bloodline giving him a crazy good energy cultivation speed, Aven couldn’t help but compare their 2 respective talents. Ultimately though, he was resigned.

‘Anyway, having to do 8 cycles to gain 1 energy cultivation point is better than having to do 10, right?’

Being a realist, he continued to marvel at some point of the documentary that linked Skylark’s efforts to a turning point in a conflict with abominations more than a century ago.

From what he had gleaned from various documentaries, tech supers weren’t stronger or weaker than other supers using different energy systems, but they had one thing that put them in a much more favorable position when it came to interacting with normal people.

They needed equipment, a stable environment to prepare themselves, and access to knowledge and cutting-edge innovations to shine.

In exchange for getting those 3 things, they were able to create much higher quality machines when they knew what they were doing and were given enough time and resources.

This simple but unbreakable cycle was only somewhat present in one other energy system, which was opposed to the tech system in principle: The martial energy system.

Breaking him from his line of thought, his phone started beeping.

‘I was waiting for that.’

Moving his mouse to check that the documentary wasn’t even at half of its total duration, not that interrupting his energy cycle for a few minutes to change to another documentary would impact his energy cultivation efficiency that much, he adopted a comfortable posture and focused.

Familiar with the process, he only needed a few seconds before the energy in the form of an omnipresent somewhat dense cloud filling his whole body started revolving and moving all around in a cycle.

…

The next day, after waking up one time during his sleep to do a cycle, and then returning to the sweet darkness of sleep, he continued watching documentaries that sounded interesting until he had to repeat a cycle.

When he finished this one, he brought up his status to know if his energy cultivation had changed and if he needed to adapt his schedule again.

‘Oh?!’

However, while his energy cultivation still hadn’t moved compared to yesterday, he was surprised by another inevitable change that would have taken place sooner or later.

Aven Amias

Faction: None

Energy Grade: 1

Energy Cultivation: 13/100

Energy Affinity: Tech

Physical Talents: None

Energy Talents: Basic Tech Energy Affinity, Basic Energy Sense

Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit

Universal Talents: Unawakened Fairy Ancestry

‘I expected it… But they’re really efficient. Now, though, I’ll get my confirmation about how joining a new faction translates to my innate ability. As well as…’

Momentarily focusing on opening his faction contribution shop and quests, nothing came up, giving him the confirmation of the knowledge he received when he became a grade 1 super.

‘And so, I now confirmed the fact that I’m dependent on being part of a faction to progress fast. Being a loner would have been sad anyway, so it’s not like I lost a gigantic opportunity or have been forced on a path I didn’t like.’

Without a faction, the 2 functions his innate ability had recently gained didn’t exist anymore. They were inaccessible, and there were no signs that they even existed.

Checking his emails, he saw a new one coming from the military, and another from the school he was going to join tomorrow, the Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering.

On it was a link to the academy’s rules. Not even a super was exempt from following them it seemed, it was a military academy after all. So while he had been given a lot of freedom, he was still considered a student, just a special student.

‘Student badge… Accommodation… Luggage… Closing and opening hours… I wonder if all these rules are considered knowledge? Will I be able to buy them soon?’

Browsing through the rules, he didn’t find a summary so he had to read through the entire general segment for 20 minutes to understand basic things like his student badge having to always be visible, or the library and computer room remaining open all night…

Once he got a basic understanding of the academy rules, he got back to his emails and verified he hadn't missed anything important.

With nothing else to do, he put on some music in the background as he prepared himself for his last day in his bedroom.

“Let’s… Start packing up!” Asserting his next action aloud, Aven opened his room door and went to fetch 2 big and large suitcases.

‘I’ll pack what I can now and wait for mom to wrap it up.’

…

“Are you sure you don’t want to take a second coat?” His mom looked at him in askance.

“Yup, I don’t think I can feel cold anymore unless I purposely try to or head to the Vow Continent,” Aven confidently said to prove his point.

“Don’t you have enough room anyway?” She countered him while looking at his 2 bursting suitcases that would already maybe not close anymore if not forced to by using strength.

“No I don’t,” firmly maintaining his position, he took the coat and put it in the closet where it belonged.

“There are still so many clothes left… Do they have a washing machine for you to cycle through what you took quickly enough?” Approaching the matter critically, Hana clearly belonged to the just-in-case camp, unlike her son.

“Yes. And I’ll also get 2 uniforms, so what I took is already too much and will pretty much gather dust,” steadily answering, Aven knew that while having called his mom for help had ultimately led to this situation, she had clearly helped him more than delayed him, so the exchange was worth it.

Looking around his room, her eyes settled on his bed, “Take your pillow cover with you, it’s light and will help you get used to your new bed without the awkward first days.”

“Oh,” thinking for a moment, he took out his phone and added another thing to take with him before leaving, “It’s added.”

“Summer is approaching, so take your swimsuit just in case,” the moment she thought of something else with her just-in-case mentality, she said it.

“Hu~ Why not?” Not finding enough reasons to refuse that one, he reached for his underwear drawer and took out a simple blue swim shorts before putting it inside the relatively less filled suitcase.

“And that should be it?” Hesitating after a few dozen seconds of silence, she couldn’t come up with anything else, “I’ll continue thinking and tell you tomorrow morning if I thought of something.”

“I’ll do the same,” Aven looked at his bursting suitcases and nodded in the most serious way he could.

Just like that, the suitcase-filling monster finally left him alone, and having nothing else to prepare, he returned to watching documentaries.

He had learned much more than he had hoped by watching them. Even grade 3 energy specializations were topics discussed in some, with personal interviews for a few extremely rare ones not involving literal legendary tech supers.

Each time such an interview happened, Aven hurriedly took his notepad and started jotting down all the things that were discussed like the career choices, the difficulties encountered, and the way success could be found.

This documentary work extended until deep into the night when sleep began calling him too strongly for him to be able to resist, so he concluded his day on that and lamented the fact that his next energy cycle was still more than an hour away.

‘What an unfortunate timing… I’ll have to wake up 2 times.’

As he turned off his computer with this thought in mind, he didn’t even think about staying up until the end of his downtime period. He was just too goddamn tired.

…

After an eventful night that included 2 energy cycles inside of it, Aven woke up feeling refreshed and in a good mood, a better one than when he went to sleep for sure.

Aven Amias

Faction: None

Energy Grade: 1

Energy Cultivation: 14/100

Energy Affinity: Tech

Physical Talents: None

Energy Talents: Basic Tech Energy Affinity, Basic Energy Sense

Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit

Universal Talents: Unawakened Fairy Ancestry

“Ah~ Energy cultivation is so easy~” Bragging about the effect of his small talents combined with a fully optimized cycle schedule, he ignored everything else and only focused on what he accomplished.

“We’re departing Aven!” Calling him from the living room was his dad.

Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering was located in Ludra after all, it wasn’t far enough to take a plane, but it wasn’t close enough for him to ride his bike there. Unless he planned on doing a 10-hour bike trip, which effectively made him think about doing it.

In the end, though, 10 hours was a bit too long, and when it could be done in a much shorter time, why wouldn’t he choose the fastest option?

“I’m coming!” Answering back, he checked his room for the last time and compared the list of items on his phone with what remained inside.

“Yes… Yes… Yes… Okay…” Loudly checking each item and not finding any discrepancies, he closed his 2 massive suitcases using a moderate amount of strength and started an exceptional convoy towards the living room where his dad was waiting.

“Let’s go? Finished your last check?” His dad smiled at him as he said that. He had already transformed into his travel dad form and had put on thick sunglasses and very light and easygoing clothes.

“Yup! Let’s go!” Aven, however, couldn’t judge his dad’s vestimentary style as he had pretty much donned the same minus the sunglasses. And that was only because he hadn’t put them on yet!

Taking one of the suitcases with him to lighten his son’s burden, Sen and Aven exited the apartment and locked the door behind them before heading to the elevator.

From there, they headed to the underground floor containing the parking lot and dumped the two mastodons in Sen’s car trunk, as well as his trusty bike.

And just like that, as the White was approaching its noon stage, the two departed towards Ludra, a major city of Eland hosting the military school Aven had been specially admitted into.