The White had long set by the time Aven had returned to his apartment and started preparing his dinner while listening to yet another documentary about a tech super who impacted his own field in his own way.

“How did those devils do it? Why is it that when I dump lots of different herbs it doesn’t work?” Smelling from a thousand planets away the incoming bland meal that will come out of his pan, he complained to himself.

His day had been so full, starting at 7 am the morning with one hour at the computing hall, then 3 hours at the steel factory, followed by 2 hours in the kitchen, wrapped up by 3 hours of energy cycling, and finally 4 hours of infusing his energy into a computer while socializing with 5 new people.

Such a day hadn’t been what he had planned for himself today.

What should have happened was him going to the computing unit, finding that the FCP to time ratio was abysmal there, followed by him returning to participate in classes, then helping in the kitchen, returning to classes once again, and wrapping up his day at the steel factory.

Taking a plate, he emptied out his pan and comfortably settled himself in front of the TV.

“Oh, right,” thinking of something, he brought up his current quest.

Faction Contribution Quest: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Volunteering: Contribute to the stability of your faction without asking for anything in return. The more time spent and the harder the tasks, the greater the contribution.

Reward: Claim?

“Yup, yup, claim, claim,” acting and speaking childishly didn’t change the result that he wanted to claim his reward mentally.

Faction Contribution Quest: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Volunteering: Contribute to the stability of your faction without asking for anything in return. The more time spent and the harder the tasks, the greater the contribution.

Reward: 800 FCP

“Hehe,” laughing and smiling foolishly, Aven attacked his meal.

It was bland, as he had expected, but even that didn’t erase the smile on his face. It held strong and was fueled by too many positive emotions to be felled by a single bland meal.

Finishing it up 10 minutes later, he threw everything in the dishwasher, turned it on after adding some dishwasher soap, and returned to his fantastic couch to think about the next day.

‘What knowledge can I buy if I decide to buy one now?’

Tangentially thinking about how much FCP he had gathered in those last 2 days, he opened his faction shop.

Faction Contribution Shop: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Faction Authority: Student

Faction Contribution Points: 2 600

Knowledge: Basic Energy Cultivation (2 100 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Energy Application (2 500 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Super Biology (2 600 FCP)

…

‘I can only buy those 3? When I probably just have to ask to reduce the price by hundreds? And anyway, I should start saving up.’

Thinking about how to optimize his contribution to EMATE, he searched and found the 3 knowledge that seemed so linked that for them to not be together was strange.

Knowledge: Intermediate Computer Science (46 900 FCP)

Knowledge: Intermediate Electrical Engineering (69 800 FCP)

Knowledge: Intermediate Computer Engineering (70 400 FCP)

Opening his innate ability notepad, he checked for the previous prices of these 3 knowledge.

‘The first has lost 200 in its price, the other 2 have lost 100. And most probably, that’s the combined result of both upping my mathematics and physics foundation while studying for a few hours how a computer ought to work.’

When he saw this sort of result, his theory about “specific knowledge are made of general knowledge” made more and more sense.

‘How many percent of the mathematics, physics, and computer science knowledge are parts of the electrical engineering and computer engineering ones? Now that’s the question.’

Closing his notepad again, Aven dazedly watched the documentary while thinking about his best plan of development for the future.

10 minutes later, his daze faded as his brain had given him the best answer regarding the situation it could possibly come up with.

“Positive feedback it is. When I become a certified military engineer, will grade 1 energy cultivation resources still be unreachable? I don’t think so. And even if they’re not readily accessible, my salary will be so high and my contacts influential enough that I’ll be able to buy them directly,” he calmly summarized his whole evolved plan with a voice none had ever heard him use before. Not even his parents.

It was a voice intended to only be heard by himself, it was a voice that let extreme arrogance and ambition shine through despite their owner not wanting them to see the light at all.

Between all the paths he could have chosen, Aven had chosen to go all-in on this miracle task that was infusing a computing unit of the research area.

If stopping his energy cultivation was what he needed to do, then he would do it. He had chosen to believe in the potential of his innate ability.

As for the fact that actively infusing his energy would make up at least slightly for his stopped energy cultivation?

Well, he couldn’t deny that this had been one of the factors that passed through his mind.

‘I’ll cycle my energy until I reach 20 energy cultivation points. After that, I’ll stop and focus entirely on farming FCP and knowledge.’

…

After doing 3 hours of energy cycling before going to sleep, sleeping for his entire downtime period of 340 minutes or nearly 6 hours, and waking up for another 3 hours of energy cycling, Aven felt completely rejuvenated.

And it wasn’t only due to sleeping.

Aven Amias

Faction: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Energy Grade: 1

Energy Cultivation: 18/100

Energy Affinity: Tech

Physical Talents: None

Energy Talents: Basic Tech Energy Affinity, Basic Energy Sense

Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit

Universal Talents: Unawakened Fairy Ancestry

‘18~ Quicker than expected? Not really. It’s about right-ish?’

Re-adjusting his alarms, his active cycling time was upped from 170 minutes to 180, and his downtime period was upped from 340 minutes to 360, for a total cycle of 540 minutes, or 9 hours.

Seeing this increase in time as a mark of progress, he wished dearly for the imminent energy cultivation level where he would be able to sleep sweetly for 8 hours straight without having to wake up.

But until that really happened, he would continue pursuing FCP as much as he could now that his mind was set on transforming his life into a positive feedback loop.

Once he felt good to go after finishing his energy cycling and eating a bit, Aven exited to yet another cloudless sunny spring day.

“A perfect day for secluding myself in a room filled with cold computers!” Adopting a heroic and dashing posture as he exposed his body to the White and asserted his determination.

Done with his self-motivation, he jumped on his bike and started pedaling and accelerating until he couldn’t anymore.

‘Let’s see how fast I can make this routine!’

In a few minutes only he arrived at the research area, parked his bike chaotically, entered the building, reached the code-locked insulating door, unlocked it, penetrated inside the computing hall, passed through another door, and finally touched a marked computing unit.

“Touch! Only a few minutes! Hahaha! I’m sure none of you can be as fast as me!” Infusing his energy into the random marked unit he had chosen, he looked at the… Not 5 people. Only 3 were here.

“Ah? The not-yet-eighteen twins aren’t here? Fantastic! Let’s discuss their real age then. Kern! I’m sure you have some juicy gossip about them, hehehe, go on, tell me, I promise not to tell them,” continuing on his speedy behavior, he approached the only male super he had encountered at EMATE for now, and started elbowing him in a weird way.

“There’s nothing to say about them, they’re not 18 yet, that’s it,” ignoring the plea of the man he had only known for 1 day, Kern answered as if he was totally impassible, “Go ask Lorelie for those types of matters.”

“I don’t have any time for such bullsh*t, don’t include me,” the concerned person, a long black-haired average beauty, blurted out once before returning to whatever she was doing.

Shrugging at that, Aven looked at Kern once again and seemed to figure out his next line so he inundated him with questions, “Come on, don’t tell me to go talk to Edwina. Are we perhaps not close enough yet? Not that it should matter, we’ll never be true friends considering our status, but maybe we can be half-friends? Do you want to go to the cafeteria later for our meal?”

“Why not, but leave me alone for now,” accepting his invitation reluctantly, or maybe he was just shy, Kern gazed at him fiercely until Aven retreated and returned to his unit.

Not yet calmed down from his rush, he looked for another prey, and there was only one left: Edwina, the short blond-haired and black-eyed girl who had shown him the rope of this miracle job yesterday.

‘No. Let’s just invite her later to a meal.’

Stopping himself, his rush quickly subsided, leaving the place for other thoughts much more in line with the cold mechanical environment he was in.

‘No matter how I see it, I’ll not be with these people for long.’

Hard logic and his academy rushing cultivation stopping plan made Aven already project himself into the future.

‘Even if I continue cultivating my energy after reaching 20 points in a week, which I’ll not do, I’ll still do at least 10 hours of infusion volunteering a day, so at minimum, I’ll have a daily gain of 2 000 FCP.’

Even thinking about the worst possible scenario, he couldn’t come up with a future where he would remain at EMATE for long. It was only a stop before integrating the military.

‘And that’s if better enhancement by infusion doesn’t increase my FCP gains, which I don’t believe will happen.’

Refocusing after daydreaming for a bit, he got the black and white holy book of computers and started reading it, trying to decipher its content.

…

“But there should be a point where knowledge alone can’t help you increase your efficiency and intensity anymore, right? Some sort of limit?” Aven asked as he took another bite of a fantastic beef and mushrooms with mashed potatoes dinner.

“A limit?” Kern adopted a half-thoughtful expression as he tried to remember what he had been taught, “Of course there is one. How complex can a knife be? And if you use one you created yourself from zero, then you understand it so much that there’s no way you can use knowledge to better apply your energy.”

“I’ve watched a lot of documentaries recently, and lots of tech super say something like ‘the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know anything', does that have something to do with that limit?” Following up naturally, Aven felt relieved at finally having found a way to get answers.

“That’s because complexity is the way to go for tech supers,” Kern stated with not even a thread of hesitation, “Electronics has revolutionized how tech supers fight, now it’s not just about understanding the structure of a sword or the functioning of plate armor, it’s about… How to say that…?”

“Don’t worry about it, I understand your point, you mean it’s about so everything that nothing can be excluded? Like software, hardware, their interactions, their consequences, the electric current, is that it?” Voicing out what he had understood from watching documentaries again, he showed how much he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Showing his ignorance didn’t bother him though, he really didn’t know anything, and he knew that he didn’t know anything, just the basics from the crash course.

“Yeah… It’s just everything, I think you got the idea. The more you know what can be enhanced, the more it's enhanced. And with the greater complexity of today’s machinery comes more interactions and thus more complex everything, and so blablabla, you get it, right?” Finishing his point, Kern returned his attention to his meal.

Aven’s endless chattering had already lengthened the meal break from 30 minutes to 40 minutes, and he didn’t seem even close to over as he still had hundreds of questions left unasked.

But he knew that asking too much like that would negatively impact their nascent relationship, so he only made casual small talks from there until they returned to the refrigerated computing unit in the research area.

“What do you think is the minimum energy cultivation necessary to start infusing two computing units?” He contemplated aloud, perfectly knowing he wasn’t able to do that yet.

“If your knowledge is zero, then probably 30 or so? Continuously cycled to keep regenerating enough? If you understand the computing unit enough though, you can probably increase the efficiency enough to probably do it with 15 or 20?” Offhandedly calculating, Kern didn’t even consider that it wasn’t a theoretical question but a real one.

“Hu~ 20, that’s an interesting number. One-fifth of the way to grade 2, but the difficulty to reach it is so much lower than from the latter fifths, are you close to grade 2 by the way? I became a super not even a month ago, so I’m not there at all,” not continuing the previous question, Aven changed the subject.

“Sigh… You’re still in early grade 1 right? Enjoy your rapid growth period when you can,” leaving Aven’s side as he headed towards a marked computing unit, he shook his head and lamented about something his conversation partner couldn’t understand.

Similarly heading for a marked unit, he quizzically angled his head as he muttered, “Just graduate then if you think your energy cultivation is slow.”

Reaching for the indent, he felt his finger reach a cold area.

‘Of course energy infusion wouldn’t be that simple.’

Mobilizing his energy that had completely naturally regenerated during the meal without him even needing to cycle it, he began visualizing his target: The computing unit.

Its schematics passed through his mind, its temperature passed through his mind, its electric current passed through his mind, its calculating power passed through his mind…

Infusing energy into such a complex piece of machinery such as this computing unit wasn’t as simple as just sending it inside and letting it do the work for you.

Of course, such a method existed, but it didn’t even come close to equaling the enhancing degree and efficiency of an infusion that was made with a complete understanding of what needed to be enhanced, how, and what was the objective.

‘But while for others, this can be a source of hardship… For me, it’s the best possible situation ever. They all work hard to learn and understand their field to its highest level to make their infusions the best it could be, and I’m behind them to pick up the crumbs.’

The more he learned through documentaries about what a tech super was, the more he confirmed this knowledge through the supers he could talk to who were maybe all from affluent families and had received proper super-related education prior to coming here, and the more his future seemed bright.

Looking at the score of this infusion, he saw the number keep climbing until it stopped at 7.

Just from a better understanding of what a tech energy infusion was, combined with the slight knowledge gained by studying the black and white book, his score had increased from 5 to 7.

‘That’s what a tech super ought to be. Neither limited by his energy intensity resulting from his energy grade nor limited by his energy quantity resulting from his energy cultivation.’

Picking up his headphones from where he had dropped them when he left for his meal break a bit less than an hour ago, he put them on and started playing his music playlist again.

Ambiancing himself without fearing the looks of his fellow supers, he then began reading the holy black and white book of computing units.

…

A week quickly passed at EMATE for Aven.

His life wasn’t the convoluted messy mixing of classes and jobs he had designed for himself at the beginning when he had no precise idea of how his faction contribution quests worked.

Compared to what his life would have been if his initial plan and thoughts had been right and classes had the best FCP to time ratio, the life he had been living over the last week was as optimized as he could make it while remaining healthy.

From 18 energy cultivation points to 19, it had taken him 3 days, but as 19 hadn’t been the goal he fixed for himself to stop cultivating his energy, he continued for another 4 days… Until.

Aven Amias

Faction: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Energy Grade: 1

Energy Cultivation: 20/100

Energy Affinity: Tech

Physical Talents: None

Energy Talents: Basic Tech Energy Affinity, Basic Energy Sense

Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit

Universal Talents: Unawakened Fairy Ancestry

Passing the cap from 19 to 20 energy cultivation points wasn’t just gaining a single point for him, it also represented a fundamental turning point in how he would… Live from now on.

“Finally,” Aven’s brain started turning at seeing this “Energy Cultivation: 20/100” line in his status.

“Goodbye ultra time-consuming energy cultivation, you have served me well,” standing up from his couch, he started doing a military salute, “From now on, my innate ability will take over. I’ll see you again when I become a super-duper military engineer.”

Bowing one time deeply to the air, he decided that to celebrate the temporary end of his energy cultivation he would accept his volunteering quest reward for this morning, even if he had only infused his energy for slightly more than an hour before having to come back to cycle his energy.

Faction Contribution Quest: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Volunteering: Contribute to the stability of your faction without asking for anything in return. The more time spent and the harder the tasks, the greater the contribution.

Reward: 200 FCP

“Those 200 FCP are my tribute to you. Rest in peace until I raise you from your grave!” Concluding his energy cultivation goodbye ceremony on these words, he picked his innate ability notepad and added this gain.

‘And now I should be at… 15 800. Let me confirm that.’

To make sure his calculations were right despite their childish difficulty, he brought up his faction contribution shop.

Faction Contribution Shop: Eland Military Academy of Technology and Engineering

Faction Authority: Student

Faction Contribution Points: 15 800

Knowledge: Basic Energy Cultivation (2 000 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Energy Application (2 100 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Super Biology (2 600 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Literature (4 200 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic History (4 700 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Geography (4 800 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Cooking (4 900 FCP)

Knowledge: Basic Firearms (5 200 FCP)

…

“Yup,” Aven nodded to himself and didn’t correct what he had written on his notepad.

In 7 days, with the last day not being finished yet as it was only noon, he had added an additional 13 200 FCP to his relatively small stock 2 600 FCP.

‘And so, I have become a contributing machine.’