“And here’s a classic H9 bullet test,” firing her SAU handgun at the target, a sheet of stats was displayed on the screen near them a few seconds later, which drove home the point that Mai wanted Aven to understand, “And that’s why production-focused supers are so important.”

“Hu…” Absent-mindedly staring at the stats displayed before him, Aven had no way of exteriorizing how shocked he was.

He had personally seen the fabrication process of the batch of bullets Mai had just used. She had even explained to him what she had done differently during her tech-production batch and her non-tech-production one.

“But still… More than 50% increase…?” Muttering the both perplexing and shocking truth, Aven felt like he was finally starting to understand something, but it wasn’t yet graspable.

“Don’t be impressed by just that much,” Mai, noticing him becoming silent in contemplation, pulled him back to the ground, “If you asked Commander or Rival to make you a batch, they would easily reach in the 500% range by not trying their best.”

Her words had an effect on him as his curiosity finally surpassed his shock, “And if those same bullets were infused by energy?”

“Well, if you combine both a tech-produced bullet, a tech-produced gun, and an active tech-infusion into both the gun and the bullet before firing, then that’s the orthodox tech energy system fighting style for you: Everything complementing each other to achieve a perfect limit-defying synergy,” showing a near reverence to what she was saying, she seemed to be in adoration of the tech energy system.

Thinking about what he was being shown and Mai's attitude regarding all this, Aven felt like his civilian self and newly born super self had entered into a severe dissonance.

And it was making him feel conflicted enough that he felt slightly bad.

In the end, he decided to mention what he was going through frankly, “I don’t think I get it as much as I should. How? How is a tech-produced bullet so much more powerful? Can a tech-produced gun enhance a bullet when it has nothing to do with it apart from the minimal friction in the barrel?”

Finding more inspiration as he talked about the dissonance he was feeling, he followed, “I know energy is the reason, but… How? Why does thinking about something relevant during the manufacturing process result in something like that? I could understand if energy remained inside the bullet, but that’s not the case, I touched them and there’s no energy. Energy is just used to infuse the production machines-”

“Sigh… You’re so much more of a greenhorn than I had thought,” cutting him off, Mai shook her head in slight dismay before starting to head back towards the hall, “Wait for me here.”

Disappearing for a few minutes, she ended up returning with 2 handguns in her hands which she dropped unceremoniously on the first available table, “Fortunately, I have these 2 on hand. Go on, just fire them both, behold what the tech energy system can do, see for yourself without my intervention.”

“You’re not the first one, nor will you be the last,” she mentioned, surely in an attempt to comfort him in case his ego was fragile, “New tech supers have difficulties accepting that energy has such a wide range of unexplainable applications. And for all of you greenhorns, the best way to destroy this limiting belief is to just test it yourself.”

Wanting to see for himself, he didn’t start stammering in search of an explanation and directly similarly unceremoniously took one of the handguns before approaching another table, this one full of magazines.

‘Let’s organize everything…’

Seriously planning how he would do that, Aven picked 2 normal magazines and 2 tech-produced ones.

Taking his notepad, he speedily jotted down his whole testing plan that involved testing both the normal handgun and the tech-produced one, with both normal ammo and tech-produced ammo, and with both an active energy infusion and without energy infusion.

“There. That should do it,” reckoning that there was no better way to go at it, he straightforwardly started to test every combination that existed involving the 2 handguns, the 2 H9 magazines, and his tech energy infusion.

And so he started firing, 3 shots per combination, and noted down all the important results.

Prioritizing stability over performance, he started with all the combinations that didn’t involve his active energy infusion, and once he was finished with that part, he started infusing in the most identical manner he could.

Half an hour later, Aven seemed to have found his enthusiasm again as he had personally experimented on what the tech energy system was capable of and now knew for a fact that tech-producing something had tangible effects.

“I’m good! Tech energy applications are awesome! I don’t hold a single sliver of doubt anymore!” Showing true bravado, he raised his notepad as if it was a trophy or a holy relic, “Praise energy for all the miracles it can bring us!”

“Good for you,” intervening and putting his feet down on the ground, Mai reminded him of where he was and what he needed to do now, “Now that you saw for yourself the results, it’s your turn. Produce a practice batch of H9 for me, then we’ll put them through the benchmark test and I’ll find all the flaws.”

“I’ll do just that, thank you,” hurriedly exiting the shooting range with his notepad, he turned the pages to go back to the notes he had taken about what Mai had explained during her commentated demonstration.

To focus, he repeated the exact words she had told him before starting her demonstration that he had exactly copied, “Tech-producing means actively keeping in your mind all the factors involved in what you’re doing. You need to know everything about why you are doing something. Visualize how those bullets will be used, why they are designed the way they are, what each component is used for, how they work, and how you intend them to work.”

Understanding the deeper meaning behind what she had said, he put his hand on the first machine of the H9 ammunition production line, the one used to create the bullet projectile

‘Let’s go.’

…

Looking at the datasheet displayed on the screen, then at the thermal camera recording, then at the slowed-down high-definition airflow camera, then at the state of the SAU handgun in her hands, Mai finally concluded her test, “You’re a perfect amateur.”

“Hahaha! I don’t know what that means yet, but I like how it sounds!” Pumping his fist up, Aven made a small celebration at being called a perfect amateur.

Ignoring him, she started giving a detailed review, “Purely from the offensive side, you’re at a 7% increase, a correct increase. For the rest, however… You didn’t correctly picture the air penetration, nor the smooth exit of the barrel. You also didn’t properly enhance the case to contain the propellant expansion. Your heat flow was so normal that I think you completely forgot about it. The primer is also…”

Her review went on for a few more minutes of non-stop talking, really driving home the “amateur” part of her evaluation.

“All in all, you correctly understood that tech-production can enhance anything, but you’re so new at it that you can’t lever all your knowledge,” Finishing with a relatively good note in Aven’s book, she put down everything and waited for him to finish noting what she had said before telling him the obvious next step, “Rest your mind, then produce another batch.”

“Okay~” Taking everything in great stride, he went back to the meeting room and settled for 10 minutes of relaxation amidst the soft background music. Drinking flavored water out of a conveniently placed fridge to refresh himself, he reread everything he had noted so far before exiting and starting the H9 production line again from the start.

”The case, the primer, the propellant, and the projectile,” recollecting both his integrated and new knowledge about what he was going to produce, he once again put his hand on the first production machine, “So theoretically simple, but at the same time so practically complex.”

And just like that, he started his 2nd round of producing a batch of H9 ammunition, the 2nd of many.

…

Pressing the trigger for the last time, Mai threw her gun on the table and began her final review of the H9 ammo Aven had tech-produced after sending a glance at the datasheet, “That’s a 10 to 11% overall increase, a non-existent margin of error, and all unaccounted ammunition parameters are above normal too. You’re firmly into the junior production tech super domain, congratulations.”

On the morning of the 4th day after he had reached grade 2, Aven finally reached the end of the allocated period for the practical ammunition engineering learning course organized by Commander and Rival.

“I’m still far from fully utilizing all my knowledge, but what can I do? There’s no miracle solution except keeping tech-producing, right?” With a neutral face, Aven shrugged at her evaluation.

“Yup, exactly,” she didn’t contradict him, she had personally taught him that fact over the last 3 days after all, “Just keep tech-producing stuff, and eventually, you’ll reach the necessary experience and intellectual familiarity to mobilize dozens and dozens of different involved fields at the same time with no difficulty.”

“Hu~” Giving a slight nod, he then backed up and started cleaning the shooting range as Mai took a few steps and approached the 2 senior production tech supers who had been watching the whole process.

“My job is done, is there anything else, sirs?” Doing a military salute to the silent Commander and Rival, she expected nothing else but to be dismissed.

“You’re dismissed First Sergeant Iyory, we added a commendation to your resume after seeing the results of your 3 days of teaching,” Rival authoritatively gave her what she wanted, and she happily took it before departing the shooting range wearing a slight smile immediately after.

Once she had departed, Aven finished wrapping up the shooting range and wiped his hands before admitting to his wrong cheekily, “I’m sorry for doubting the need for this. I think my FCP yield will be much higher now compared to what it would have been before.”

“The main point is that you understand what it was all about,” Commander kindly approved of his admission before moving on, “Now come, I’ll give you all the tips for basic ore refinement, alloy making, and nitrocellulose production.”

“Okay~” Now being used to following what others were telling him to do, Aven enthusiastically followed behind Commander while Rival headed for the meeting room, probably preparing for what came after.

And so started a 1-hour session of Commander listing dozens and dozens of properties to care about during the refinement of ores, such as infusing energy into heat itself, and visualizing the atomic bonds, followed by another dozens and dozens of factors to keep in mind when making the alloy, and concluded with an extremely theoretical explanation of how to infuse energy into chemical reaction machines.

With a notepad filled with new things he would have to work on very soon, the duo walked into the meeting room Rival had entered 1 hour prior.

Looking around as soon as he stepped inside, Aven saw that all the boards were filled with drawings, documents were messily spread all over the massive central table, and all furniture had been pushed to the side.

“I knew he was a madman… But at this point? Hehe, it’s beyond everything I thought him capable of,” joking about his first impression, he didn’t wait for Commander to reply and picked a chair that had been pushed to the side, bringing it back to the table as he started getting himself ready for… More talking.

What else could happen?

“Just enjoy being a puppet while you still can,” Commander said as he also picked a chair from the mess, “He has really heavily invested himself in planning your future development for some reasons.”

“Well, if that’s the case then I can only set my expectations to be higher. Though he’ll probably have to modify the later part of his perfect plan considering he doesn't know what my innate ability became able to do after I attained grade 2,” accepting to set his expectations higher, he didn’t notice the slight pausing in Rival’s hand movement after he had spoken.

“And what did you gain?” Rival’s powerful voice reached him.

Thinking for a moment on how to put it in a way that left no doubt about what he had described, he ultimately said, “Temporary 24 hours materialization and a massive expansion of the catalog of my shop. Included are descriptions of each item, meaning precise percentage boost for cultivation resources, and the name of what talent can be acquired for the most interesting ones.”

“Irrelevant then,” quickly judging this new input, Rival started writing and drawing on a board again.

“Sure~” Not one to confront, Aven just dramatically shrugged and looked at Commander who had his brows raised as high as it was biologically possible to, “Grade 3 cultivation resources are approximately 30 000 FCP each if you’re wondering. 17 000 FCP for grade 2.”

Nodding slightly to that, Commander quickly calculated and gave his conclusion after a few seconds, “Not worth it then.”

“Sure~” Repeating in exactly the same tone the same answer he had given Rival a few seconds prior, Aven began analyzing all the filled boards.

The meeting room then plunged into a comfortable silence, only a very soft background music and Rival’s marker’s sounds were audible.

Once 10 more minutes had passed and both Commander and Aven had the time to make themselves comfortable by stealing from the fridge, the main actor of the next stage finally completed his preparation.

“So,” Rival called for his attention as he made his way back to the leftmost board, “Your first step will be to redeem all the knowledge needed to make the ammunition industry completely yours.”

Pointing at the center of this board where “Ammunition Industry” was marked in big letters, with dozens and dozens of arrows departing from it towards lots of other smaller words characterizing entire fields, he started detailing, “As Mai probably already told you, just to make a simple good tech-produced bullet, you need to cover dozens of side knowledge fields, each more specialized than the next.”

Aven nodded and grunted very strongly at that, showing he was completely agreeing with that statement.

“I did all sorts of statistical analysis, and the ammunition industry is the best for you due to it being an extremely time-consuming and energy-intensive one when it comes to tech-production. So what you accomplish by focusing exclusively on this industry both answers the difficulty and time factors,” entering into the details of his thinking, he then started on the rest of what filled this board.

“In order, you’ll first focus on getting the ammunition engineering knowledge while getting practical experience on how to properly tech-produce. Once you get to that point, you’ll then start purchasing knowledge related to those fields in order. Note them all down, the order isn’t random,” he insisted on that last point.

“After that, you will take your first honorary promotion. Your capabilities should be judged large enough to increase your authority a first time to become a first lieutenant military engineer if you didn’t slack. With your new authority, all the knowledge you had already redeemed will become available once again, so start another round in the same order as displayed here,” he divulged the first turning point of his plan.

“Around that time, that’s when it becomes much more unpredictable,” stating so, he moved on to a second board. The second of 8 filled boards, one on which were 3 main different parts, “War”, “Peace”, and “Unexpected”, and one common part to all of them as their first item.

Looking at Aven more sharply, Rival avowed to the premise of this board, “I’m not omniscient, unfortunately, so all I know, the global situation could devolve into a world war, or nothing could happen, or there could be a world-ending surge from the forbidden continent. In all cases, that’s when you’ll go through your combat training and be sent on your first raid missions. Of course, you’ll only do that after claiming all the knowledge related to the field military career path you decided on.”

“Surely assault officer, right my little Aven?” Commander winked at him. Very purposely.

Ignoring his rival acting up, Rival continued, “From there, I have established 3 paths. First is the peace path, where you’ll focus on continuing to climb the ranks. Second is the war path, where anything could happen but you’ll most likely center on providing as much help as you can. Third is the unexpected path, where your new materialization ability can completely overrule everything I prepared…”

Sending a glance at the following 6 boards, all breaching diverse subjects and possible future hurdles, Aven slowly started seeing the situation he was in very differently.

It was a situation he had created, one that was about him, one fully centered around him, and everything discussed in it was about him.

And seeing all the efforts that went into this situation that was completely and fully about him and only him, he felt that only by measuring up to their expectations and fully compensating them back one day could he show how thankful he was.

‘I’m not an experienced grade 3 tech super, neither am I a genius. But I’ll for sure goddamn try to be one.’

Refocusing, he continued carefully listening to Rival, one of what he now considered to be his 2 mentors.

Afterward, what ensued for the next 2 hours was an endless summary of possibilities including terms and situations he knew nothing about and would have never thought about.

…

“Well, here I am…” Watching Rival’s and Commander’s cars depart and disappear after they turned, Aven really felt that life could never be predicted.

His whole EMATE to military transfer had finally turned into something substantial, and soon he would embrace his job as a production tech super and start tech-producing batches after batches of ammunition.

“Time to switch my quest then,” he willed his current active quest to be displayed for him to see.

Faction Contribution Quest: Nation of Eland Military

Performing: Go above and beyond for the missions and tasks you are given. The better the missions and tasks results, the greater the contribution.

Reward: Claim?

“Not sure how it turned out but… Well~ Doesn’t really matter,” relativizing, he claimed his reward.

Faction Contribution Quest: Nation of Eland Military

Performing: Go above and beyond for the missions and tasks you are given. The better the missions and tasks results, the greater the contribution.

Reward: 800 FCP

Seeing that he had gained 800 FCP after 3 days of dedicatedly learning about ammunition tech-production from Mai, at least that’s what he hypothesized was the main source of this reward, he smiled.

Then he brought up his quests again.

Faction Contribution Quests: Nation of Eland Military

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.

Securing: Investigate and resolve problems occurring inside your faction. The more problems resolved and the more difficult their resolutions, the greater the contribution.

Performing: Go above and beyond for the missions and tasks you are given. The better the missions and tasks results, the greater the contribution.

Innovating: Give your faction new ways to achieve its goals. The more impacting and practical the innovations, the greater the contribution.

With this floating screen appearing in his vision, he looked at the sunny mid-afternoon sky and deduced that there was no better time to start than now.

“Sorry performing quest, but my mentor Rival has been pretty clear on all the problems of using you. So hello again volunteering quest! No, I’m not crazy!” Acting the whole mental scene he had pictured when Rival had announced that volunteering was the quest he would be using exclusively, he selected the volunteering quest and accepted it.

Faction Contribution Quest: Nation of Eland Military

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?

“And now~” Turning on 1 foot, he initiated a mock military march towards this building that was now wholly dedicated to helping him, “It’s time to get some first-hand experience on what being a production tech super is like!”