“What will it look like, now?” With all the other matters of his grade 3 transition dealt with and impossible to re-decide on, Aven felt free to worry about the more long-term and amazing quality of life upgrade his innate ability had just acquired, “I’ll see for myself! Open!”

Mentally and vocally pushing, he opened his revamped quests window.

Dynamic 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.

Dynamic Abomination Surge: Help your faction fight against the imminent abomination surge disaster in any way. The greater the provided help in that objective, the greater the contribution.

Dynamic Rogue Canopy: Unearth every branch and agent of the Canopy sowing chaos inside the area protected by your faction and neutralize them. The greater the provided help in that goal, the greater the contribution.

Dynamic Contribution: Claim?

Squinting his eyes while bringing a hand to his shin to start caressing it softly, Aven felt that this upgrade, while not as revolutionary as getting access to a knowledge or materialization shop’s catalog, was still as impactful.

“If I combine everything, quests, shop, and appraisal, then that’s it,” he declared while repeatedly nodding to himself, “I have the basic kit any supers would want and all have their uses and are optimized to work within their own assigned boundaries.”

Thinking about this a bit more, he realized that this upgrade was like a patch. His quests were necessary for his innate ability’s faction contribution shop to work as they were the only source of FCP, but wasn’t earning him FCP the hardest thing ever?

“Grade 3 is really... The grade representing the graduation from the early stages, it's like going from teenagehood to adulthood,” he echoed out to this conclusion he had heard multiple times before, as early as the supers crash course, to multiple times in the energy cultivation knowledge he had claimed.

“And look at this freaking number too, 10 000? 10 000 units of grade 3 energy? Even if I reach the efficiency limit of my energy again… 900! That’s 900 days of uninterrupted trinity-backed energy cultivation!” Connecting more dots than ever to this comparison of teenage age versus adult age, Aven stood up and exited his quarters.

“Oh, right,” midway, he drew his phone and sent a message to Commander, one of his 2 mentors, and one who also owned the undivided infusion energy specialization.

[Aven: I picked the undivided infusion specialization, is there an established line of integrated products catering to our need for integrated combat gears? If the question itself is wrong, don’t hesitate to correct me. <3]

Reaching the production hall before receiving an answer, he put his phone back in his pocket after turning up the volume of its ringing and headed for a randomly chosen integrated production line, “It’s time for some experiment~”

Not dilly-dallying, he directly infused his energy into this line where even now, a bit of his grade 2 energy remained, putting a smile on his face at the stability and longevity achieved.

Overshadowing all that, however, his newly-infused grade 3 tech identity energy recognized this energy as different and so purged it all in a few seconds.

After doing that, he headed for the quality control area of this line to see what was his maximum tech-enhancement.

“427%~ Who would think this was a grade 2 tech producing that? And now that I not only reached grade 3 but also have a specialization… Hehehe~” Waiting here for the first tech-produced ammunition to exit the line, Aven laughed creepily in expectation.

Then his phone rang out, so he took it out, “Ho! It’s here.”

[Commander: You’ve made the right choice young man! While the massive infusion and undivided infusion are both specializations that need to be eventually taken on the production tech super path, starting with the undivided one is clearly the most rational choice. As for products designed for making us combat-able without having to be in mobile artillery, you should seek Milada Slogance, she’s a Star Trail researcher working at Blackdale IMC designing working integrated combat uniforms, the technologically poor and cheap precursors to mechanical suits.]

“Integrated combat uniforms? Don’t remember seeing anything like that in the shop…” Browsing through his knowledge, he… Didn’t find anything. As if such a field hadn’t been pioneered by the military at all to begin with.

And soon enough, his attention was grabbed by the quality control machine showing a tech-enhancement result climbing.

From 427% it increased to 428, then to 429, then to 430…

Enraptured by this spectacle, he stopped thinking and only admired what was happening.

The steady increase was only steady for Aven though, for others, it would be close to a miracle.

Even a single percent of tech-enhancement was something worth celebrating for the common tech supers, it was after all most generally the result of hours spent studying more knowledge or breaking through a cap in their talents or energy cultivation.

And ultimately, after a few more minutes, all the previously produced alloys and chemicals had been cleaned up and what exited from the line from there were only ammunition that had gone through the whole integrated line infused by his new grade 3 energy.

“669%...” Aven rejoiced softly and casually at the quality control machine that kept giving the same result for the last few shells, meaning the line had finally been actualized once and for all, “I gained 242% just by reaching grade 3…”

Adopting a mathematical approach, he started estimating the different sources with what he knew of how other tech supers had lived their transition, “If I had to quantify the sources of this 242%... 20% from the locked identity, 50% from the pure added energy intensity inherent to grade 3, 200% from the currently active specialization, and… 72% from finally being able to correctly translate my knowledge application into more efficiency? Something like that? Can’t see another source.”

Moving to another line, he started to infuse it and felt something “break” in his energy the moment he did so, nearly making him confirm that his specialization had ceased to work despite not having proof under his eyes.

Still wanting to see real proof, however, he moved to the line that had kept creating 669% tech-enhanced ammunition…

And commenced seeing a gradual decrease in the evaluated tech-enhancement a few minutes later.

“Didn’t expect anything less… Now it just means I need to integrate everything I infuse, making 2 integrated production lines into a single line,” searching the hall for 2 integrated lines that were extremely near to each other, he found his target and started another experiment.

Opening panels on the side of the two integrated lines that should only be opened to maintain the component units, he started linking the two lines with electric cables, he even disconnected the original command console and trafficked with the exploitation system of the other to combine the two under one system.

Overall, the transformation took him half an hour to finish, “That should work… Surely. Right?”

Going to the 2 lines he had already infused, he dispersed the energy contained in them after their overall tech-production enhancement bonus had both stabilized at 469%, exactly 200% less than his maximum.

After doing what he had to do, he moved to the integrated production line that was in fact "2" lines and infused it.

A dozen minutes later, the 2 lines’ quality control indicated that the ammunition produced were at 669% tech-enhancement.

“Yup,” he nodded firmly at this confirmation that his energy specialization worked as it should, “Alain was at 956% tech-enhancement, at least that’s what he allowed me to see, and compared to that, I’m only 287% behind… If I play it right, then I’ll surpass him by a large margin before hitting grade 4.”

Lost in his fantasy for a bit, he only refocused when his thoughts wandered to all the implications behind his new power and the current chaotic state of the world.

“Sigh…” Knowing that he had no excuse anymore, a peculiar rainbow crystal appeared in his mind and occupied all his thoughts, “If I was still only a grade 2… But no, I’m not anymore, and I know what grade 3 means.”

Opening his shop that had also received a little quality of life upgrade that now allowed him to erase or hide items he didn’t want to see, he directly put it to practice and started hiding all the nonsense knowledge and useless items, only keeping the things that were still relevant for the new him.

In other words… The expensive items and the grade 3 cultivation resources.

Faction Contribution Shop: Nation of Eland Military

Faction Authority: Six-Star General

Faction Contribution Points: 1 167 530

…

Rainbow Bio Grade 3 Psy-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (31 700 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of psy energy system grade 3 energy cultivation by 260%.

Rainbow Bio Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (31 900 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of tech energy system grade 3 energy cultivation by 280%.

Rainbow Bio Grade 3 Martial-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (32 600 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of psy energy system grade 3 energy cultivation by 310%.

…

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Base Increase Serum (35 100 FCP): A serum artificially increasing the amount of energy being cycled during grade 3 tech-system energy cultivation by 290%. Artificial increase cannot go beyond grade 3 maximum threshold.

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Sustaining Serum (35 900 FCP): Postpone a grade 3 energy cultivation downtime period by revitalizing all the spent energy artificially.

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (36 200 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of grade 3 tech-system energy cultivation by 350%.

…

Rainbow Bio Grade 4 Psy-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (64 800 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of psy energy system grade 4 energy cultivation by 210%.

Rainbow Bio Grade 4 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (65 100 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of tech energy system grade 4 energy cultivation by 220%.

Rainbow Bio Grade 4 Martial-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (67 500 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of psy energy system grade 4 energy cultivation by 240%.

…

Eland Innate Ability Awakening Serum (249 000 FCP): A serum made from awakened life organic material reprocessed to be mild enough for unawakened life. As long as the organism receiving this serum is genetically predisposed to awaken, then a single dose is enough to awaken them.

…

Perfected Evolution Elixir (670 000 FCP): An elixir refined with the topmost human and super biology knowledge available. Gives the drinker a deep and forceful DNA wash, allowing previously hidden physical talents to emerge. Only works one time and is not guaranteed to make a talent manifest itself.

Energy Growth Wonder Flower (780 000 FCP): A flower only found in nature in extremely luxuriant environments with growth conditions not yet understood. Awaken any life that eats it while also giving it the natural energy growth energy talent.

Tireless Apple (810 000 FCP): An apple that grows every decade from a tireless tree in good condition. Gives the eater the tireless spirit spiritual talent, a talent that can grow the more it is used.

Crafter’s Delight Drop (940 000 FCP): A spiritual substance only master craftsmen with a rare universal talent can produce. Due to the absence of signs related to having such a talent, and the spiritual substance quickly dissipating once exposed to the air, most of the stock relied on happenstance to be made. Gives the consumer the creative instinct universal talent.

…

Experimental Abandoned Beast Serum (1 250 000 FCP): A serum made from the rare samples of abandoned beasts brought back from expeditions made in the Abandoned Continent. Has a certain chance once ingested to give the consumer the condensed body physical talent.

Regeneration Leaf (1 370 000 FCP): A leaf from the legendary Athal Tree, a jealously guarded tree by beasts and humans alike. Gives the consumer the regenerating body physical talent.

Self Revolving Energy Mutation Elixir (1 460 000 FCP): An elixir created through an ancient rainbow fairy formula with most of its ingredients being extremely difficult to gather. Gives the self revolving energy energy talent to anyone consuming it.

Inexhaustible Body Mutation Serum (1 630 000 FCP): A serum made from both rare beasts and humans who had this physical talent before dying. Gives the consumer the inexhaustible body physical talent.

Energy Furnace Constitution Mutation Elixir (1 850 000 FCP): An elixir made through an extremely difficult process that cannot be fully controlled due to the need to add mixed-origin blood and organs from life already having such a constitution. Gives the consumer the energy furnace cells physical talent.

Armored Spirit Treasure Pill (1 900 000 FCP): A pill produced by the Eternal Vow Kingdom to give to its highest authority. Initially designed to help protect the spirit, it ended up accomplishing much more than that with the help it can provide to psy supers. Gives the consumer the armored spirit spiritual talent.

…

Spiritual Awareness Drop (2 456 000 FCP): A drop of spiritual awareness personally condensed by a grade 5 psy super with the help of precious meditation and focus medication as an experiment. Gives the consumer the enhanced awareness spiritual talent.

Seamless Bark Extract (2 706 000 FCP): An extract produced from tons of a special tree bark reputed to give one’s energy a temporary wielding boost. Gives the consumer the seamless energy energy talent.

Emma Unstable Elixir (2 740 000 FCP): An elixir whose creation process is owned by the greatest power of the Emma Continent, gives the consumer the excitable energy energy talent.

Energy Immune Constitution Mutation Elixir (3 128 000 FCP): An elixir whose formula isn’t exact and with an extremely high chance of failure even with the best conditions. Gives the drinker the energy immune constitution physical talent.

Equalizing Crystal Shard (3 410 000 FCP): A shard from a crystal finding its origin from space. Once it comes in contact with energy, it’s able to absorb it and redistribute it in a steady flow depending on several factors. Once ingested, it is consumed to give the equalizing energy energy talent.

Energy Photosynthesis Amber (7 856 000 FCP): An amber originating from an awakened tree with an extremely powerful innate ability that eventually resulted in the creation of this amber during its death. Gives the consumer the energy photosynthesis energy talent.

Essence Stabilizer Life Blood Drop (14 870 000 FCP): A drop of life blood, a blood that can only be produced with the intent of sacrificing one's talent, from a life with the essence stabilizer universal talent. Gives the consumer a chance to acquire the essence stabilizer universal talent.

Affinity Resonance Exotic Stone (24 190 000 FCP): An exotic stone originating from space capable of enhancing one’s affinity to any energy system up to the advanced rank. Cannot create an affinity.

Lifelike Energy Feather (27 800 000 FCP): A feather created through unknown means, it’s made of energy, but doesn’t appear or register as anything else but a simple feather. It can be absorbed with one’s energy and gives the sensitive energy and compatible energy energy talents.

Elemental Warp Wisp Remains (48 753 000 FCP): The remains of an elemental warp wisp, a life that can only exist in the high-energy environments often resulting from major battles between grade 6 beings or higher. Fusing with it gives elemental energy system beings a chance to get the elemental warp energy talent. Lethal to every other energy system beings.

Once he saw the result still incorporating hundreds of items, however, he quickly reduced it to an even more summarized version.

Faction Contribution Shop: Nation of Eland Military

Faction Authority: Six-Star General

Faction Contribution Points: 1 167 530

…

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Base Increase Serum (35 100 FCP): A serum artificially increasing the amount of energy being cycled during grade 3 tech-system energy cultivation by 290%. Artificial increase cannot go beyond grade 3 maximum threshold.

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Sustaining Serum (35 900 FCP): Postpone a grade 3 energy cultivation downtime period by revitalizing all the spent energy artificially.

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (36 200 FCP): Increases the energy cycling speed of grade 3 tech-system energy cultivation by 350%.

…

Affinity Resonance Exotic Stone (24 190 000 FCP): An exotic stone originating from space capable of enhancing one’s affinity to any energy system up to the advanced rank. Cannot create an affinity.

Lifelike Energy Feather (27 800 000 FCP): A feather created through unknown means, it’s made of energy, but doesn’t appear or register as anything else but a simple feather. It can be absorbed with one’s energy and gives the sensitive energy and compatible energy energy talents.

“Much better~” He said before critically judging a certain part, “107 200 FCP for a trinity effect though… That’s double compared to grade 2… That hurts a bit.”

However, despite knowing full well that his expenses would be double what they were previously if he really continued with the way he had always cultivated, he just couldn’t help it.

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Base Increase Serum (Claim?)

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Sustaining Serum (Claim?)

Holy Vow Grade 3 Tech-System Energy Cultivation Cycle Boosting Serum (Claim?)

“I have 9 000 grade 3 energy points to grind… And there’s no miracle with energy, it comes from my own cells, only a continuous grind can increase it…” Claiming what he really believed in, he claimed his future cultivation resources diet.

A few minutes of contemplation later, he drank the 3 flasks that had fully manifested themselves and moved to the design room.

“So… First thing first. I need to prepare myself for going to the Forbidden Continent when the surge begins, so finding what gears I’ll use prior to that day actually happening is obviously the first priority,” pushing the piles of cardboard folders on the main table away, he created a space for himself and fetched a piece of blank paper to start thinking about his new schedule.

Because obviously, his ancient schedule couldn't keep up with time.

“Second will be to make easily reversible changes to the production hall, I need to gather all 28 lines into one damn big machine for my specialization to work and get the maximum amount of contribution out of it,” writing down what he just said, he firmly believed that it was possible.

His knowledge was telling him it was possible, so he believed it was possible.

“And third… Well, when I finally finish integrating all the 28 lines, then depending on how quickly the energy I infuse inside them is consumed and how much time I will earn, I’ll start some projects to answer the second dynamic quest concerning the Canopy. Not like there’s something else I can do while waiting for the surge to start,” finishing writing his 3-steps plan, he was sure and certain that he hadn’t missed something obvious.

His plan was written clearly before him and he saw no flaw, or rather, it was so simple and concise that it couldn’t contain any flaw.

“Okay,” putting his pen down, he shifted from the table to his data computer, “The only thing remaining is preparing the field. I need all the plans and diagrams of the hall and the 28 integrated production lines inside it… There~”

Finding what he sought in the military database that was open to him with a few efficient filters, he opened them all to make sure the data he had found weren’t misleadingly named before moving on to the integrated combat uniform gear subject.

Quickly discovering mentions of this gear, he added a few more filters like “Milada Slogance” and “Star Trail” before getting access to the intel he wanted, confirming that Commander’s information wasn’t outdated.

“Let’s go then, I think it’s still early?” Glancing outside, he saw that the White was still up, so he didn’t see why he wouldn’t go visit someone able to answer all the questions he had about his future combat gear immediately, “A bit of stellar radiation will not hurt me, right?”

…

“Take the car if you want. As for me! I’m taking my trusty bike!” Dismissing Ron who wanted him to make the 3-minutes long trip using a car, Aven didn’t even try to argue with him, he was a lost cause in his eyes on that front.

“Ah~ I’ve missed you my dear bike,” caressing his favorite mode of transport by far, he rode on it and tested breaking his link with his energy from afar.

It worked.

“There, now there’s only you and me!” Ambiguously commenting, he infused his bike but was quickly stopped as it didn’t have much capacity. And the amount of knowledge he could apply to this bike was also tremendously reduced compared to an integrated machine, making his enhancement that much lower.

However, even without being able to apply the principle of electricity flow, alloy dilatation and tempering, and all such knowledge… Just his energy intensity was enough to totally transform the bike.

Pushing the pedal, he was launched casually and accelerated as fast as he pushed the pedals without being impacted by the wind or the ground.

It felt like he was pedaling an electrically assisted bike, his every push was amplified, or translated, to a much more powerful version of themselves.

“Hahaha! That’s the feeling!” Pushing even harder, he arrived at the limits his bike and legs could bear as he cut through the warm summer air in the direction of the research area the person he wanted to meet should be.

With his speed, it didn’t even take him 2 minutes to arrive in front of the building his target should be in.

Getting off his bike when he found the perfect spot to park, he didn’t wait for his escort to arrive and entered the building alone.

“Hehe~ If an assassin wants to kill me, then now is the perfect timing,” mocking the very real threat to his life, Aven didn’t believe that even if he was to be assaulted inside Blackdale IMC he wouldn’t be able to defend himself with a bit of energy telekinesis and his multiple physical talents increasing his tenacity.

Ultimately, such a scenario didn’t happen and after traveling through lifeless corridors he reached his destination: The indoor experiment area.

Like a production hall, this area was designed to be easily changed to fit new experimental needs, and from what he had understood, it was the core research area of any building that dared to call itself a research building.

“Ho~ Now that’s more people than I expected, and that’s… Drayce?” Observing a group of people gathered around a very high-tech-looking area surrounded by sensors on all sides where someone was experimenting with a weird-looking combat uniform, Aven noticed that among this group was someone he knew a little.

Approaching without any shame or fear of interrupting something, he relied on his knowledge to know that all the sensors used were unidirectionally pointed at the delimited area and his extrovert personality to not hesitate in approaching this group that appeared somewhat exclusive.

When he had approached enough, one person saw him, which quickly provoked a wave effect and everyone soon knew that someone they didn’t know had arrived.

Even the person “having fun” in the delimited testing area stopped moving for a moment to observe the newly arrived Aven before restarting to… Dance. A very wild dance but still a dance, anything could be a dance as long as the mind was willing.

“Well, hello there everyone, hope you’re having a good day~” To start on a good note, he put on a bright smile and greeted everyone casually.