Acting as if he totally belonged where he was, Aven approached the sensor-surrounded area to watch as the person wearing a really weird combat uniform with tentacles wildly moved about, as if trying to tear apart or destroy her gear.

Moving towards him from the side, Drayce, a production tech super with an innate ability related to guesses, was the first to answer his greetings, “For you to be here, I can only assume you reached grade 3 and picked the same specialization as Commander.”

The moment he gave away all these information, everyone turned to look at the newly arrived Aven with a much more intense gaze.

Making abstraction of the different reactions, Aven smiled and replied back, unbothered, “Yup, I reached grade 3 like… A few hours ago? Sounds about right. And I asked Commander to give me advice on which gear is best optimized for the undivided infusion specialization. I’m going to need it when I go to assist with the surge.”

“You intend to go?” Raising an eyebrow at that, the green-haired Drayce stopped talking for a few seconds, the characteristic Aven had come to associate with his enhanced guesses innate ability, before following up, “Did your 2 mentors indoctrinate you? I don’t see any reason production tech supers like us should go fight at the front.”

“Hehe~ Thanks for worrying,” he giggled innocently, “But while it can be argued that they have really indoctrinated me, my main reason for going is innate ability-related, I want to awaken my fairy ancestry and become a fairy as soon as possible, and I need a freaking lot of contribution to my name to do that.”

This time, a few of the spectators coughed in shock at this mind-blowing unveiling and one unfortunate one had to spit out the water he was drinking.

“Oh? Oops, sorry, wrong timing for you man~” Good-naturedly addressing the funny issue that just took place because of him, he was so at ease that he called the female researcher a man, disregarding the gender.

“Well… At least now I’m sure that having attained grade 3 didn’t change you in any way,” taking in stride the new intel, Drayce seemed a bit lost on how to pursue the conversation.

“I changed, it’s just not something visible at first,” realistically and honestly answering, Aven started to stare at everyone present.

Looking at each of the 9 people here, he saw 6 women, but none that suited the description of the Milada he wanted to find, so he directed his gaze towards the only remaining person, the 10th one, hidden inside a weird-looking combat uniform.

And he appraised… Her.

Milada Slogance

Faction: Star Trail

He smiled, finally, his appraisal had found a use despite its relative uselessness in terms of anti-Canopy capabilities.

‘And I even get to appraise Star Trail as a bonus, amazing~’

Without delay, he focused on the faction part under the name of the woman he had come here to meet.

Star Trail

Power Index: 34 121

Influence Index: 23 774

Economy Index: 11 639

Technology Index: 72 412

Description: A research-focused faction united around a single purpose with civilization-wide consequences. Due to focusing the entirety of their means and manpower on pushing their research ever onward and deeper, they ended up neglecting and ultimately unbalanced their whole power distribution.

“72 000? Next to 12 000? Now that’s an unbalance I hadn’t expected, that’s crazy~” Speaking his thoughts openly aloud, he redirected his eyes to his green-haired friend, “When will this test end? I want to talk to Milada about integrated combat uniforms.”

“Your timing is pretty unfortunate,” Drayce informed him, “Today is a pretty important test day where they even asked me to come to infuse the hundreds of sensors they need.”

“Oh, that’s regrettable,” instantly coming to terms with the situation, he revised his plan with a few thoughts, “Then is there a way I can access some very concrete and informative data about integrated combat uniforms?”

“That’s not something I can decide,” he shook his head, then pointed at one of the guys who remained as a spectator from the very start and had shown no interest in joining, “Ask him, he’s in partnership with Star Trail and is the main reason Milada is even here to begin with.”

“Why’s that? Is he the last grade 3 production tech super here at Blackdale IMC?” Being reminded of a fact he had heard months ago, back when he was still at EMATE and was being introduced in more detail about where he was being transferred, he tried to connect the dots.

“If by last you meant 5th, then yeah, but just go and ask him. The current test period should be relatively calm so he doesn’t need to constantly monitor the feedback,” correcting him, Drayce invited him to end their conversation.

“I’ll do just that~” Departing the next moment leaving behind those words, he approached the man who was standing before a lot of screens displaying dozens of live feeds.

“Hello~ Am I bothering you?” Relatively discreetly arriving next to a normal-looking black-haired man, Aven inquired friendly.

“Are you the guy who designed the artillery sniper and martial full body armor?” Without turning his head, the man asked a question that only one man in the entire world could answer positively to.

“The one and only Aven Amias, yes,” not in a hurry, he didn’t push for his objective immediately but let the conversation slowly lead to an opportunity.

“The guy who joined not long ago?” He refined his question despite having already confirmed who he was.

“Are you flattering me to get me to help in some project? I don’t have any time for the next few cyc- days, but maybe after that, I can help solve a few dilemmas?” Not scared of making a false interpretation or deduction, Aven skipped to the end.

“That’s fine by me, my name is Anzu and it's a pleasure to finally meet and collaborate with you,” finally turning his head and exposing onyx black eyes that reminded Aven of his father’s eyes, the man presented his hand, obviously asking for a handshake.

Taking the offered hand, Aven found the opportunity he had waited for much earlier than he had ever expected, “Happy to collaborate too, but as I think you’ve already heard, I’m here to get to know the future combat gear that isn’t a super mega cool mechanical suit I’ll get to use for the imminent abomination surge.”

“Well, while mechanical suits are dreamy stuff and I can completely understand you would want one, the majority of the technologies making them up is so experimental that even Star Trail is struggling with getting prototypes that are remotely usable by supers that don’t belong to the tech energy system,” Anzu gave his opinion on the matter when it was brought up.

“At that point?” Testing the waters, Aven displayed his ignorance of the real state of the mechanical suit field and invited a deeper explanation.

“It's a technology that is really not ready to be used anytime soon, that, I can confidently declare,” stating it as if it wasn’t an opinion but a fact, the black-haired dampened his expectations for the future, “But who really knows? Between unusable and unrealistic, it's the former that wins by an extremely large margin, we just need to give it some time.”

“Well, happy to hear-” A sudden wave of head-turning cut Aven off, and as he was a sheep, he also followed the heads.

His escort, Ron, had arrived, but after entering and attracting all their attention, he stopped moving and remained at the entrance, overlooking the place and initiating his special action of fading into the background and remaining inconspicuous.

“-that. Yeah, just ignore him, he’s my assigned escort,” finishing his sentence, he then looked at the dozens of live feeds, “So… Is there a friendly user manual for integrated combat uniforms? I find myself in need of one.”

“Just give me your military network credential and I’ll give you access to everything at once,” Anzu explained, “And when you have some time in a few days, review what’s in there and try to give some advice.”

“Sure~” Relaxedly agreeing, Aven wrote his credential on a piece of random paper and then asked himself if there was something else he needed to do here.

The answer was no.

“Well, I’ll not linger here, I have an entire planet to revolutionize and a fairy ancestry to awaken. It was a pleasure to meet you, good luck with this test,” bidding goodbye in style with a few words, he smiled at everyone here and began heading for the exit.

And no one tried to stop him, he came and went like the wind.

In a relative hurry to prepare himself for his true integration in the traditional active life of a super now that he didn’t have to worry about getting data on his new combat gear, his mind departed from the present and went on a trip to help him find the most optimal ways to rearrange the 28 integrated production lines to fit with his new specialization.

Even when he rode on his bike, even when he reached his building back, even when he stepped into the design room…

His mind was wholly focused on what he needed to do next, and that was only exacerbated when he got access to the fully detailed blueprints of each of the 28 lines and the full layout of the production hall.

“It needs to be easily reversible… That’s the first constraint,” limiting himself because he didn’t intend to remain here for months more, he shifted his seat to the main modeling computer and opened a very extensive planning application that would help him complete the transformation.

Importing all the data currently open on the central data computer, he overlaid them all together to create a usable 3D model of the production hall after adjusting some parameters like the scales and current intensity.

“I’m not trying to upgrade them… I’m only integrating them, so no need to touch anything but the exploitation system and the power system,” astronomically limiting his potential to only focus on what mattered, he decided to start big with an overall power restructuring.

He needed to link every line with their immediate neighbors at multiple points, effectively making it so that those alimentation cables weren’t optional but necessary.

Roughly adding cables everywhere he saw easy openings, Aven began steadily reinventing the whole hall configuration to cut off different power sources and only keep those he wanted.

Seamlessly integrating everything, or at least trying to, he finished this first layer of rough change in 2 hours and moved on to refining what he had made, zooming in on each integrated line to refine the power circulation so that it transmitted everywhere without grilling some circuits on the way.

This step took him 8 hours, or more than 1 trinity effect duration, before he finally judged his restructuration plan to not be rough anymore but usable, even slightly above usable if he had to be honest, his perfectionist self had struck again in the middle.

“Next is to integrate all the electronics… That one is easy, I just have to link each console area and fuse all the exploitation systems. Before that though, I need to order some cables…” Registering the newly finished 3D blueprint, he accounted for what he would need to make that integration a reality and made a summarized inventory of all the cables and equipment he would need for the electrical integration.

Shifting to his data computer after that, he sent his order on the military network, abusing his authority as a production tech super to make sure he wouldn’t have to wait days before what he wanted was delivered.

Opening a programming software, he started coding from scratch an exploitation system update to allow the 28 different programs, fortunately of common origin, to work together and distribute the data calculation and processing in a way it didn’t need to before.

As he had thought, however, it was much easier than revamping the electrical configuration of the hall, and he finished coding his update in a few hours, so he skipped to the next stage: The testing stage.

Copy-pasting all of the 28 integrated production line programs into his newly updated normalized exploitation system, he turned it on to see what could possibly go wrong.

And the next instant he got a dozen conflicting error screens, “Ho. Well, now that’s a challenge~”

Finding the source of each of the conflicts, he gradually solved each of them by creating new workarounds to identify all the different “same” values as different ones due to their origin.

By the time he finally got the system working flawlessly even under a state of critical error from 27 of the machines, he finally moved to the last part he needed to do.

“How much time has passed? Has my order arrived yet?” Curious about that, he exited the design room to take a look at the stock area where all the raw materials needed for the 28 integrated lines to work correctly were stored.

There, he saw that a few trucks were unloading reel after reel of high-capacity electric current cable and data cables next to a full set of tinkering gears, “Perfect~”

Returning to his design room, he hopped onto the 3D production hall again, intent on wrapping up the digital integration of the 28 lines.

Doing just that over the next hour, he then proceeded to unify and overlay all the changes he intended to make to refine them as much as he could.

When he was finally done after hours and hours of work once combined, he printed the new production hall blueprint and put all the computers inside the design room except for the data computer on standby.

“I’ll need an external data drive… Or maybe I can infuse a USB key? No, too much of a bother, let me just get one…” He looked at the unused computer components in a corner of the room, they were there to be used, right?

Taking a raw data storage unit that wasn’t designed to be used in a standalone manner, Aven didn’t care and flash-tinkered a USB output to connect it with a command console easily.

Once he was done, he made the gigantic multi-pages blueprint and data storage unit float with energy telekinesis as he took both with him to the production hall.

Starting his revamping as soon as he got there, he got through all the 28 integrated lines’ command consoles to turn them off properly, preparing the field for the true change he was going to do.

“That’s so weird…” Overlooking the silent production hall from the command console he was formatting, Aven felt blown away by the fact that there was not a single sound anymore after 10 minutes.

All the lines had gone through their shut-off procedure without any issue, and now he found himself in an alien hall that he nevertheless knew so much.

“Well… Time to get to work,” keeping the blueprint with him, he left the data storage unit that was being used to download a whole new exploitation system.

Reaching the stock area, he made tens of reels and the tinkering gear set float by virtue of his energy telekinesis and brought them with him to the hall proper.

“Hehe, that’s more fun than I thought~” Savoring his ability to move things much heavier and bigger than himself without effort, at that moment Aven completely agreed with the fact that being a super was the best life one could ask for.

Bringing the blueprint before his eyes, he projected what he saw onto the floor and started unrolling the reels that contained segmented cables, drawing links between the different integrated production lines according to how he had planned them.

Running out of cable quickly, he went to fetch another tens of reels, including data cable, to complete his blueprint in a matter of minutes, not even an hour.

“And now start the laborious part,” seeing the messy hall, Aven commented as he opened the tinkering gear set and equipped himself with insulating gloves and boots, “What was I expecting anyway by going down the production tech super path? Not tinkering with machines all day? Hell no, hahaha!”

Initiating the true integration with a smile and a loud laugh, he opened the different maintenance doors that were in the range of his telekinesis and used his hands to unplug different power outlets and replace them.

He had designed the revamp blueprint he was actually executing himself just a few hours ago, so he perfectly knew what he was doing.

Bringing power cables, replacing existing ones, leaving others, opening another maintenance door, rinse and repeat.

For the next 10 hours, Aven only did that, and the only variation he saw during all that period was when he didn’t unplug power outlets but data outlets, and those were much rarer compared to the power ones.

He wasn’t complaining though, he felt neither tired nor bored when he was doing what he was doing due to being able to see the bigger picture, he had been the one to design it after all.

What he was doing served a much larger goal, that of optimizing his work environment.

His undivided infusion energy specialization wouldn’t just increase the intensity of his energy when it was active, it would enhance everything. From intensity to stability, to resistance, to adaptability, to spread… Literally, every property of his energy would be enhanced.

This massive gain would then reflect itself on his FCP and his time, earning him massive quantities of both, while also allowing him to push his knowledge application skill ever further because he would be infusing a single machine that was the integration of 28 different production lines, each as knowledge-demanding as the others.

Eventually, at the issue of these 10 hours of continuous efficient work, meaning he had to claim nearly 2 sets of grade 3 trinity cultivation resources, Aven finished the whole revamping and entered the practice test phase.

“I did everything, so if there’s a mistake… I can only blame myself!” Using the new main command console that had been updated and properly linked to every other line, he activated the test protocol.

As if it had been a hibernating titan, the whole production hall woke up and came to life with a slightly audible rumble and a shocking ground vibration coming from the fusion of all the different machines turning on at the same time.

Monitoring the screen, Aven held back on infusing his energy, “I need to be sure something isn’t going wrong but is only holding due to my energy…”

Yet, when half an hour had passed and all the 28 production lines now integrated into one had all started working as they should, he was finally sure and certain that he had succeeded.

“Hehe~ I’m the one who has designed and realized it. Of course there would be no problem,” adding a layer of narcissism to his brightly smirking face, his mood was raised to an all-time high as he put his hand on the command console before him, “And now, it’s time to show off another part of me.”