Leaving the very relaxing and out worldly fairy gathering in the fairy garden, Aven headed for his newly appropriated design room alone.

There, he resumed his work on integrating the ASHAS production hall and strategizing for his future placement on the Forbidden Wall to face the surge.

Those 2 projects worked hand in hand in his mind, he couldn’t go without one of them, and that was why he had decided to make those 2 the first true step of his plan.

They were not that difficult, just time-consuming.

He knew by heart how the ASHAS-related integrated lines could be integrated together considering he had designed them, and he had access to enough intel on abomination density and distribution during the last surges to create a map of the theoretically more intense part of the wall to defend.

What he had to do was just grind, grind through the software, grind through his knowledge, grind through the records.

The motivation to continue grinding through without being side-tracked came from how he had realized that his knowledge hadn’t clearly told him how dangerous an abomination surge was. It was even only after going through hundreds of records that he realized even he wasn’t safe.

The 5-layer fortification wall model wasn’t new, it also wasn’t perfect, and it couldn’t be perfect, casualties were inevitable, and the manpower involved in sealing a whole continent approaching the size of the Eland Continent, a medium-sized continent of Green, was mind-blowingly insufficient.

It wasn’t a problem of budget though, after all, not even the Bright Canopy wanted abomination to successfully exit the Forbidden Continent, it was a problem of…

Supers.

Awakened life.

Abominations, for all they were simply mindless masses of flesh, had a staggeringly high ratio of awakened individuals, nearly all of them were awakened. They were similar to the abandoned beats on that front, except they could reproduce much quicker as long as they had enough resources.

Resources they produced just by existing in the long run.

Ultimately, compared to humans who awoke naturally at an abysmal rate such that a whole city-region like Serenis only had 2 naturally awakened supers in a week, there was definitely a problem in high-end manpower.

The only factor allowing the sapients to defend themselves against the inevitable death that was the abominations was the possibility to recycle their bodies into innate ability awakening serum, completely erasing the need for natural awakenings.

And even though manufacturing more awakening serums meant a relative reduction in cultivation resources, a balance was eventually created, sharing the extremely prized high-grade abomination corpses into either awakening serums or resources to satisfy both the current super population and the future super generation.

This all involved a market that Aven knew much more about than he knew about the fatality rate of a surge.

With this motivation fueling him, after 40 hours of grinding alone in this unfamiliar design room, he sent his request order for reels of cables, tinkering kits, and authorizations for stopping the ASHAS production hall for him to modify it with the objective of taking it over completely.

As he had somewhat expected, thanks to the invisible authority he had acquired by becoming an Eland fairy, and maybe a bit of his authority as the designers of those lines and a nascent not-unfamiliar military advisor too, his request was swiftly accepted.

By the time he found a way to print all the schematics for the production hall integration, the efficiency of the logistics was shown when he entered a deserted and silent ASHAS production hall but a lively stock area.

“I might get addicted to this efficiency~” Finding the whole thing extremely enjoyable, he helped the logistics staff unload their intra-wall transport trucks before getting to work without any more delay.

Unlike the first time he had realized such an integration, this time he was a fairy with omnipotent energy telekinesis for all the fine works that would have otherwise necessitated him to do it by hand, accelerating the integration speed.

In the end, it took him a bit over 10 hours, approximately the same time he had needed to integrate the 28 ammunition lines back at Blackdale IMC, to perfectly integrate all the 30 ASHAS-related lines of this hall.

And that didn’t phase him more than that, this integration time meant nothing if not that he had perfectly achieved his goal, “This hall is going to produce the ammunition I’ll use, so settling for anything less than this double security loop would be a disservice.”

Launching the self-diagnosis sequence on the completely copy-pasted updated exploitation system he had created back then, he initiated the last checks before confirming that this part of his plan was going marvelously.

“Well, it’s time to do some field research while I still can,” overlooking this hall that was ready to be elevated to a new degree of tech-production excellence, Aven smiled.

His “weapon” was ready.

…

His wings fluttered once.

The impulse created by this single fluttering was enough to propel him a few meters forward, over the security fence.

He had just simply and purely entered one of the most dangerous places of Green.

“It’s not that impressive,” commenting as he looked below him at the great rocky and sandy wasteland that extended forwards until the horizon, he started his descent.

Touching the ground half a minute later, his small feet didn’t disturb a single grain of sand, and not even a breeze or an indistinct shadowy figure were there to show him that the world hadn’t come to a perfect still.

“What I’m doing is a bit stupid when I think about it, hehehe~” Laughing foolishly, he used his energy telekinesis to bring the big guns he had brought with him closer.

He hadn’t been stupid enough to not bring with him the best “self-defense” somewhat portable weapons a tech super could ask for: A big integrated gatling.

Touching it physically, he verified once again that his energy was active everywhere in it, from the ammunition belts to the weapon itself, “But it's the best course of action. I need to know.”

Finished with his emotional immersion in his new environment and his objective in coming down here, he took off again, his goal wasn’t that far so he didn’t feel like anything bad could happen.

Flying for a bit over 10 minutes a few dozen meters above the ground, what had appeared before as a flat rocky desert plain marred with craters gradually transformed into something much flatter, an intact piece of desert that could surely also be found in the Athal Continent.

‘It shouldn’t be far anymore…’

Not there to be a tourist, or not completely, he didn’t stop to admire the virgin desert beneath him and continued flying until the ground started reflecting the White much more than before, as if it was made of sequins.

Lowering his altitude and his speed, Aven became able to see bits and pieces of crystal spread out all over the mixed brown-yellow desert.

Descending even more, he brushed the ground to pick up a small chunk of crystal with one of his hands, not his energy telekinesis, as he continued flying forward at full speed.

In his small hands, the crystal chunk he had picked up felt hot, as hot as a car during a canicular summer, and as he touched it here and there, all the knowledge he had about the ancient history of how this crystal came to be flashed by, plunging him into a weird mood.

Another few minutes later, he reached his objective and stopped.

“The crystal crater…” What had appeared before him was an immensely large crystal crater, one that stood at the limit of what his mind could grasp in terms of how much power had been necessary for it to be born, “The ultimate remnant of a grade 6 abomination who mutated to transform its bone plating mutation into regenerating energy-immune crystals…”

Observing this crystal crater that he knew so much about thanks to it being located not far from the part of the Forbidden Wall that was manned by Eland’s military, Aven brought his gatling forward and pointed it at a solid plate of crystal that seemed to be one with the entire crater.

Because it was. The whole crater was a single piece of crystal.

Pressing the trigger with his energy and locking it in place with an absurd spending of energy to resist the intense recoil, a relatively silent sound of continuous firing accompanied by extremely bright flashes of light in the area he had targeted happened simultaneously until he stopped a few seconds later.

The moment he stopped, he could see the result.

There was no smoke, no cracks, and only a few impacts seemed to have registered.

Landing on the area, an extremely hot feeling was transmitted to him from his feet area, but he knew it wasn’t anything dangerous for him as an energy life, so he just ignored it and lowered himself to touch the impact area.

“Even with this…” He felt, he knew, he realized, that even this weak non-infused remnant of grade 6 crystal plating was stronger than he could push the power of the gatling he had brought with him with just this goal in mind, “Forget it. Next are the explo-”

The crystal beneath his feet suddenly started vibrating, cutting him off.

“-sives. Hu?!” Taken by surprise, he flew up by reflex, only for the vibration to still spread to him from the air, an environment that really shouldn’t be suitable for vibration to spread through.

Before he could make any joke about the situation, a very intense light appeared on the horizon, making him look at it once again by reflex.

Then he felt hot, and his whole body felt weird due to the permanent vibration that was reaching him.

“Don’t tell me… No?” Unable to make any joke, he opened one of the fairy boxes he had brought and saw that it was vibrating and indicating a bright red screen, “No?”

In disbelief, his knowledge took over and he completely forgot about all the hundreds of tests he wanted to realize here in this unique crystal crater.

Flying up, the omnipresent vibration and light behind him intensified even as he started to fly back towards the Forbidden Wall.

A few minutes later, faint far roars reached him, hundreds of them, discordant with each other, then a first wave of scouts appeared in his vision when he looked behind him, all rushing back towards the only true safety here in this abomination-dominated Forbidden Continent.

The roars became clearer and clearer by the seconds, slowly transforming into howls and shrieks that seemed to be right on his trail, but he knew it wasn’t possible.

“Are those the grade 6 abominations initiating the…?” Making a flash deduction according to his knowledge, he didn’t stop one moment to think more about what was really happening, it was all too clear after all.

By the time he reached the wall to see the military swarming everywhere on it and a few fairies flying here and there, a few scouts had already passed him by and were climbing the wall with ease.

Skipping this cumbersome human process, he just made a beeline towards the top of the wall where he didn’t stop for an instant before rushing for the ASHAS production hall he had integrated.

“Of course I knew it would happen! But why not give me just a few more hours?!” Dropping all his stuff neatly at the entrance of the hall, he reached for the main console and turned on the true production mode.

Putting his hand on a conveniently placed metal indent easily accessible after landing on the main command console, he started infusing a complex integrated production line for the first time since he had awakened his fairy bloodline and gained major additional boosts to his energy.

The whole air was still vibrating, the console he was standing on was also vibrating, and the insulating walls of the production hall weren’t enough to block the huge activity that was taking place all around him, but that didn’t deter him from doing what he needed to do.

The situation was crystal clear for him, his true weapons had only been ready theoretically, not practically. Now, at the dawn of the abomination surge which he had prepared himself for months, he was missing the weapon he had designed explicitly for it.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape him, but instead of doing nothing about the relative unfairness and bad timing of the situation, he just acted to resolve the situation as fast as he possibly could.

It was clearly the first major hurdle of his life, the one that anyone seeking to know more about him would pass through, and he wanted to prove to both himself and the world that he wasn’t all talk.

The crystal crater episode hadn’t proven anything about his firepower, but he had utter confidence that as long as he was the one to produce his own weapons, he would never be left helpless like that.

This will and belief made it through to his energy and knowledge application skill, using the Basic Excitable Energy talent as a platform to push his energy intensity further than ever.

Failing was of course an option, but if he had control over everything as he would in a few more hours, then failing wasn’t an option anymore.

Remaining silent, Aven kept a neutral face as he pushed as much of his knowledge, drive, and memories of how he had designed this 1st project into his energy that then went into the 30 integrated lines.

And an hour later, amidst chaotic sounds coming from everywhere, he saw the resulting tech-enhancement before his eyes.

“842%...” He opened his eyes, stopped infusing more energy into the ever energy-hungry machine, and read aloud the quality control result that had fully stabilized, “That’s around 150%... For a purple grade fairy bloodline. That’s like having another specialty, except it's completely unrestricted…”

Not even taking the effort to compare himself to the 956% tech-enhancement Alain once showed him, he solidified his belief that he had departed from the norms long ago.

“Should I… Feel superior?” Seriously musing for a few seconds, he ended up just sighing and closing his eyes again to continue infusing more energy.

Now wasn’t the time to think.

…

“Mr. Amias, you have been called to the strategic defense reunion for advisory reasons,” out of nowhere, a sweet female voice pulled him out of his energy infusion trance.

Removing his hand from the command console, he stretched his body a bit before jumping and returning to being air-born, “Where?”

Instead of answering, the woman with a sweet voice just turned around and led the way.

Entering the chaotic large wall corridors, Aven felt happy to be a fairy and not be bound to the ground for movement, he just had to keep up with the woman struggling a bit to avoid crashing into rushing people.

This problem soon vanished, however, as they reached a fortified section that was impossible to disturb due to their strategic importance.

Following behind the woman until she opened a door guarded by 1 intimidating soldier and indicated to him to get inside, he stopped for a bit there and looked inside for a very short moment to confirm this wasn’t all a huge trap.

Entering after seeing a few recent acquaintances all looking at a huge table, he unabashedly flew over all their heads and looked down at the huge interactive map of… Obviously the Forbidden Continent, where 4 colors were overlaid on top of each other.

Red, purple, green, and blue.

The red color took on the form of an expanding cloud departing from the center of the continent and spreading chaotically, clearly not in a balanced way.

The purple color was only present in the form of numbered and lettered dots spread here and about in the red cloud, but there were a lot of dots, though not all were of the same dark purple shade a few were displayed in.

The green color was mainly located at the border of the Forbidden Continent and didn’t show any obvious shade difference other than a clear 5-split along the border of the continent.

The blue color was similar to the purple color in that it was disseminated here and there in the green part as dots, though not numbered and lettered but named, some dots were deep blue, some pale blue, and some areas were simply devoid of blue dots.

The parts of the Forbidden Wall manned by the Nation of Eland, the Emma Empire, the Vow Kingdom, the United Federation of the Athal Continent, and the Mist Republic were all colored with some deep blue.

A clock on the side of the huge interactive map reached a full cycle, and the map flashed as it was updated to its new version according to the new intel gathered.

“There’s still no change, not even a hint, the first contact will be done by the Vow Kingdom,” judging quickly, a 4-star general reported the latest changes as if it was his job to tell something so obvious that even Aven knew about it after looking at the misshapen shape of the red cloud.

It was so obvious that even an indecisive general would know where this surge would start.

“The high-danger abominations are rushing ahead, the first contact will happen in less than 7 hours if nothing distracts them,” another 4-star general pointed at something much more interesting, making the reunion finally find an outlet for all its amazing processing and strategic power.

“Let’s send in air support while we still can,” a young-looking 3-star general suggested, “All the planes are still being prepared for leaving, so let’s use them one last time to send support.”

“We could start a preemptive bombardment to try and scatter the main expansion mass, spreading the surge artificially before it reaches such a point naturally,” a 4-star woman said.

“We should send a high-speed mixed fairy and human force to pass through Emma and assess how their preparations are going, maybe we can reduce their current dissent to a minimum by exposing our willingness to help,” an old man wearing a 4-star insignia complemented.

“Hitting the abominations before they truly show their first color is undesirable,” one of the three 5-star generals present looked at a certain officer who offered to do something too reckless for his taste, reorienting the discussion where he wanted it to go.

None of the other two 5-star generals uttered a single word at that cropping.

Keeping silent, Aven didn’t see any need for him to expose his expertise for now. The surge hadn’t even started yet, and a surge lasting less than a few months where hundreds of completely flipped situation changes happened had never been heard of.

Meaning, what was happening currently was just the extremely easy and casual beginning, one where lots of options were open and none were really factually wrong.

Taking in the state of the abomination expansion, he corroborated his own conclusion that nothing in it seemed amiss and excused himself with a smile, “I’m not needed here yet, I’ll come back in a few hours~”

Then he left the room.