Chapter 11: Chapter 10: Multi-Talented

In his pocket, his phone started vibrating, indicating that one hour since he had started his job as a tech energy infuser had passed.

“Huh?” Taking his phone and turning off the alarm, he brought up his currently accepted 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, claim.’

As he was bringing out his notepad, he accepted his due reward.

 

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

 

And then his notepad fell to the ground as he fell into a daze and his mouth opened without him wanting to.

‘Is that… The reward for 1 hour with a completely inefficient energy infusion?’

Thoughts swirling, Aven tried to think about all the repercussions this FCP to time ratio meant. And those were heavy no matter how he started to think about them.

‘So… Either energy infusion counts as a hard task, or attending classes is a very bad way of completing the participating quest.’

“Sigh…” Sighing as he picked up his notepad to write down his gain and the amazing score of 5 he had kept all along, he started packing up.

“Well, it was a pleasure to have met you all. Due to innate ability-related reasons, I must leave, so don’t be surprised by me having remained only 1 hour. On these words, goodbye fellow super!” A bit of his enthusiasm at having found an amazing FCP to time ratio was contained in his voice, making sure everyone knew he was very happy.

No one answered back by the time he passed through the door leading to the big hall, and no one caught up to him by the time he exited through the insulating door.

‘Next stop: The steel factory! And also…’

A smile appeared on his face as he thought about the most direct repercussion of having found this energy infusion job.

‘Goodbye participating quest, you have been a marvelous theoretical partner but it looks like my capabilities as super contribute more to EMATE if I’m not attending classes!’

His jaw muscle nearly hurt as his smile and excitement were both too big to be translated through silent human means.

Only when he exited the research area building and started riding on his bike did he let out a colorful explosion of joy and thrill, “Hahaha! My life is amazing! Hahaha!”

The people he passed by, students, researchers, and teachers alike, all looked at him weirdly, but that didn’t stop Aven from letting his fantastically bright mood out to be displayed to everyone.

Arriving at the hangar area eventually, he continued cutting through the wind and headed deeper into it until he reached the area where the “steel factory” was located.

Of course, EMATE didn’t include a true steel factory inside its campus, it was more of an experimental area used to show the students all the problems, solutions, optimization, and mistakes that could possibly happen in material-related engineering fields.

And as there were only so few engineering fields that weren’t concerned with material quality, the “steel factory” was created. That was what Aven had understood at least.

Following the instruction from the email he had received, he went around the main entrance and reached a large parking lot containing big and small vehicles.

‘Yup, that’s the place.’

Leaving his bike a good distance away from the parking lot, he entered and headed for the place where people were gathered. And they all looked like ultra-tough and hard-boiled men and women.

Pretty obviously, those people started looking at him the moment he entered, and they didn’t even try to hide that their momentary subject was him.

“A new assistant?” A clean-looking but muscled man asked.

“Probably,” a tall woman answered.

“The volunteer one?” He continued to ask.

“Who wants to do a maintenance round? I’m up for it if none of you-” A woman who had been on the side asked and answered her own question at the same time before being interrupted.

“Of course I’ll do this round,” a similarly muscled but also very bearded man voiced out that he would do whatever a round was.

“Not if I’m here, you already did one 3 days ago,” another man contested him directly.

Finally reaching the group of 8 people, Aven acted natural and introduced himself politely, “Hello, I’m Aven, here to try the steel factory maintenance assistant job.”

“At least he’s not shy, not even intimidated,” a woman committed after his average introduction.

“A goody two shoes maybe?” Another woman added.

“Nope, I’m an opportunist,” Aven answered at that, “One who will probably stop coming once I confirm there are not enough benefits to be made for my spent time.”

“I like your honesty,” a gruff-looking man answered him, “I’m the one who accepted your application by the way, have you tried other jobs already?”

“I did,” Ave nodded before detailing, “And while I’ll still do my best here and on the kitchen assistant job, I don’t think it’s possible to beat the benefits I receive from energy-infusing a modeling computer unit.”

“Well, it’s not like this job is something permanent so even if you gain massive benefits you’ll not be able to keep doing it endlessly,” reasonably understanding what the situation was about, the gruff-looking man nodded before looking over the people present, “Linzey? Are you up?”

“Always,” a tall woman who seemed to be of few words replied.

“Then you’re up,” the gruff-looking man concluded the matter, and after some voices jokingly started protesting, they all ended up letting Linzey leave, taking Aven with her.

Following behind her as they entered the steel factory, it took 30 seconds of walking before they reached their first stop.

“For maintenance and repairs jobs alike, you always need some protections,” opening a locker, she showed Aven the inside, “Rubber gloves, rubber boots, and a helmet are the minimum. Such a combination will protect you from most possible fatal hazards in the steel factory.”

“Such as?” He curiously asked as he reached for the helmet proactively.

“Electric currents, pressured vapor jets, and big metal doors trying to crush your fingers,” she answered without thinking about it.

Opening another locker beside the one she had opened for Aven, she started equipping herself, shortly followed by Aven doing the same.

Inspecting him with an appraising eye once he was finished, she nodded and smiled a bit, “Good. Let’s enter then.”

And just like that, Aven started to sample the steel factory maintenance assistant job.

…

“Hah~ Well, this type of job shouldn’t give me many benefits,” putting down a large toolbox in a room full of more identical toolboxes, Aven realistically reckoned.

“So you’re probably not coming back?” Linzey asked from the side as she also put down her toolbox.

“Let me confirm…” Hesitating in his answer, he brought up his quest and claimed his reward.

 

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: 300 FCP

 

“300 for 3 hours… Yup, less despite being much harder,” Aven concluded without hiding anything, “This job sucks for my innate ability, attending classes has pretty much the same benefits, except I can study in one and pretty much dawdle around on the other.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Linzey didn’t appear apologetic at all despite saying that, she was even smiling, “But didn’t you at least get to experience what dirty engineering felt like? And at the same time, you saw for yourself the inside of a military-quality steel line?”

“Well, whether I enjoyed it or not is another matter,” Aven conceded, then he looked at the time, “The kitchen should have already started operating, so I’ll leave first, bye. I had a good time.”

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“See you,” ambiguously bidding goodbye, the tall woman looked on as her assistant escaped into the locker room.

A few minutes later, Aven was out without any of the protection equipment and jumped on his bike after running through the big parking lot before taking off towards the cafeteria area.

Another few minutes later, he arrived, entered through the back, found the men locker room, and pushed the door open.

A few people were already inside, changing into their chef’s uniform, a uniform still as white as the traditional military uniform, but without much complexity to it.

Finding his attributed locker, he started changing and when he put down everything like his backpack or his phone inside the locker, he exited through another door. The lunch period was arriving quickly, so by the time he exited the locker room, a few more people had trickled in.

Arriving just before the true kitchen area, he was stopped like everyone exiting the changing area and asked which position he wanted to fill.

“What is the hardest position available to me?” He asked the man guarding the position badges.

“If you don’t fear suddenness and being ordered around, then porter. If you’re less confident, then go with a dishwasher position,” kindly advising him, the man took the two badges and extended them to him, “Choose.”

“Porter it is,” taking the porter position badge, he passed through the last door separating him from a potential revolution to his way of gaining FCP.

…

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

 

Carefully observing his gain with narrowed eyes, Aven made his final judgment before taking another bite out of the meal in front of him, “That’s not worth it in so many ways.”

Thinking about what he had gone through to get those 200 FCP, 2 hours of hellish military-level boot camp, he shook his head in lamentation. The kitchen was a hellish place where slackers were put to death and every mistake added a death mark to your head.

“How can cafeteria food taste so goddamn good when it’s created by the hands of devils? Do they put demonic allure inside of it? Is it magically addictive?” Questioning his life after this very intense session as a porter in the military kitchen, he had no idea how he could go back to a normal life after knowing how this food he was eating came to be.

Ultimately finishing his devilish meal, he decided to return to this apartment to take a shower and cycle his energy while stopping his kitchen trauma from expanding its reach further into his spirit.

‘I have tried both becoming a maintenance assistant and a gear in the kitchen, but none of those equals the fantastic capabilities of energy infusing a computer.’

Feeling the hot water coursing through his slightly tanned skin, bringing with it sweat and erasing the marks from his experimental morning, Aven started thinking.

‘How is my innate ability capable of knowing what my faction needs? And how does it calculate the difficulty of a task? I don’t think it's physical difficulty anymore… More like the difficulty in doing the job itself?’

His reasoning seemed logical when he put it like that, after all, what was the ultimate goal of his quests? It was to contribute to his faction. And what better way to contribute than to fill a position that is hard to fill?

‘The market is starved of supers… So every job position that needs a super is similarly starved, and statistically much, much harder to fill. I’ll use that conclusion for now, it sounds too right to not be somewhat right.’

Exiting the shower with only his bath towel, he spread out on the couch, put on a tech super documentary in the background, and had a last thought before starting to cycle his energy.

‘The only thing remaining for me to determine is if doing my job better also increases the reward. After all, doing better is harder, isn’t it? Hehe, let’s hope so.’

…

The afternoon air felt much better than the morning one for Aven. He was in his element at this time of the day.

It not only felt lighter and was of a more adequate temperature, it also held a symbolic meaning for him, one that he linked to a lot of his memories as a teenager and university student.

The difference between then and now was both relatively and objectively high, but those memories of him made him what he was today, so every time such a day and timing happened, it put a smile on his face and motivated him to do whatever he wanted.

Even skipping classes.

“Not that I’ll go to classes anymore, at least not the theoretical ones,” grinning and thinking aloud as he pedaled leisurely on the lively EMATE campus, he took his time to reach his destination.

The existence of the computing hall in the research area, that’s what he named it, had basically destroyed his carefully crafted FCP farming plan, but it had destroyed it in the best possible way by both giving him a way to gain FCP quicker, but also allowing him to understand more intrinsically his own innate ability.

“It’s just… A cycle that keeps getting wider and wider…” Having a random thought that could perfectly describe his own situation, he continued it in his mind.

‘First, it was the discovery that 4 hours of classes brought me 500 FCP, then a second sample that got me 400 FCP, then the energy infusion job that gave me 200 FCP per hour, and finally the 2 physically intense jobs at 100 FCP per hour. It’s all just a cycle.’

Ignoring the parts that didn’t agree with his conclusion, he started slowing down by stopping pedaling until he completely stopped… A few meters away from his target bike parking slot.

‘That… Was a failure.’

Giving one more impulse, it finally got his bike's front wheel to enter his target slot.

Getting off of his bike, he couldn't help but notice that this place looked completely different from back in the morning. There were more people, they were all busy with some having big piles of documents in their hands rushing about, and the atmosphere smelled of coffee.

‘Hehe, now that’s more of the stereotype I had of researchers.’

Navigating through the building he still remembered from this morning, he arrived at the insulating door where he needed to input a code to open it and pass through, so he did.

The big refrigerated hall was still the same, with no windows, a continuous whistling, and only dead machines were surrounding him.

“Whoa~ What a contrast,” commenting on this absurd change in atmosphere between the fresh spring breeze and sunny outside and this cold and dark competing hall, Aven intrinsically linked this environment with the fact that it would become his “work” place for the near future.

Passing through the rows of black boxes like this morning, except without anyone guiding him, he arrived and passed through another door that led him to the true core of the computing power of the research area.

‘Why are they all still here?’

Seeing the same 5 people from this morning still present in this hall, he became curious about their dedication when they surely didn't have his innate ability.

And true to the fact that he had the inquisitive spirit talent, he approached with quick steps and directly asked them all together without a precise target, “Why are you all still here? Does this job pay that much? Is this like perhaps some sort of secret society club I shouldn’t have been invited to?”

What welcomed his barrage of questions was silence.

After 10 seconds of silence, Aven added, “It’s not awkward to speak you know? Do you think I have something like a split personality? Did all your brains freeze in this dark and cold hall?”

“Are you a natural?” One of the girls asked after looking at him for a few seconds.

“As natural as the son of a war reporter and a TV announcer can be!” Finally getting a response got him to smile and reply enthusiastically. The awkwardness had finally been breached.

“That’s because you can accelerate your energy cultivation speed by using your energy actively during your downtime period,” another girl whose voice sounded extremely like the previous one explained to him the reason straightforwardly.

“Are you two sisters perhaps?” And after noting this fact, Aven couldn’t help but ask, refraining himself from appraising them to maintain the suspense.

“I’m Arica, and she’s Arika, we’re twins,” the first girl answered with slight derision.

“Huhu~ Considering that to my ears those 2 names sound literally the same, does that mean I can never be wrong by calling you Arika even if you’re not Arika? Are you Arika or Arica by the way? Oh wait, I need to start infusing a unit,” turning the ridiculous situation into a funny one naturally and smoothly, he reached for the nearest marked computing unit and infused it.

“So? What were your parents thinking by calling you each with the same name? Are they even the same? Maybe some letters are different? Don’t tell me you’re orphans or I’ll just go kill myself here and now,” putting down his backpack, he started unpacking his things while asking the twins more questions.

“Our parents were too occupied with their jobs. That’s the explanation they gave us when we realized that having the same name except for one letter wasn’t normal,” the second girl, the one who had given him the explanation about why they were all still here, told him.

“And we can’t change it as we’re not of age yet,” the other twin added, seemingly a bit upset at the thought.

“Not 18 yet?!” Looking more carefully at the two, Aven narrowed his eyes as much as he could as he scanned them, “You certainly don’t look like you’re less than 18…”

Leaving his sentence incomplete, a smile appeared on the faces of the remaining 3 people despite all of them having their eyes closed, with an especially big one on the lone guy's face.

“And what do we look like, then?” The more bossy one of the two asked fiercely while the other more reasonable and helpful one remained silent with a slightly blushed face.

“You want to know?” Aven asked with the clearest and holiest eyes he could summon, “You look more than 18! And you perfectly know why! Don’t force me to say it or I’ll call your parents and we’ll see if I’m right or not!”

“Don’t bring our parents to the table!” Taking it more seriously than she should have, the fierce twin nearly stood up.

“Sigh… They wouldn’t even be able to judge, I think,” stopping her sister, the milder sister concluded the matter with a sigh saying it all.

“Huhu~” Not caring about what the two twins thought of their parents, dozens of counter-arguments popped into his mind, but he held himself back and only let out only one in a whisper that was only heard by his 2 direct neighbors, “If they’re not beautiful themselves and didn’t recognize that quality in each other using their own beauty standard… How would you two have been born? Sigh… Teenage crisis…”

Lamenting the probable misunderstanding between parents too absorbed by their jobs and teenagers lacking parental attention, he opened the black and white book explaining everything about the massive computing unit behind him.

He had FCP to farm.

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