Chapter 17: Chapter 16: Perfect Plan

His report seemed to be very good as Neela didn’t even look at Aven anymore until 5 minutes later.

“So… Is there a reason you didn't go to a super academy? I can’t see anything you would gain by joining the military with your talents. Is your innate ability maybe unsuited for it?” Dubious about how this just graduated young man ended up being assigned to Blackdale with what was being said on his report, she was already smelling a conspiracy.

“The short answer is that yes, an academic environment is mostly unsuited for me now that I got all the knowledge I need to properly work in the military,” lowering her concern as much as he could, Aven gave his own side of the story.

“So… Like… Really?” She still seemed extremely skeptical as she slowly asked once again for confirmation, “Do you really want to become a combat engineer when your innate ability allows you to go from reporter student to all-engineering fields genius in 1 month?”

“Well, I don't know why this report would tell you I became an all-engineering fields genius considering I didn’t show such capabilities, but it’s true anyway… Oh! The lie-detecting woman? That’s crazy! She even noted what I implied?! And it’s already out?! It’s so recent!” Coming to a realization mid-sentence, he corrected himself, “All that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here because I want to be here though.”

Still dubiously looking at him, she moved on to the next matter, “Your report says your future optimization schedule can’t be determined now, but can you give me some idea of what you will need to do? Just the grand lines are enough.”

“If only I knew the grand line myself, sigh…” Aven shook his head before starting with the vaguest description he could give, “The only thing I’m sure of that will be part of my optimized schedule is the much bigger time I’ll spend working. Meaning I’ll not be restricted by working hours.”

“And what about unconfirmed optimizations? Can you base them off of what you did here at EMATE,” Neela wrote down everything and even seemed to want to prepare for eventualities.

“Oh~ If you want the most probable but unconfirmed optimizations, then me possibly reneging on my whole pay no matter its source to do all my work by volunteering is a sure possibility that can happen,” he happily exposed the most obvious shortcoming of the volunteering quest should it also come to exist in the military.

“That’s moderately unique but far from the most extreme or inconvenient optimization to do should you want it to happen. Anything else?” Reckoning the uniqueness, she wasn’t overly shocked as she pursued.

“No,” this time, however, Aven firmly denied, “I’ll need to personally make some research for other optimizations, and they involve things I do not know yet like the actual circumstances at Blackdale Industrial Military Center.”

Following this answer, Aven continued answering to the best of his capabilities while taking in all the explanations Neela gave about his transfer destination.

One hour later, as noon was fast approaching, while the discussion part had been finished, Neela made a point of taking him to the shooting range to “test his skills” before freeing him.

As for how he did at the shooting range, he did much worse than he had thought himself able to do.

So when Neela finally left to take a meal break and start preparing for her return convoy to Blackdale tomorrow, a convoy which Aven would of course join, he, for his part, remained at the shooting range.

‘Even infusing energy doesn’t change my aim…’

As it had been his first time firing a gun in his life a few dozen minutes ago, he was still not used to applying the knowledge he had in his mind to it.

‘Compared to my potential capabilities… It’s pathetic.’

Judging himself harshly, he couldn’t believe that his gun skills were so low once put to practice, so he changed his emptied magazine with a new one and started aiming slowly again in the rules of the art.

Firing a first time and feeling the recoil, he held the same SAU handgun model he had manufactured yesterday and knew like his own pocket as strongly as he could while letting it disperse, then proceeded to look at the aim target.

‘It’s not working.’

Mobilizing his energy, he infused it inside the handgun while focusing more on the bullet’s initial explosion intensity, its pure velocity, and the reduction of the friction between the bullet and the short barrel.

Aligning his gun with the target, he fired once again. The recoil had become slightly stronger, but not enough for him to release completely. And less than a second later, he was able to observe where his bullet had hit.

‘It’s… Definitely not working.’

Thinking further about why his aim was so rough and imprecise, Aven could only link what was happening with the most critical weakness of his knowledge acquisition method.

‘Firing a gun correctly probably requires much more than just knowledge to be done perfectly. It’s a true sport, so it’s exactly the same as if I got the world champion of sprint’s knowledge on how to sprint. The problem isn’t in the knowledge, it’s in the training.’

Firing a few more times after aiming as best as he could, he concluded that his deduction was more likely true… And continued firing.

‘Guns are too important for tech supers, and now that I confirmed I need to train in it for possibly a massive amount of time before becoming proficient in using them…’

“I’ll continue shooting until my forearms can’t take it anymore,” voicing out his determination to do something he hadn’t planned at all, Aven fired once again, hitting ever slightly closer to where he had been aiming.

...

At the same time that Aven “graduated” from EMATE, in a special secret materialization center of ERA, Eland Royal Agency.

“Sir,” a man, maybe young, maybe old, whose face seemed indistinct despite the good lighting, handed a small stack of paper to an old man who reluctantly accepted it.

“What is it this time? I’m already buried under the political maneuvers and favor exchanges made by the Emma princes and princesses, so what deserves my attention in this trying time?” Both incomprehension and acceptance flashed over his face as he asked for nothing, knowing resisting the flow was more often than not useless in ERA.

“A young citizen recently awakened and his initial situation is extremely similar to yours, so the high commands asked for your suggestion regarding how to guide him,” summarizing his own orders as he was under the same circumstances, the man then lapsed into silence to let the report be read.

“Aven Amias…” Reading the name aloud, the old man with snowy white hair then used his speed reading skill to quickly go through the whole stack of pages full of all sorts of information that could be used to define an individual and dozens of suggestions ERA had stealthily planned for him.

“Godly knowledge integration capabilities at grade 1… Unaffected by traditional social shackles… Fairy-class social butterfly personality… Proclivity to… Wreck normality?” Having gathered enough information from the profile, he lifted his head to clarify his doubts, “Did you give me the psychological profile of a fairy? And not any fairy at that, but a fairy-era one?”

“Our agents in place that have previous interactions with fairies were as surprised as you are when they gave their conclusion,” the man denied his accusations.

“That’s going to be a problem…” Commenting as he moved to the list of “events” that combined to give this psychological profile of a young fairy-era unhinged fairy, “No efforts to hide his clearly world-defying innate ability… Explain it to anyone he meets…”

Going down the list, the man with snowy white hair felt a budding headache in his grade 4 psy super brain.

“Sigh~ Maybe?” Dropping the report down after going through it all, including the dozens of suggestions ERA had on this fake innocent young man who he didn’t believe one second was that naive, he looked at a glass bottle contained in a vacuum glass container not far from him.

“A little pick-me-up?” Smiling at his own proposition, what happened the next moment was the entire room breaking like glass.

The man who gave the report didn’t move as this surreal event happened, all too used to this physics-defying innate ability of Alistair Vaughan, the ability to access the mirror world and copy anything he desired as long as he had the energy and conditions gathered to allow it.

By the time the fragmented world recovered to its original state, Alistair had served himself a glass of purple liquid that seemed to swirl by itself.

None of them spoke up for the next few minutes as one had to think about what to do with a potential “second himself”, and the other had to be there to report the true and clear intentions of the high commands if they had been misunderstood.

“He’s only in grade 1… I wonder what his upgraded grade 2 and 3 innate ability will be? A true appraisal ability that can see beyond cover? That would certainly ease the entire Canopy cleansing action…”

Musing on information Aven probably didn’t even know himself about his own innate ability, like the fact that his appraisal ability was unable to see the true name or faction affiliation of the people he appraised, Alistair went through tens of scenarios where Eland gained someone that couldn’t be replicated no matter the efforts.

“But my own innate ability development path was so random and unexpected… Even if his appraisal is to be upgraded at some point, it might only be at tier 4, 5, or even 6…”

Dismissing some options and keeping others, his thoughts flew through his spirit that was much, much bigger and much more powerful than a grade 4 psy super should have, eventually arriving at a conclusion he liked above all the others.

“I think… The fully locked grade 2 and explosive grade 3 path?” He tentatively gave his answer, which was in most part in agreement with what the high commands had favored.

“This is effectively the most resource-efficient path in addition to being one with a lot less complex factors to manage,” the man with a shifting face agreed, “ERA has already initiated an undercover protection service, it’ll be easy for it to last until he reaches grade 3. No one ever takes grade 2 supers seriously, even if their innate ability is… Interesting.”

“The world is really short-sighted~” Alistair sarcastically added before sipping at his glass of weird purple swirling liquid, “Unfortunately, ‘they’ are not as short-sighted as anyone would hope them to be. I doubt we’ll be able to protect him for long once he reaches grade 3, he’s a unique breed who will no doubt take drastic actions before we’re even aware of them.”

“It’ll not be the first time we’ve done something like that, and we’re sort of professional at it now,” the man’s face finally stopped shifting and stabilized onto a young one, “Not even the current genius generation had been aware that their entire early life was thoroughly controlled and guided by us, and he’ll certainly not be the first one to break through the veil.”

“If he ever awakens his fairy ancestry though…” The wielder of the mirror world access innate ability raised his brows in interest at this likely development from the very clear personality trait that had manifested onto this young man named Aven Amias.

Turning on his chair to look at the lively Elandia, the capital of Eland, and the far-away Rainbow Mountain, home to the symbolic royal family made of the remaining 2 000 fairies to exist on the entire planet, a slight smile manifested on his face.

‘I don’t think you’re able to hold a grudge, but don’t be surprised the day you learn all the “friends” and “mentors” you made along the way have been briefed by us to accommodate you… That’s how life goes in this world. I’ve gone through the same thing, and look at where I stand today…’

“Sigh…” Suddenly, a certain sad memory reawakened from deep inside of him, a memory he had forgotten as it came from an age long overdue compared to his current 105 years of age, which was factually his youth for his grade.

“Maybe… I’ll ask them to limit his interactions with those without potential… You can’t make true friends at low grades when your innate ability has the potential to revolutionize the entire world if used without shackles. It’ll only hurt him.”

…

“What a shitty day to leave,” climbing at the back of a massive military transport truck after stocking his 2 big suitcases in another separate transport truck, Aven couldn’t help but comment on the massive downpour going on outside.

“You don’t say,” Neela agreed as she sat down on one of the 2 comfortable-looking benches available inside the transport truck, having entered the truck before him.

Not feeling stifled by the situation, Aven took his time before selecting where to sit, and he decided to do so near the inner end of the truck.

When he tried to sit down however after putting down his new upgraded backpack, he was bothered by his new uniform and everything that came with it, from his new leg holster to the gun that filled it, everything was new to him, and he didn’t really know if taking such precaution was necessary.

“Are attacks on military convoys something that happens often? It’s so annoying to sit with all that on,” driven by his curiosity and annoyance, he asked, more irked than he should have been for something not that relevant.

“It’s because it’s a rush job, and attacks on military convoys are much more common than you might think. It’s not a 1 in a 1000 occurrence, but it's not far from it, and that’s even more true now that the Canopy doesn't control the underworld as much as it should have,” Neela justified everything without a blink.

“Well, it’s cool anyway,” focusing on the positive, Aven felt for the first time that he had truly integrated the military.

A full camo combat uniform with bulletproof properties, all the pockets filled with things like magazines, a big clumsy-looking radio, a gun, its bothersome holster… All this equipment would have never been accessible to him before, but now they had been practically forced on him prior to departing from EMATE.

“It’ll become just a normal day thing one day, enjoy the novelty while it lasts,” his only conversation partner decreased his excitement with a few well-placed words he knew to be true.

After this exchange, a few more people entered this truck and everyone soon found their own seat as the truck finally turned its engine on.

And a few more minutes later, the familiar feeling of moving made itself known, announcing the departure from EMATE’s campus to the city of Blackdale.

As it was a trip that was planned to take 14 hours, no one had come without their own way of entertaining themselves, Aven included.

‘Well, with 14 hours to kill, what could I do as a grade 1 super? Cycle my energy you say? Surely you jest!’

Smirking at this perfect travel time that would allow him to cycle his energy 2 times, he wriggled to correctly lock himself in position, and after putting on his headphones playing a documentary talking about the technological progress of Green as a whole he had downloaded very recently, he closed his eyes.

And then his energy started cycling.

…

Getting his innate ability notepad out of his backpack, he brought up his status.

 

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Aven Amias

Faction: None

Energy Grade: 1

Energy Cultivation: 21/100

Energy Affinity: Tech

Physical Talents: None

Energy Talents: Basic Tech Energy Affinity, Basic Energy Sense

Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit, Basic Knowledge Integration

Universal Talents: Unawakened Fairy Ancestry

 

‘Nothing on that side, and probably 6 more days until my new faction, the military, is displayed here.’

Turning page after page on his notepad, he eventually arrived at a section he had called “theorized perfect step by step development plan”, a section he had only very recently created.

Due to this, most of what needed to be written inside was still only present in his head, so now that he had entered his energy cultivation downtime period for the next 6 hours, Aven wanted to fill it as much as he could.

‘My primary guideline is of course increasing my energy grade, if my innate ability unlocked something so overpowered at grade 1, then what will happen at grade 2? I can only imagine.’

Beginning with the obvious, he reminded himself of the balance between his innate ability and his energy cultivation. The latter was above the former, but in his situation, the link wasn’t one-sided because the latter needed the former to really reach its maximum potential.

‘Hence, to further my cultivation, I need to follow whatever Eland will need or ask of me, and my main advantage over other supers in this scenario is my learning potential.’

Descending the ladder, he arrived at his main conundrum.

‘Therefore, my best bet at quickly increasing my cultivation by receiving lots of cultivation resources is through becoming an expert that can occupy a position few can occupy. And that’s where I can only hypothesize what the military needs.’

Making a great dividing line there, he added a few more details on the part above before moving on to the optimal scenario he had thought of.

‘For me, the best scenario that could ever happen is a clearly known, distinguished, but mysteriously understaffed field I can specialize in. It doesn’t matter what this field is in the end because it’ll only be a shortcut I’ll use to accelerate my ascension to the rank of senior engineer.’

Turning a few pages to leave the place for more development, he started on his second-best scenario.

‘Next to this utopic field only I could occupy, the innovative interdisciplinary engineer route is much more likely to be practical. The only problem with this route is my total lack of knowledge about how to get recognition or even if it's a possibility.’

Once again turning a few pages after jotting down the rough lines describing this idea, he put to paper a third scenario.

‘Not the worst but also not the best… More likely to be my initial scenario before any other one can happen: The exemplary engineer scenario. Do they lack tech supers for production? Well, I’m here now, and I work for free for endless hours, isn’t that amazing? Why go for quality when I can go for quantity?’

Smiling uncontrollably when he wrote that one, Aven knew this scenario was almost sure to happen whether he wanted to or not.

‘Unless I find… No, it’s just not possible. Stop dreaming.’

Averting himself from thinking about the impossible, he returned to dwelling over more scenarios he could go for if all his other plans failed miserably.

He was very imaginative when it came to this.

…

“There’s an ongoing raid in the industrial zone of Blackdale. They have encountered difficulty, and we’re not far from them,” a static radio voice echoed like a murmur through his headphones.

“Were we asked to support them?” A non-radio deep voice answered it, yet it was not a familiar voice no matter how he thought about it.

“No,” came the negative answer, followed by a period of silence.

“Tell command that we’re changing our itinerary then, ask them for the optimal itinerary and plan of action, we have an untrained grade 1 tech super able to infuse pretty much anything,” the deep voice eventually said something that prompted Aven to interrupt his energy cycling and take off his headphones.

Looking around, he realized that of the 8 people in the back area of this truck, only one person wasn’t looking at him as he was too focused on listening carefully to the radio, waiting for the next response.

‘What a coincidental event.’

Starting to cycle his energy again, this time he didn’t want to expand it, he wanted to regenerate it. Fortunately, it had only been 40 minutes since he had started to cycle it, so there wasn’t much of his energy that was devitalized.

A few more minutes passed without an answer from the other side, but at last, it came, “The difficulty encountered is due to an underestimation of the number of active defendants, please ask your tech super to infuse your vehicle to arrive as fast as possible.”

“Roger that,” the man turned on his radio just to say that before turning it off and calling for the obvious in a somewhat authoritative voice, “Mr. Amias, can you make our transport faster?”

Opening his eyes, Aven smiled and nodded, “Of course I can, and I will.”

As he had gotten off his military gloves to properly manipulate a pen or his phone, he only needed to reach for a wall before he could start infusing his energy without interruption.

‘I know this truck, it’s an armored personnel carrier, not the latest model, the one 2 generations before that, so it means the engine works with a special fuel and it has a 4 wheel drive, I don’t need to really care about the brake…’

Mobilizing both his energy and knowledge, he made a primary infusion of the truck within 10 seconds, then reinforced that infusion with more supply once he confirmed what he was dealing with.

The energy infusion effects were felt instantly as the truck started accelerating in a much more violent manner.

There were no physical explanations for this, it was just tech energy backed up by knowledge doing its work, it was just energy showing its miracles.

No one seemed shocked by it, and so the truck started rushing towards its new destination as if on steroids.

True to the information that they were not far from the conflict zone, soon gunfire sounds made their way to the inside of the truck back area despite the sound insulation.

“30 seconds,” the radio informed them of how near they were to the military raid on difficulty once again, and it seemed that this time, they were near enough for everyone, Neela included, to start preparing themselves.

Seeing this scene for the first time somewhat intimidated Aven, it was different from the few direct military knowledge he had acquired due to EMATE being a military academy.

The students there had yet to receive their combat training, after all, it was only a step they would go through once they joined the military proper following their graduation.

‘I don’t think my few hours at the shooting range made me an ace…’

Feeling a bit left out, he didn’t let his negative emotions control him and remained where he was. If no one asked him anything, then he wouldn't do anything.

When the gunshots became too evident, their vehicle violently braked, and the back door then opened, letting through the even more obvious massive cacophony of guns firing outside.

The first to stand up was the authoritative man who seemed to be in charge, and he ordered everyone with a few simple orders, “Mr. Amias, keep to this protected area please, private Arvin, sweep and secure the surrounding of this truck to assure his security. Everyone else, with me.”

Jumping outside the truck, everyone soon followed except one who remained behind for a bit to not bother the others, but after they had all exited, he also got out silently.

‘Does this “protected area” extends to more than just the interior of this truck? Can I go outside?’

As if curiosity was engraved into his genes, Aven couldn’t help but think about seeing for himself what a conflict zone that needed military-level reinforcement would look like.

In the end, he opted for the better option of waiting a bit for the gunfire to die down and using this time to properly infuse his combat uniform and combat helmet before going to see for himself what he’d sooner or later be dealing with.

…

Half an hour passed, and as the gun fires had finally ceased, Aven decided to step outside.

“You shouldn’t exit so soon, sir,” private Arvin, most probably, approached and advised him when he saw him exit the truck.

“Of course I shouldn’t,” perfectly agreeing with this advice, he then countered, “But it’s in my nature to be curious. And I properly infused all my protections, so the risks I’m exposing myself to are reduced drastically.”

“Your protection gears don’t look very tech super-compatible, sir,” not minding his reasoning, Arvin stood his ground as he continued surveying the surroundings.

“It’s because they’re not, they’re just regular combat gears I was given prior to departing,” explaining so, he started walking in the direction of where the conflict had taken place.

Hesitating for a bit, the dismayed private decided that his main mission still remained to protect this green tech super, so he followed behind him, not daring to force him to stay.

Observing his surroundings, Aven observed that the industrial zone of Blackdale they had stopped in seemed mostly made up of massive metal warehouses and big roads. The place where the transport truck had stopped was at the side of a massive empty parking lot.

‘Why would anyone try to raid such a place? Not like cultivation resources or weapons would be stored there…’

This environment was one he had seen before in Serenis, it was a typical industrial warehouse area where lots of civil trucks would pass by every day, transporting whatever they needed to transport, so he was even more surprised when he saw the conflict zone unveil before his eyes.

It was a simple warehouse, like the dozens of others he could see around, but it was one that was surrounded by 4 massive military transport trucks on the side he could see.

Keeping a safe distance from this zone, he observed from where he was how bloodied captured people were brought out of the massive entrance, he also observed how… Corpses were brought out and put in body bags.

Slightly disturbed by this sight, he was still relieved that all the corpses seemed to belong to the opposite side as none of them wore military combat uniforms.

“What do you think?” Not knowing what to think of that, he asked the only one susceptible of giving him something.

“Just a ripple of the Canopy losing its control over the underworld, nothing more, nothing less,” Arvin committed without batting an eye.

And on these words, the first hurt soldier got out, accompanied by another to support him. He seemed to have gotten shot in the leg.

‘As long as he’s not dead…’

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