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TFC Chapter 78: Universalization
🕑 Added 2022-07-31 18:14:03 +0000 UTCOpening his eyes and stopping his knowledge-updated energy infusion, Aven found Saum, Alain, and Eryka looking at him with hardly hidden ardent expectations.
“Ready?” Saum summarized everything he was feeling in a single-word question.
“As ready as it gets~” Full-blown smiling in reply, Aven took off to the one and only main console of this experimental new-era UCR (Universalized Cultivation Resource) integrated production line and turned it on by activating the production mode.
The moment he did that, the entire line that had evidently been thoroughly tested prior began triggering all its freshly produced units.
The polymerized glass-resin manufacturing unit, the zero atmosphere pump unit, the eight attuning box units, the mechanically-assisted naturalization unit…
Two cycles worth of effort, close to a week, displayed an amazing result that was fully captured by all the cameras set up everywhere in the production area.
Turning his head to look at Saum, a fairy he hardly knew, after confirming no problems were popping up, he said, “I’ve done my job as the tech super, now it’s your turn.”
No words came in reply, but the intimidating vibes Aven felt and the intense energy signature he saw appear thanks to his pseudo-energy domain made of energy threads indicated the 2nd essential heart of this experiment, the martial super, was taking the situation as seriously as needed.
When a first perfectly refrigerated cube of carefully selected and compressed grade 3 abomination organs arrived in the naturalization area, Saum used the conveniently installed organic syringe that allowed for martial energy to pass through uninterrupted to start working.
A few dozen seconds passed, and he soon pressed a big “Valid” button on the side with his telekinesis that made the energy-naturalized cube move along to be treated a last time before arriving at the first attuning box unit.
Thanks to the transparent material used to make the forward-facing side, one with the heaviest radiation-blocking properties possible of course, everyone was able to observe how the cube eventually arrived and was softly placed on the main pedestal before the zero atmosphere pump began working.
Accompanying a very loud sound that would put a fighter jet to shame, the cube of meat visibly expanded before their eyes.
Shortly after that, a scary electric noise appeared and Alain, who always wore some alloy on him for whatever reason, had to stabilize his footing to keep himself from being expelled out of the field of action of the just-born magnetic field.
A couple of seconds passed where the hundreds of sensors made sure nothing had gone wrong following the creation of this field, and then a platinum-gold robotic arm slowly descended and pierced the cube from top to bottom with so many nanometric needles that it seemed like a solid cube of pale blue color assimilated with the organ cube.
A green light turned on the moment all the stabilizing preparations were done, and Saum directly put his hand on a red greenish-white plate made of organic material directly connected to the cube to initiate the attuning process.
The 1st attuning only took him a minute to do, and once he was done he telekinetically pressed the “Attuning Succeeded” button and let the magic operate as the machine took over to repressurize the chamber and move the psy-attuned organic cube to undergo a new stabilizing treatment.
“Is that much precaution really necessary?” Eryka asked as she overlooked the remaining 4 attuning units. For her, one unit could have done the same job and saved a lot of space and money.
“Your question is too stupid for me, so I’ll let my useless sidekick Alain answer it. Do it, Alain!” Aven dismissed her like the overseer blinded by money she was and imperiously ordered his only available subordi- colleague present to tell her what should have been obvious.
“Not everyone knows how the attuning process is done, Aven, and to punish her for her ignorance and naivety, it’s best to just ignore her question and let her simmer in her well of ignorance,” making his own point, Alain then proceeded to ignore the Vow overseer who was looking at the duo with scary eyes.
The 1-time attuned cube shortly arrived at the second attuning box and the whole process that happened in the first box repeated from start to finish, skipping not one second of timing to crank up the stabilization intensity.
After the psy attuning, it was the elemental attuning turn, and this time Saum took 10 whole minutes to finish.
Pressing the button to send the cube to the third attuning box unit, he turned to Aven and gave his first comment since the onset of this experiment was that it never intended to succeed on the first try, “It’s much easier than I expected.”
“Great,” Aven nodded in acknowledgment, surely being the only tech super on this planet able to perfectly understand what the grade 4 martial super had meant by saying it was easier than expected.
For the third attuning, the tech attuning, Saum spent 20 minutes before finally pushing the button which meant he still hadn’t failed.
“Well, that’s it for me folks~ I’ve already wasted half an hour of my precious time, no more!” Seeing Saum heading for the fourth attuning, the pure attuning if he hadn’t changed the order in the middle for whatever reason, Aven gave a cheap excuse before leaving.
‘I’ve seen what I wanted to see, no way I’m continuing to observe this madman attempt to first try a fourth attuning! I have an entire world to revolutionize!’
Keeping to himself his true reason for leaving, he felt ecstatic at the idea of Alain and Eryka simply continuing to observe for the next 99 hours how Saum was going to try and salvage an unsalvageable 3-times attuned grade 3 organ cube.
Arriving back at the design area, a few sweeps of nicely targeted energy telekinesis turned on all the display screens at the same time, and it wasn’t long before one of the screens was allocated to telling him everything that was happening in the production area.
“Just in case he forgot about it… I’ll highlight it for him…” Thinking of something, he interfaced with the main console of the faraway UCR line and forced it to display a certain test mode adequately named “Stability factors contribution test battery”.
With nothing else to worry about after doing that, he was free to decide on his next project. So he brought up his organized projects list and browsed through it to see if he didn’t feel supremely inspired by something.
“It all comes back to the all-sensors tech in the end,” facing reality without complaining, he accessed the ERA network to move over all the work he had done on this project back when he was at Blackdale IMC.
“All warfare is based on deception, right?” Smirking at him saying that, the modelization of a human-sized helmet and hundreds of weird components appeared on multiple screens. That was all the handiwork he had done before awakening his fairy bloodline and leaving to fight in the surge.
Keeping the rest of his thoughts to himself and only himself, he simultaneously arranged all his prior work and thought of what he was really commencing.
‘My first ever true secret operation… Will that be enough to make me have a second taste at full mind communion?’
Re-establishing the huge list of more than a hundred sensor types he had initially imagined this technology based on, he soon started adding new sensor types by the dozens, not caring about all the digital mess it was going to be to sort and organize them all to have a coherent result at the end.
‘By the time I publish the anti-Canopy episode with the unveiling of the all-sensors tech for the world to see, will anyone think that the entirety of Eland would have already been visited, and if it works, all the Canopy branches will have been located?’
Gradually making his hype and motivation climb through the roof, he repeated the exact same circumstances as when he was working on the cultivation resource universalization project and mobilized all his knowledge on sensor technologies.
Some were for physicists, some for geologists, some for biologists, some for meteorologists, some purely for the military… He didn’t put any boundary on the degree of complexity he wanted, it would be as complex, expensive, and perfect as he could make it.
The all-sensors helmet was only a side project next to the godly all-sensors moving battery he was preparing himself to design.
“Same as ever… I’m on my own. And the only way I fail is if I’m not up to the task~” Thriving in the challenge presented before him, his spirit shifted beyond its last knowledge integration gear and everything became that much clearer.
He was really on his own.
…
Hours passed, counted by the dozens, and no one ever came to disturb Aven.
Saum, who finally got his work handed out to him, was steadily innovating a new way of attuning awakened life organic materials, seeking to showcase his yet unknown genius and be the pioneer of the 5-times attuning and 3-time impacts setting technique.
Arthuria was slowly finding her way in the unfamiliar environment that was the Rainbow IRC and Elandia she now found herself in, her introduction into the world of the true powerhouses didn’t make her waver, much the opposite.
Bhanas, finished with securing all manners of raw material supplies and establishing a web of contacts with new sources, now had a whole bike-selling enterprise to set up. And he absolutely reveled in preparing for the time the bike episode would be broadcasted.
Drayce, same as ever, was doing mystical guesswork on lots of things and his “Human resource manager” position was really only a pretext for him to step-by-step transition out of the production tech super path. His path was his own, and being a production tech super had never been his objective in life.
Alain favored learning as his new main activity, he wasn’t having an existential crisis now that he couldn’t support Aven in tech-production, his mere permanent presence was a good deterrent against further assaults and he simply had to adapt himself to his new circumstances to find that his position was one that would soon be envied by many.
Eryka was doing her own stuff, her dispatch had been mildly surprising at first considering her background, but once she got to know what was going on, she really applied herself to her important task of reporting everything she saw to the Vow Church.
Exhaustion, an uncontrollable factor, was eventually the one thing that pulled Aven out of his 60-hours long design frenzy where he had gotten the all-sensors moving battery to the rough prototype stage.
“Sigh… I really need to get the research on exotics going…” Lamenting his weak spirit unable to fend off its own self-generated exhaustion for more than 72 continuous hours, he came back to the existence of exotics able to bend the laws of life.
“I don’t think producing UCR lines will get me a lot considering no one knows if they work yet, but who knows?” Giving himself false hope, he claimed his contribution for the last cycle.
Dynamic Faction Contribution Quests: Nation of Eland
…
Dynamic Contribution: 485 000 FCP
“It’s… Taking off?” Well surprised to get half a million FCP just like that, he nonetheless didn’t even consider that a portion of it could come from Saum successfully producing a cultivation serum.
For him to do that, he would have to have stopped at the 2-times or 3-times attuning level and skipped to setting an impact, and there was no way he had decided to do that when his goal was the supreme 3-impacts 5-attuning level.
“I guess I have a new activity to delegate now too, no way I’m assembling all the UCR lines, my time is too precious… And who other than the fantastically idle Alain to assemble everything?” Going through his backlog of cycle-end issues as he wrapped up his day, he fetched his phone and sent messages here and there.
[Aven: Yo Alain, you’re from henceforth officially appointed as the assembly manager! Your job is to assemble all the UCR lines because I’m too occupied to do it!]
[Aven: Yo Drayce, how’s the temporary recruitment of enthusiastic martial supers ready to sell their soul to partake in making the first universal cultivation serum going? Do I need to remind you that the earlier I get the first sample of universal serum, the earlier I get to start my world domination plan?]
[Aven: Yo Arthuria, you can expect to be buried under hundreds of calls by the end of this month, so get ready and…]
[Aven: Yo Bhanas…]
Leaving the Rainbow IRC behind while still sending messages, Aven’s optimized mindset had completely taken over the seat of control after more than 2 straight days spent secluded inside a design room, only taking quick breaks to eat a bit, and it only left once he reached what has been his home for more than 2 months now.
Having overexerted himself spiritually, he didn’t have the chance to go and visit the artificial hot spring worksite before his sleepiness instinctually guided him to a safe unoccupied tree house bedroom.
Crashing on the clean bed, his eyelid heavy, he raved, “What a mistake… I’ll have to compensate when I wake up… Yeah, I’ll definitely do that…”
Before he could continue ranting about the severe mistake he had just committed by ignoring the primordial pre-sleep relaxing social activity, nature, who didn’t care about anything, took him to the realm of unconscious darkness.
…
“That was not a good night…” Begrudgingly getting up from bed, Aven forced himself to not grimace at the thought of the hundreds of dreams he just had, all about nonsensically designing things for no other reason than designing them.
Recovering his 4 devoted boxes, he made his way to a random wooden pavilion, a building with just a roof, proudly displaying its belonging to the glorious order of bars and drinks, and joined in on the relaxed atmosphere.
‘That part definitely didn’t change one bit. Too much passion before going to sleep is the best way to have the worst night ever.’
Drowning his unhappiness in strange-tasting drinks and snacks he never tasted before, it only took him half an hour of that plus watching some entertaining videos on his phone before he felt like he was able to truly smile again.
“Ah~ It’s time to go visit the hot spring then!” Downing his entire glass of whatever fruity juice, he suddenly exclaimed for all to hear.
“Enjoy~”
“They’re all a bit too hot but other than that…”
“I advise the tea spring, you’re not allowed to speak to maintain the atmosphere, but it has a truly unique environment making up for it.”
“The barbecue spring is the place to go if you want to party!”
“The traditional spring area is plenty good enough~”
Hearing and considering all the suggestions he was receiving, Aven left the pavilion and headed upward, still accompanied by his 4 boxes.
“Oh…” Arriving at the top, the exact picture of a perfect traditional hot spring mixed with modern amenities overlapped effortlessly.
Smooth stone paths were everywhere, creating a clearly visible and visually-appealing network around the gigantic trees, large clouds of vapor slowly ascended from dozens of areas, some big pond-sized, some small lake-sized, some compartmentalized, some completely on the open.
Taking in the sight, Aven noted the absence of signs and interpreted it as a voluntary choice. Those hot springs would remain there until the end of winter, so they needed to be experienced without any bias or strict schedule.
At least that’s how he saw it. Maybe laziness was just the reason there weren’t any.
Entering the maze of paths without even noticing as the boundaries were just that hazy, he quickly arrived at the edge of a small-sized hot spring populated by a few other fairies.
And from there the only thing he remembered was the feeling of being warmed by water so hot that regular humans limited by their weak biological envelope would be cooked by it… It was also very relaxing and created a time distortion that made the hours pass at a hundred times their normal speed.
…
“How far?” He asked.
“5-0,” Saum answered.
“Did you do the test battery yet?” He followed with another question.
“No,” the dark fairy didn’t even try to give an excuse and maintained his headstrong front all along.
“Is 5-3 possible?” He finished with the question that could potentially make him change his whole plan.
“More than ever,” confidently claiming his belief, the eagerness to succeed radiating from his eyes was all Aven needed to leave him alone and go back to his own work without saying or asking anything more.
For Saum to have already produced a 5-times attuned sample, or a universally attuned sample, within the first 3 days of what should have been blind experimentations doomed to fail showed that the cultivation resources universalization project was more likely to succeed than ever.
Arriving at the design area, he instantly restarted designing the all-sensors moving battery, and this time he slowly began adding and reflecting on the digital part.
His grand dream of revolutionizing the world of programming and electronics was not for anytime soon, and he knew it, so he made do with what he had, and it also worked beautifully.
It wasn’t the most optimized, and he was sure he could eventually reduce the amount of time needed to program extremely complex software by more than half, but for now, he could just use advanced copy-pasting techniques, targeted revisions, and overwhelming computing power to skip to the essential.
‘If the Canopy didn’t exist, if the invisible enemy quest didn’t exist… But no, I’ll do what I can for now and not cut myself off from the world.’
As he worked his way through coding an unperfect, only for him, exploitation system exclusively for the all-sensors technology that would combine all the sensors reading into a gigantic uniformized mess that would need another layer of filter to mean anything, he still sometimes got a spike of contemplation when he thought of his circumstances.
He could delegate as much as he wanted and optimize his time as precisely as it was possible, yet it would never change the fact that he had a hundred projects all capable of changing the world in their own way, and he was the only one competent enough to realize them in a short time frame.
However, as he had long deduced: Actions spoke louder than words.
Not prioritizing what could allow him to take his action power to the next level, effectively working towards becoming an open agent of change that could act whenever and wherever he liked, would simply be a massive blunder on his part.
He had a lot of keys to start a lot of things… But he didn’t have everything he wanted.
