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TFC Chapter 60: Contributing
🕑 Added 2022-06-20 10:34:52 +0000 UTCThe dark stormy sky engulfing the whole wall area Aven was in, while shocking and impressive, certainly wasn’t as much as what it brought with it.
A rain of missiles was already a sight to behold, but a rain of lightning was something else, more so when it targeted an all-powerful grade 5 abomination.
“Yeah, that’s right… Burn it! Crisp it until it’s reduced to dust!” Softly exclaiming his support, Aven didn’t stop firing and kept the trigger pulled as he carefully aimed at the downed and perpetually lightning-struck abomination.
Even now the massive spiritual attack was still happening, meaning his headache was still going strong, and it wasn’t a small one. It was one that came close to paralyzing him while taking away the quasi totality of his processing power.
And his processing power was the most important thing for him, he needed it to observe efficiently, remain aware of the various developments, their repercussions, and judge how the situation was going to evolve.
But in his current state, his spiritual defense only allowed him to not be immobilized, so he made the cause of this near-immobilization his main target by instinct.
The lightning rain went on for 10 more minutes before finally, it ceased at the same time as the massive spiritual pressure vanished.
Released from their spiritual misery, angry grade 3 and 4 supers discharged their frustrations onto the abomination surge that was pushing ever forward.
The disturbance brought by this event had messed up a lot of things, and when Aven similarly got his full intellectual capabilities back, he could only frown at how closer the different grade 4 and 5 abominations were. In his estimation, they had all gained a few kilometers. It was a ridiculously large number.
‘They’re still not in the danger zone though…’
Concluding his grand overview, he shifted to another artillery sniper and focused once again on the nimble armor target, ignoring the giant bone-plated behemoths, the moving mountains of flesh, and even the abnormal abominations like those capable of flying.
His weapon was best suited for those targets due to its light-speed instantaneousness, and others had difficulty stopping them, so why would he change it?
Having seen the death of two grade 5 abominations in the last 20 hours made his motivation to do his best and only his best explode, thus he recovered his best rhythm in no time and rained down armor-cracking shells here and there across the entire area he was covering.
It wasn’t enough to eliminate all those belonging to the abomination type he targeted, but he was sure his effort had repercussions that allowed those supers specialized in heavy strikes to focus themselves more on the abominations weaker to them.
16 hours later, without even needing to hear the alarm that had been globally triggered in his area, Aven saw with his own eyes how a grade 5 abomination had decided to launch a far-reaching rain of metallic spears towards the wall in a fit of anger that would mean either its death or its retreat.
Pulling the trigger 2 more times, he then proceeded to close all the shutters of his bunker room.
Not even a second after he had isolated his bunker room, intense explosions sounded from everywhere around him, some accompanied by screams.
Horrifyingly, cracks soon appeared on the wall of his bunker room, but Aven remained impassive even when light successfully penetrated through it and shards of concrete and dust filled his bunker.
When the rain ended, he speedily opened his shutters and opened fire again on the abomination ocean that had advanced until they were near the base of the wall.
They had also been touched by the spear rain, but death didn’t matter to them, so they simply relied on their mindless luck.
Believing in the thousands of other people with the same goal as him, Aven didn’t switch to an artillery sniper loaded with expansive empty shells and kept to his armor cracking shell-loaded one.
Reasserting his dominance over his abomination type target, he was soon proven true when the other bunker room reopened, the upper wall was repopulated, and faint energy began traveling through the wall only visible to his sensitive energy.
‘Tech system, matter regeneration energy specialization for sure…’
Looking away from his scope for a few seconds, he observed, amazed, how the hundreds of cracks in the reinforced concrete walls, some even allowing light to pass through, mended themselves.
“Sigh~” Looking away after dreamily sighing, he didn’t continue watching as all the cracks and faults were sealed through an energy specialization he could have, and could still, take.
Yet, it wasn’t his path. Or at least, such specialization was not expected to be a part of it until he reached a much higher grade, ran out of general production specializations to take, or encountered a massive upset.
And his knowledge, despite its massive reach, didn’t hint at such an upset to his production tech super path existing.
‘I can’t settle for something that will not provide me with both wide direct applications and massive long-term potential… That’s the path I decided on. But I’ll not hastily dismiss it either, maybe if it's combined with another specialization… Anyway.’
Centering himself, he focused on the rapidly evolving situation that was the abomination surge and resumed his practiced and rhythmic artillery fire.
Target acquiring, aim adjusting, trigger pulling, elimination confirming, rinse and repeat.
Surfing on this rhythm, hours passed, hours where events asking for active involvement were more frequent than ever, hours that called for everyone to always be in their best state.
People left, new people joined, the intensity of the abomination surge increased again, more and more grade 5 and 4 were deployed, missile rains happened more and more frequently, harvester teams were dispatched more and more often…
Eventually, it was Aven’s turn to leave, his spirit having reached its limit.
Unwilling to lose any time in the middle of this extremely precarious period, he swiftly closed his bunker room and rushed back to his quarters where he claimed his contribution reward for the day.
Dynamic Faction Contribution Quests: Nation of Eland
…
Dynamic Contribution: 45 342 000 FCP
“Ah, that’s right… I forgot to make an hourly yield claim test… Hu! Well, it doesn't really matter~” Not even trying to delve into how much he was paid in FCP for each of his shots in the new surge circumstances he found himself in, he opened his shop to focus on what he had waited for.
Faction Contribution Shop: Nation of Eland
Faction Authority: Violet Fairy
Faction Contribution Points: 77 833 258
…
Exotic-Warped Liquid Fairy Energy (69 489 000 FCP): Energy maintained in an extraordinarily unstable liquid state by virtue of a special container made of extremely rare exotic materials warping reality around them. Can be absorbed to temporarily drastically increase one’s talent in energy cultivation. Repeated consumption may bring definitive increases in energy cultivation talent.
“If temporarily means less than the 24 hours it is materialized… Then it’ll be a huge loss. But still, I believe!” Claiming the most expensive cultivation resource he had ever had the occasion to see, Aven didn’t hesitate one moment.
Increasing his tech energy affinity to the advanced talent could wait a few more days, he didn’t know what effect it would have after all, and he had decided to make increasing his background energy cultivation speed his core focus.
Exotic-Warped Liquid Fairy Energy (Claim?)
‘Claim.’
While waiting for the moderately-large light swirl to finish materializing what it was materializing, Aven opened his status.
Aven Amias
Faction: Nation of Eland
Energy Grade: 3
Energy Cultivation: 1 355/10 000
Energy Identity: Tech
1st Energy Specialization: Undivided Infusion
Physical Talents: Fairy Body (Violet Grade), Basic Energy Furnace Cells, Basic Condensed Body, Basic Regenerating Body, Basic Inexhaustible Body, Basic Energy Immune Constitution, Basic Energy Life Constitution
Energy Talents: Fairy Energy Origin (Violet Grade), Pure Fairy Energy (Violet Grade), Fairy Affinity Resonance (Violet Grade), Intermediate Tech Energy Affinity, Intermediate Energy Sense, Basic Natural Energy Growth, Basic Self Revolving Energy, Basic Seamless Energy, Basic Excitable Energy, Basic Equalizing Energy, Basic Energy Photosynthesis, Basic Compatible Energy, Sensitive Energy
Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit, Expert Knowledge Integration, Basic Tireless Spirit, Basic Armored Spirit, Basic Enhanced Awareness, Basic Spiritual Foundation
Universal Talents: Awakened Fairy Bloodline (Violet Grade), Creative Instinct, Essence Stabilizer
“1 355… It’s like I didn’t progress at all…” Passing over his unchanged talents, he still had hopes that maybe some of his talents would have naturally progressed, like his energy sense talent, but to no avail ultimately.
When the light swirl eventually went away, what remained behind was a round sphere that emitted an extremely bright light to his sensitive energy.
“Woah…” Approaching it as if hypnotized, Aven felt an innate visceral attraction to this round sphere, and he couldn’t help but want to just open it and allow his energy to devour what “it” was.
Having no reason to hold back, he let his instinct guide him in cycling his energy in a different way as he opened the round sphere, letting the supremely intense exotic-warped energy inside out.
As though his energy had been provoked by this warped energy that was so condensed and intense that it had transformed into something similar to a liquid, his energy seemed to transform into the most potent insulating material ever.
Everything was absorbed in less than a minute, not leaving one drop behind, and as a consequence of this ruthless total absorption, Aven felt the world becoming slightly hotter, unstable, and his sensitive energy feedback turned slightly fuzzy.
“It’s like… I’m intoxicated?” Making a parallel with a biological state he somewhat knew and had experience with, the more he thought about it the more it seemed to fit the situation.
His attention was nonetheless quickly attracted somewhere else as his “energy intoxication”, like a cultivation resource, had needed a moment before beginning to show its effect of “temporarily drastically increase one’s talent in energy cultivation”.
This vague description and what Aven had thought of it couldn’t compare at all to what he was actually experiencing.
His energy simply seemed to have found new paths to cycle through, paths that hadn’t existed until now, paths that only asked to be used, and the moment energy entered them… Everything felt more alive.
“Of course… There are always more things to discover~ Even for a metaphysical concept such as energy cultivation talent~” Smiling happily at this change he felt happening in real-time, he turned off the lights of his new unfamiliar bedroom and immersed himself in his energy flow and self-revolving energy talent.
Both were lost, but nature always found a way, hence they were quickly adapting themselves to their new environment that was his drastically talent-boosted body.
‘I really, really hope… It’s not that temporary…’
…
Waking up 5 hours or so later, maybe less, maybe more, Aven felt that while his energy intoxication state was still present, it had become so subdued that if it wasn’t there it would literally change nothing for him.
Taking a few delicious snacks conveniently placed where he could see them with him, he ate them on the way towards the front wall layer at the same time as he opened his status to see for himself what 5 hours of uninterrupted energy cycling with his new temporarily boosted energy cultivation talent level had resulted in.
Aven Amias
Faction: Nation of Eland
Energy Grade: 3
Energy Cultivation: 1 360/10 000
Energy Identity: Tech
1st Energy Specialization: Undivided Infusion
Physical Talents: Fairy Body (Violet Grade), Basic Energy Furnace Cells, Basic Condensed Body, Basic Regenerating Body, Basic Inexhaustible Body, Basic Energy Immune Constitution, Basic Energy Life Constitution
Energy Talents: Fairy Energy Origin (Violet Grade), Pure Fairy Energy (Violet Grade), Fairy Affinity Resonance (Violet Grade), Intermediate Tech Energy Affinity, Intermediate Energy Sense, Basic Natural Energy Growth, Basic Self Revolving Energy, Basic Seamless Energy, Basic Excitable Energy, Basic Equalizing Energy, Basic Energy Photosynthesis, Basic Compatible Energy, Sensitive Energy
Spiritual Talents: Inquisitive Spirit, Expert Knowledge Integration, Basic Tireless Spirit, Basic Armored Spirit, Basic Enhanced Awareness, Basic Spiritual Foundation
Universal Talents: Awakened Fairy Bloodline (Violet Grade), Creative Instinct, Essence Stabilizer
“Ho~ Doesn’t that simply make… 1 per hour?! That’s amazing!” Making a gravity-defying loop to express his joy, he engulfed the fairy-sized snacks he had brought with him while thinking about how reaching grade 4 now seemed much more attainable.
Where before it had been 1 grade 3 energy cultivation point every 4 hours, now it was 1 every hour, and he was far, far, very far from having exhausted all the resources he had at his disposal through his faction contribution shop to increase that ratio even further.
“Hehe~ This surge is both a blessing and a curse, it allows me to gain FCP much faster than I should, but I need to fight for every bit of it,” blurting out his thoughts, he passed above the 2nd inner wall layer the one located just before the front wall, and began his descent to take refuge inside the walls themselves.
Flying above the mass of people either entering the fray or leaving it, Aven arrived at his bunker room and as he hadn’t needed to cut his link to it while he was away, some energy was still infused inside, allowing him to directly open the shutters and settle before a scope.
“There’s no way to know whether I’m a big influence or not, right…?” Hesitatingly whispering to himself, he noted that the abomination ocean really didn’t look that different compared to when he had left it just a few hours ago.
Having somewhat expected that however due to how he had personally designed the transition plan that allowed for as much manpower as possible to move without affecting the general defensive power in other parts of the Forbidden Wall too much, he didn’t dwell on that part and found a new target.
Whether he was an influence or not didn’t matter as much as he was doing what he had to do.
That was, contributing.
…
Hours passed as the 5 nations held strong, acting like cogs in a gigantic machine that was constantly being strained on its every part.
A few dozen hours after Aven had reaffirmed his position as a grade 3 fairy with grade 4-equivalent artillery firepower, the peak of the wall break scenario finally arrived.
And both the rear and the front didn't need to hear the alarms being triggered everywhere to understand what was happening.
In Aven’s area, a disgusting dark green fog manifested itself from nothing and started spreading everywhere like dust.
When this fog reached a sufficient density, it began melting everything it came in contact with, the air itself, the rocky ground, the dead abomination corpses… Yet, miraculously, it didn’t impact the alive abominations, as if it was sentient.
Better yet, all the abominations touched by this dark green fog seemed to see their overall capabilities enhanced, and while it surely didn’t matter that much to grade 3 and above abominations, the surge was mainly made up of grade 1 and 2 fodders.
Soon, the origin of this fog appeared, but none needed to look at it to know who “it” was.
A8, an ancient abomination wielding the pure energy system through an omnipotent dark green fog, literal omnipotent fog.
Through its long history of conflict with the 5 nations, A8 had shown itself capable of attacking the spiritual realm, healing itself and fellow abominations, melting, burning, frosting, asphyxiating, transforming itself into fog, transforming it into impenetrable defenses…
The list could go on for minutes and minutes, but it could also be summarized by saying it was omnipotent, the definition of the pure energy system.
“This one will be a bit hard to deal with,” frowning at the newcomer A8, Aven reviewed everything he knew about how to counter pure supers.
They had access to every other system, but the price they had to pay in exchange for this access was to have an energy unable to fully commit to something in particular.
Meaning, they could only do a lesser version of everything.
“And it probably has a boatload of talents that allows it to stand out amidst millions of similar abominations, pretty much neutralizing a bit of the shortcoming of being a pure energy system,” concluding on his review, his eyes sharpened as he looked at this grade 5 abomination, “If it dies… Then maybe out of it…”
The thought of potentially acquiring a new talent, maybe new talents, flew through his mind, and that single motivation turned the dangerous situation into an opportunity he needed to exploit.
“It came here on its own mindless drive to push through the wall… So it’s only fair play if it ends up dying in the process,” the more he thought about whether to use his newly acquired authority, the more it seemed like the most optimal choice.
“But if I’m going to do it… Then I should take the whole front line with me, this way it’ll not be just optimal for me, it’ll be optimal for everyone,” ending up on a somewhat perplexing thought, he fired one last time before closing the shutters and departing from his bunker room.
Rushing to the command center, Aven was already thinking of all the benefits of giving away the front wall layer in exchange for a massive grade 4 and 5 abomination rush that could be massively capitalized upon as long as the appropriate actions were taken and it was done in perfect control.
Flying through multiple security gates, obviously manned, uninterrupted, he burst through the thick alloy doors leading to the command center, “I’m here with a crazily good idea! I promise I’m not crazy!”
Certainly making the craziest entrance into such an important location in the history of Green, all the strategizing and commanding officers looked wide-eyed as a 30-centimeters tall fairy flew above the huge interactive map that had been zoomed in on the north-west part of the Forbidden Continent.
“Ho freak. I didn’t know it was that bad, what the hell?” Noticing with a single glance how a few front layer sections of the Forbidden Wall had been breached, Aven was stopped in his momentum.
Observing silently for a few dozen seconds, he recovered and began spreading his plan that now seemed to need some changes, “I intended to propose a strategic trapped retreat to purge as many grade 4 and 5 abominations as possible, but now... It seems that everything isn’t going as we all would want it to go, doesn’t it?”
