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TFC Chapter 67: IUM
🕑 Added 2022-07-10 09:49:38 +0000 UTCA dull and deep rumble spread through Aven’s leg as he admired the scene of the Rainbow IRC being built via magical abilities, because there really was no other way to describe them if not by straight-up calling them physics-defying supernatural earth and metal manipulation.
A huge area had been flattened not through machines, but through energy, elemental energy, the energy coming from an energy system that sought to bend nature’s phenomena to its will.
“So, do you like it?” From behind him, a green-haired man asked.
Turning as he wasn’t that absorbed in the show of might of the grade 4 elemental super, he saw a familiar face frozen with a simple smile. Drayce, a grade 3 tech super with an innate ability allowing him to have disturbingly accurate “guesses”.
“What I see is that not even the foundation has been built, so while I like it, it’s not the type of like you would like me to have. I just did a wordplay without trying by the way,” exposing his thoughts without hiding anything, Aven already considered Drayce as a colleague.
“The manpower is there, the materials are there, the will is there, it’s only a question of time before the main frame is finished,” talking for nothing, Drayce exposed something anyone would know if they were involved in Aven’s plans.
“How’s the recruitment going? Bhanas? Alain? Commander? Rival?” Aven changed the subject and turned around again to look at the Rainbow IRC worksite.
Taking a few dozen seconds to answer, no one hurried the green-haired man for an answer so he took all the time he needed to use his innate ability, “I guess it’s going fine. Few would say no to what you offered.”
“Are you projecting your own opinion on them? Just because you accepted doesn’t mean others will. And I guess it’s not the first time you’re making a joke with the word ‘guess’, am I right?” Smoothly bringing that fact to the discussion, he was only welcomed by silence.
“I guess,” Drayce ultimately said, the irony of this situation not lost on him.
His wings fluttering once, Aven slowly returned to the air and telekinetically made 4 boxes not far float, “Good for you. I’m going back to the assembly hall, send me a message if I forget about coming back to give the promised rewards when it’s finished.”
“Sure~” Bidding him goodbye casually, the more than a hundred years old tech super similarly departed towards where he was needed. Surely the overseer room of this worksite.
Flying for a good 5 minutes, Aven reached the building in which the IUM was being assembled as fast as his hands, or telekinesis, could allow it.
Passing through the nonexistent anti-fairy air security gate, which was a very difficult concept to put into practice once he really thought about it, he entered the privatized building and arrived at the assembly hall within a minute.
Looking at the 7 huge parts and the dozens of stand-alone cube units occupying close to half of this huge hall, he calculated how much time he needed to finally finish assembling the first IUM iteration, “I should be done by this cycle… And after that, I’ll have to start debugging the exploitation system… Creating a new programming language is a bit too far-fetched for now…”
While thinking about all the things he had to do following… Everything that was going on, he projected his energy threads through the whole room and expertly picked back up from where he had left yestercycle.
From there, his spirit couldn’t spare any more attention to what he had to do later and only focused on making the best of the present.
And just like that, hours passed where Aven only stopped to refresh his cultivation trinity effect. It was not that he needed the energy regeneration, his talents already made sure he wasn’t worried on that front at all, he simply hadn’t forgotten that reaching grade 4 was timewise a very optimized move on his part.
From grade 3 to grade 4, he only needed to grow his energy by 9 000 points, it certainly wasn’t a small number, but compared to the 90 000 points he would have to grind through to go from grade 4 to grade 5, and eventually the 900 000 points to attain grade 6, grade 4 was simply the easiest grade to reach ever.
His plan regarding his energy cultivation was simple: He would reach grade 4, then focus all his resources on making it so that reaching grade 5 wouldn’t take him decades and decades.
Such a simple plan had no chance of failing, it was just too straightforward and basic, and that was why Aven intimately believed that the true hurdle of his life wasn’t one related to his cultivation speed, it was one related to grinding FCP and climbing the technological ladder.
Compared to his brain-dead plan on how to pursue his energy cultivation, what really made his brain overheat from processing intensity was all the challenges he knew existed and had to overcome on his thorny total revolution plan.
But only something as complex as making his ambitions a reality could help him maintain the drive that allowed him to never feel tired of continuously doing things at the limit of his capabilities.
He wasn’t a machine, but he for sure wanted to be one, an untiring one.
Units after units, soon enough Aven sent the request for massive shaped alloy plates and reels and reels of cable to be brought.
Everyone having served in this building for more than a week now seemed to realize that the end was coming. The storage area was being emptied of its last pieces, and no new ones came to replace them.
Pushing his energy telekinesis a step further, Aven took control of all the dozens of massive cube units available and simultaneously manipulated all the massive alloy plates to assemble themselves.
The weight of everything combined was so high that even he had quickly learned to use the ceiling suspension cables to help alleviate some of it.
Thick electric and data cables started weaving through the floating monstrosity as a supremely hot and big blow torch gradually began soldering together everything.
The mystical scene of gigantic alloy cubes floating and automatically placing themselves in the slots they had been designed to fit was completely captured by the dozens of cameras scattered all around the hall, that was something Aven had made sure of.
“And… That’s the last big part,” he whispered, “Now I just need to combine them all together… And start tech-producing a perfect replica.”
Overlooking the 8 huge IUM segments that only asked to be united to reach their true form, he allowed a slight smile to appear on his face.
He had come far, and he knew to feel proud of having arrived at the late stage of one of his foundational projects.
Using the command console of the hall, he reorganized the different moving platforms to bring all the segments where they needed to be and used all the remaining parts except for the spare ones that hadn’t been needed in the end to add the finishing touch to the IUM.
This final assembly stage took Aven a total of 5 hours to complete, and once he finally had the complex integrated units manufacturer under his eyes, he didn’t rejoice, take a break, or anything before simply starting to power up the machine and launching a diagnostic program he had butchered up together during the designing phase.
“Sigh… Of course…” The moment he saw dozens of red alarms pop on his screen every ten seconds of diagnosis, he knew that this iteration of the IUM project was not yet production-ready, “Well, I still need to test so many things, refine the code, do a few test runs, find the possible oversights… And the Rainbow IRC isn’t ready yet… So all is well and good?”
Finding the positive outlook easily, he shrugged and began browsing through all the bug reports that came from programming conflicts, all the anomalous reports that came from pure mechanical faults, absent sensor feeds, or electrical current interferences…
“Revolutionizing an era by myself sure sounds hard as hell, but if I can’t do it, then no one else can, so… It means I can do it, right? I love confirmation bias~” Making a stupid joke about the circumstances he found himself in, he concentrated.
Realistically, he knew that no one would be able to understand how terrifying his knowledge claiming capability was, so he didn’t try to seek assistance.
He didn’t need it.
He also didn’t have the choice.
…
Another 2 cycles passed, totaling a total of 10 of his cycles or a whole month for the rest of the world since Aven had left the Forbidden Continent.
In the last 6 days that made up those 2 cycles, Aven didn’t take any significant break from debugging and refining the IUM. The only change in pace happened when he visited the Rainbow IRC worksite that was visibly advancing.
He even forgoed relaxing at the Rainbow Mountain as he was just too excited about finishing one of the most complex and crucial steps in his development plan.
“Hu~” When he opened his eyes and recovered from the unconscious sleeping state he had been in, the first thing Aven did was to open the door of his tree house bedroom and jump off.
Lightly landing, as if he didn’t obey the same laws of physics as the rest of the world, he noticed that the White was nowhere to be seen when his eyes became used to the ambient light intensity.
“A night flight has its charm too I guess,” muttering to himself as he projected 4 energy threads to pick up the 4 boxes that had never left his side until now, Aven’s wings fluttered, sending him flying above the lively and anarchic summit area.
Leaving the perimeter of the Rainbow Mountain shortly, he knew the path he needed to take by heart at this point so he didn’t need to open a GPS or open his eyes to confirm where he was relative to city landmarks.
Arriving at the assembly hall that had become much soberer since nothing more needed to be unloaded or brought in anymore, he used the wide-open doors to rush through the building while saying hello to every staff he encountered on the way.
Once he reached the assembly hall, he simply landed on the main control console and turned off the standby mode, instantly resuming his refining and debugging work that was already approaching its true end.
When things didn’t work digitally, he simply had to personally enter the massive IUM to manually correct things and understand what had gone wrong.
He knew everything about the IUM design, from its hardware parts to its software part, and he was working alone on this project, so there was no reason for him to hesitate when he decided to change something.
A few hours passed as he fixed the last few problems that appeared when he pushed some units like the robotics making unit or the casing making unit to their theoretical uninfused limits, but ultimately, after launching 3 customized diagnostics targeted at lots of problems…
“I guess that’s as far as I can push the first iteration,” immersing himself in the dull background noise all originating from the machine before him, Aven began to turn everything off.
After the IUM completely stopped, he used the hall control console to progressively move the whole thing towards the most external wall of the assembly hall, “Its transport will be a good show, hehehe~”
Picturing the massive IUM being transported to the Rainbow IRC site in its entirety by a bunch of fairies put a big smile on his face.
Done with the preparation for the IUM, Aven sent a small prayer to the higher powers of the world for no one to do a suicide raid on it before he started gathering all the cameras that were still recording.
Passing through the control room like a hurricane, he picked up all the data storage devices that contained his more than 10 days of continuous work in the form of footage and didn’t bother with anything else as he cleaned after himself to leave behind a spotless room.
“Next…” Thinking about what he could do to get ahead on his designing schedule while his future workplace was still being constructed, his mind instinctively went to something that couldn’t be considered as work no matter how he saw it, “I think it’s time to design the world’s best bike integrated production line~”
With now a way to easily produce high-quality integrated production lines, he felt giddy with excitement at the idea of passing the 2nd gear in his designing effort.
Using his telekinesis, he picked a single camera that wasn’t linked to a network anymore and thus had a limited memory capacity and battery longevity.
He verified it was still on, then looked at it from the most amateur angle he could manage, “I’m sure we’ll become good friends soon enough, you and me~ And I’m not talking to the camera, yup, I’m talking to you! You, behind the screen! Welcome to my introduction episode!”
…
“Ah~ And here’s the temporary design room I’m using, looks awesome, right? Well, the one I designed for myself is a hundred times cooler!” Bragging to the camera following him as he entered the design room ERA had so kindly given him, he was reminded of something and added, “You can’t know where it is though, it’s a secret cyber-warfare ERA branch building after all…”
Turning the camera and himself on the same occasion around, he exposed the whole room at a much wider angle and projected his telekinesis everywhere to start turning on all the computers, “I’m going to start creating the basic frame of the bike integrated production line now, let me show you how I intend to do it~”
Going with his feeling on recording content for his future series, Aven enthusiastically exposed how he did things while adding funny anecdotes every time he thought of one.
He had nothing else to do, after all, all the script he had prepared beforehand needed him to prepare special stage sets, use chroma-keying, and his perfectionist self wouldn’t let it go if he did all that without an over-the-top costume.
And all these requirements would only be of high enough quality once the Rainbow IRC was finished and furnished. Meaning not anytime soon.
“The software automatically uses the material properties you provided and calculates the structural strain every 10 seconds. I generally don’t double-check behind it as I’ll have to do it at the end anyway, and the whole line design isn’t complete yet so there’s a chance I’ll modify it…” He commented as he used his telekinesis to start typing and moving the mouse to design the foundational frame expertly.
Aven’s demeanor let nothing through, he appeared like he perfectly knew what he was doing and had much more practical experience on the matter than his age should allow him to have.
“Once the frame is there, I simply use the end result I want to guide my thought process~ I designed the best bike in the world a long time ago when I was lost in thought, by the way, the way a bike works is too simple, the only difficulties are the brakes wear, the overall alignment, and all the adjustment mechanisms. Not even the suspensions or the wheels are a problem…”
Uniting 2 very different projects, he felt something inside him sublimate to this more complex thought process, eventually, he got new inspirations for his series.
‘I should release the unedited footage separately for those who just never have enough.’
‘Why not create a kid-friendly version and an insider-friendly version?’
‘What about a Rainbow IRC tour with all sorts of introduction videos about the area and the workers who work there…’
His inspiration was never-ending at that moment, and he took advantage of that inspired state of mind as much as he could to refine his public figure transition plan.
Communication was something he knew he needed, and he didn’t deny any idea that sounded interesting that could potentially reach more people. It was all about making sure he had his hands on his own public image, thus he would never reduce his efforts on widening and intensifying his field of action until he was in full control.
It wasn’t about being a control freak, it was about securing his development path.
If something had to go extremely bad, he wanted to be the one to have stepped on this path by his own volition, not by the hands of… An invisible enemy.
Money wasn’t a problem for him, he would soon make more than ERA would be able to manage.
Influence would soon not be a problem, rightly so amongst the super population.
Power was something that would come naturally as long as he had time to work on himself, be it from an energy cultivation point of view or from a technological progress point of view.
With all his needs fulfilled, Aven had ultimately set his sight higher. He wasn’t in over his head, at least not from how he saw his own circumstances, he was just not single-mindedly pursuing his path while ignoring all the possibilities that coincidentally came with it.
His path was neither straight nor crooked, it was a meandering, winding path, and while taking shortcuts was a real possibility, wasn’t simply using this path as it was meant to be used the most perfect and optimized way of traveling it?
“This part… Well, it’s about thermodynamics so for you dear spectators, just take it as how heat flows. Then I overlay the heat-sensitive components and find out what’s the best solution to isolate them, maybe move them to another place? Or maybe changing the component if no solution looks right? It’s all about having sturdy and easy-to-maintain units…”
In the end, though, his winding path wasn’t one he didn’t like, and that reflected on his bright face as he happily tried to explain everything like an innocent kid having discovered a new play toy.
