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TFC Chapter 76: Communication Manager
🕑 Added 2022-07-31 18:13:30 +0000 UTC“That was so weird…” The test pioneer, perplexed, emitted his doubt for an instant before once again launching himself.
This time, he was ready to face the unrealistic bike that called off a lot of biking-acquired reflexes and slowly began to tame the monster.
Shifting gears until he reached the last level, he was still pedaling casually and decided that as the pioneer in riding this bike, he would also be the pioneer in making a lap.
From there, under the bewildered glances of all the other civilians partaking in this self-driven test, the man really began putting in the effort for pedaling and swiftly departed to do a lap.
“Woohoo…” After a few dozen seconds, his faraway cry of excitement as he achieved an amazingly high cycling speed reached those with the most sensitive hearing.
And thus started the 2 hours of variety-show style filming for the first true episode of Aven’s public image control video series.
Between discussing with the participants, observing them struggling and eventually mastering the new bike model, getting lots of inspiration for future episodes, eating and drinking a bit when he felt like it, those 2 hours passed without him even noticing.
“It looks like it's time for me to bid you all goodbye~” Changing the subject without any hesitation upon seeing the 2 hours alarm he had set go off, Aven finished all the snacks he had put down next to his laptop and began wrapping up.
“It’s truly been 2 hours…”
“Again, my mom won’t believe me.”
“You already took at least 10 selfies with him, why won’t she believe you?”
The bike testing recording, which had transformed into a relatively harmonious random gathering of people as everyone had done their part in testing, comparing, and commenting on the new bike and their old ones reacted sadly to this abrupt news.
“As promised, you can keep your bike, do with it as you want. Scrap it, sell it for a few million, that’s not my problem anymore, I’ll produce a lot more of them after all. And the blueprints of everything related to it will be released within the next month too,” following his initial words and intentions, Aven didn’t hide anything as he finished packing away his stuff.
All the cameras installed on top of the bikes and those spread around to catch the gathering under all its angles soon started to float and joined Aven’s floating objects escort as he slowly began to ascend.
“I don’t think we’ll see each other again anytime soon, but it was a pleasure to discuss with all of you~ Goodbye!” Not beating around the bush, he ultimately bid goodbye as he left while waving at the more than 10 people echoing his goodbyes.
Dropping off all his cameras in the recording area after extracting everything they recorded, he only kept one with him as he headed back towards the designing area.
“This time, I'll finish it and move on to the next project!” Resuming his editing work after putting on some jovial urban ambiance background music, his body and mind remained at their best for the next 10 hours it took him to shape what he wanted.
Same as always, his energy kept cycling his body supported by a trinity status that allowed it to never enter a downtime state, and he just had to expend 138 200 FCP every 6 hours, his only true regular expense, to maintain this optimal energy cultivation.
With now 2 episodes ready under his sleeve and the next one, the IUM episode, already completely scripted and all the on-field footage recorded, he finally graduated from his self-created transition period between establishing himself and starting to grow.
“And now… I just need to ask the media and propaganda departments of ERA and some people with interests in me and my projects to massively overexpose my introduction episode and the bike episode,” talking to himself about the way through which he was going to shift from “a fairy” to “that fairy”, he contacted Drayce once again.
[Aven: How’s the search for a communication manager?]
In the exact same manner as this “morning”, the answer didn't take long to arrive.
[Drayce: I tried to ask all those who are certain to join the center at some point, but as I had guessed, no one is interested in this job, so I’ve gathered a few profiles and you can come to check them out if you’re in a hurry. Or if you’re curious, I guess.]
“If I’m curious…” Narrowing his eyes like a cat at this bait, Aven just couldn’t help himself, “I’m really like a kid…”
Grieving for his fate as an eternally curiosity-driven being, he took his self-defense box with him and moved to the adjacent area, the control area.
Easily finding the door leading to Drayce Anca’s office, he barged through it before acting all confused, “I’m… Here? What am I doing here? I swear I just received a message from… Can’t remember.”
“Here,” ignoring his stupid antics, Drayce turned one of his 4 screens in his direction and set about introducing all the profiles he had.
“Taiana, a nickname that eventually became the true name of this masterful woman leading an entire communication group of the Conglomerate. She’s the picture of an ambitious young woman who only needs to be given adequate weapons to shine in her own way.”
“You can do better than that,” Aven blurted out, not at all convinced by that profile.
Ignoring him again, he moved to the next profile, “Rowan Swiftfoot, an advertisement specialist. He has successfully proven over the years that his expertise in commercial and cultural communication are top-tier, be they through the recent digital networks or through physical campaigns.”
“I think…” The fairy looked at this profile, then at Drayce, then again at the profile, “I need a new human resource manager too.”
Stopping for a moment, Drayce’s smile still held through this hazard and he continued, “Arthuria Hezekiah Walstrand, she’s basically your equivalent, but without being much of a social butterfly, a super, or a fairy. Her drive is more than just exemplary and, same as Bhanas, or maybe even above him, the moment you give her the right opportunity, she’ll probably go through the abominations and back to make sure all your communication is perfect.”
“Hu~” Looking at the picture of a blond-haired middle-aged woman wearing a professional suit in the most traditional and serious way such a suit had been designed to be worn, Aven somewhat liked the diversity and atmosphere she could potentially bring, “Track records?”
Following a few clicks, Drayce got what he wanted, “4 years in the family business after graduating from a prestigious academy, 6 years in a company she’s a founding member of, became a millionaire, moved to a national Conglomerate contender in the car industry for 5 years, and changed a final time to a high-end vehicles company where she still works today.”
“Interesting…” Aven took in the information and a picture formed in his mind, a picture he really liked, “So, how many awakening serums did she buy?”
“I would guess…” Lapsing into silence, the green-haired man’s innate ability used its mysticism and all the knowledge and approximation it had under the eyes to form a conclusion, “At least 4.”
“Do you have any other profile of someone who worked her or his ass off so much but never got what she or he wanted?” On a whim, Aven allowed himself to feel an affinity with the type of people Arthuria represented.
This time, instead of clicking and browsing through his list of candidates, Drayce once again used his innate ability, remaining silent for 30 seconds before opening his mouth again, “No. They all either already awakened after a single or double try, or they stopped trying.”
“Then let’s settle for her, use the same symbolic contract you signed yourself, and hurry her up to here after making sure she understands she’s in for the longest run of her life,” following his instinct and emotions with a modicum of reason, he concluded the matter.
“Alright, I’ll do that~” Neutrally accepting, the man acting as the human resource manager by his own choice didn’t try to discuss the decision made in less than 5 minutes about someone who was going to occupy such an important post.
Preparing himself to leave, Aven had a random thought following his joke about the current job Drayce was doing and turned to the concerned person to ask, “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Maintaining the same slight smile, the same face, the same posture… The man who had proactively reached out to him when he had seriously started the Rainbow IRC project didn’t say anything.
“Okay~” Not insisting, he backed and said his last piece prior to leaving, “When you get her there, prepare a small welcome ceremony as we did for Eryka, I’ll use the occasion to give you your 3 contract rewards. This time you won’t refuse, right?”
Not leaving him the chance to answer, Aven closed the door behind him as he left. For real.
…
“That’s really a completely different matter this time…” Adding more and more details to a very rough-looking elongated cuboid modelization, Aven was more focused on what he had to design after this basic stage.
The knowledge he had acquired months ago about how energy cultivation resources were manufactured had made him reach a level above even the greatest martial supers who dedicated their lives to this field so essential to the super community.
From the naturalization of the raw materials, generally, abominations organs and refined flesh, allowing all the energy contained inside to be transformed into an unattuned energy boost, to the energy system attuning process, to the energy impact setting process, then to the serum forming process, then to…
All the steps, literally all of them, Aven knew everything Eland knew about them. The only thing separating him from becoming the best bio-rigger martial super, the ancestral name given to the martial path’s production variant, was his lack of access to the martial energy system.
“How am I going to mechanize it…” Thinking of all the knowledge he had to incorporate, his modelization speed gradually slowed down as he finally finished the universal framework of a cultivation resources production line.
Saving up at this step, the mouse and keyboard linked to the display screen of the modeling computing units’ main instance followed Aven’s thought process and soon started on a first experimental journey.
“There’s no other way right? I’ll need the martial super to indicate when he’s done with the naturalization process…”
Beginning from the most obvious parts, he created an input area for raw materials, installed the supremely important temperature and humidity control system to keep the very important and expensive awakened life biological matter as intact as possible, and a whole bunch of normal and advanced sensors to control for malfunctions.
He had already done that for all the lines he had previously designed, so this step didn’t present any difficulty for him.
“Everything after the impact setting process… I can totally mechanize. And I’ll even add options for different sizes.”
Skipping the energy system attuning and energy impact setting stages, which were honestly the only real problems of this project, he followed with the serum forming stage, incorporated a bunch of perfected machines to end up with a perfectly fluid serum, designed a special polymerized glass-resin manufacturing unit…
The whole designing process flowed smoothly until Aven finally had no choice but to come back to the attuning stage part of the line.
“Five attuning to do, three impacts to set… Each attuning more difficult than the last, and the more of them, the more complex and subtle each impact setting will be, and every impact added, it nightmarishly increases the complexity…” Musing on the absurd difficulty that had rendered everyone prior to him unable to find a way to make a universal whole-trinity 5-systems attunement possible, he started to design.
He wasn’t a miracle worker, he was… A guy gathering the knowledge of everyone in his faction.
“The answer I came up with, if it doesn’t work, then it means my knowledge can be wrong,” creating a succession of 8 sealed boxes, his knowledge integration talent was working as hard as it could to allow Aven to draw all the understanding of energy attuning the whole of Eland had.
The only bits of knowledge he was missing came from the fairies with a higher graded bloodline than him, and they were such a small community that they were nearly inconsequential. At least in this precise field.
Installing a special electromagnet on all sides except the forward-facing side of the row of 8 boxes, he engineered the most absurdly powerful magnetic field he could make.
After controlling and stabilizing the magnetic field that would exist inside the boxes, he installed air pump exits and entries that would allow him to control the air pressure and air composition inside as he wished.
Then, it was the turn of a special robotic arm with an extremely metaphysical objective to be added to the mix.
Copy-pasting the model of a robotic arm he had previously used, Aven just adapted its makeup for special magnetic field and air pressure conditions before changing the hand part into something horrifying.
It was a simple plate, but what covered it was tens of thousands of long nanometric needles.
‘Magnetic field, air pressure and composition, direct contact… If it’s not enough to maintain the most stable conditions, then I’ll have to redefine all my knowledge in energy engineering. And if it doesn’t work even with my essence stabilizing energy…’
Adding all these elements to each of the 8 boxes, Aven then proceeded to add a platinum-gold alloy formula for all the infernal devices making up these boxes. This alloy would never wear and was the most stable material he had in his mind for supporting complex and repetitive mechanical strains.
As for the external layer, he used multiple layers of pure lead to block any radiations that could disturb the perfect environment he had created.
Spending 4 more hours perfecting the overall makeup of the new-era machine after already 10 hours of focus so intense that he wasn’t even aware of the time passing by, he was simply filled to the brim with inspiration and his idea flowed from his mind to the model without any delay.
He was ready to continue adding more security and ergonomy for hours, but at that point in time, he was interrupted by someone entering his holy sanctuary.
“The new communication manager is here. We’re gathering in the resting area to welcome her,” Bhanas reported, sending a questioning glance at the cold fairy working alone in the huge designing room under an intense electronic music background.
This intrusion of a friendly entity allowed Aven to escape a bit from his intense-focus state without completely breaking away from it, and when he turned his head to look at Bhanas with the intent of answering him, he found to his utter confusion that…
The world looked weird. And he couldn’t speak.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” The intruder asked as he looked at him with wide-open eyes, soon replaced by amazement as he took out his phone to take some pictures.
Still unable to answer, Aven just felt numb, as if he didn't have any emotion or body, as if he was just a floating piece of processing power.
Much the opposite of things having gone wrong however, Aven felt like the entire world had transformed into a clear 3D model he could peruse through as he wished with keener eyes, more sensitive energy threads, and a greater information computing power than ever.
“Your eyes are so empty, is that a trick you can do with energy?” Finished with taking pictures, Bhanas approached and showed him directly with a big smile filled with curiosity.
And what Aven saw when he looked at the pictures…
A brown-haired, tanned white-skinned fairy wearing a pure white uniform with black outlines, with eyes having lost their pupils, leaving behind only an empty light-blue iris.
But even upon seeing that relatively shocking sight, he couldn’t think or feel anything, until… He suddenly made a subtle connection.
The moment this connection was established, it was like his entire being resynchronized with reality and he recovered the ability to think.
“Creative instinct state?” He whispered so quietly that Bhanas, standing just next to him, couldn’t hear him.
The moment he realized what was happening, his mind, both his conscious one and subconscious one, went into overload to find all the circumstances that had led him to enter this mysterious state he had sought to enter from the moment he had acquired the creative instinct talent.
Insights flew by, his memories rewound like a physical videotape that he could see and interact with, and soon enough he gathered all the information he needed about how he had entered this driven state that allowed him to reach a complete communion with his subconsciousness.
And that was when his state was broken.
“Yeah, something like that~” He responded to the question Bhanas had asked more than half a minute ago without giving away any hints of what actually took place as all sorts of external stimuli reappeared along with his ability to freely express himself.
“Ho? You can’t maintain it while talking? It’s that hard?” Not doubting that anything weird happened, the exhausted-looking middle-aged man simply continued the discussion without any worry.
“What if, actually, I just got attacked through the spiritual realm?” Aven’s social wits let him follow up effortlessly, “Turns out I’ve just been possessed. By what you ask? By a mysterious being of course! And now I want to destroy the world!”
“Hahaha! Then you’re not really different from the guy you just possessed!” Mocking him overtly, Bhanas simply laughed as he took back his phone and put it in one of his pockets.
“Really? That’s perfect then. The memories of this bodily envelope are a bit fuzzy due to its energized brain, but I remember something about a propaganda leader? Something like that? Take me to her, servant! And I really like you growing your beard by the way! It’s to my taste!”
Continuing to act even as he wrapped up his work-in-progress on the cultivation resource integrated production line, the first step of the cultivation resources universalization and intensification project, he was finished a few minutes later and the two eventually left the design area.
“I have a world domination plan to unfold, so I’ll go ahead and settle myself in the resting area~” Escorted by his 4 boxes, Aven rushed forward and left Bhanas, with whom he had been discussing happily, in the dust.
Flying at high speed through the building, it only took him a minute to arrive at the resting area where Saum and Eryka were already waiting for the welcome ceremony to begin, or instead…
“I don’t know her name yet, but she came after me, so I need to beat her up to establish my seniority,” the dark fairy reasoned logically, eyeing the Vow overseer very meaningfully.
“I won’t accept a fight with a fairy, even if my life depends on it,” the aloof green-eyed, white-haired Eryka blocked his “advance” directly.
“What a disappointment…”
They had already started it in their own way.
