The Mech Touch

When Ves decided to make use of his lottery tickets right away, he immediately left the summit of the mountain and raced all the way down the steps.

He had to run almost all the way down the bottom in order to reach the Wishing Fountain again.

The place hadn't changed since he last visited it. The large ornate fountain still spouted water as usual while an atmosphere of chance and fortune continued to encourage him to try his luck.

Ves briefly hesitated for a moment. His luck had always been a bit inconsistent, especially with regards to lottery tickets.

There was a huge degree of variance of what he could obtain from the Wishing Fountain today. With 9 golden lottery tickets and 4 radiant lottery tickets, he could obtain successive jackpots, but he could also be met with a lot of underwhelming gains.

"There's no reason to delay, though."

Unlike before, Ves fully understood what he could obtain from the updated System. The Divine Bazaar and the Tree of Possibilities had shown him many possible ways to spend his Ascension Points.

He had noticed plenty of goodies that he deeply desired to obtain but couldn't afford the Ascension Points to redeem them from the System.

The Wishing Fountain offered him a bit of hope of being able to obtain these valuable goodies on the cheap.

Of course, Ves did not expect the Wishing Fountain to spit out the exact items that he lusted after. He was already content if he obtained a prize that was similar or better than what he was aiming for. He wouldn't even be too disappointed if he obtained a slightly inferior product.

Ves briefly went over his development strategy.

Even if he cut down all of his greater and more long-term ambitions, he still had too much on his plate!

"First, I need to progress my design philosophy."

"Second, I need to enhance Blinky and Vulcan's spiritual development."

"Third, I need a way to strengthen my mech army in the short term in order to increase the success rate of the Trailblazer Expedition."

"Fourth, I have to supply valuable and useful knowledge to the Golden Cat, the Illustrious One and Lufa to boost their capabilities."

"Fifth, I need to obtain a useful scripture that my children can practice in order to sharpen and boost their already potent spiritual growth."

"Sixth, I need to obtain valuable materials so that I can upgrade my personal gear as well as a couple of important expert mechs if possible."

When Ves reviewed all of these priorities, he tried to think about what category of prizes he should try for first.

"I can set aside the need to obtain more spiritually reactive materials." Ves decided. "My gear is already strong enough and my expert mechs aren't weak after I have upgraded them recently."

What he needed the most was knowledge. Scriptures, manuals, design-related Skills and so on could all give Ves a glimpse of brand-new possibilities that were previously unattainable!

"Wishing Fountain, please allow me to draw from the pool of enlightenment fruits!"

As Ves spoke and thought about his desires, he felt that the Wishing Fountain responded to his request.

When he tried to narrow down the pool of prizes to scriptures that could help individuals hone and develop their spiritualities based on specific spiritual attributes, the Wishing Fountain did not oblige this time.

Apparently, that was way too much. Ves could only settle for obtaining any random enlightenment fruit no matter whether they were relevant or not. It was not the Wishing Fountain's problem if he had no use for the awarded prizes!

"Well, here goes nothing."

He started off small by expending another golden lottery ticket.

Just like before, the ticket melted into the fountain water, causing the liquid to turn golden while at the same time getting charged with energy.

p<anda> Though Ves appreciated the theatrics of this ritual, he was impatient to find out what he managed to gain from the lottery ticket he had earned from his only completed Supply Mission.</anda>

[Congratulations! Regretfully, you have not won a prize this time. Thank you for your patronage!]

"…"

Damnit!

The System was up to its usual shenanigans again.

"It's a good thing that I have 8 more golden lottery tickets. I have to be able to get at least one good prize out of this ordeal."

[Congratulations! Regretfully, you have not won a prize this time. Thank you for your patronage!]

[Congratulations! You have obtained a Shadow Dance Dagger Style Enlightenment Fruit.]

[Congratulations! You have obtained a Olthori Sacred Cleansing Ritual Manual Fruit.]

[Congratulations! You have obtained an Imperial Thornix Salamander Breeding Manual Fruit.]

[Congratulations! Regretfully, you have not won a prize this time. Thank you for your patronage!]

[Congratulations! You have obtained a Senior-level Stealth and Cloaking Enlightenment Fruit.]

[Congratulations! Regretfully, you have not won a prize this time. Thank you for your patronage!]

[Congratulations! You have obtained a Beast Mech Design V Enlightenment Fruit.]

"Five prizes!"

When paired with the Black Demon Steel he obtained the last time, that meant that he managed to obtain something from the Wishing Fountain 6 out of 10 times.

Just as promised, the Wishing Fountain exclusively spat out enlightenment fruits, each of which would grant valuable knowledge to those who ate them. This was a massive relief as his desire for other possible benefits was not as high for the time being.

The winnings were mixed between design and spirituality-related enlightenment fruits.

As a mech designer, the former attracted his attention first. He restrained the urge to eat them right away and studied their descriptions first in order to confirm that they truly contained what he needed.

[Senior-level Stealth and Cloaking Enlightenment Fruit]

Grants Senior-level Stealth and Cloaking Enlightenment to a mech designer regardless of their prior understanding of this field.

Requirements: Apprentice Mech Designer. Intelligence must be 1.5 or higher.

[Beast Mech Design V Enlightenment Fruit]

Grants Beast Mech Design V to a mech designer regardless of their prior understanding of this field.

Requirements: Apprentice Mech Designer. Intelligence must be 1.5 or higher.

"I can swallow these right away!" Ves jubilantly cheered.

Both fruits were useful to him! Though they weren't as great as enlightenment fruits that allowed him to vastly improve his understanding of phasewater technology, he did not want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

While Ves had managed to elevate his Stealth and Cloaking Skill to Journeyman-level a long time ago, he never invested much time and energy into improving it further.

He had hardly designed any stealth-oriented mechs in the past five years aside from a few sneaky machines designed for the Black Cats.

The rest of the Larkinson Clan preferred to fight battles upfront rather than engage in dishonorable tricks. Stealth mechs generally didn't get sold on the open market either. They were almost exclusively used by state actors or large organizations that already functioned like one to a degree.

Even now, Ves still did not have any immediate plans to design a batch of stealth mechs.

That didn't mean that the related enlightenment fruit was useless.

On the contrary.

"Understanding how to design a good stealth vehicle also allows me to figure out how to counter them! This is the true value of this enlightenment fruit!"

Ves had always been paranoid about stealthy bastards creeping around in his clan's vicinity. The most technologically advanced groups harnessed stealth technology to such a fantastic degree that they could fly an entire formation of mech through his fleet without getting exposed!

By ingesting this enlightenment fruit, Ves could significantly increase the chance of detecting such shenanigans by developing specific sensors and scanners that countered the more sophisticated applications of stealth technology!

"This is a great way to improve the safety of my fleet during the upcoming Trailblazer Expedition!"

It was well-known that numerous indigeneous alien races had become quite good in developing their stealth technology. There were plenty of stories of how exploration and raiding fleets collapsed from within after alien saboteurs managed to infiltrate and explode key starships from within.

"This other fruit is also useful."

Ves had not designed a lot of beast mechs over the years.

Even if the Design Department started up a related project, he mostly handed responsibility over to the Power Pair. Janassa Pellier and Tifi Coslone had become so enthused about designing beast mechs that they always called dibs whenever the Larkinsons needed to design a new animal-shaped machine.

This left Ves bereft of opportunities to exercise and improve his beast mech design capabilities. When he studied his Status a time ago, he recalled that his Beast Mech Design had only reached tier II at the moment.

This meant that while his understanding of beast mechs was respectable, he was far from a specialist who could draw out greater advantages from alternative mech shapes.

The story would be different if he ate the Beast Mech Design V Enlightenment Fruit. As long as he absorbed all of the knowledge it contained, he could probably design beast mechs that were just as good if not better than the ones designed by the Power Pair!

Ves saw no problem with eating them right away. Though he could make an argument that his wife Gloriana might be able to benefit more if he gave her one of the fruits, Ves did not want to share his bounty this time!

"I need to get stronger first before I can think about providing welfare to others!"

He did not delay any further and promptly ate the two fruits.

Absorbing the knowledge in the System Space turned out to be a lot more convenient than in reality.

Due to his special state and the rules governing this interaction method, Ves was able to absorb a flood of new and interesting design theories and other study material in a span of a couple of minutes!

"Whoa! What a rush!"

Just like before, Ves completely understood the theory and as well as many different practical applications.

Now, he just needed to practice his newly-improved Skill and Sub-Skill in reality to maximize his utilization rate and comprehensively master all of the interesting new ideas in his mind.

"That was easy."

What wasn't as easy was how to make use of the other enlightenment fruits.

He wasn't as familiar with them as the ones that contained various design-related Skills and Sub-Skills. He was a mech designer who had never been formally introduced to the world of spiritual sorcery.

"Let's go over them one by one."

[Imperial Thornix Salamander Breeding Manual Fruit]

Grants thorough understanding of the biological and behavioral properties of Imperial Salamanders as well as detailed instructions on how to breed them in order to cultivate specific subspecies.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 1.2 or higher.

"Useless."

Ves had never heard of Imperial Thornix Salamanders. His chances of encountering one in the flesh was virtually nil. Why would he need a breeding manual?

That did not mean the enlightenment fruit was useless.

Even if the Larkinson Clan could never get its hands on one of these special creatures, Ves guessed that the manual also contained a lot of broader and more universal knowledge!

"Director Pesca Aduc would love to eat this enlightenment fruit! Ranya would love it as well!"

Both of them were engaged in the cultivation of mutated beasts. If this manual was as thorough as he thought, then either of them would probably gain a lot of useful know-how on cultivating mutated beasts!

Ves briefly fell into a dilemma. Who should receive this fruit?

"The knowledge contained within the enlightenment fruits isn't exclusive." Ves reminded himself. "As long as one of the directors absorbed the fruit, there is no rule that prevents them from writing out everything they have recently learned."

Even so, there was a major difference between studying a thick textbook and direct integration! The person that ate the fruit would definitely gain the most!

"I'll decide this later once I have exited the System Space and called the two directors for a meeting. Let's handle the remaining fruits first."

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