The Mech Touch

He had difficulty deciding whether he should accept this Mission.

His mind said no. Rationally speaking, it was way too reckless to create an important totem that was tied to himself when he didn't know the consequences of treating himself as a design spirit.

Ves was not a normal spiritual entity like his incarnation Vulcan. He had no idea how much a so-called divine artifact would affect his capabilities as a mech designer.

He had no qualms with experimenting on design spirits. If anything went wrong, Ves wouldn't be the one to suffer from the consequences!

"My specialty has always been to let other people suffer from the consequences of my actions!"

He wouldn't be able to do that anymore now that the System requested Ves to treat himself as a test subject.

"It might not even be possible for me to create a totem based on myself. Wait… what if it doesn't have to be me? What if… I can use one of my other incarnations?"

Aside from Vulcan, Ves also had Blinky!

Although both of them were different reflections of himself, they were still fundamentally different from each other.

Vulcan was an external incarnation that possessed a complete life of his own. He just happened to be connected to Ves in various ways.

Blinky was an internal incarnation that resided in his very mind. The Star Cat was more of a split personality of Ves that just happened to gain an infusion of power.

Unlike Vulcan, Blinky's domain and spiritual energy completely mirrored that of Ves!

If Ves' suspicions were correct, he could probably utilize Blinky as his surrogate design spirit!

"What do you think, Blinky? Would you like to join the party and empower mechs and totems with your presence?"

The purple spiritual cat dove out of his mind and flicked his black-tipped tail in a reluctant manner.

Mrow….

"I know, buddy, but the risks are much lower if we use you as a subject instead. You're not a mech designer so your spiritual makeup is much closer to that of a traditional design spirit."

Mrow mrow mrow!

"You may have a point. If this divine artifact stuff is greater than an ordinary totem, then I might need to do more in order to complete the Mission."

Mrow!"

"Silly Blinky. Have you forgotten how I managed to complete the previous Mission already? If I don't know how to do something, then I will find a way to obtain the necessary knowledge! The Tree of Possibilities still offers many enlightenment fruits that are related to various cults."

Mrow…

Ves frowned for a moment. "Maybe you're right. If it turns out that the enlightenment fruit I need is too expensive, then I will leave it be and consider another Mission. I don't want to end up spending more Ascension Points than I can gain."

He planned to handle this Mission as quickly as possible.

While it was customary for him to spend months or years designing a good mech, there was no need for him to spend as much time on smaller projects.

As long as he wasn't too ambitious, he should be able to develop an excellent totem in a week or two. This was especially the case if he utilized his existing tools.

Part of the reason why the Blood Knight Project took so long was because Ves insisted on developing a new innovation.

Ves didn't think it was necessary for him to repeat that approach. When it came to an object that might have major implications to his future, it was better to stick to familiar territory.

"I should head down to the Tree of Possibilities and see which fruit can help."

When he approached the majestic tree, his gaze quickly flicked from fruit to fruit. He already had an impression of most of them, so quickly narrowed down the ones that sounded relevant.

Fortunately for him, he found an enlightenment fruit that might contain what he needed.

There was just one caveat.

[Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altar Design]

Price: 25 Ascension Points

Imparts the design and annotated notes of a ritual sacrifice altar utilized by the orven race. The leaders of the orven civilization regard themselves as gods, and one of their many means of empowerment is sacrifice. An Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altar is a sacred object that represents a leader of the orven race. It can only be made by integrating a soul fragment of the leader orven. Sacrificing the lives of orvens and other living beings can feed back a part of their strength to the aspiring god, but relying too much on this method can lead to problems.

At first, Ves skipped over this enlightenment fruit. It sounded completely abhorrent and Ves had no intentions of imitating any alien rituals.

He changed his mind when he examined it for a second time.

"If my guess is correct… then a Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altar may be the alien equivalent of a divine artifact."

If Ves assumed that spirituality and spiritual energy were universal phenomena, then what applied to humans also applied to aliens!

"It's just like phasewater. If aliens can develop warp drives, so can humans. This should be a similar case."

Since this was the case, learning how the orven race built and made use of their special altars should provide Ves with lots of useful clues on how he could make his own divine artifact!

"I'm not going to engage in any ritual sacrifice, though. I'm not crazy and I don't need to engage in barbarism in order to grow stronger."

Ves would love to become stronger, but not at the cost of compromising his dedication towards mechs. His desire to become a Star Designer exceeded his desire to become a god!

The only reason why he hesitated was whether it was a good idea for him to absorb foreign knowledge.

The enlightenment fruits he absorbed before all came from different human influences. The knowledge they imparted all stayed within the realm of human understanding.

This was different. Despite the narrow scope of this enlightenment fruit, he would definitely implant a lot of strange and alien thoughts if he absorbed its contents!

"It's cheap though, and there is nothing else that relates to the Mission that I want to complete."

After a bit of thinking, he decided to take a gamble and go through with this decision!

He wasn't afraid of the fruit. He might be able to learn a lot about orven culture and society!

"Besides, if Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altars have nothing to do with the Mission, then I will have only squandered 25 Ascension Points at most."

That was an acceptable loss in his eyes.

Ves proceeded to buy the fruit and pop it into his mouth without any further delay.

"Alright, here it comes!"

He sat down and completely focused on absorbing and integrating the influx of alien knowledge!

It was not as much knowledge as he thought. The so-called ritual altars weren't that complicated from a technical perspective.

The orvens engaged in sacrificing their own kind from the beginning of their history.

Back when they were ordinary savages that roamed their primitive planet, the chieftains and the other leaders of the various tribes came up with a brilliant new method of punishment.

Instead of wasting a life by executing an orven, why not try to put him on a funny-looking stone altar and try to siphon away his strength?

This was how the practice of ritual sacrifice came about. Somehow, the chieftains and their lackeys managed to discover a way to make it work, and proceeded to refine the altars from that point onwards.

The context and form of ritual sacrifices changed many times throughout the history of the orven race.

It started out as a more productive form of execution, but slowly included voluntary sacrifices.

There were plenty of brainwashed lower caste orvens who were completely willing to dedicate their lives to the higher castes they regarded as gods!

When the orvens reached the stars and spread throughout the Red Ocean, they also began to sacrifice other intelligent alien races on their altars.

The results were largely mixed. The feedback provided from involuntary sacrifices tended to be less… lower in quality. The feedback provided by alien beings was even more mixed.

In any case, the orven race was one of the few indigenous races of the Red Ocean that had mastered an effective form of empowerment through sacrifice.

It took advantage of certain traits that were unique to orvens to enable a relatively easy method of spiritual cannibalization!

Not only that, but the orvens also managed to transform it from a taboo to a widely accepted practice within their society!

"If something like this happens in human space, the Big Two will come down so hard that nothing will be left of the perpetrators!"

Ves didn't feel tempted to create an Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altar for himself at all. Its mechanisms fundamentally clashed with his own principles.

His purpose had always been to foster mutual benefits. While the mechs he made could certainly be used to harm fellow humans, this was the natural course of internal competition.

An altar made by the orvens was much more nefarious. It not only harmed the population, but also corrupted the would-be god that acquired power without working for it. Ves found it surprising that orven society could still remain stable when led by degenerates who were drunk on power!

"Maybe I am being too judgemental of them. This fruit hasn't told me much outside of how to design and build one of these altars."

He turned his attention towards the form and function of these altars.

The more advanced and sophisticated ones possessed many different parts and mechanisms, but none of them were important. They mostly attempted to automate the sacrifice process, limit any complications and clean up the mess once the ritual was complete.

"What is truly important is the spiritual design."

Ves came in touch with true alien spiritual engineering this time!

It was the most valuable gain of this enlightenment fruit. Not only did he obtain a substantial amount of knowledge in spiritual engineering, but also included a lot of helpful theories that explained spirituality from a systematic perspective!

The orvens had their own measurements and classifications of spiritual energy. They developed their own understanding of spiritualities, though they also mixed in plenty of superstition as well.

The knowledge was not complete, though. The fruit only granted theories that directly related to the altars and nothing more.

"It's enough. I can't expect much from a fruit that costs just 25 Ascension Points."

Ves gained the most from the enlightenment fruit when he combined everything he learned with the knowledge that he already possessed.

As Ves tried to reconcile everything he learned with his existing foundation in spiritual engineering, he found out that there was a considerable overlap.

He already figured out a lot of truths by himself. He just gained a different perspective on the same topics.

Though he still managed to learn a number of new theories and insights, he did not gain the ability to create a lot of weird and powerful alien artifacts.

He just became really good at making Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altars.

"That's not entirely true. I can also adapt what I've learned to make other stuff!"

While Ves appreciated much of what he learned, one of the most relevant gains from the fruit was teaching him what divine artifacts might be and what made them so important!

"If I assume that an Orven Ritual Sacrifice Altar is comparable to a divine artifact, then it is way more than just a totem!"

In order for the orven leaders to obtain a channel where they could receive sacrifices, they first had to make a sacrifice of their own.

The most serious sacrifices entailed chopping off a limb that would subsequently be merged into the altar!

Although not every altar had to be made this way, the other methods were all inferior.

"Creating an altar is like creating an incarnation that is locked inside a solid object!"