The Mech Touch

While he had little doubts about the power of his last prize, the most direct beneficiary was one of his expert pilots.

This did not particularly make him enthusiastic because he felt that he missed out to an extent.

"The System is ultimately about facilitating my growth. Using it to strengthen others is fine as long as I don\'t go overboard."

While Ves needed to rely on others in order to enable and facilitate his own ventures, he still knew that his own efforts were responsible for making his clan successful.

The reason why he was so eager about using the System again was because Ves desired ways to amplify his strengths and speed up his progression.

He deeply wished that he could finally obtain what he wanted from his next prize!

"C\'mon, System! Give me a reward that can incentivize me to fabricate more masterwork mechs! This is what you want me to do, right? Make it worth my while!"

The Wishing Fountain grew just as colorful and spectacular as before. As the fountain pool released another large spout of iridescent water, Ves could see that it had produced another glowing enlightenment fruit!

This time, the fruit did not seem edible at first. Resembled a giant metallic strawberry that was flecked with dark spots. The soft silvery glow surrounding its form was the only obvious clue that it was more than just a metal ornament.

Ves grew a lot more hopeful about the possible benefits brought by the fruit. While it was sometimes true that appearances could be deceiving, he strongly suspected that this fruit was related to the metal element!

[Heart of Steel Mantra Fruit]

Imparts a complete understanding of a mantra that allows its practitioners to form a Heart of Steel. The Heart of Steel\'s primary advantage is that it can gradually increase its holder\'s compatibility and affinity towards metal and anything related to this element. The mantra is also capable of strengthening the willpower, mental fortitude and resistance against all attacks. However, the practitioners of this method are also prone to weakening their empathy and compassion.

Those who practice this mantra to the fullest will turn into gods that are able to transform, manipulate and clad themselves with the hardest and most powerful metals. The Heart of Steel Mantra can only be fully practiced by humans that possess specific genes, a specialized mechanical heart implant, an affinity towards metal and have not practiced any other cultivation techniques. This enlightenment fruit allows an individual to ignore these conditions.

Requirements: Strength must be 1.2 or higher. Endurance must be 2.0 or higher. Intelligence must be 1.0 or higher. Concentration must be 1.7 or higher.

"JACKPOT! I\'VE THE JACKPOT THIS TIME!"

Ves didn\'t know whether his earlier pleas had any effect, but the enlightenment fruit that he received this time was definitely the kind of reward he was hoping to acquire from a radiant lottery ticket.

Of all of the possible enlightenment fruits that he could obtain, the ones that claimed to turn its practitioners into gods were definitely among the high-end ones that Ves could acquire!

While Ves wasn\'t able to determine whether the Heart of Steel Mantra was stronger than the Atmer Guardian Mantra that he had seen before, he suspected that this was likely the case since it came in the form of a shinier fruit.

Regardless of how much stronger it was, the Heart of Steel Mantra was definitely more relevant and useful to Ves than any of the other fruits that he had obtained up to this point!

Even if his remaining two radiant lottery tickets did not yield any helpful prizes, Ves still would have been happy with his haul for today.

As Ves read the extensive description once again, he already decided that there was no way he would give it to anyone else but himself.

Who would be able to make better use of it than Ves?

His wife? Nope.

Ketis? Nope.

Any other mech designer in his employ? Nope.

It made even less sense to give it to any expert pilots given that none of their domains had anything to do with metal.

Still, as much as he felt tempted to swallow the metallic enlightenment fruit right away, he did not hurry up to do so because of various misgivings.

"It\'s clear that the Heart of Steel Mantra is a cultivation technique developed to allow humans to ascend into True Gods."

There was nothing in the description that had any relations to mech design. While the System did not tell Ves the group or cult that developed it in the first place, he was certain that it had to be related to the Five Scrolls Compact!

"More precisely, this is probably one of the core cultivation methods of the worshippers of the Metal Scroll!"

Ves would not be surprised if the System pulled it out of its own internal database. The Heart of Mantra sounded exactly what the cultists devoted to the Metal Scroll would have practiced!

If this was the case, then it didn\'t make sense for Ves to ingest the fruit. He was a mech designer and followed his own development trajectory.

In order to become a Star Designer, Ves knew that he had to develop his design seed into something greater.

What would happen if he ate this enlightenment fruit?

If he was able to develop a new Divine Core that formed the Heart of Steel, then that didn\'t sound so bad.

If the new Heart of Steel went on to replace or transform his existing design seed, then he would definitely cry and regret his insanely stupid decision!

"I can\'t take the risk of compromising my career as a mech designer!"

Ves calmed down a bit when he realized that he didn\'t particularly need the Heart of Steel Mantra. His affinity for mechs would transform into an affinity for metal eventually as long as he kept advancing as a mech designer.

All of the vague powers associated with the Heart of Steel sounded as if they mostly enhanced the practitioner\'s combat capabilities as opposed to any productive capabilities.

The warning about reducing one\'s empathy and compassion were deadly defects to a passionate and caring mech designer like Ves!

"Even if nothing happens to my design seed, I will still come off worse if I\'m not able to channel as much passion in my work anymore. Also, I don\'t want to lose my ability to love my kids and my other loved ones."

That did not mean that the Heart of Steel Mantra Fruit was useless for him, though.

While Ves might not aspire to become a True God with a Heart of Steel, the story was quite different for Vulcan.

His vertically-challenged incarnation was already on its way of evolving into a True God.

The issue was that Vulcan had little idea how to proceed forward just like most design spirits. All of that could instantly be solved if he received a mantra that completely mapped the way forward.

With such a complete high-end cultivation technique at his disposal, Vulcan could either practice it earnestly or derive all of the best parts out of the extraordinary method in order to form his own mantra that suited him the best!

While it was true that the defects that Ves was concerned about would also hinder Vulcan to an extent, it was not enough to stop him from going through with his idea.

"Vulcan doesn\'t need any feelings. He just needs to facilitate my own work. He\'ll be fine even if he can\'t make any friends."

Now that he decided to go through with this idea, Ves wanted to feed this powerful fruit to Vulcan right away.

He was incredibly curious at what a mantra was all about and how it was able to turn individuals into True Gods. There had to be a lot of secrets locked within the text that might expose a lot of new and shocking truths about spirituality and spiritual engineering!

"Vulcan! Come here and eat this fruit!"

The rules of the System Space were rather weird. Ves was the only person who could access it at the moment, but since Vulcan was his incarnation, the design spirit was able to manifest itself in this special area as well!

Vulcan appeared in the form of a dwarf in a typical blacksmith outfit. It was quite strange for Ves to come face-to-face with a design spirit that looked exactly like a stereotypical high gravity variant human!

"Gimme the fruit, laddie."

"Who are you calling laddie?! You\'re another version of myself!"

"Gimme the fruit before I bash your head with my hammer!"

Ves made an annoyed tone and tossed the metallic fruit to his incarnation. The dwarf looked even hungrier now that he received his fruit. He tossed it into his bearded mouth without any further delay and swallowed it without even bothering to chew the fruit apart.

Soon, a vortex of energy began to form around the dwarf. A bit of his special nature became exposed as his domain started to undergo a transformation!

Through his permanent connection with Vulcan, Ves could sense that the enlightenment fruit not only imparted a lot of new knowledge, but also gave the design spirit a head-start into forming a Heart of Steel!

The fact that the design spirit was not a human and did not even possess any physical attributes played no role in the process.

In fact, Vulcan was able to embrace the mantra with greater ease because his physical body did not pose any complications!

What truly mattered was the transformation and organization of the spirit.

Whereas Vulcan\'s spiritual makeup previously looked a bit disorganized and without purpose, now the mantra completely transformed it into a more structured form.

Ves\' eyes lit up as he recognized a lot of familiar elements that he had seen from the spiritual constructs that he had worked with in the past.

To him, the Heart of Steel looked like a product of spiritual engineering!

"It\'s a machine!"

One that was expressly designed to enable average humans to evolve into a specific variety of True Gods!

Ves received a huge amount of clarification as well as greater understanding of cultivation techniques in general. He could readily access all of the knowledge that Vulcan had absorbed in a short amount of time, though he was not able to master it as readily as the actual recipient.

Even so, Ves received so much profound understanding about cultivation techniques that it was overwhelming!

There was no way that he could process all of this information in a short amount of time!

It was even less possible for him to harness all of this dense knowledge to form his own cultivation techniques. The amount of understanding and insight needed to do so was too much for someone who did not specialize in this aspect!

"That\'s not important at the moment."

His immediate concern was Vulcan\'s transformation.

As Ves continued to study his incarnation\'s drastic changes, it gradually became clear that the addition of the Heart of Steel was a comprehensive upgrade to the design spirit.

He could even see that the Heart of Steel actively incorporated the trace of high-level metal energy that Vulcan had already stored in his deepest part of himself!

This was one of the driving reasons why Ves gifted the enlightenment fruit to his incarnation. Vulcan had long been carrying a small quantity of metal energy that Blinky had originally siphoned from Cassandra Breyer.

Though Vulcan had succeeded in clinging tight enough on the metal energy that it did not dissipate out of existence, he was unable to leverage into anything useful.

Ves had a feeling that this was no longer the case!

As the Heart of Steel integrated genuine metal energy, its quality as well as its power received a substantial boost!

This was of vital importance to Vulcan as the metal heart had become his new Divine Core!

The stronger the Divine Core, the stronger its holder. With a Heart of Steel that was many times stronger and more structured than whatever mess Vulcan possessed before, the design spirit had received an enormous boost in strength and ability!

"Damn, this enlightenment fruit is far more valuable than the Grand Dynamo that I received in the past!"