The essence of a god pilot was to acquire the traits that were typically associated with gods!
How could a god remain completely obscure and unknown?
How could a god gain so much power but never actually make use of it in any major capacity?
How could a god receive so much admiration and worship when he had never actually proven himself deserving of this respect?
According to many ch pilots including those that had bridged the ultimate gap, a pilot who yearned to beco a god must go out of his way to perform a godlike deed!
It was easy enough for a god pilot to exert the might of a deity. They had power in spades.
However, it was a different story when it ca to ace pilots!
As powerful as Saints could be, their willpower could only grow up to a certain limit. Once they hit a limit, there was nothing that peak ace pilots could do to promote the magnitude of their resonance strength.
They fell short of obtaining the power of an actual god.
This infamous bottleneck had frustrated many heroes and champions in the past.
The General Axelar Streon and the Mace of Retaliation were just two among many who stood on the wrong side of a wide and desolate canyon.
If they attempted to reach the other side by performing an ordinary jump, then they would almost certainly fall short and plunge to their deaths!
How could they possibly reach their destination under the circumstances?
Many different theories had erged. Humanity still understood too little about this deep and profound issue, but nurous advancents had erged through a combination of clever deduction as well as trial and error.
"This is how the ch rger Body Process originally ca to be. It is a systematic recipe that helps ace pilots transform into god pilots one step at a ti." Axelar Streon generously revealed a secret that was only shared to a tiny minority of people. "Before the ch community ca up with it, god pilot candidates simply stepped on the road to no return and tried to complete the processes of operation union, domain field union, corporeal union and total union in quick succession."
Ves reacted with shock when he heard this. "What?! That... that's dangerous! How could they possibly survive such an insanely demanding course of action?"
Trying to complete all four phases of the infamous ch Body rger Process sounded as insane as designing and constructing a complete battleship in the span of a few hours!
General Axelar gazed up in genuine admiration. "This is why all of us look up to the earliest and oldest god pilots. They have all managed to make the jump from ace pilot to god pilot in a single session. The risks they took at the ti were astounding, and so was their potential. There is a theory that they all managed to sublimate their willpower and shatter the barriers of reality that held them back because they went all-out in trying to complete deeds that are worthy of legend."
This was a theory that Ves only heard hints of. His lower rank and lack of contact with the upper layers of society had limited his exposure to this kind of stuff.
Now that he had risen far enough that he was now on speaking terms with a genuine god pilot candidate, Ves could finally lift the fog that hid the essence of the ch piloting profession!
The crucial information provided by Axelar filled a lot of holes in his personal understanding of ch pilots. Ves imdiately beca engrossed by all of the answers and inferences he had derived from this conversation!
"I understand!" Ves spoke. "It is not necessarily the goal that matters, but the process of trying to reach it. By setting a seemingly impossible challenge for yourself, you will attempt to do your utmost to make it happen. The more difficult the challenge, the more potential you attempt to squeeze out of yourself. The high stakes and all of the expectations that other people set on you serves to increase the pressure that you are subjected to. All of this can help you push past a critical point and break through the limit of your power!"
Axelar smiled. "I believe the nature of the deed itself is also important, but you are correct that the process of fulfilling it is indispensable. Think about the ancient myths and tiless historical deeds of the human race. Those that manage to exist to this day all deserve to beco an active part of our contemporary civilization because they are still leagues ahead of what ordinary people can do. To beco a god is to be an inspiration to people. ch designers such as yourself usually accomplish this by creating a work that only a god can make. ch pilots such as myself must exert our martial might to the limit and beyond to do the sa."
The general's words briefly reminded Ves of his speculative grand designs.
When Ves had been struck by inspiration and ca up with the idea of developing a phase lord god machine, he intuitively thought that a project as massive and ambitious as this would be enough to trigger his advancent to a Star Designer!
That was because he was convinced that the scope, difficulty and results of this grand design could never be completed by a typical Master ch Designer!
Only an entity comparable to a god was qualified to complete such an awe-inspiring project!
Though Ves didn't entirely feel comfortable about using the terminology of 'god' and such to describe this topic, he wasn't as bothered by it as he used to. There was no explicitly religious component to this discussion. Axelar only yearned to gain the power of a god. He didn't care about all of the other baggage that ca with this loaded term.
"I guess it makes sense." Ves spoke. "A lot of god pilots had perford astounding deeds that broke the limit of what ace pilots can accomplish under their own power. The Light of Sol for example accelerated his ch in realspace without relying on warp drives and managed to travel at the speed of light. The Chosen Human simply beca a god pilot at the age of 75, thereby setting a record that has never been surpassed. The Fist of Defiance struck down a leader of the Seven Apex Races whose strength was comparable to a god ch with a single punch. The Destroyer of Worlds shattered a heavily defended fortress planet with a single shot from the main cannon of her ch."
Whether the goal was important or not, it made sense that all of the pressure that the candidates subjected themselves to played a major part in motivating them to succeed!
Axelar suddenly grinned in amusent. "Would you like to know another secret, professor?"
How could Ves ever say no to this offer? He nodded his head without any hesitation!
"After the Age of Conquest had co to an end, humanity entered a recovery process that lasted for over four centuries. To be honest, our civilization has already returned to the peak that we managed to attain during the heyday of the Age of Conquest. Yet despite possessing the power to do so, we never took the initiative to resu the great conquest and conquer the other half of the Milky Way Galaxy. There are many reasons why we held ourselves back from finishing the job. For example, the Big Two feared that we would start to turn on ourselves once we have eliminated every alien neighbor that poses a threat to us. However, the reason that matters the most to us is to provide god candidates such as ourselves valid targets to test ourselves against."
Ves widened his eyes!
This was a conspiracy!
"Humanity has been treating the Seven Apex Races as cattle to be fard? Aren't people afraid that those aliens will secretly build up their strength and make a coback one day?"
General Axelar shrugged. "Even I am not fully privy to the considerations of the people who rank above my head. I am still a tier 2 galactic citizen. The higher your galactic citizenship tier, the more you will co across these kinds of secrets. To be honest, I shouldn't have told you this information, but I personally believe this point is moot considering that we have beco permanently separated from the Milky Way. I shared it with you in order to open your horizons and let you know the efforts we have made to grant a stage for god pilot candidates to perform."
In this regard, the situation in the Milky Way and the Red Ocean were similar.
The biggest difference was that the urgency to beat up the aliens was not so great in the forr galaxy.
Setting back the indigenous aliens was a matter of life and death in the Red Ocean! The stakes were so much higher because there weren't hundreds of thousands battleships and a hundred or so god pilots collectively holding back red humanity's external enemies!
Ves began to understand the significance of deeds to pilots that wanted to shed the last vestiges of their mortality.
"How do these deeds play into the ch Body rger Process, exactly?" He asked.
"When we step onto the road of no return, we cannot reach our destination by taking a leisurely walk." Axelar patiently explained. "We must sprint from beginning to end and exert the utmost of our potential as we try to make it to our destination before we crash. The ch Body rger Process is split up into four phases, which ans that we can complete them step by step. The problem is that barring the Chosen Human, few if any other god pilot has managed to complete all four phases by relying on their normal efforts alone. They need a powerful push, and deeds can make this happen. Typically, a god pilot candidate will seek to complete four appropriate challenges in sequence. Every successful deed can provide us with the impetus we need to complete an important phase."
That... was a much more manageable way to complete this life-threatening transformation process. It was quite brilliant in that it enabled the pilot to take his ti and reach his goal by making more asured steps.
"What if the ace pilot fails in one of the four challenges?"
"Death is almost certain." Axelar gravely spoke. "This is no joke, Professor Larkinson. Success is the only way forward. A single weakness or mistake can doom our attempt at attaining godhood. This is why every ace pilot like myself must set our affairs in order, have no regrets about anything and maximize all of the conditions that we can control."
That was harsh, but fair. Ves understood that this was the price that any would-be god pilot had to pay.
Their combat power was unprecedented according to Cynthia, but the threshold needed to reach their level was also the highest out of all of the True God variations!
Now that Ves understood the context of deeds, he thought back on the original topic.
"So how does Gaia's suggestion fit in this frawork?"
General Axelar couldn't help but grow enthused again.
"Think about it, professor. No ordinary pilot can lead an invasion of an alien ho system that is located deep behind enemy lines. No ordinary pilot can destroy the surface of that alien race's ho planet. No ordinary pilot can organize a heist on a cosmic scale. No ordinary pilot can lead the effort to terraform the stolen planet into a new howorld for red humanity. The scope and difficulty of this deed surpasses that of most other accomplishnts. This deed is only comparable to the mythical feats accomplished by the earlier generations of god pilots! If my expectations are correct, completing this planetary theft and conversion operation will be enough to blaze through all four phases of the ch Body rger Process at once!"
In other words, General Axelar Streon finally saw hope of becoming a god pilot in one fell swoop!
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