Ves had no idea how to create a facsimile of a design seed.
He spent several hours trying to brainstorm a viable idea, only to crash into one wall after another.
It was only after he spun around for the umpteenth time that he finally got struck by an epiphany.
"What if… the design seed is alive?!"
This was a radical idea that he had never considered before!
In fact, he doubted that any mech designer would have any reason to contemplate such a crazy suggestion.
Yet the more he thought about it, the more he felt that he may have moved closer to the truth!
Struck by inspiration, Blinky turned his sharp spiritual senses directly towards the modest design flame burning quietly inside Ves.
Alas, this inspection did not reveal any pertinent details. The purple panion spirit could only tell that the deceptively simple-looking design flame was an intangible construct that hid a lot of plexity.
It was impossible for Ves to examine the true depth of a design seed or design flame. He lacked the strength and techniques to perform such a deep and exquisite examination of one of the most multi-faceted phenomena of the mech designer profession.
Nonetheless, this lack of results did not diminish his confidence in his latest theory in the slightest.
He became even more certain that his design flame possessed a certain degree of life!
The lack of hard proof did not bother him in the slightest.
He also did not feel disappointed when his intuition failed to provide any clarity or direction.
He just felt that his guess made sense. The logic behind it sounded pelling.
The principal reason why he believed that his design flame contained signs of life was because it existed as an independent high-level construct within his Spirituality.
Ves originally birthed and nurtured his design flame from his own soul. It unquestionably belonged to him, but he did not have a strong degree of control over its behavior. The design flame acted pletely autonomously.
This reminded Ves of multiple shenanigans involving the creation of internal and external incarnations.
"It's not a panion spirit… but close to it." Ves tentatively concluded. "My design flame shares the same proximity as Blinky, but my control over it is nowhere near as close. Why are they so different?"
He already had a possible answer in mind.
It was because Ves was not the only 'parent' of his design flame.
In truth, while Ves may have donated most of the spiritual energy required to form the initial design seed, it was only due to another source that it had gained its exquisite structure!
The Kingdom of Mechs and later on the Red Kingdom provided the blueprints, the expansion modules and all of the other intricate instructions to form his current design flame!
Ves could never provide these plete templates and instructions by himself. Only an existence on the level of the Red Kingdom could fill up all of the gaps and impose so much uniformity among all of the mech designers under its jurisdiction.
It was for this reason and more that his design flame did not open itself up to him despite the fact that it existed to help him perform his primary duties.
Ves did not care too much about why the Progenitors of Mechs created these circumstances. All he was interested at the moment was figuring out how he could create a bootleg copy based on his latest inspiration.
"Design seeds and panion spirits share a few traits in mon. I can work with this if I start from this premise."
He actually felt that there was greater significance behind this assertion. He felt that he was closing in on a major realization, one that could change his entire perspective on a major subject.
However, given his current priorities, he lacked the interest to explore these unrelated tangents. He readily set aside his flights of fancy so that he could maintain his focus on his core objectives.
He began to doodle a few models and stuff in the air. The projected interface became increasingly more cluttered as Ves continued to explore numerous ways to proceed.
His initial idea was simple. He recalled the old design for a panion spirit fruit and began to adjust it based on his present needs.
It helped a lot that panion spirit fruits and panion spirit trees had been in use for several years now. Ves had access to a rich amount of empirical data. He knew it worked on a wide variety of human beings. He also possessed a decent understanding on how panion spirits formed out of the souls of different individuals.
He leveraged all of this understanding to engineer a new kind of fruit that did not seek to birth a new panion spirit, but instead sought to perform the Last Defiance Technique.
Ves encountered plenty of new problems along the way. He only managed to form tentative solutions to them. Without testing any of his work in reality, he could not pletely guarantee the soundness of his work.
As a result, by the time he pleted the initial design of the poisoned fruit, he did not harbor too much confidence in its mechanisms.
"This… is a decent start, but it is far from enough."
panion spirit fruits had originally been designed for human consumption only.
Ves tried to change that with his new design, but he was far from certain that it had bee patible with intangible life forms.
The deathborn did not 'eat' in the conventional sense. They were unable to ingest material ingredients. This meant that the poisoned fruit needed to function without relying on the physical act of eating a solid piece of fruit.
This mattered quite a bit because there was a powerful ritualistic ponent associated with this process.
"Perhaps it doesn't affect the oute that much." Ves looked uncertain.
He could only keep this issue in mind while he proceeded to address other matters.
Ves returned his attention to his original purpose. As long as this new fruit worked as intended, then any deathborn who 'ingested' it would spontaneously convert life energy and any other potent energy in its possession into immediate power!
That was a problem, because Ves did not want to make his enemies more powerful!
He could already imagine how much more threatening they might bee when thousands of them emerged on the battlefield.
They could potentially overwhelm the defenses of his Woodsap mechs if the latter lacked additional protection!
This must never happen. Therefore, Ves needed to make sure to change the existing process or add another one.
"Alexa's original proposal relies on a chain reaction to neutralize the deathborn at large. The plan was never to give the deathborn performance enhancers. The reason why we use the Last Defiance Technique is to use its underlying principles to create a new technique, one that takes advantage of the former's universal energy draining properties and converts it all into life energy, or something else that is just as appealing to our enemies."
The universality of the Last Defiance Technique was definitely one of its most brilliant advantages. Ves had no idea how the battle maniac who wrote the Last Defiance Manual managed to develop such a high-level trait, but the fact of the matter was that practically any somewhat intelligent living being could execute a version of this desperation technique!
Ves himself repeatedly felt amazed by the fact that the Last Defiance Technique could 'burn' anything from conventional E energy to the vitality of a strong organic body. Even the power of the mind or will could be used as fuel!
The problem was that Ves did not want to burn up all of this precious fuel.
Instead, he wanted to convert the different sources of fuel into life energy as much as possible.
This was a very difficult endeavor under normal circumstances, but this time was different because the Last Defiance Manuel hid crucial clues on how to make this transformation possible!
Ves had to wrack his brains for several more hours, but he made very little progress at this point.
"The core of the Last Defiance Technique is to use desperation as an engine to produce immediate power. Every concept and variable is deeply related to each other. They form a plete logical chain from beginning to end. If I change one variable, this chain will break, because the different concepts do not match with each other anymore."
Wait.
That was not entirely true.
The simplest versions of the Last Defiance Technique may be relatively flat and monotonous, but the more advanced versions produced much more prehensive results!
Of course, the plexity of the more elaborate versions had skyrocketed. Even with all of the artificial prehension and insights, Ves still struggled to understand the underlying principles and mechanisms behind the more advanced operations.
Nonetheless, Ves pushed through in his studies because he realized that he was close to obtaining the ultimate key!
"The rudimentary versions of the Last Defiance Technique only injects raw power into a desperate fellow. This will only allow him to launch one or two desperate counterattacks before running out of steam. The higher-level versions of the technique can do much more. An important ponent is the transformation of latent energy and potential into focused healing and restoration. While the efficiency of this conversion is not high, the ability to quickly heal an injured body is invaluable in most circumstances!"
This was a miracle in itself. The ability for a fighter to rapidly stand up from near-death and return to adequate fighting condition was enough to overturn the oute of entire duels and battles!
Ves needed to identify, isolate and imitate this key mechanism in order to develop the poisoned fruit of his dreams.
Only when the deathborn uncontrollably drained their dark essence in order to fuel a forced transformation into life energy would there be grounds for a chain reaction!
"Ugh. This is even more difficult."
Even though the theoretical foundation behind this advanced mechanism was way more dense and plex than any other form of E-technology that he had encountered up to this point, he still insisted on mastering this knowledge!
This was because as long as he mastered this transformation, he could freely develop life E energy generators that possessed countless applications!
In fact, he was already thinking about augmenting the Woodsap mechs of the Arboreal Project with a test version of this E-generator.
If it truly worked according to his vision, then the performance of his latest major work would definitely break another ceiling!
It would turn his Woodsap mechs into products whose prehensive performance pletely exceeded any other first-class multipurpose mechs!
As an ambitious mech designer, Ves could not resist the urge to improve his latest prestige work to a large extent.
"My Woodsap mechs will never run out of life as long as I master this secret!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers