The Mech Touch

5966 Self Development

"What is it, my child? I already informed you that I am preoccupied with important matters."

Veronica felt the powerful pressure of Cynthia's domain. It had grown stronger ever since she started to collaborate with the Evolution Witch. Her strengthening domain easily swept through the entire hull of the Throne of Light, the current flagship of the Oblivion Empire.

This change was not only a reflection of her recent gains, but also an indication that she no longer suppressed her power as much as before.

Cynthia directed a lot of attention to the ongoing preparations for a big operation. The fleet surrounding the Throne of Light had grown larger and more numerous. A lot of supplies were being shipped from unknown locations.

The high centralization of the Oblivion Empress meant that Cynthia directly controlled a lot of different institutions. Part of that was because she wanted to grasp as much power for herself, but another part of it was because many of her subordinates were not competent enough.

This was why Veronica could literally see a glowing cloud of activity surrounding the physical body of her mother. She was acting like a supercomputer that ran millions of different processes in parallel.

Veronica could believe that the mighty Oblivion Empress truly had little attention to spare to her child at the moment.

"I don't need too much of your time. I just want you to borrow your insights on the darkness element."

"No."

"No?"

The True God pinned the cyborg cat with a judgmental stare. "I refuse to share my knowledge of darkness with you. I am aware why you seek it, but I will not oblige you. You can repeat this request a thousand times, and you will receive a thousand no's. You shall not receive my teaching on this subject."

"Why… why are you so adamantly opposed?"

Cynthia narrowed her eyes as the cloud of thoughts around her darkened for a moment.

"My comprehension of darkness is unsuitable to you. No matter how much I control my speech, I cannot avoid the process of sharing my own understanding and interpretation of this element. The manuals and other texts in my possession that can teach you about darkness and many of its concepts all share the same problem. They are written by cultivators who are too depraved for the likes of you. It is best that you do not come into contact with any repository of knowledge on this subject."

"Then how am I supposed to make any progress?"

"Do what you have always done." Cynthia stated. "Conduct your own research. Make your own discoveries. True wisdom can never be given by others. It can only be cultivated through diligent and earnest work. You possess a remarkably untainted comprehension of the power of darkness. Do not soil it by absorbing the flawed and corrupted understanding of fools who constantly try to gain strength by relying on shortcuts."

Veronica was surprised by how vehemently her mother refused to teach him anything useful, but she had already taken this possible outcome into account. This was not the first time she refused to pass on her knowledge, though her reasoning this time was a lot stronger than usual.

"I see…" The cyborg cat sighed. "Can you at least give me a few general tips? Please give me direction."

"Hmmm." The True God briefly paused. "Darkness is not omnipotent. It is fickle and responds poorly to positive energy. If you imbue darkness into one of your expert mechs, then do not expect your work to perform consistently. Your machine will perform better when it is clouded in darkness, but the mech will also correspondingly perform weaker when subjected to strong light or positive energy."

That was a helpful reminder, particularly when activating Destructive Phasing endangered the lives of Tusa and the Dark Zephyr!

If their attempts to phase through an enemy target ended prematurely due to the phenomenon of attribute restraint, then a huge accident was bound to occur!

Veronica needed to remind Tusa and his battle partner to never activate this offensive ability unless they possessed a generous safety margin.

"Thank you for your tip. I did not sufficiently take this risk factor into account. Do you have any other tips?"

"Get. Out."

Veronica felt a firm hand taking hold of her feline body.

She soon got tossed through the hatch right when it slid shut!

Back in the Red Ocean, Ves briefly grew disappointed with what he managed to obtain.

His stingy mother refused to share her knowledge with him. She had a better reason to do this than usual, but it did not change the fact that she left him to struggle on his own for the umpteenth time.

"I shouldn't be blaming her." He softly told himself. "She is correct that I need to learn how to solve my own problems."

As a parent himself, he understood the desire to allow children to learn how to stand on their own feet.

The fact that Cynthia chose to let Ves figure stuff out on his own implied that she believed that he could succeed.

That was a good sign.

"Maybe she's right. Maybe this is something that I need to work on myself."

It would be more time consuming, but the insights he stood to gain from this would suit him the best.

Ves took his mother's hints seriously and sorted out his extensive knowledge base.

His current assumption was that he already possessed the knowledge and insights he needed to develop advanced hyper modules.

He just needed to identify them and combine them with each other to produce the desired result.

"What connection am I missing? How can I boost the power of my proposed Destructive Phasing Module?"

He paused for several minutes until he came up with a useful idea.

"Maybe I should take a closer look at my artifacts."

He pulled the Oceancaller and the Flower Parasol out of his System Space.

He hadn't made use of either of them after the transformation of the Dominion of Man. There weren't any situations where he needed to borrow their power, and he had become far too busy to care about their existence.

"I'm sorry for keeping you in that vault. I will practice with you as soon as my work session is over." Ves apologized to the Oceancaller.

The high-level artifact was alive and possessed its own feelings. Ves really shouldn't have treated the extraordinary flute in such a poor fashion.

He still intended to deepen his comprehension of the water element. The greater his understanding, the more extensively he could apply it to his mech designs.

However, working with the water element was not his highest priority at this time.

Darkness had become a lot more relevant to Ves now. He needed to become proficient in its use as soon as possible, or else he would be wasting the reward he earned from the lightning tribulation.

"As for you, I probably won't keep you. There are others who need your protection more than I do. You are a poor fit for a phase lord."

The Flower Parasol lacked the ability to resize itself like the Oceancaller. That made it a lot less practical to Ves during the moments where he desired its protection the most.

Since it was only designed to be held in human hands, then so be it. Ves never really asked for it anyway. It was the fault of the Wishing Fountain that he received this embarrassingly pink parasol.

"I will gift you to one of my girls during their next birthday. I just have to pick the right recipient and time."

The parasol was not small or light. His children may be stronger due to their partial primordial human physique, but that did not mean they could comfortably hold a parasol sized for female adults!

Ves quickly recalled the reason why he pulled them out of the Vault of Eternity. Since time was of the essence, he quickly went serious and examined his artifacts with a critical eye.

His recent growth and sublimation allowed him to glean even more details than before. He faintly managed to touch the secret that enabled his Oceancaller to dynamically grow or shrink in size.

The Flower Parasol intricately made use of the wood element to power its demanding defensive functions.

However, there was a clear reason why the parasol was themed around flowers in particular. He deduced that it may possess a hidden function that was related to flowers.

He failed to find out what that may be. Ves possessed no particular affinity for flowers, so the ones printed on the canopy told him nothing.

The Flower Parasol never really approved of him. It merely tolerated him. The high-level artifact already made it clear that it preferred to be held by a lady.

"You will get your wish, but not now. It has to be the right time."

Hopefully, whoever received the Flower Parasol might be able to convince it to unveil its secret function.

Ves continued to study his System-issued artifacts. Their defective nature made it harder for him to appreciate their charm. He felt that he was missing a huge part of the original intentions of their makers. This hindered his ability to understand the artifacts.

His examinations were not fruitless, though. As Ves spent an entire hour examining the artifacts from top to bottom, he managed to form a couple of connections and obtained a few useful insights.

"I see…"

Ves placed the Oceancaller to his lips and began to play a short tune. Floating blue runes started to appear around the length of the instrument.

Though Ves did not possess a thorough understanding of runes, he knew that they played a large part in turning the Oceancaller from a simple flute made out of extraordinary materials to a high-level artifact!

"Runes."

Anything became more powerful once runes became involved. Ves believed that he could make his Destructive Phasing Module powerful enough to be of use to the Dark Zephyr if he augmented it with runes.

"I am not strong enough." Ves grimaced.

Senior Mech Designers still fell under the first major cultivation rank. He needed to advance to the rank of Master Mech Designer in order to become qualified to work with runes.

The acquisition of a proper domain allowed a domain shaper to make contact with a deeper layer of reality.

Ves speculated that this layer happened to involve runes.

Unless Ves could replicate this effect through alternate means, it was not his turn to play around with runes this time.

"Yet is it true that I cannot do anything with runes at this time?"

Now that he thought about it, he had been working with runes for multiple years!

His Ascension Runes were still a form of runes!

The key difference was how they came into existence.

Ancient creation cultivators manually applied runes to the original versions of the Oceancaller and the Flower Parasol.

Ves applied his Ascension Runes by setting up his third order living mechs for growth.

They just happened to form their Ascension Runes without requiring Ves to do any of the work!

This realization granted him a powerful inspiration!

"Can I apply this novel means of forming runes in other situations? What if I use a similar approach to slap a bunch of runes onto my upcoming Destructive Phasing Module?"

Ves was much more confident that this would work!

He did not even need to understand the individual meaning of every rune. He just had to set up the right growth process to avoid the module from becoming corrupted.

Though the idea of forming runes through growth made a lot of sense to Ves, it was much harder to form them on a machine other than a third order living mech.

"Unless… the Destructive Phasing Module can borrow the special qualities of the Dark Zephyr to promote its growth."

It would be like growing a new organ inside a body!

Ves believed this idea had promise. The downside was that the Destructive Phasing Module wouldn't be functional right away, but as long as it had enough time to grow, it should eventually be ready for use!

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