The Mech Touch

Though Ves had mixed feelings about the changes to the Mech Designer System, he recognized that most of them were for the better.

During the previous period where he had access to the System, he stopped taking many of its functions seriously. He rarely used the Store unless he wanted to buy Attribute Candies.

The only truly useful functions of the Systems was the Skill Tree, the Superpublish ability and the occasional surprises from winning prizes through the Lottery.

This time, every function of the updated System had become more useful and relevant to him. It did not matter that he couldn't gain access to any knowledge, tech or materials related to spiritual engineering from his mother or the Five Scrolls Compact.

With the new version of the Mech Designer System, Ves gained his own channel to obtain all of these interesting and fascinating products, most of which could not be found for sale in any corner of human space!

"Is it even appropriate to call it the Mech Designer System anymore?"

Now that he thought about it, Ves had become so dazzled by all of the new spirituality-related functions that he had yet to see anything that was still related to mech design!

Had the System deemphasized this aspect now that Ves could obtain most of what he wanted from his normal channels?

Ves actually hoped that this was not the case. He still valued the Skill Tree quite a lot. He would cry if it stopped with providing him with instant upgrades to all of his design-related Skills and sub-Skills!

The next stop on his journey to reach the top of the mountain was a literal tree.

It did not take much time for Ves to guess that this tree was related to the old Skill Tree function of the System!

The enormous tree did not look like it belonged to any alien species, but it exuded a strong sense of power that felt a bit familiar to Ves.

He frowned and tried to figure out why the large and lush green tree gave him the impression of meeting a familiar acquaintance.

"Wait a second. This tree is giving me the same vibe as the Polymath!"

Although it sounded absurd, Ves could easily mistake the tree for an inanimate version of the Polymath!

Both of them exuded the same high-level energy that was intrinsically tied to knowledge and truth.

As Ves slowly approached the tree, the System finally explained what it was all about.

[The Tree of Possibilities is a font of information, knowledge and wisdom. It regularly grows new enlightenment fruits that will ripen after the passage of time. Once the enlightenment fruits have ripened, they can be exchanged for Ascension Points as long as you meet the requirements.]

"Enlightenment fruits…?"

[You can choose to eat the enlightenment fruit that you have exchanged on the spot or transfer it to the Vault of Eternity. If you have chosen to do the latter,you can choose to materialize the enlightenment fruit in reality. This will allow you to impart the enlightenment fruit to others as long as they meet the requirements to absorb the information and knowledge contained within. If the fruit is ingested by an unqualified recipient, then that individual will only obtain a fraction of the benefits.]

"What?!"

This was one of the biggest changes that the System had enacted!

Whereas previously Ves was only limited to boosting his own Skills and Sub-Skills as long as he retained sole access to the System, now he could easily give others one-off boosts by passing them the enlightenment fruits that he had exchanged!

Compared to the old Skill Tree, the Tree of Possibilities was much more useful!

He could help all kinds of other people master new and useful Skills by bringing out the enlightenment fruits that he could obtain from the Tree of Possibilities.

Of course, he did not really think it was meaningful to spend his valuable Ascension Points on making his wife smarter and more knowledgeable.

She was already doing fine on her own. Gloriana had spent much of her life studying by herself. She was a clever designer baby and was already accustomed to this routine.

What Ves was truly thinking about was handing over a few of these enlightenment fruits to Marvaine and potentially other relatives he cared about.

Depending on what the enlightenment fruits imparted to people, they could easily give his son a powerful head-start should he choose to go into mech design!

As Ves looked up at the Tree of Possibilities, he soon noticed a potential problem.

He quickly attempted to estimate the amount of fruits hanging from the branches and came up with a figure that was around 400.

"Is that it, System? Will the Tree of Possibilities grow more enlightenment fruits in the future?"

[If the ripened enlightenment fruits remain untouched for too long, they will drop and decompose in order to make way for different enlightenment fruits.]

"What?! It's not enough for you to create artificial scarcity once. Now you're doing it again! Do you have no shame?!"

[...]

Ves silently cursed the devious System. If the Tree of Possibilities could only sustain a couple of hundred enlightenment fruits at once, then it would be a lot more difficult to obtain a specific Skill depending on the distribution of their contents!

He recognized what the bastard of a System was doing. By limiting the variety of goods that Ves could obtain with Ascension Points, he would be forced to come back again and again in order to obtain the items or enlightenment fruits that he needed.

Due to this, Ves would not only have to interact with the System on a more regular basis, but also build up a form of dependence on it as he hoped that each time he would be met with particularly valuable goods on offer!

As much as he hated this annoying method of producing artificial scarcity, he felt that the benefits outweighed the downsides.

Although Ves no longer had the convenience of absorbing every Skill or Sub-Skill at his choosing, being able to obtain an actual physical fruit that he could take out of the System Space more than compensated for this shortcoming!

The actual worth of this amazing new benefit depended on what kind of knowledge the enlightenment fruits imparted.

He strode forward and patiently scanned a couple of dozen different enlightenment fruits.

It turned out that they were quite varied in what they had to offer.

[Random Mechanical Engineering Sub-Skill]

Price: 1 Ascension Point

Provides a Sub-Skill or increase in knowledge and proficiency in a Sub-Skill related to Mechanical Engineering.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 1.2 or higher.

[Autari Emsis High Momentum Maneuvering Systems]

Price: 185 Ascension Points

Imparts theories and applications derived from the signature technology of the auteri emsis race. The maneuvering systems developed by the auteri emsis race utilizes non-standard principles to enable vehicles to move and change direction faster when their mass is higher, but only at the cost of extreme energy consumption.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 1.8 or higher. Physics Skill must be Master-level or higher. Propulsion must be Master-level or higher. Metallurgy must be Senior-level or higher. Mathematics must be…

[Master Ainos Kadivi's Plasma Lance Principles]

Price: 32 Ascension Points

Imparts specific theoretical principles related to the plasma lance system developed by Master Ainos Kadivi. Plasma lances designed according to Master Kadivi's principles are highly compact and considerably powerful, but can only be built by using a narrow range of exotics.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 2.5 or higher. Physics Skill must be Senior-level or higher. Mathematics must be Senior-level or higher. Materials Science must be…

Much to his relief, the Tree of Possibilities still offered plenty of Skills and Sub-Skills related to mech design. The System had not phased them out after its latest upgrade but retained them in the form of enlightenment fruits.

"There is even alien knowledge!"

This was new! Previously, the Skill Tree only offered knowledge related to mech design that humanity had mastered and converted into its own theoretical frameworks.

Now, enlightenment fruits such as the one related to the autari emsis race could drastically increase his versatility and range of capabilities in mech design.

Just like how mastering luminar crystal technology allowed Ves to design considerably stronger ranged mechs, other elements of alien technology could provide a significant boost to his other products!

The only painful part about these 'alien' fruits was that they cost a lot of Ascension Points in order to redeem!

While Ves was able to surmise from their descriptions that all of these expensive alien fruits allowed him to instantly understand all kinds of powerful signature technologies of other races, it took a lot of labor in order to earn so many Ascension Points!

"I need to design 185 mechs in order to redeem that alien fruit related to high momentum maneuvering systems!"

There was no way that he could do this in a reasonable time frame, especially since the System had always maintained strict standards on what was valid.

Ves became increasingly more convinced that the System actually prepared other, more faster methods to earn Ascension Points.

"I hope I will be able to get in touch with these new methods soon."

As he studied the fruits, Ves noticed that most of the fruits related to mech design were silver in color. They dominated at least half of the branches of the Tree of Possibilities.

The other enlightenment fruits came in various different colors. Many of them were green but Ves also spotted other random colors such as blue or black.

[Modu Cult Maiden Scripture]

Price: 2 Ascension Points

Imparts the complete scripture of the Modu Cult that purportedly allows humans to become immortal. No practitioner has ever succeeded in becoming immortal, but females have been able to maintain bodies at a smooth and supple state for many years, hence the formula became known as the Maiden Scripture.

Requirements: Female. Spirituality must be 0.1 or higher. Endurance must be 0.6 or higher. Must have affinity for water-related attributes.

[Atmer Guardian Mantra]

Price: 299 Ascension Points

Imparts the complete mantra that enables talented individuals to cultivate their physical, mental and spiritual attributes. The mantra mainly centers around increasing the defenses of its practitioner, allowing them to withstand many attacks the more they practice its contents. Those who practice this mantra to the fullest will turn into gods that cannot be moved and are nearly impossible to break. The Atmer Guardian Mantra can only be fully practiced by humans that possess specific genes as well as biological modifications and have not practiced any other cultivation techniques. This enlightenment fruit allows an individual to ignore these conditions.

Requirements: Spirituality must be 0.4 or higher. Strength must be 1.4 or higher. Endurance must be 1.4 or higher.  Must have affinity for earth, defense or mass.

[Staff of Wipstitch Design]

Price: 7 Ascension Points

Imparts the complete design of the Staff of Wipstitch. This ceremonial weapon allows its wielder to channel nature-attributed spiritual energy in a more concentrated form, enhancing the effectiveness of any related techniques by as much as 65 percent. The design of the Staff of Wipstitch is flawed and slowly causes its wielder to accumulate harmful poison.

Requirements: Spirituality must be 1.2 or higher. Must have affinity for nature or poison.

"Now that is more like it!" Ves grinned!

Though the knowledge imparted by these enlightenment fruits was awfully random, they presented him with a whole new range of possibilities!

"This is one of the main reasons why I went for Spiritual Ascension!"

Ves had the impression that he had secretly managed to slip inside one of the hidden libraries of the Five Scrolls Compact!

Although he could only sneak in periodically to steal a handful of books at a time, this was already a massive improvement compared to before!

"I will definitely make good use of the Tree of Possibilities!"

Ves had long grown frustrated by the lack of progress in developing new and useful spiritual applications.

Though his T Institute did good work, he and Director Pesca Aduc were amateurs compared to the core members and leaders of the Five Scrolls Compact.

Now that Ves was essentially able to obtain much of the secrets in the hands of the Compact through the Tree of Possibilities, he and his fellow spiritual engineers would be able to make much more progress than before!

"This is truly a Tree of Possibilities!"