The Mech Touch

Ves was right to suspect that the Sacred Temple encapsulated the essence of the Spiritual Ascension upgrade track.

The System literally created this place in order to help Ves, or at least an incarnation of himself, ascend to godhood!

The revelation that so-called True Gods were able to absorb faith energy in order to grow stronger was a massive revelation!

It explained so much why exceptional individuals such as Star Designers and god pilots were so different from everyone else in human space.

They were so powerful and developed their extraordinary natures to such a great extent that they were truly apart from normal humanity.

"Maybe the transition from a pre-divinity phase to a post-divinity phase is the common barrier that stops the vast majority of ace pilots and Master Mech Designers from going a step further!"

Ves had the impression that True Gods were life forms that managed to ascend to a post-divinity phase without specializing in any specific professions.

This produced many differences as True Gods weren't able to function like Star Designers and god pilots. Each of them stood at the same height, but they all excelled in different areas.

"So what use is this Sacred Hearth to me?" Ves asked as his thoughts turned to his own development.

[As you prepare for your journey to ascend to godhood, you must lay the foundation step by step by building up your Divine Cores. Before you or an incarnation of yourself reaches divinity, your Divine Cores are weak and limited. The Sacred Hearth provides protection as well as limited support to your Divine Cores, allowing you to develop them with greater ease, but you must vigorously cultivate yourself as well as your incarnations in order to transcend your mortality.]

That sounded rather vague, but he guessed that the Sacred Hearth might actually provide a lot of help to him as he reached the later stages.

Given how few Star Designers and ace pilots managed to make the critical leap, Ves could use all the help he could get to maximize his own chances of success!

"Wait a minute." Ves suddenly said. "If True Gods are a seperate class of divinity from Star Designers, a single person shouldn't be able to become both. If this Sacred Hearth is helping me become a so-called True God, does that mean I will no longer be able to become a Star Designer?!"

This was an extremely important question to Ves! The answer directly determined how much he would make use of the Sacred Temple and all of the more esoteric functions of the updated System!

[This is not the case, user. As a Journeyman Mech Designer, you are able to progress to a Star Designer but not a True God unless you undergo drastic changes. However, your most direct incarnation Blinky is able to develop into a True God if he continues to develop according to his most fitting trajectory.]

"I see!"

Ves relaxed. As long as the possibility to become a Star Designer still existed, he cared little about anything else. Hearing that it would actually be Blinky and potentially other incarnations that would be able to advance to True God in the future was nice, but not that interesting to him. Just because the System called them like that did not mean it was correct!

Now that Ves had become exposed to a different and more general way of classifying the power of extraordinary individuals, he tried to recall how many people or entities he knew that had reached the post-divinity phase.

"If I take someone as powerful as the Polymath as the standard, then I may have met a few existences that qualify…"

Though Ves had never been able to get in touch with his mother in person now that she had assumed the guise of the Oblivion Empress, he deeply suspected that she had become a True God!

"There is no way she can reign over the Nyxian Gap and beat up all of those 'dark gods' if she isn't as powerful as the top enforcers of the Five Scrolls Compact!"

From what Ves had gathered from studying the descriptions at the Divine Bazaar and the Tree of Possibilities, he was pretty certain that the Compact had managed to cultivate quite a number of individuals whose strengths had reached the post-divinity phase.

It was logical that Cynthia Larkinson had managed to grow to this point. If she was merely as strong as an ace pilot in spiritual terms, then she would have never been able to win all of the battles that Helena described!

What Ves found curious was that the Superior Mother had yet to reach this phase. The incarnation was powerful in her own right, but was still too young and lacking to be worthy of the title of True God.

The same applied to Helena, who admitted herself that she was not able to boast that she was a proper goddess of death.

As far as Ves was concerned, none of his design spirits were qualified to call themselves True Gods either. He knew for a fact that while they were able to harvest a lot of spiritual feedback, they were far too weak to harvest faith energy!

There was one exception, though.

"Gaia is pretty powerful…"

Ves couldn't explain it. Though he may have gone overboard by investing all of the universal life energy contained within an entire vial of high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum in her creation, this was definitely not the only factor that could have transformed her into what he now recognized to be a True God!

Even though Gaia was probably still in the process of transitioning to this state last he noticed, Ves became increasingly convinced that he may have inadvertently created a True God by accident!

This was because she was already able to get into contact with faith energy, which was one of the key factors that set True Gods apart from weaker spiritual entities!

"I see!"

Ves wondered whether Star Designers and god pilots also became dependent on faith energy in order to advance further.

On one hand, it didn't seem likely that this was the case considering that the MTA was a secularist organization that never erected any churches centered around its greatest figures.

On the other hand, the MTA did an awful lot to publicize its Star Designers and god pilots. Their biographies were widely available and they frequently showed up in the news.

Given how many people looked up to both groups, Star Designers and god pilots managed to amass an enormous number of fans, many of which were so fanatical about them that their behavior was hardly distinguishable from that of incredibly devout believers!

Ves' expression turned odd for a moment.

"Is the MTA a disguised church?"

This might actually be the case! Perhaps the mechers were keeping everyone fooled in order to prevent humanity from going too crazy again.

"Well, I still have a long way to go before I can become a Star Designer, so there is not much reason for me to think about this matter."

Ves needed to focus on his more immediate goals. All of this talk about godhood and divinities were way too far away to his current self.

While he recognized that the Spiritual Ascension upgrade track was meant to give Ves additional help in advancing further, the entire premise of the Sacred Temple was to facilitate the growth of a True God.

There was nothing about this place that could directly help him advance to Star Designer!

"If Vulcan is able to become a True God like Gaia, then that doesn't really help me all that much." He guessed.

This was similar to how Cynthia's advancement to True God did not help the Superior Mother catch up. The reason why one did not automatically bring the other up to the same level was because there were lots of requirements to meet all of the conditions to transition to True God.

Star Designers needed to design incredible mechs that incorporated unheard of technological innovations.

God pilots needed to be able to shed everything except their willpower and hope that what remained was enough to keep them alive!

Neither of these two feats sounded easy. Only the most worthy individuals in their respective professions were able to succeed in reaching the post-divinity phase!

Ves figured that becoming a True God was also as difficult. If this was not the case, then True Gods would have flooded human space a long time ago since they were not a new phenomenon!

He suddenly came up with an interesting idea.

"If the Sacred Temple can help Blinky become a True God, does that mean that I can use my close relationship with my companion spirit to reduce the difficulty of becoming a Star Designer?"

This was a viable theory!

Ves remembered that when Ketis advanced to swordsmaster, she also advanced to Journeyman Mech Designer in the same time frame!

Her double breakthrough was a legendary event. Ves realized that it was actually the first case where someone with a companion spirit had made a major breakthrough!

This was important because the strength of the companion spirit often reflected the strength of the principal.

Sharpie was not stronger than Ketis. Alexandria was no weaker than Gloriana. Blinky was roughly just as powerful as Ves.

If this was the case, then accelerating Blinky's spiritual development with the help of the newly-upgraded System might allow him to advance to Senior, Master and even Star Designer at a much faster rate!

Ves suddenly made another important recollection!

"Is this how the Polymath was able to break every record in the mech industry and become a Star Designer before she reached a hundred years old?!"

This didn't make any sense unless the Polymath was able to obtain a companion spirit or make use of another clever loophole!

As far as Ves could guess, the Polymath chose to specialize in pure technology. She shouldn't have been able to create or obtain anything comparable to a companion spirit during her rise to power.

"She probably received her own opportunities." Ves concluded.

Every Star Designer experienced an exceptional life. Though the records mentioned a lot of details about their lives, Ves knew better than to believe the public accounts were complete.

For example, the Polymath's biography did not mention anything about possessing a fragment of the Metal Scroll!

In any case, whether the Polymath served as an example to Ves or not, he was convinced that nurturing Blinky into a True God might allow him to satisfy one of the most difficult requirements to become a Star Designer with greater ease!

While Ves still needed to satisfy other requirements such as developing a fantastic innovation of creating an exceptional grand work, all of it would become a lot easier if his other self was already a True God with all of the power that entailed!

"Blinky, I'm counting on you to blaze a trail and help me become a Star Designer in the future!"

Mrow mrow mrow?

Blinky appeared from Ves' head and looked confused. What the hell was a True God exactly and how was he supposed to grow into one? He was just a spiritual cat that was formed out of a fragment of a dark god!

Ves momentarily became confused as well, but quickly remembered what he had just seen during his journey to the summit of the mountain.

"Did you forget about all of those strange scriptures locked within the enlightenment fruits hanging from the Tree of Possibilities? Many of the more powerful ones all claim to be able to turn someone into a god! We just have to keep our eye out for a scripture that aligns with your spiritual attributes. Once we have obtained a compatible enlightenment fruit, you can eat it and know exactly what to do in order to advance to True God! Together with this Sacred Hearth, your ascent to godhood will be smooth sailing!"

Mrow…

Blinky did not look as confident as Ves. Nothing should be this easy!