The Mech Touch

Ves learned more about the Oceancaller with each passing minute.

His appreciation for the replica artifact continued to rise as he managed to glean more insights and secrets from this flute.

Just the chance to get a good glimpse of the 360 runes that covered the exterior of the flute alone was enough to widen his horizons!

Ves had made very little progress in developing a greater understanding of his Ascension Runes.

They were pure energy constructs that mysteriously aligned with a fundamental universal force.

That was pretty much the extent of his discoveries.

He had been unable to reproduce them outside of his third order living mechs. This severely limited their applications, which was why Ves had turned his attention away from them despite their huge potential.

Ves needed to pick his battles. He could make much better use of his time if he spent more time on researching phasewater technology or hyper technology.

The appearance of these 360 runes had reignited his interest into the study of runes. If he was able to learn how to artificially apply a bunch of them into any creation, then he could overcome the limitations of his current implementation of his Ascension Runes!

Ves tried to interpret the meaning and the purpose of the individual runes as best as possible.

This was rather difficult as he did not possess a dictionary or a guide. The Oceancaller did not take the initiative to provide any explanations, so Ves had to fall back on his intuition.

With the combined observations and insights of Ves, Blinky and Vulcan, the 360 runes slowly turned into a more recognizable body of text.

As best as he could guess, the runes amplified and regulated the interaction between spiritual energy and the Oceancaller.

They were akin to an ultra-dense form of programming language. They already carried a lot of meaning by themselves, but their complexity rose exponentially when they started to work together with more runes.

There was no possible way that Ves could replicate this amazing application of empowered programming!

The degree of sophistication was simply way too much for him. The runes were as inscrutable to him as the impressive god mechs of modern human civilization.

He would have to become an existence comparable to a Star Designer if he wanted to gain the qualifications to manipulate spiritual energy in such a profound manner.

"Is my mother able to work with these runes?"

Ves was not so sure about that. She was clearly a qi cultivator. That did not prevent her from dabbling into creation cultivation, but the application of runes was so advanced that it was unlikely for part-timers to understand their essence!

Creation cultivators had to develop their own strengths in order to justify their existence. Ves guessed that the study and application of runes was one of the high-level advantages that elevated their craft beyond the reach of other professionals.

He developed a strong desire to obtain an inheritance related to runes!

Ves needed to pay more attention to the Tree of Possibilities. If it offered any fruit that enabled him to get started in this deep and profound application of spiritual engineering, then he needed to take it regardless of the cost!

"If that doesn't work, I can always resort to reverse engineering..."

Ves had no doubt that he would utterly fail to decipher and reproduce all 360 runes of the Oceancaller.

However, it was not necessary for him to possess a full grasp of them. He would already be happy if he was successfully able to master a single rune. If he was able to understand its purpose, functions and application, he could empower every compatible mech with this advanced E energy construct.

That already made the Oceancaller worth the price of a radiant lottery ticket!

Even if Ves was unable to utilize the flute in any fashion, that still did not change the fact that it was a real high-level artifact.

It revealed so much about the production methods of a Divine Blacksmith that Ves and Vulcan could learn a huge amount by drawing from this example!

Ves stroked the surface of the Oceancaller with greater care and affection. It was not necessary for him to decipher every single nuance that went into its creation.

He could already derive a huge amount of benefits from it if he was able to reverse engineer just 5 percent of the secrets that made it so powerful!

In the meantime, he could also make use of it like a normal artifact cultivator. The Oceancaller could not only serve as a powerful weapon, but also came with a lot of shortcuts that could significantly speed up his comprehension of the water element.

"Let's explore your powers a bit more."

Ves carefully experimented with it for ten minutes. He was not in a hurry to blow any further notes with it. He instead wanted to learn how the flute interacted with different quantities and attributes of E energy.

He soon discovered that the flute did not solely interact with water energy.

"Interesting."

He discovered that there was a more advanced way to produce sounds with the Oceancaller.

The mortal way was to blow into the embouchure hole of the artifact flute.

The transcendent way to play the instrument was to inject air energy into the same hole!

PFFFFFFFFF!

When Blinky experimentally blew air energy into the hole, the blue runes not only glowed a lot brighter, but it also took control of a much greater quantity of water energy!

To Ves' astonishment, the water energy rapidly condensed and transformed into a large amount of water that instantly launched into the mountainside of the System Space!

Even though the impact force was not excessive, Ves could easily imagine that he could summon and launch a much greater body of water if he injected a lot more air energy into the flute!

It was not difficult to figure out why the flute was so responsive to air energy. It was a way to play the Oceancaller in a vacuum environment or when he was wearing a closed helmet.

Ves even had a hunch that he would only be able to unlock the true power of the Oceancaller if he skillfully and proficiently made use of air energy.

"Air energy is just a control mechanism. It is not the main driver of its powers."

Ves soon discovered why the flute was made entirely out of metal. There was a reinforcing relationship between metal and water.

The former promoted the latter, so when Ves channeled metal energy into the Oceancaller, the flute was able to convert all of it into water energy!

Combined with leveraging the water energy that was already present in the environment, the flute was able to command water to a much greater extent!

"What about earth energy?"

Earth promoted metal but opposed water. When Ves carefully injected earth energy into the Oceancaller, the artifact immediately showed its first clear sign of an independent personality and shook in his hands!

"Sorry! I will refrain from doing this again."

The Oceancaller had made it clear that it did not like to get exposed to earth energy.

Doing so may be a way for Ves to discipline the artifact flute, but that would almost certainly deteriorate their relationship!

Ves knew that artifact cultivators utilized different strategies to manage their relationships with their bonded objects.

It was not uncommon for these cultivators to train their artifacts into tamed and obedient possessions.

While this approach granted them greater control, the chance of suffering a backlash always existed.

It was not in his nature to develop unnecessary antagonistic relationships with powerful artifacts.

He much preferred to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with them instead.

The Oceancaller was already positively disposed towards him, so Ves had a strong incentive to deepen his friendship with this artifact.

In order to do that, he needed to learn what sort of actions earned its approval and disapproval.

After a bit more experimentation, he concluded that the Oceancaller pretty much excluded every other E energy attribute aside from air, metal and water.

Ves grew disappointed when the flute rejected space energy.

However, that did not cause him to give up his investigation whether it was able to interact with phasewater.

He paused for half a minute before he decided to go down to the Vault of Eternity to withdraw a small portion of pure phasewater that he kept in reserve.

Ves carefully brought the flute to his lips and played a soft note while concentrating on the cup of phasewater that he had placed in front of his body.

Since Ves hardly made any noise, the effect shouldn't be too strong.

The phasewater stirred inside its cup.

When Ves blew a little stronger, the phasewater actually showed signs that it was almost just as responsive as regular water!

His eyes lit up after making this discovery!

"Phasewater may possess a lot of metaphysical properties, but it is still a variation of water. So long as that is the case, it is susceptible to the Oceancaller!"

Ves was not able to induce these reactions through regular spiritual manipulation.

The Oceancaller not only multiplied his effective control by at least 10 times, but it also seemed to expand the categories of water that it was able to control!

In order to test out his latest hypothesis, Ves impulsively conducted a dangerous experiment and tried to use the artifact to stir his own blood!

Ves almost botched his note playing as he actually felt as if the blood flowing through his arms wanted to spring out of his body!

"It works!"

He had made three powerful observations through this brief experiment.

The first important observation was that the Oceancaller was intelligent enough to respond to his conscious thoughts, emotions and intentions. The fact that it did not stir the cup of phasewater in front of him was proof that the flute was able to act according to his thoughts!

The second observation was that the Oceancaller was able to exert control over the blood of living organisms. There was no inherent taboo or restriction that prevented the flute from ripping the blood out of the bodies of other living beings. Only distance and the ability for others to resist this force could prevent this from happening.

The third observation was that the Oceancaller possessed a reluctant relationship with phasewater. The multi-dimensional properties of the latter made it much more difficult to control the exotic liquid. The higher the concentration of phasewater, the more challenging it was to manipulate it with the flute.

"In conclusion, anything that shares even the slightest resemblance to water can be manipulated by the Oceancaller. In fact, I bet it is able to manipulate anything that has liquid properties. Perhaps it can even control mercury or the gasses of a gas giant!"

The Mistress of the Oceans shouldn't be so easily restrained if she ended up in an environment that was devoid of water or water energy.

Ves had a strong hunch that a part of the reason why she made use of the Oceancaller was to expand her versatility and plug some of her obvious weaknesses.

Otherwise, it would have been way too easy for the many enemies of a mono-elemental qi cultivator to put her at a disadvantage!

The only part that was especially relevant to him was that the Oceancaller was able to control phasewater.

Ves wondered how he could take advantage of this property.

For example, he might be able to use the artifact flute to fabricate high-concentration phasewater components for a high-end living mech.

He could also destroy or interfere with the operation of a hostile transphasic mech or warship!

So long as there was anything related to phasewater, the Oceancaller would always have a way to exert control over it! The only limitations that held it back was his own strength and ability to control his artifact!

"What a domineering creation!"

The aggressive functions of the Oceancaller completely contrasted with its delicate and feminine appearance.

The properties of this impressive replica inadvertently granted him a much more thorough understanding of the owner of the original artifact.