Chapter 3410: Selfish Witch "It was good while it lasted." Ves tiredly said. All of the metal energy that he managed to capture from Cassandra Breyer had fully dissipated after a long day of excitement and exploration. Though Ves was grateful for the opportunity to deepen his familiarity with metal energy, he was only able to grasp the surface aspects of this new high-end spiritual attribute. "I'm just a Journeyman. I'm three steps away from being qualified to harness this energy properly." He suspected that his results wouldn't be much better if he was a Senior. Only when he became a Master and a strong one at that would he truly be able to peer into the essence of this primordial and multi-dimensional spiritual attribute! That said, his meager harvest left Ves with plenty of food for thought. He didn't need to understand everything right away. It was enough for him to be able to obtain hints of greater truths. As long as he continued to explore and progress his design philosophy, he would eventually reach a point where he could explore those hints further. There was no need for him to feel impatient and waste his limited time on matters above his competence. There was one more observation that Ves had to think about. "Spiritual attributes are derived from individual people. Even if they center around the same concepts, different sources develop different interpretations of them. Their perspectives are all colored in different ways." It was similar to how every mech designer interpreted mechs in different ways. Ves judged them by how much life they possessed while Ketis paid attention to whether they sang to her. Someone like Gloriana paid attention to fit and perfection while Professor Benedict mainly looked at efficiency. They all agreed on the basic definition of mechs, but the way in which they judged how good they were and what criteria were important was all different! Something similar applied to life domains. Ves was biased towards the creation of new life as he dedicated his career towards creating mechs. Joshua leaned more towards cooperating and synergising with life. Cynthia emphasized the predatory side of life. Each of them shared a common basis, but they all developed it in different directions. The same should apply to Cassandra. Ves did not believe that she was a completely neutral and unbiased individual. The metal-attributed spiritual energy that she managed to form had to be colored by her personality, outlook, specialties and experiences. Discovering the personal nuances of someone's spiritual attributes and domains was one of the most reliable ways for Ves to figure out a person's true character! Although it was hard to distinguish anything personal about Cassandra's metal energy, after numerous hours of observation, he managed to form a couple of guesses. "I don't know about her other elemental attributes, but as far as metal is concerned, she's highly personal and only believes in her own might." The fundamental creed of mech designers was that they existed to serve others. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎 This was not a mere mantra that mech designers said to each other in order to market themselves better to humanity. This was a creed that every mech university hammered into the heads of orthodox mech designers. The result of this was that mech designers became accustomed to dedicating their work to other people rather than themselves. Even if Ves was designing a Larkinson-exclusive mech for his own benefit, he always had to take the humans that needed to pilot them into account. This was why every successful mech designer's domain was inevitably oriented to service and cooperation. Mech designers learned early on that they belonged to a greater society and that they only needed to dedicate themselves towards designing mechs. Others would take these mechs and use them to do the actual fighting. When Ves slowly familiarized himself with Cassandra's metal energy, he did not get the impression that she was willing to work on behalf of others. There was not a single hint that suggested that Cassandra possessed the character of a service provider! "She's selfish." He concluded. "The environment she grew up in and came into power is a lot more brutal than normal human society. There are fewer opportunities for cooperation and self-sufficiency is a stronger virtue than providing a service." Cassandra Breyer obviously succeeded with this mentality, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to harness five different types of high-end elemental energies at once. All of this indirectly proved that designing mechs wasn't the only method for extraordinary people to generate metal-attributed spiritual energy. People like this spiritual witch must have dedicated herself towards a more personal pursuit related to metal. This was not his path. Ves did not go through all of the trouble of forming a clan and building relationships with people like Gloriana and Venerable Joshua just so that he could become an all-powerful spiritual sorcerer like Cassandra Breyer. Those Five Scrolls Compact maniacs obsessed so much over personal power that this was probably the root of their failure! As someone whose design philosophy centered around synergy and forming greater power through cooperation, Ves looked down on a personal philosophy like that of Cassandra Breyer. Despite her formidable power and sophisticated techniques, she ended up in a crippled state where she was forced to wander to the galactic rim on a wandering escape pod. No friend or ally had ever sought her out and rescued her from her predicament. Ves even guessed that should Cassandra ever bump into her former Compact colleagues, they would definitely take advantage of her weakened state and exploit her until she was drained of all of her value! Perhaps this was why someone as selfish and self-reliant as Cassandra Breyer sought out Ves of all people. Maybe she figured out that he was a Holy Son yet simultaneously hostile towards the Five Scrolls Compact. Perhaps she wanted to take refuge under him, believing that a mech designer who regularly served other customers would help her recover. A despicable grin appeared on his face. "Hehehe. It's too bad you picked the wrong mech designer!" Ves quickly reined in his emotions and controlled his expression. It wouldn't let others know about what he had done. Though he didn't feel guilty about screwing Cassandra over, someone who used to possess enough power to become a peak figure in human civilization should not be an obscure figure! Ves had to make sure that he left no evidence behind. As he performed his checks, he noticed that his Unending Regalia and his Hammer of Brilliance were both different from before. "Huh?" He was highly familiar with both of their properties. He designed and made them with his own hands and used them on a regular basis. He could easily detect minor changes, and the differences he sensed were significantly greater. He frowned as he knocked his knuckle against the breastplate of his Unending Regalia. "That's strange." He began to develop a couple of suspicions. He decided to whip out his Vulcaneye in order to scan the physical properties of the possessions he used as temporary containers for purified metal energy. As his scanner went to work, Ves soon obtained solid data that confirmed one of his guesses. "It's stronger!" Although the difference wasn't revolutionary, Ves was able to ascertain that his Unending Regalia could withstand considerably more damage than before! The same applied to the Hammer of Brilliance. Its structural strength had grown as its metal composition had become a lot more resilient! Ves' eyes lit up. "So this is what high-end metal energy can do! Just a moderate amount of exposure is enough to make my gear more remarkable!" He wondered whether this process would continue if the metal energy lasted longer. How much stronger and more resilient would his combat armor become if it was soaked in metal energy day and night? Did other high-end elemental energy produce similar effects on material objects? Perhaps plants grew more vigorous when exposed to wood energy, human bodies became stronger when exposed to water energy, land grew more fertile when exposed to earth energy and flames burned hotter when exposed to fire energy. "These are just the most basic ways to utilize elemental energy!" Ves hungered for the power of metal energy even more after he discovered this additional surprise. Forget about empowering his personal gear. What if he used metal energy to augment the defenses and potentially other properties of his mechs? His most powerful products such as the Shield of Samar and the Everchanger would turn into absolute monsters if they were reinforced with metal energy! "It's a pity I don't have any at my disposal anymore." He sighed yet again. Though Vulcan managed to integrate a trace of metal energy, the design spirit wasn't able to make more of it. He only reluctantly contained it and kept it into place. Making more of it was too far away, so Ves couldn't afford to squander this limited resource. Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "If every Star Designer can channel enough metal energy to augment their mechs and other products this way, then that would explain why they are absolutely revered." Just this strengthening capability alone was of immense value! From what Ves could observe, although metal energy was prickly and hard to handle, it was also able to empower any metallic or solid object with ease. The best part of it was that exerting this effect did not come at a cost. His combat armor and hammer did not grow weaker in any other way and could still be used as before. Ves even guessed that hosting all of that powerful metal energy also produced other beneficial effects, but he lacked the means to detect them as neither his poor Vulcaneye or his other industrial scanners could detect any other changes. He scratched his head. "Oh well. They were already quite good before, so every little bit helps." Once he was finished with summarizing all of his gains, he wrapped up this little side activity and went back in order to enjoy a good rest. After he woke up the next day, he played with his baby daughter for an hour before he resumed his preparations for his clan's upcoming passage through the beyonder gate. The Tarnished Crown Star Sector was a lot livelier than the other star sectors the expeditionary fleet passed through. There were thrice as many ships and fleets in any star system on average. The amount of traffic passing through the star systems on the popular trading routes was even worse! In one instance, the Larkinsons even entered a star system that was occupied by a superfleet consisting of over 180 capital ships! Suffice to say, not just the Larkinsons, but everyone else in the star system was deadly afraid of bumping into this major alliance! Fortunately, star systems were so huge that every fleet was separated by enormous distances. As long as one fleet did not deliberately chase after others, it was pretty unlikely for different groups to come close enough to threaten each other. The Golden Skull Alliance was not weak. Not only that, but the expeditionary fleet was still accompanied by a sizable escort of mercenaries. This was enough to travel along the trading routes with confidence. Soon, the expeditionary fleet came tantalizingly close to their main destination. According to the current schedule, it would take only less than a week to reach the coveted Opalis System! However, before the Golden Skull Alliance was allowed to enter this highly-guarded star system, it first had to stop at another destination in order to undergo a mandatory inspection. Anyone who directly attempted to enter the Opalis System without passing an inspection would be destroyed on appearance! This was not an empty threat. Different people and organizations made dozens of attempts to bypass the first round of inspections. Whether they were ignorant or malicious, it didn't matter. The MTA's powerful first-class multipurpose mechs blasted any unknown element that intruded in the gate system without permission! With this threat hanging over every prospective pioneer's head, people like Ves had no choice but to line up in front of the checkpoint and obediently allow the MTA to look at his stuff. "Let's hope the inspectors don't find any fault."