Ritual was a loaded word. Whenever Ves thought about this word, he thought about cultists gathering together around a pentagram that held an unknown but no doubt nefarious meaning. These stereotypical evil cultists garbed in face-obscuring black robes chanted unintelligible words while holding aloft serpentine daggers. Meanwhile a head priest presided over the ritual by standing in the center while looming over a captive prisoner that had been affixed to a demonic altar. Once the ritual reached the climax, the head priest sank his own dagger through the heart of the helpless captive, causing copious amounts of blood to spill from the altar and filling up the grooves on the floor. The cultists then proceeded to make the ultimate sacrifice without thought by sinking their own daggers through their chests! As each of these brainwashed schmucks dropped to the floor, their blood entered the grooves that made up the pentagram and completely filled it up to the brim. This caused the pentagram to draw from the power of life and enact a powerful but completely tainted procedure that caused the head priest to laugh in a maniacal fashion! "HAHAHAHAHA!" The man garbed in an elaborate robe burst out while lifting up his arms. "The old gods shall rise again! Awaken from your slumber and accept this humble sacrifice of mine! Hear the call of your devotees and bestow us with your dark blessing!" The head priest's efforts soon yielded a result as the man abruptly stopped laughing as his body started to convulse. Soon enough, screams escaped from his throat as the 'blessing' of his deity turned out to be anything but as his body soon morphed into a reptilian monster that had lost all of its rationality! Ves shook his head to clear his mind of this image. Whether there was any basis of truth to this lurid portrayal of rituals, Ves vowed to be careful in its usage. As for whether the peaceful counterparts of battle formations were in any way viable, Ves had a strong suspicion that this was the case. He recalled the rituals that people conducted in the past. He remembered the elaborate ceremonies that he organized in order to birth the Superior Mother. The exaggerated use of people and causing them to be arranged in a highly symbolic manner may have actually produced a substantial boost to the creation of the design spirit! Of course, there was no way for Ves to prove that all of these exaggerated measures produced a substantial effect. It was not as if he could attempt to create another Superior Mother but in complete isolation so that he had enough material to conduct a comparison study. This was why Ves had remained ambivalent about rituals for a long time. They were too difficult to test in practice and it seemed that he was doing fine without making use of them in his projects. It was natural for him to dismiss the power of rituals. Not only did people develop all kinds of weird ideas about them, Ves also didn't need to resort to it in the first place. He possessed more than enough strength to design and fabricate strong mechs and other products by himself! It was just like how ace pilots did not need to make use of any battle formations to fight and win their battles. They were so strong that the benefits of battle formations were marginal at best! However, just because ace pilots with ace mechs possessed the ability to block and shrug off the effects of battle formations for the most part, didn't mean that they were useless. In situations where ace pilots were too busy with their own affairs or absent in a fight, battle formations were a great way to exert a massive amount of power without the intervention of strong mech pilots! "If this method works for mech pilots, there is no reason why it shouldn't work with a bunch of craftsmen in a non-combat environment. They just need to possess strong, uniform beliefs!" As Ves became so inspired by this radical notion that he already started to draft an ambitious experiment in his mind, the noises generated by the sanding tool held by Rogha Dunnerholm abruptly ceased at this time. After working on grinding down and polishing the hard but exquisite metal statue of Vulcan in his human guise, the master blacksmith finally exited his highly concentrated mental state and wearily regained his situational awareness. pαndα`noν?1~сoМ The moment the dwarf slowly put down the tool and turned around, he fell completely still. He only registered Ves' presence now, which was quite remarkable as the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan possessed a strong presence. The bearded dwarf glanced at Ves' face and scrutinized it as if to ensure that it matched the face of his latest totem! Once Dunnerholm became satisfied with that, the dwarf roamed his body across Ves' body beneath his understated outfit. The dwarf stopped at the toolbelt that Ves wore. No matter how much Ves wanted to dress down, he was not going to abandon all of his tools and gadgets that came in handy in different situations. His plentiful experiences with trying to survive during a crisis had taught Ves that it was always best to be prepared! He would rather bear the discomfort for bringing so many different devices on his person 99 percent of the time when it turned out that he sorely needed his tools when the unlikely happened!ραпdα `n?ν?| сom Regardless, the dwarf fixated on one tool in particular. Dunnerhold became so fascinated by it that he unconsciously took short but meaty steps forward. The dwarf finally cracked open his mouth and spoke in his deep and characteristic dwarven voice. "You… you are Ves Larkinson. You are him, aren't you?" "That depends on what you are referring to, Mr. Dunnerholm." The dwarf did not sound entirely coherent at the moment. The master blacksmith became so overwhelmed by meeting Ves in the flesh that he didn't know which of his burning questions he wanted answered first! Samandra Avikon picked up on this and tried to moderate the exchange. "Master Dunnerholm, haven't you always wanted to question our patriarch about his involvement in the downfall of your former state?" "Ah, that is correct, ma'am." The older dwarf shifted his gaze away from the tool hanging from Ves' side and focused back on studying the clan patriarch's expression. "Mr. Larkinson, let me ask you a question. Are you responsible for the downfall of the Vulcan Empire?" "It depends on what you mean by the word 'responsible'. It also depends on whether you consider the crazy actions of your fellow dwarves to be their fault or my fault." Ves replied in an evasive manner. This caused Dunnerholm to close his eyes for a moment. "Be straight with me, please. I have waited too long to hear a real answer from you. Many surviving Vulcanites are spreading all kinds of stories on the galactic net and to their friends. Truth is being engulfed by lies and biased opinions that I did not know who to trust anymore. Did you truly make those totems of Vulcan in his guise as a human and a dwarf? Did you deliberately spread them out to forment chaos and anarchy?" "..." "I need to know, and the only source that can clear the confusion that my fellow survivors and I have grappled with for years. This is why I worked hard to qualify for your Creation Association. While you moved on and proceeded to attain greater feats, many of us drifted without aim or purpose." Ves and Samandra could feel the depth of pain in the Vulcanite's heart. The man had undergone a traumatic experience years ago and never fully healed from his mental wounds. This caused Ves to be a little more honest and transparent with the old dwarf. The latter most certainly deserved a straight answer after all of the suffering that he and his people endured! "If you really want a straight answer from me, then yes, I did create all of those totems." He replied. "I think you must have encountered one in person because you know how to make these totems remarkably well. However, if I have to bear any responsibility for collapsing the Vulcan Empire that has existed for so many decades, then I should not bear all of it. From my perspective, the radical believers of the Vulcan Faith and the Dwarven God Cult tore your state apart from the inside." This was an interesting case to Samandra Avikon. "How should the faithful respond when his own god unleashes an apocalypse on their state?" "Hey! Don't call it an apocalypse! I did no such thing! I never rained down meteorites onto planets or caused a massive space storm to scour every part of the Vulcan Empire of life!" Ves protested. "You knowingly instigated the Vulcanites to fight against each other. Even if you did not control the minds of the believers of both camps, you still managed to manipulate them in a more indirect manner." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢 "So?" "Not every apocalypse has to rain fire and ash. There are doomsdays scenarios that unfold in a much more covert and undetected manner. As long as the outcome remains the same, it should be regarded as an apocalypse." The dwarven master blacksmith frowned as he tried to follow the conversation. "Does that mean you have single-handedly topped our state by using small and subtle means?" Ves did not like this question. "It may be difficult to realize this when you were an insider yourself, but now that you have roamed around outside of your previous insular circumstances, you probably learned enough to know that your state was not exactly a model state for both dwarves and humans. Do you acknowledge this, Dunnerholm?" "Aye… I cannot deny that the Vulcan Empire that I used to be a proud citizen of had degenerated into sectarian strife." "Not every state deserves to exist." Ves told him in a judgmental tone. "There comes a time where its people have fallen to such an extent that prolonging the status quo does more harm than good. Even without my intervention, the Vulcan Empire would have torn itself apart sooner or later. I just triggered it earlier than scheduled by conducting a little test. So yes, I spread two different kinds of totems throughout the Vulcan Empire." This was a serious admission and could be used to nail Ves in a court depending on the situation! As a citizen of the state that became adversely affected by the Larkinson Patriarch, Rogha Dunnerholm finally had the answer he dreaded to obtain but needed to know in order to settle the aches in his heart. "So you did it after all…" He whispered in a deep but pained voice. Ves let out a tired breath. "As a master blacksmith, you have surely designed and crafted a lot of products over your long and storied career. I am sure that many of your works satisfied your clients and brought you joy when you completed them. However, it is inevitable for you to work hard but only end up with a disappointing result. Some of them may even be regarded as outright failures. What do you do when you have produced an unqualified work? Would you keep it and pass it on to your client?" "Never! I would destroy the work with my own hands before I let an unqualified work taint my reputation and profession!" The dwarf spoke with conviction! A master blacksmith had to keep himself to high standards. There was no way he would gain so much recognition and status if he began to grow lazy and sloppy. "The same applies to the Vulcan Empire." Ves responded. "While I did not kill all of the dwarves in person and broke up the mighty state with my mech legions, I gave it a test that could make or break its future. Whether your fellow Vulcanites deserved to keep on living in a cesspool of hatred and ignorance was up to them. I never instigated the dwarves to drive themselves into a religious frenzy and commit acts of violence against their former friends and neighbors. In the end, they did that to themselves, and all it took to unleash their darkness was to get their hands on a bunch of funny statues. It is not the totems that destroyed your state, but its own people." The way Master Dunnerholm fell utterly silent caused Ves to suspect that the dwarf made this conclusion a long time ago. It was not hard to collect the relevant information and put the pieces together. However, knowing the cold hard truth was one thing. Admitting it was another thing!