Creating a new cultivation method was not a simple matter. It was easy to write down different fantasies, but it was much harder to ensure they were sound, consistent and more importantly safe! The rich cultivation traditions of humanity encompassed many different theories that described what worked and what did not work as well. Ves did not have to start out from scratch. He possessed plenty of existing examples to build upon. "It's just like designing a variant again." He reminded himself. He first needed to select his base model. He chose to start with the cultivation method developed by his mother as it already contained the right structure for his own companion spirit. He then proceeded to strip out a lot of components from it so that it got reduced to its bare minimum. Ves noticed that his mother had designed this cultivation method in a way that made it incredibly modular and easy to understand. It formed a huge contrast with all of the ancient cultivation methods that seemed to compete in terms of abstruseness and complexity. He especially hated it when they tried to merge with all kinds of superstitious nonsense that added a lot of needless complexity. If the practitioner of these methods did not possess the exact correct understanding of crucial concepts, then it became incredibly easy for them to form the wrong artistic conceptions and suffer from cultivation deviation! "Perhaps this is a subtle form of copyright protection." Ves guessed. Tying in a cultivation method with strange theories and interpretations meant that it wouldn't be effective to people who somehow managed to steal it. Only the right teachers could help a practitioner to follow the right steps and form the proper artistic conceptions. In any case, Ves saw no need to overcomplicate matters for his own usage. Blinky's cultivation method was already highly specific to an existence of his nature to begin with. It was practically impossible for any other cultivator or spiritual entity to follow the same trajectory! Ves did not hesitate to fill up the space he just freed up with components from other cultivation methods. Naturally, he copied and pasted a lot of cultivation processes from the internal universe body cultivation method that originally inspired his crazy idea. Compared to many qi cultivation methods, the body cultivation method was a lot simpler and more straightforward. It gave Ves the impression that it was tailor-made for violent brutes who did not possess a lot of intelligence or patience to engage in complicated theories. This made it a lot easier for Ves to transplant the essence of its cultivation processes to the method he was designing for Blinky. Of course, Ves was under no illusion that simple copying and pasting would make everything work perfectly. He needed to make a lot of adaptations, just like how he needed to alter a mech design after integrating a new part. Though Ves did not possess a comprehensive technical understanding of this kind of stuff, his mother had taught him that every cultivation method ultimately amounted to absorbing some form of energy into strength or progress. As long as he kept this in mind, it became a lot harder for him to get lost. He just had to make sure that anything he added to the cultivation method promoted the absorption of ambient spiritual energy and converted it all into an imaginary universe. He split up into seven discrete stages corresponding to real stellar objects and groupings, though the boundaries between the stages were not that rigid. [First stage: continent Second stage: planet Third stage: star system Fourth stage: galaxy Fifth stage: galaxy cluster Sixth stage: supercluster 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚 Seventh stage: cosmos] It may be possible to add an eight stage in the form of a multiverse consisting of many different universes, but that sounded so ludicrously far away that Ves did not bother to think about it any further. Aside from that, he also differentiated his method into two modes. [First mode: imaginary Second mode: real] Blinky would remain completely stuck in the first mode in the pre-divinity stage. Only when he became a True God would he be able to enter into the second mode. Even then, it would take an immense amount of time and energy to completely convert his internal universe into a real and material existence! "My companion spirit might never be able to reach the seventh stage and completely enter into the second mode in my lifetime." Ves frowned. This was fine. Ves only required a certain degree of progress from Blinky in order to obtain real benefits from his companion spirits. The biggest shortcoming of this bold cultivation method is that Blinky would remain of limited use for a long time. It essentially represented an enormous bet on his future! By investing a huge amount in Blinky through all of the years he remained stuck as a pre-divinity companion spirit, Ves hoped to earn fantastic and continuous payoffs once his companion spirit evolved into a True God! Once Blinky became a post-divinity life form, he would not only be able to produce all kinds of rare resources contained within his imaginary universe, but do so in vastly greater quantities than other True Gods due to the huge amounts of energy at his disposal! Whether he fueled his matter creation ability with exotic radiation or the energies produced by all of the powerful stars in his internal universe, Blinky was bound to become a gigantic producer of high-value resources! It reminded Ves of Cassandra Breyer. Now that he thought about her, it became incredibly obvious that she used to be a genuine True God. No other entity was as proficient in producing matter out of energy without the use of technology! For her to end up in such a dire state served as a crucial warning to Ves. Even True Gods could end up weak and isolated! This was why Ves made sure that Blinky could leverage as much power from his internal universe as possible. "I'm not sure how effective this will be, but it's better than nothing." Once he completed the design of his very first real cultivation method, he took a step back and admired his handiwork. He instinctively felt that it should largely work, but that he may have overlooked a few crucial details. If he did not address these flaws and shortcomings, then Blinky's cultivation would eventually bump into huge unforeseen problems! Ves frowned. "I'm not good at this yet. I am just starting out. It shouldn't be a surprise that my first complete work is shoddy." That was not necessarily a problem. Unlike other would-be cultivation method designers, Ves possessed an exceedingly rare advantage. He had access to a friendly and helpful True God in the form of his own mother! Even though his integrity as a professional mech designer disdained an approach as cheap as running to his own mother to verify his own work, he did not want to joke around when it came to his own cultivation. Ves did not want to return to his mother too soon, though. He felt that he could still do much on his own to increase the sophistication and rigor of his own cultivation method. "Wait a second. I'm inside the System Space right now. The Mech Designer System offers all kinds of goods and services that promote Spiritual Ascension. I would be a fool to neglect its features! He still had a large reserve of Ascension Points that he could spend on all kinds of enlightenment fruits and other goods. Aside from that, he also possessed a radiant lottery ticket that he earned from turning the Phobos into a masterwork mech a few months prior! He hadn't been in a hurry to use up this incredibly valuable lottery ticket because it did not appear he was lacking anything truly essential. He felt differently now that he had become engrossed in cultivation methods. The Imaginary Universe Method that he was working on at the moment possessed a lot of promise, but it still had room for improvement. If he could obtain a huge trove of high-level knowledge related to spiritual engineering or cultivation methods, then he would be able to strengthen and optimize his current work to a massive degree! Ves was also afraid that it demanded special resources to get started. The biggest hurdle was to create the initial internal space that could slowly be expanded to form an entire universe. He speculated that he would have to use up a certain quantity of phasewater in order to form the initial space, but he might be wrong! The original body cultivation method relied on other special and powerful materials to open up a new space. It mentioned a variety of powerful fruits that Ves had never heard of. The attributes of these special materials largely determined the type and dominant element of the universe that body cultivators could form inside their own physiques! In any case, he saw no reason to keep his radiant lottery ticket in storage anymore. The longer it remained unused, the more he deprived himself of a powerful advantage. Ves recalled that he used to obtain at least two powerful and incredibly useful rewards from the radiant lottery tickets that he earned in the past! One of them granted him a Grand Dynamo Elixir. The powerful spiritual construct he gained from it had gone on to help him a lot for a time. There were good reasons why he designed Blinky to function in a similar manner! Another radiant lottery ticket awarded him with the Heart of Steel Mantra Fruit, which Ves fed to Vulcan. He used to be completely clueless about what the Heart of Steel Mantra represented, but not anymore. Ves recalled its description. [Heart of Steel Mantra Fruit] Imparts a complete understanding of a mantra that allows its practitioners to form a Heart of Steel. The Heart of Steel's primary advantage is that it can gradually increase its holder's compatibility and affinity towards metal and anything related to this element. The mantra is also capable of strengthening the willpower, mental fortitude and resistance against all attacks. However, the practitioners of this method are also prone to weakening their empathy and compassion. Those who practice this mantra to the fullest will turn into gods that are able to transform, manipulate and clad themselves with the hardest and most powerful metals. The Heart of Steel Mantra can only be fully practiced by humans that possess specific genes, a specialized mechanical heart implant, an affinity towards metal and have not practiced any other cultivation techniques. This enlightenment fruit allows an individual to ignore these conditions. Requirements: Strength must be 1.2 or higher. Endurance must be 2.0 or higher. Intelligence must be 1.0 or higher. Concentration must be 1.7 or higher. It was only now that he fully realized that this enlightenment fruit was truly worthy of serving as a prize for a radiant lottery ticket! Not only was it a powerful and well-designed qi and body cultivation method that granted its practitioners a clear trajectory towards evolving into a True God, but it also completely negated the requirement of needing an actual physical body. This was an absurdly powerful benefit! This was why Vulcan was successfully able to practice this cultivation method and form a Heart of Steel that gradually allowed him to control and nurture the small amount of high-grade metal energy in the external incarnation's possession. Ves briefly frowned. "I will have to modify the Heart of Steel Mantra as well. It doesn't contain any obvious deity cultivation elements, and it doesn't make use of Vulcan's inherent relationships with dwarves, mechs and craftsmanship." Vulcan was supposed to be a production-oriented spirit, not a steely dwarven warrior entity! If he wanted to obtain a powerful protector, then he would rather invest his resources into Venerable Joshua and do everything possible to elevate him into a god pilot! He could settle the many shortcomings of Vulcan's acquired cultivation method later. Ves was not in a hurry to fix it as the dwarven ancestral spirit was doing fine for the time being. He needed to spend time on much more immediate priorities, such as hunting down the Eminence of Torment and completing all of his new mech design projects. "I should use up my radiant lottery ticket first." Ves was not sure he could exert enough influence on the System to steer it into giving him the right category of prizes. However, even if he ended up obtaining a completely different prize such as an enlightenment fruit related to mech design, he would still be happy with the outcome! "Radiant lottery tickets never produce anything weak or useless. I can trust the System at least that much." If he truly needed to obtain additional knowledge or resources, he could always pay a visit down to the Tree of Possibilities or the Divine Bazaar and just exchange what he needed with his hard-earned Ascension Points! "It doesn't make that much sense anymore to hold onto my AP either." Ves thought as he rubbed his hairless chin. "I need to get a lot of stuff done now that the Age of Dawn has just begun. If I don't progress quickly enough, then I won't have enough agency in the times when I need it the most!" Ves was sick and tired of being treated as cannon fodder. With so many galaxy-wide events in motion, he yearned to become a more integral part of red humanity's unfolding history. He had a strong feeling that mastering the ability to design cultivation methods had the potential to completely supercharge his rise to power! Once he enabled all of his living mechs to grow more effectively by taking advantage of the ubiquitous availability of exotic radiation, they should definitely be able to revolutionize the entire mech industry!