Chapter 6151 The Power of Curses Consuming the Introduction to the Withering Curse Enlightenment Fruit was one of the best decisions that Ves had made as of late. It contained knowledge on everything that Ves needed the most at the moment. It granted Ves a clear and succinct introduction on the wood element. The information contained in the rotted fruit went beyond the other basic sources that he had absorbed in the past. Ves originally did not intend to delve into the intricacies of the wood element so quickly. According to his original plan, he should have invested more time into developing a solid understanding of the water element. He had already started on it for a while, and he hated to leave this job unfinished. Not only would increased comprehension allow him to better incorporate the water element into his hyper tech and E-tech applications, but it should also allow him to utilize some of his phase lord abilities more effectively than before. He then planned to familiarize himself with the fire element next. He already gained a head start in this field after helping the Dominion of Man transcend into the very first Bloodfire vessel of her kind. He could use the scattered insights he acquired during this legendary ordeal and quickly complete his familiarization of this volatile element. The timing of it was also convenient. Ves did not only intend to upgrade and convert the heavily damaged and disabled Promethea into a first-class ace mech, but also reshape her into the first proper Bloodfire Carmine mech of her kind. The more he understood the fire element, the easier it would be to develop what may possibly be the most dangerous elemental Carmine System! Ves had yet to formulate any plans after completing these goals. He did not have a strong preference for tackling elemental Carmine mechs based on wood, earth and metal, so he decided to postpone his decision until he finally reached this point a few years later. Current events had overtaken him, though. How could he have known that Task Force Solus would build their foothold on Reticula Corein V next to a powerful calamity plant. The Emperor Tree provided so much materials and research value on the wood element that Ves would be a fool to ignore the benefits! On top of that, the Elegant Rage's mutation into a half-wooden mech made it extremely convenient for Ves to extrapolate her transformation and turn her into a Woodsap mech. While Ves did not regret the detours that he had made, he could not deny that he completely made a mess out of his development trajectory. He deviated so far from his original plan that it had practically turned worthless by this point. All of this meant that before he ingested the enlightenment fruit, he lacked a solid foundation in the wood element. The lessons he learned from the Emperor Tree was not enough for him to gain a systematic understanding of an element that was closely aligned with his life domain. These shortcomings hindered him from making the Elegant Rage stronger. Now that the Introduction to the Withering Curse had addressed this shortcoming, Ves knew much more clearly that he had missed several opportunities to make his Woodsap mech stronger and more in tune with the wood element. "I feel so stupid." He grumbled. As a mech designer, he hated it when any improvement in his design capabilities forced him to look at his older works in a worse light. It was especially painful for him to recognize a lot of flaws in the work that he completed earlier today! Intellectually, he knew that he couldn't have done any better at the time. He had yet to absorb the Introduction to the Withering Curse Enlightenment Fruit before this hour, so how could he have possibly done any better? Emotionally, he couldn't accept this argument. He felt stupid and incompetent for developing and releasing his first Woodsap mech without bothering to mastering the basic foundation of the wood element. There were so many aspects about the Elegant Rage that he had left criminally underutilized! Ves resisted the urge to smack his head with his palm and tried his best to think forward. "I still have a chance to remedy this mistake." His new comprehension of wood was not particularly deep or profound, but it still gave him a few tips on how to increase the efficiency of the Elegant Rage's inherent regeneration capabilities. For example, Ves could teach the Elegant Rage how to take control over her own restoration process by concentrating a lot more wood energy at the parts that needed to be repaired first. By moving away from equal distribution and allocating more wood energy at more essential parts, the Woodsap mech should be able to last a lot longer in combat! "A third order living mech like the Elegant Rage can probably learn this trick on her own over time, but it is better if she masters this technique in advance." Ves did not linger too long in his newfound understanding of the wood element. What interested him even more was all of the insights related to curses. Since the enlightenment fruit was called 'Introduction to the Withering Curse', it went without saying that it offered Ves a true introduction into the subject of curses. From what Ves was able to learn from the knowledge package imparted by the fruit, curses had very different definitions, forms and meanings for as long as cultivation existed. Traditionally, curses possessed a lot of religious associations. They were so mysterious and poorly understood that people often regarded victims as those who had been cursed by gods. Perhaps there was an element of truth to these beliefs depending on the definitions, but it did not take a True God to cast a curse on others. According to the unknown group who developed the withering curse contained within the enlightenment fruit, curses were often regarded as a more covert means of weakening a target. In many cases, curses worked too slowly for them to be useful on a battlefield. They were much more useful when employed as a means to sabotage or assassinate key personnel without alerting anyone. Good curses could be cast covertly and over a long distance, thereby achieving the goals of minimizing exposure and reducing the risk to the culprit. That did not mean that curses could be cast on the battlefield in order to debilitate an opponent up close, but this was a more advanced application of curses that was not covered by the Introduction on the Withering Curse. An enlightenment fruit worth 77 Ascension Points could only cover so much theory. "There's no need to learn how to cast more advanced curses." With better theory and techniques, a curse master could gain the ability to bestow an affliction onto an unsuspecting victim that was many light-years away. A curse master could also cast a powerful curse onto a powerful adversary in the middle of a duel without giving away any clues! There were many possible ways to apply curses, and Ves felt incredibly tempted by all of the possibilities. However, the talent and effort required to go deeper into this field was too much for Ves. Unless he was willing to spend a lot more AP into mastering more advanced curses, it would take decades if not centuries for him to master all of these methods! Ves did not fall for the temptation of curses despite their usefulness. He was a mech designer first and foremost. Learning how to attack others in a sneaky fashion was not only a waste of time, but completely unnecessary. If he wanted to get rid of a powerful opponent, he would spend a lot of money or bestow powerful mechs to people who could do this job on his behalf. This was the correct way for a mech designer to fight. That said, there was one aspect about curses that intrigued Ves a lot. "Many curses can be amplified through the use of rituals." Due to their religious origins, a lot of curses could not be separated from rituals. By setting up specific conditions in a ritual, a practitioner was able to harmonize with the power of heaven and channel much greater power into a curse! Ves understood that the method of rituals was the key to enable the Elegant Rage to quickly drain the energies of a forest. He already thought of a few ways to allow the Elegant Rage to perform a ritual in battle. Rituals could enable the casting of many different curses, but the enlightenment fruit only focused on the withering curse. There were actually many different variations of withering curses, each of which should be applied to different circumstances. Most of the withering curses were meant to be cast on to plants, but there were also others that should only be cast on exobeasts or humans. No matter the target, the effects were roughly similar, which was the draining of vitality and other energies. Some curses produced a relatively strong effect, but only lasted for a short duration. Other curses could last for months, but this was by design as the probability of detection was not high. All in all, Ves gained a comprehensive understanding of the basic variations of the withering curse. "The biggest issue is that none of these curses are particularly strong." Ves muttered. The best curses could theoretically enable a mortal to cripple a True God! Of course, in order to achieve such an exaggerated effect, the weaker cultivator had to compensate for the huge gap in strength by concocting a grand ritual that likely drained several life-bearing planets of all of their energies! Even then, the True God may still be able to resist such a curse as long as he was prepared or possessed stronger spiritual defenses than usual. Although it was impossible for Ves to pull off such an insane ritual with just an introduction on curses, Ves still gained a lot of inspiration from the mere mention of this possibility. "This may be a way for the Elegant Rage to quickly drain an entire forest!" Ves initially bought the enlightenment fruit with the assumption that he would have to teach the Woodsap mech how to cast a modified withering curse that possessed an energy drain effect. Now, he understood that it was not necessary for him to reverse engineer the withering curse. It was much easier if he modified one of the existing rituals so that the Woodsap mech forcibly treated the surrounding trees as sacrificial vessels to fuel a powerful withering curse! Of course, Ves had no intention of letting the Elegant Rage cast the curse. Basic low-level curses were generally ineffective tribulation manifestations such as the alien swordsman. Even if the four-armed alien was fighting against the Elegant Rage in the flesh, ordinary curses should never be able to take effect on such a highly trained and disciplined warrior. "It's better to remove the actual curse component and replace it with another effect." Ves suddenly came up with an inventive idea. "Withering is the process of weakening a target and more specifically a plant. What if I can do the opposite? What if the Elegant Rage sets the target of the 'reverse curse' on herself and attempts to strengthen herself?" This was exactly what Ves wanted to accomplish when he decided to enter the System Space! Even though the Introduction to the Withering Curse did not contain any knowledge on how to reverse the withering curse, Ves was confident he could figure it out by relying on his existing foundation in cultivation science. "The opposite of a curse is a blessing. Perhaps the Elegant Rage may become known as the first living mech that can bless herself in combat!" Ves briefly frowned. He had already utilized the word blessing in a different context related to design spirits. In order to avoid confusion, it was best if he coined another term for reverse curses. "I'll figure it out later."