If the first upgrade track was already outrageous enough, the second one was even more astonishing! Just the last part was more than enough to drive every person in the mech community crazy if they knew this option was available! Ves forcibly tried to calm himself down. He already began to understand the division between the upgrade tracks. The first one was undoubtedly centered around increasing his agency and facilitating his own growth. To be more precise, it allowed him to affect the course of human history more extensively by allowing him to more frequently travel back in the past without worrying about anything happening to him in the present time. It also allowed him to accrue a much more comprehensive understanding and mastery of many different mech types. This would undoubtedly help him design mechs that exquisitely accommodated the needs of many mech pilots! The second track followed a completely different tack. It did not improve his design capabilities directly, but enabled him to gather the strongest or the most promising mech pilots and improve their fighting capabilities in many different ways! If Ves was able to gather stronger and more formidable mech pilots around him, he would not only feel a lot safer against external threats, but also gain opportunities to design stronger mechs that fully kept up with their improved performance! "This is the perfect choice if I want to build the best mech army!" He would be lying if he said he wasn't tempted. Wasn't he worrying about trying to gather 1 billion MTA merits recently because he feared that his second daughter Andraste might not develop the right genetic aptitude to pilot a mech? Even if she did luck out and turned into a potentate when she became ten years old, Ves could still grant her better opportunities by asking the Transhumanist Faction to upgrade her talent. "Rather than relying on others, it's best to do this myself!" Though Ves hoped to be able to develop his own solution to this impossible problem, he knew that his chances of succeeding were too slim. By choosing the second upgrade track, he would not only gain a guaranteed method to repair the genetic aptitude of other people, but gain other powerful means to empower his warriors even further! Still, as much as he felt attracted by the possibilities of the second upgrade track, he grew hesitant about it due to one important factor. "It doesn't focus on empowering me directly." Choosing this upgrade track meant that the System would specialize in a direction that effectively made him more dependent on the protection of other people. Even though Ves had a lot of confidence in his ability to recruit and retain the loyalty of his subordinates, a part of him felt uncomfortable for building up a dependence on other people. "This is the life of a mech designer." Ves sighed. Though this was most certainly a downside, it was not as if his situation was any different from now. The current age of humanity completely centered around mechs, and the only individuals who could make effective use of them were mech pilots. Therefore, the second upgrade track perfectly fit the present circumstances. Making mech pilots as powerful as possible would definitely benefit him the most as long as he maintained control over the soldiers in question. Ves did not ignore the possibilities of the first upgrade track, though. The initial option presented by the System was even more unreasonable. Who in the cosmos possessed the power to travel back in time and manipulate past events in order to influence the rise and fall of entire states and civilizations!? This was arguably the most unreasonable and ridiculous power of the Mech Designer System, and one that he did not exploit often enough. He did not realize it before, but now that many years had passed since he last went through a Mastery experience, he began to miss the benefits and the possibilities that it provided. While it was no doubt important for Ves to experience what piloting a mech was like from the perspective of an actual mech pilot, the fact that he was thrust into the mind of an individual in the past was an implication that he did not fully appreciate in the past! If he ever regained the ability to go on trips to the past again, he intended to be a lot more unrestrained with his actions. In any case, if the MTA or anyone else got wind of his manipulative actions, Ves could easily pass off all of the blame to the mysterious 'Mr. S.', a presumed Star Designer whose traces could only be found in fleeting points of history. Before Ves made any further considerations, he paused and waited for the System to deliver its next option. He had a feeling that it was far from finished with its presentation. He was right. The System no longer presented images of powerful and heroic mech pilots to Ves. Instead, the gray ball began to project images of a single individual that Ves immediately recognized. "That's me!" Ves gasped! Perhaps the System had picked up his dissatisfaction at the previous option's lack of personal empowerment, because this next choice centered all around Ves! [Upgrade Track #3: Spiritual Ascension. This upgrade trajectory specializes in cultivating, upgrading and empowering the user's personal spiritual capabilities. You will be able to accumulate considerably more spiritual energy and increase its quality through various means. You will be able to learn vastly more techniques to utilize spiritual energy and receive comprehensive assistance in developing new and original techniques. You will gain the possibility to evolve and transcend your mortal limitations and attain true godhood. You will also have the possibility to spread yourself across many more incarnations, each of which can experience life in different forms and develop different talents and powers.] "What?!" Though he already guessed that the third upgrade choice centered around strengthening himself directly, the possibilities that the System mentioned sounded so ridiculous that they could compete against the possibilities of the other upgrade tracks! Though Ves did not take the claims surrounding godhood seriously, he did recognize the insane benefits that he would obtain if he was able to beef up his strongest specialty, his spiritual engineering abilities. He would love nothing more than to wield more spiritual energy and be able to harness it in a much more sophisticated way. Not just to empower himself, but also empower his mechs with special and amazing properties. The mention of acquiring more incarnations also sounded interesting to Ves. Blinky and Vulcan granted him brand-new abilities and options that expanded his repertoire and vastly increased his versatility. Though he was theoretically capable of creating additional incarnations, he feared that going overboard might cause him to weaken his 'original' self and spread himself out across too many versions of himself. If the third upgrade track was able to minimize the downsides of creating additional incarnations, then this would begin to look like a much more attractive option. This was especially the case when there was a possibility where he would be able to create 'backups' of himself that ensured that he would be able to live on even if someone completely obliterated his original body! "Still… is this what I truly want?" The third upgrade track was all about survival and personal empowerment, both of which possessed selfish connotations. It did not mention anything directly about improving his mech design capabilities or helping his customers. It did not escape the fact that this trajectory also sounded awfully similar to the power system of the cultists of the Five Scrolls Compact. Though Ves did not have a lot of personal encounters with the dreaded Compact, he knew that the cultists completely embraced personal empowerment. While this did not necessarily sound wrong, the problem was that many of its powerhouses were extremely selfish and callous to the point of treating the lives of anyone lesser than themselves as trash! If Ves followed in the Compact's footsteps, he feared that he may also develop the same obsession. "I'm a mech designer." Ves spoke as if to remind himself. "I have dedicated my life to serving mech pilots. A bit of selfishness is okay. No human is perfect. However, if my goal to become stronger no longer centers around designing stronger and more useful mechs, then is this trajectory truly the right choice for my present self?" The System was ultimately an assisting tool. Just because it was able to turn him into a monster did not mean he would necessarily become one. It was all about how he leveraged its possibilities. As long as he maintained his discipline and followed a predetermined strategy, Ves could easily imagine himself becoming a more skilled and comprehensive spiritual engineer who could easily empower a mech through multiple dazzling means. Besides, he did not have to reject everything the third upgrade track offered for fear of losing his true self. It all came down to how much he was able to cling to his original identity and goals. Still, he vaguely felt that this upgrade track might not be the most optimal path of becoming a better mech designer. Fortunately, the System presented him with another upgrade direction that catered much more extensively to this need! [Upgrade Track #4: Technological Supremacy. This upgrade trajectory assists and strengthens your efforts into learning, mastering and utilizing different forms of technology. The Mech Designer System will be able to tap in many more branches of technology, granting you access to secret and less widespread human innovations at a lower cost. Furthermore, you will more easily be able to learn and decipher alien technologies, much of which humanity has yet to understand. You will also gain access to different methods of cognitive empowerment in order to strengthen your ability to absorb and make effective use of vastly greater data and knowledge.] Ves instantly tied this upgrade track to a single iconic individual. "The Polymath." There was no way he could miss the connection. While he could not tell if the famous Star Designer had been presented with the same upgrade trajectories as Ves, he was pretty certain that her fragment of the Metal Scroll undoubtedly helped her master technology with far greater ease than before! This package fit perfectly with a mech designer that was obsessed with mastering as much tech as possible. As a rational mech designer, she possessed the least bias against any specific fields of technology, which meant she could unflinchingly master vastly different fields of technology without worrying about incompatibility and clashes between different philosophies. "I'm not the Polymath." Ves mentally shook his head. Perhaps his rejection came from his desire to be different from anyone else, but he did not want to become an inferior version of the Polymath. Ves was a passionate mech designer who did not necessarily care about mixing and matching the best and most appropriate pieces of tech in his mech designs. He was a firm believer in specialization and felt that he would ultimately be able to develop vastly superior mech by developing his current strengths to their limits and beyond! "Well, that's easy, then." This was the only upgrade track that Ves rejected shortly after its introduction. Though he did not deny the immense boost that this could provide to his future mech design projects and other technological endeavors, he felt there was more to his life and career than learning as much tech as possible! Besides, if Ves started to excel in this aspect in the following years and decades, he was immensely afraid that the Polymath might drop by for another friendly 'visit'! "The less I have in common with that Star Designer, the better!" It didn't matter if she was one of the leaders of the MTA faction that he was close with. The fact that she possessed a fragment of the Metal Scroll meant that she most certainly desired to obtain additional pieces of this mythical artifact! This meant that he and the Polymath were rivals and competitors in a sense. To be honest, Ves also wished to steal the fragment that she had made excellent use of in order to empower his own piece of the Metal Scroll!