The power of the Heart of Steel Mantra could not be overstated. This was a method that fully justified its claim of being able to transform mortals into True Gods! From the perspective of a mech designer and a spiritual engineer, Ves found the Heart of Steel to be one of the most exquisite and brilliant spiritual constructs that he had ever seen. Its intricate harmony and its extremely refined methods of absorbing and transforming energy displayed a level of spiritual engineering that was far beyond his understanding. Even so, Ves believed that he could learn a lot of ingenious tricks as long as he studied the design of the Heart of Steel for a time! "The best part about it is that this is just the initial form. Once Vulcan is able to grow stronger with his new mantra, he will automatically evolve the Heart of Steel into an even more sophisticated spiritual construct!" The Heart of Steel did not organically grow stronger like the living spiritual products that Ves tended to make. The mantra learned by Vulcan essentially possessed a complete blueprint that allowed the design spirit to upgrade his new heart step by step. It was similar to buying a basic home and steadily renovating it so that the house became larger and more luxurious over time. The process of upgrading its initial form into its final and most powerful state could take an incredibly long time! With everything that Ves had learned from the System, he recognized that the Heart of Steel had become Vulcan's new Divine Core. The strength and qualities of the Divine Core directly determined what Vulcan could do as an up-and-coming spiritual entity. The better the Divine Core, the stronger its holder would become! As the transformation settled down, Ves patiently studied the new spiritual construct and picked up a lot of interesting details. For one, the trace of high-end metal energy that Vulcan had preserved all of this time had truly integrated into his being this time! While it was still too powerful and high-end for him to harness directly, the Heart of Steel had smoothly turned it into the core of its new existence. This suggested that Vulcan should probably be able to make much better use of the metal energy than before! "Now that Vulcan has directly added a bit of pure metal energy into his new heart, his affinity and closeness to metal should have gained a substantial boost!" Ves wasn't able to test this new effect while he was still residing in the System Space, but he eagerly planned to see what Vulcan could do with his new Heart of Steel as soon as he returned to reality. The Heart of Steel possessed a lot of other powerful and useful functions. As the mantra that spawned it was mainly aimed at turning talented humans into powerful battle-oriented True Gods, Vulcan had become a lot more powerful in a fight! Of course, Ves had no intentions of ever risking him in an actual battle against anyone. Unless a confrontation couldn't be avoided, it was best for Ves and his design spirits to avoid repeating the mistakes of the dark gods. The main reason why stupid entities such as the Unending One and the Inexorable One had lost their lives after clinging to existence after many eons was because they put themselves at risk in order to win a battle that they didn't need to fight in the first place! "It's better to leave the fighting to grunts and more specialized combatants." Ves had already learned that high-ranking mech pilots paired with the right mechs were much more powerful than any spiritual entity at the same level. Their immense willpower and indomitable nature made expert pilots, ace pilots and god pilots extremely resistant to any spiritual shenanigans. Their resonance-empowered attacks were also extremely difficult to mitigate by those whose wills were not as strong, so people like Patriarch Reginald Cross could probably beat up Vulcan in an instant if his incarnation dared to manifest in full form. Ves shook his head. "Just treat all of that combat stuff as insurance, Vulcan. What you should be focusing on instead is to keep improving your understanding of craftsmanship and technology. Don't get distracted by any vain desires to become a warrior. True Gods are already outdated as far as combat is concerned." The Five Scrolls Compact would have never been beaten black and blue by the MTA if their old and powerful transcendents were worth a damn in a fight! The combination between a god pilot and a god mech sounded so strong that Ves could hardly imagine that anything else could defeat them unless the advantage of numbers was overwhelming. Though Ves wanted to spend several straight days on studying Vulcan's new heart and condition, he still had two more radiant lottery tickets to go through. "You can go and acclimate to your new condition. Don't be in a hurry to cultivate the mantra further. If you make your Heart of Steel stronger, I'm afraid that you will compromise your desire to create." "You don't need to tell me that, laddie!" His bearded dwarven self raised his fist. "Craftsmanship is in my blood! How can I call myself the God of Craftsmanship if I don't utilize a heart of my own creation? I already have an idea on how to design a more fitting variant." Once Vulcan went back to wherever he belonged, Ves drew his third radiant lottery ticket and paused for a moment. "I think I've obtained enough enlightenment fruits this time. There are so many of them that it will take a while for me and my people to digest them all. There is plenty of new knowledge that I want to study." Although knowledge was both powerful and incredibly helpful in increasing his comprehensive strength in the medium and long term, Ves also needed to upgrade his more immediate capabilities in order to give him additional security. "Let's go for a useful material this time." He managed to obtain a modest quantity of Black Demon Steel from a golden lottery ticket. With the information that he currently possessed, he gained a bit more appreciation for this spiritually-reactive material. If he could obtain an even more precious material, then he could truly boost his Unending Regalia to a greater height! Ves briefly concentrated his mind and conveyed his latest desire to the Wishing Fountain. He then tossed the ticket into the fountain water and waited for it to resolve the lottery. "C'mon. Give me a material that can make me more useful in different situations. It would be nice if you can give me an alloy that amplifies my spiritual exertions!" The Wishing Fountain went to work as normal. The lightshow and theatrics were the same as before. The only difference this time was that the fountain water unleashed a water spout that unveiled a new material instead of an enlightenment fruit! As the spout lowered to a normal height, Ves immediately approached and took his latest prize in his possession. He immediately frowned when he saw what he obtained this time. He expected to receive a metallic substance such as an ore or a bar of refined alloy. What he got instead was a broken piece of dark brown bark. It didn't even look that special aside from its hard and solid appearance! "What the hell? I thought you were derived from the Metal Scroll, not the Wood Scroll!" [Makian Tree Bark] This is the bark of a Makian Tree. A Makian Tree is a rare mutated tree variant that has grown in an area that is saturated with a mixture of wood and despair. The bark of this tree is considered to be cursed due to its exposure to the environment and its distance from the core of the growth. The Makian Tree Bark can gain special properties when treated in a specific manner. "..." After obtaining the Alfari Corps Detonation Code Manual Fruit and the Heart of Steel Mantra Fruit, Ves thought that he could extend his luck even further. The reality was much crueler, though. The bark did not look or feel all that special to Ves. While he was able to sense a bit of that despair that the description referenced, it was not as strong as he hoped. Apparently, Ves needed to process it in order to draw out the hidden potential of this Makian Tree Bark. The problem was that Ves had no clue about this processing method! He was completely in the dark as far as he was concerned! "If this stupid prize was a piece of metal, then I could at least use my existing expertise to figure out how to make good use of it by myself. A wooden material however…" Mech designers were not known for designing mechs with wood products. Sure, there were probably a few crazy and eccentric people that had attempted the challenge and succeeded in doing so, but those mechs probably weren't all that practical! "This is goddamn useless to me! What the hell can I make with a piece of tree bark?!" Even if the bark was special and possessed a lot of hidden potential, it was all pointless if he or anyone else in his employ did not know how to maximize its full value! "Wait, maybe the Aducs might know how to utilize this bark." If that didn't work out, then he could always request Gaia to see what she could do with this material. Hopefully inspecting this Makian Tree Bark was not an activity that was beneath her. It shouldn't be as the bark was ultimately a product of a radiant lottery ticket. The bark disappeared from his hand as he had silently sent it to the Vault of Eternity. He lifted his last radiant lottery ticket and thought about drawing from another pool of prizes. "I'm not going to gamble on any more precious materials this time. The chances of getting another obscure material that I can't use is too great." A radiant lottery ticket was a precious opportunity to obtain powerful knowledge and goods that were normally out of his reach. He needed to be smarter about how to make use of his final chance to draw from the Wishing Fountain. He thought about his children. Compared to other designer babies, Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine were much more powerful due to all of the advantages that Ves and his wife had secured for them before they were even conceived. It didn't feel like it was enough. If it was possible, Ves wanted to power them up even further! "Give me an augment, a medicine, a powerful ingredient or something similar. Give me a way to set my children up for success!" The Wishing Fountain did its work as usual when Ves tossed in his final radiant lottery ticket. He endured the theatrics and eagerly gazed at what the water spout produced this time. His eyes lit up when he saw that the Wishing Fountain produced an ornate bottle this time! From the moment he picked it up, he felt as if he picked up a container that restrained a highly potent object. [Frost Talent Pill] This bottle contains a single Frost Talent Pill. The Frost Talent Pill can grant a qualified and well-prepared human an immediate affinity for the element of frost that can grow over time. Requirements: Endurance must be 1.5 or higher. Concentration must be 1.7 or higher. Spirituality must be 0.1 or higher. "Uhhh…" Ves did not expect to obtain such a weird pill. This was not exactly what he had in mind when he wanted to obtain a boost for his children. While Ves recognized the potential value and power for acquiring a powerful affinity for a specific element, the problem was that he didn't have an obvious candidate for this pill. The only one that he could possibly feed it to was his second daughter Andraste. Just because her companion spirit Yaika became biased towards death didn't mean that her own domain was already set in place. One of the advantages of a companion spirit was that it could pursue a different direction from its principal! Ves began to warm up to the idea of reserving this pill for his daughter Andraste. He could think of many powerful uses for a frost talent for a future expert pilot. The tricks she could pull off with a domain based on both frost were myriad! When she combined this talent with Yaika's affinity's for death, she could become an even more lethal existence on the battlefield!