"Myaow myaow myaow..." Veronica squinted her eyes in pleasure as she ate chunks of delectable meat fortified with chips of Unending alloy. As a cyborg cat, her diet became a little complex. She was somehow able to digest both organic and inorganic food. She did not strictly need to eat daily meals in order to survive, but it was good for her health and apparently her cultivation. Before this day, she did not really understand how living beings such as Lucky grew stronger by eating a lot of specific materials. Where was it all going? He never really got any bigger despite literally eating a starship's worth of metal all of the years that he had been accompanying Ves! Now, Veronica understood that Lucky extracted the energies from the metals he ingested. Exotics had all been fortified with the power of heaven and earth. It took special processes to extract the spiritual energy that had been tightly intertwined into the structure of these special materials. Now that she was eating a meal that contained all manner of unusual ingredients, she could feel her own digestion system working to extract what little it could obtain from her food. Though the yield was awfully low due to various reasons, she was happy that she could promote her growth through the simple act of eating. She just became a little concerned about what would happen once she accumulated too many waste materials. Did she have to use the kitty litter box like Lucky? As Veronica filled up her stomach, Cynthia remained in the center of her peaceful meditation room. With the theory that Veronica had just obtained, she could already figure out why the chamber was set up in such a different fashion from the rest of the interior of the Throne of Light. The interior of the wooden meditation room had been arranged in a way to give her a more optimal environment that relaxed her psychological state and put her in a better mindset to cultivate according to a specific artistic conception. The prominent use of wood, the absence of cold and inorganic metals, the presence of flora as well as a little fauna along with the small river all conveyed a sense of nature. Veronica even had a feeling that the mediation room shared a close resemblance to a space important to her mother in her past. "Have you figured it out yet, my child?" The Empress of the Oblivion Empire spoke from her position at the center of the room. As the cyborg cat finished her bowl and licked it clean, she thought a little more before she presented her answer. "I think I have figured it out." Veronica said as she felt full and relaxed. "I will start with my own profession first as I am most familiar with its progression trajectory. It is clear that a mech designer is primarily a creation cultivator. He advances when he designs and possibly also makes mechs. The stronger and more ingenious the mech, the more progress he makes. A mech designer may be able to gain boosts through other methods, but they cannot replace the fundamental requirements of developing good mechs." Her mother nodded in approval. "That is correct. When the original developers of this special cultivation method created the framework of a mech designer, they wanted it to embody a productive pursuit. You see, most creation cultivation methods are auxiliary methods which can complement qi cultivation. It has rarely been the case that creation cultivators are forever locked in their professions and have no choice of following it through the end." "What?" Veronica looked shocked. "Creation cultivators can still break through by relying on qi cultivation?! So blacksmithing, pharmacy and farming are just side jobs to these people?!" 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢 Cynthia smirked. "Correct. Mech designers are the exception rather than the rule. They have been made this way for good reasons. If mech designers are unable to advance to an existence comparable to a True God aside from becoming a Star Designer, they can never be tempted and corrupted by the Five Scrolls Compact. Think about it, Ves. How many aging Senior Mech Designers and Master Mech Designers exist who have stagnated in their work and failed to make any further progress because they have exhausted much of their ingenuity or viable research directions?" It was a lot. Mech design became exponentially more difficult the further anyone progressed in this path. Although mech designers also became progressively smarter and more in tune with mechs, if their talents, skills and access to special resources could no longer keep up, then they might never be able to make another breakthrough in their lives! Under these kinds of circumstances, how tempting would it be if the Five Scrolls Compact knocked on their doors and gave them an alternate way to become immortal and powerful? Sure, the mech designer might never be able to attain all of the specialized and highly useful abilities of a Star Designer, but what did it matter when True Gods could travel through space with their bodies and smash through mechs? "That is a clever measure." Veronica admitted. "I guess it is truly for the better if mech designers can't switch midway or make up for their lack of progress in their main job by using another cultivation method." "What else have you identified, Veronica?" The cat paused for a few seconds before deciding to throw out her second guess. "I think that there should be aspects of qi cultivation in mech design as well. When you gave me a description of artistic conception, I quickly thought of how design philosophies play an important role in keeping the work of mech designers like myself focused. I am doing my best to promote Mutual Growth in both mechs and mech pilots, and that strong and consistent mentality has helped with producing works that reflect this artistic conception." Her mother nodded again. "That is a good argument. As I have said before, creation cultivation is derived from qi cultivation, so the separation between the two is not too strong. Methods that work for the latter can also be applied to the former to a degree. Artistic conceptions are widely used in many cultivation methods because they work. They provide cultivators with a clear and consistent means to leverage the power of heaven and earth without producing too many deviations or accidents. The premise is that the cultivator can hold the correct artistic conception." She made it sound as if artistic conceptions were basically combinations between self-hypnosis and self-fulfilling prophecies. It was all in the mind. As long as a delusional individual thought really hard that he was a mythical phoenix, then he would eventually be able to absorb exotic radiation and mutate in a direction that would enable him to harness the power of fire! Of course, a method as simple as this was incredibly flawed and would never actually turn a would-be cultivator into a powerful True God! "Qi or spiritual energy is highly responsive to the thoughts and emotions of an individual." Cynthia explained. "The stronger the cultivator, the more that the energies around him will become affected. The chance of severe accidents will increase because of that. In order to prevent such a powerful being from going out of control and suffering from a phenomenon called cultivation deviation, he must always maintain strong control over his own mentality. Centering around a single and consistent artistic conception becomes a necessity." "I see." Veronica said. "I take it that certain artistic conceptions are superior to others." "I would not necessarily say that, my child. Theoretically, any conception can be used to help a cultivator become a True God. It is just that the power, the abilities, the mental states and the bottlenecks are all different depending on the cultivation method and accompanying artistic conception. Cultivators can also switch or upgrade their artistic conceptions according to their needs. In general, the fundamental concepts of the universe such as time, gravity, matter and so on are too difficult to get started. Ordinary humans are far too removed from these abstract phenomena. It becomes necessary to start with a lower level artistic conception and slowly build your qualifications before you can properly handle a higher level artistic conception." That sounded similar to what Ves had done. He originally centered his mech designs around Spiritual Man-Machine Symbiosis, but eventually had an epiphany which caused him to redefine his work around the concept of Mutual Growth. Perhaps Ves might redefine his design philosophy again once he became a Master Mech Designer or Star Designer. It all depended on whether his ambition required him to make any adjustments. His mother gave him a few more tips and warnings about the use of artistic conceptions. Improper use of this cultivation tool could easily lead to madness and death! "What other cultivation approach has mech design incorporated?" Cynthia asked. "Well..." Veronica hesitated for a moment. "Given that mech designers tend to receive positive feedback when knowing that their works are widely used by the masses or strongly favored among strong mech pilots, I think there is an element of deity cultivation as well." "Correct again. The earlier and more simpler forms of creation cultivation methods are mostly centered around the act of creating excellent products itself. What happens after these goods are made is not important. It is only later that more sophisticated cultivation methods have tied in the end users as a means to collect additional energy. As the users of a product become more satisfied, they generate strong positive feelings that contain a measure of power. It would be a waste not to harvest these energies." That explained a lot and fully confirmed with Ves' own theoretical frameworks. Mech designers who designed a lot of mechs but never really did anything to produce them never progressed as quickly as those who put real effort into selling actual copies of their work. There was one more cultivation approach to complete the cultivation model of mech design. "Aside from those three approaches, I think that mech design also relies on contract cultivation to tie it all together." "Mmmh?" Cynthia gazed at the cyborg cat with amusement. "You know about the... kingdom... right?" Veronica cautiously asked. "I do. It has become a central part of human civilization. It is impossible to miss for any True God or sufficiently powerful cultivator." The silvery metal cat smiled. That saved her a lot of concern about violating the confidentiality rules imposed by the MTA. "Well, a lot of mech designers are able to cultivate without being consciously aware that they are doing so. The reason why they can cultivate in 'easy mode' is because the Kingdom of Mechs is running all sorts of complicated processes in the background. While I think that mech designers can still progress into a Star Designer, they have to do it a lot more consciously and deliberately if they can't borrow the spiritual cloud computing resources of the Kingdom of Mechs." The Kingdom of Mechs served as the secret sauce to make mech design more accessible and foolproof than any other cultivation path! Cynthia's expression turned a little ambiguous as this topic came up. "The Kingdom of Mechs... broke many rules and assumptions that the Five Scrolls Compact once considered to be unbreakable laws. The kingdom is an anomaly that should not exist, but still does. It is a product of more modern times and does away with many of the flawed and outdated methods and approaches of the Compact. I do not necessarily like that the kingdom has caught you in its grip, but I can tolerate it. Mech design may be a fairly restrictive and overly specialized cultivation method, but it is also much safer and less prone to cultivation deviation. The worst outcome that you can suffer from is stagnation, which is much more acceptable than death." Mech designers and the Kingdom of Mechs enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. Both sides entered into transactions where they could both obtain what they needed to become stronger and make more progress. This perfectly fit with the definition of contract cultivation. Without this specific component, the difficulty of the mech design cultivation method would have been at least 100 times higher!