Ves stood right inside the middle of the Sacred Temple. After receiving a profound lesson on cultivation and a broad overview of the methods that cultivators used to evolve into True Gods, Ves needed a lot of time to process what he learned. He decided to take a break from reality and enter the System Space in order to reconfigure his theoretical frameworks on spiritual energy, spiritual engineering and cultivation in general. He benefited a lot from this comprehensive mental reorganization. The way he looked at different phenomena had changed forever. The knowledge freely given by his mother had opened his eyes to a hidden layer of truth that only the privileged few understood. Ves felt as if he had joined a secret club consisting of other True Gods and big shots. It gave him the illusion that he had risen from the masses and ascended to a height where he could look down on society! The knowledge granted by his mother was incomparably precious. Whether it was the overview on cultivation methods or the numerous ancient cultivation methods that described real working processes that he could readily make use of, Ves gained the basic capital to develop his own cultivation methods! The way he looked at the three Divine Cores floating in the middle of his Sacred Hearth had changed. He understood more profoundly that these glowing blobs of light not just represented his Spirituality and the spiritualities of several incarnations, but also signified his artistic conceptions to an extent. Although none of his Divine Cores had completely evolved into specific shapes, Ves had grown so much as of late that they already started to morph into defined shapes. His own Divine Core was morphing into a Hand of Creation, alluding to his focus and ability to create all kinds of products, particularly living ones. Blinky's Divine Core began to resemble a Whale Devouring Maw, showing that the heritage of the Unending One served as the basis of his identity and basis of power. Vulcan's Divine Core shifted into a near-perfect replica of the Hammer of Brilliance, which showed that craftsmanship was becoming the most dominant aspect of his domain. All of these changes took place without Ves putting any conscious thought behind his own cultivation. He and his incarnations just utilized their abilities naturally and went about their lives according to their usual patterns. Ves understood now that he and his incarnation had been engaging in natural cultivation all of this time. "There is nothing wrong with that, but natural cultivation is ultimately limited and not as good as real cultivation methods." He reminded himself. His mother clearly expressed contempt at inborn gods and other organisms that cultivated according to what they had been endowed with by nature or their creators. Just as how ancient humans transcended the limitations of their own weak bodies by developing technologies and creating increasingly stronger tools to form their own civilizations, a cultivator could master his own fate and work towards becoming much greater than his original self! Ves looked around the interior of the Sacred Temple and gained a greater understanding of the deep meaning of the Mech Designer System. He used to wonder why the System randomly presented options related to different forms of cultivation after it had completed its lengthy upgrade. No more. "According to the System, mech design and cultivation are intertwined. They are one of the same." Ves felt extremely fortunate that he had chosen to go for Spiritual Ascension. This was the most suitable upgrade for him in the Age of Dawn. With Messier 87 continually flooding the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy with exotic radiation, the value of Spiritual Ascension had skyrocketed! "This is my time." He had all of the ingredients necessary to excel in this new and dangerous age! He just needed to form a plan and properly chart out his Spiritual Ascension. He no longer found it acceptable for him to cultivate in a purely passive manner. Even if Blinky, Veronica and Vulcan could eventually grow stronger just by continuing to exist as they did in the past, Ves no longer wanted them to coast along! It was like recognizing that they were piloting first generation mechs when Ves had just learned how to design fifth generation mechs! How could he allow his incarnations to stick with weak and outdated methods when he could easily provide them with much better alternatives? The only issue now was that he needed to actually design them, and that was anything but simple. The example cultivation methods contained in the scrolls and books conjured up by his mother were all lengthy, abstruse and mysterious. There was an entire science behind cultivation. There was a great need for specific knowledge and rigor because cultivation had a lot of pitfalls! "Any mistake may lead to permanent and irreparable changes." Ves frowned. "There are many cases where cultivators do not have a second chance. They are all playing with their own lives. Once they have taken a wrong turn in their cultivation journey, they can never back up and choose the correct path!" It took a lot of guts and an unwavering heart for cultivators to persist to the end. Those who did not want to risk their lives to evolve into True Gods and obtain a huge amount of power and longevity were bound to make limited accomplishments. Ves recognized that there was a lot of danger in developing his own cultivation methods, but he did not want to remain weak in an environment where he needed to grow his capabilities as soon as possible. He decided to go through with his ambitious plan to expand his spiritual engineering activities to developing cultivation methods. However, he did not intend to go too deep down this rabbit hole. "I am still a mech designer first and foremost." Ves reminded himself. "My spiritual engineering activities must always facilitate my mech design work. If that isn't the case, then it is not worth my time." His mother explicitly told him that he had become locked in the mech designer trajectory. His design seed and design flame had become permanent fixtures of his Spirituality. There was no way of removing it without inflicting permanent damage to his own Divine Core! Of course, Ves did not have any intentions to turn his back on mech design. His love for mechs remained strong and his ambitions remained unchanged! "Creation cultivation suits me just fine." He grinned. As a human who grew up in a modern human third-state in the Age of Mechs, his wants and needs differed a lot from his mother and other so-called 'cultivators'. For example, his mother told him that the overwhelming desire for people to pursue cultivation was to live forever. Though he could certainly understand the appeal of becoming inextinguishable and undying, his own value system did not really put a lot of stock in this kind of benefit. "What's the point of living forever?" Life was precious because it was scarce. People such as his grandfather made the most of their natural life spans because their time was so short. "What truly matters is not the ability to live forever, but to give your own life meaning." Living a few centuries longer certainly helped with building up a larger and more lasting legacy, but once Ves had achieved all of his life goals, he did not really feel that much of a desire to live any further. So long as his works benefited his society, so long as many people remembered his contributions and so long as his children and descendants thrived, there was no reason to stick around any longer. The future belonged to the generations to come. Perhaps his vision was a bit silly to other people, but Ves did not care for the opinions. He was a human and a mech designer. He intended to live as one from beginning to end. As for all of this nonsense about True Gods, faith and immortality, Ves did not intend to reject these elements as they gradually entered his life, but he did not feel the need to obsess over them either. "My goal of becoming a Star Designer is not to become immortal, but to design better mechs and other works." He affirmed to himself. This was his conviction and his heart. So long as he kept his original goals in mind, he would never go astray. He took a deep breath. "Let's begin." His immediate priorities at the moment was to develop brand-new cultivation methods tailored to himself, his clansmen, his design spirits and his living mechs. "That should be enough for the time being." That sounded like a lot of work, but as long as his theoretical foundation became strong enough, it shouldn't be too difficult to develop both customized and specific cultivation methods for different end users. Once he completed this chore, he intended to go back to focusing on mech design and track everyone's progress in cultivation over time. "This sort of stuff takes time to produce results." Ves just hoped that all of this cultivation stuff would strengthen his clan and his forces in time for the next big crisis. The native aliens of the Red Ocean were just getting started in their counter-attack against red humanity! The urgency of the times forced him to concentrate on the task at hand. "Let's start with myself. I don't need to develop a cultivation method for myself as I am already working towards becoming a Star Designer." Ves had no dissatisfaction about the mech designer progression trajectory. His mother personally thought it was the best and most superior form of creation cultivation that she had ever witnessed in her extensive life! Although the mech design cultivation method came with a few downsides such as being bound to the existence of mechs and forming an inescapable dependence on the Kingdom of Mechs, the benefits were more than worthwhile! For example, he couldn't wait to become a Star Designer! Once he could fully direct his strong and varied creation abilities in many other fields, he would be able to produce a host of products that other types of True Gods could only dream about despite their immense power! "I am already doing alright. It's my incarnations that truly need better cultivation methods." He decided to start with Blinky. As a companion spirit, his nature was a lot simpler than his other incarnations, so he wouldn't have to juggle too many variables at the start. His mother had also given him a huge head-start by gifting him a model cultivation method that was completely tailored for Blinky! Although Ves was not satisfied with exact processes and the end goal of this bespoke method, it at least gave him a clear blueprint of what a cultivation method for a companion spirit was supposed to look like! For example, his mother delineated Blinky's growth and evolution into several different stages. Each subsequent stage enabled Blinky to upgrade his inherent life state and energy quality by another step. Currently, the specific processes at every stage were solely geared towards transforming Blinky into a version of the Unending One, but Ves could easily tweak them so that they led towards a different destination! It reminded Ves of the early days of his mech design career. Back when he was starting out as a Novice Mech Designer, he did not possess the skills, confidence or vision to design his first original mech right away. He had been forced to start with licensing an existing mech design so that he could modify it and develop new variants that granted slightly different advantages in combat. Ves felt that he could adopt a similar approach towards developing a new cultivation method to replace Blinky's inferior natural cultivation process. "Hm, let's see. What should I be aiming for instead?" Every complete cultivation method charted a trajectory towards becoming a True God. There were many variations of True Gods, and each of them came with their own advantages, shortcomings, requirements and taboos. With so many different options at his disposal, it became a little difficult for Ves to make up his mind for a while.