As an engineer, Ves understood he needed to adopt a more systematic approach towards designing a new cultivation method for Blinky. Trying to pluck out random ideas from his mind or following the first impulses that came to mind rarely led to optimal results! If he wanted to do a proper job at this, then he needed to create a clear overview of his situation and his needs. Ves exited the Sacred Hearth and moved around in the courtyard of the Sacred Temple in order to put his thoughts in order. He activated a projected interface in order to list out the conditions he was working under at the moment. "My main body and by extension Blinky are both operating in the Red Ocean, which is currently exposed to a modest degree of exotic radiation. I have no idea what to do with R particle radiation, but that is definitely not the case with E energy radiation! Different from the Milky Way, so much ambient spiritual energy is becoming available that my companion spirit can endlessly gorge on Messier 87's output without exhausting its supply. The only limitation is Blinky's own limited capacity to digest and absorb spiritual energy." Ves recognized that these were extremely favorable circumstances compared to the conditions in the Milky Way. It was not necessary for Ves to stick to cultivation methods that were optimized for times of scarcity. The Red Ocean gained so much access to the 'power of heaven' that it would be a waste if Blinky refrained from stuffing himself full of all of these free energies! Once Ves listed out his current conditions, he turned his attention to his goals for Blinky. "As a mech designer, I am good at designing and making stuff, but that's it. I don't have any other inherent advantages. For example, I will still remain highly dependent on resources supplied by other parties." Ves recognized that this was an inherent shortcoming of the mech design cultivation method that had deliberately been left unaddressed. He speculated that the Progenitors of Mechs did not want mech designers to become too independent and self-sufficient. By making it so that mech designers all the way up to Star Designers became dependent on large and thriving populations of humans, this special brand of creation cultivators would never have any reason to undermine modern human societies! The same applied for mech pilots, who would not be able to obtain any mechs or have any reasons to fight for without remaining an upstanding member of human civilization! 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂 Although Ves understood that mech designers were set up this way for good reasons, that did not necessarily mean he had to play by the rules. Ves happened to possess a lot less trust in human society and its institutions. He had experienced so many betrayals and breakdowns throughout his career that he did not want to remain stuck in this corner! If the upcoming conflicts between red humanity and the indigenous alien races of the Red Ocean and Messier 87 ever went sour, then Ves needed to make sure that he would be able to do well even if he was all by himself! "I need strength and resources." He summed up. "Blinky can cover both to an extent." His desire for strength was not that strong. He learned from his mother that all qi cultivators possessed a massive disadvantage in any confrontation against high-level mech pilots. Pure energy-based life forms such as companion spirits had it worse! Therefore, rather than trying so hard to strengthen Blinky only for him to end up as a mediocre fighter, it was better for him to nurture a bunch of his own subordinates into god pilots so that they could fight in his stead. His mother had already adopted this strategy, so there were clear merits to this approach! That said, he did not want to give up on any easy opportunities for Blinky to be able to defend himself against different threats. At the very least, his mother's cultivation method granted Blinky the option to evolve into a formidable threat against any other energy-based life forms! Ves wanted to retain this particular quality as much as possible while also expanding on his other capabilities. It was much more interesting for Ves to turn Blinky into a better helper for all of his productive activities. Blinky already played a useful role by supplying Ves with lots of spiritual energy. The only problem was that the Star Cat was only proficient in producing a single variation of spiritual energy, which severely constrained what Ves could make. Ves wanted Blinky to gain the ability to output spiritual energy with other attributes. Though he could already obtain a lot of different elements from different design spirits, he felt it was better to reduce his dependence on external parties. "I also need to obtain a supply of physical materials." This was a lot more difficult to accomplish. A lot of the example cultivation methods that his mother granted him did not contain any word about conjuring up materials. They mostly focused on increasing the direct combat power or other mystical capabilities of the practitioner! None of them put a lot of emphasis if at all towards the production of resources. This reflected an overall tendency of cultivation that bothered him a lot. Many qi cultivation methods were incredibly selfish by nature. They only focused on strengthening the cultivator without describing any clear or obvious means of giving back to their society. This was much different for mech designers who would never be able to make a lot of progress unless they explicitly made it their goal to benefit their own society! "I can't repeat the mistakes of the past." In order for Blinky to complement his career as a mech designer and serve a useful function to society, Ves did not want his design spirit to focus solely on cultivating his devouring and absorption capabilities. Ves rejected the notion of turning Blinky into the Unending One! Even if he could successfully modify the cultivation method provided by his mother so that Blinky retained his cute cat form, Ves still did not intend to pursue this path! What he actually wanted was to turn his companion spirit into a resource processor of sorts. "If Blinky can devour a lot of ambient spiritual energy from the environment and convert it all into useful spiritual energy and physical materials, then I can truly maintain an independent existence!" He could obtain all of the phasewater he needed to produce his transphasic mechs and goods! He could generate all of the universal life energy that he needed to accelerate the growth of all of his spiritual products! Third parties would no longer hold as much leverage over him as before by restricting their supply of essential resources! The advantages to Ves were too many to count. He could not think of many reasons to reject this approach. "The only problem is making it happen." He frowned. The greater the goals, the greater the requirements! Cultivation methods had to follow the law of conservation of energy and other fundamental laws of nature as well. While it shouldn't be too challenging for Blinky to gain the capability to produce other spiritual energy attributes, making him spit out real physical materials such as P-stones and Unending alloy was another story! As Ves went over the many problems associated with this incredibly difficult demand, he soon thought of a possible way to effectively satisfy his needs. He thought back on one of the most ridiculous cultivation methods shared by his mother. "That stuff about opening up an entirely independent space inside your own body and slowly expanding it to form a landmass, a planet and star is pretty interesting." This was mostly a body cultivation method, much to Ves' surprise. While it contained a lot of elements of qi cultivation as well, the main purpose was to strengthen a human body so that it could ultimately harness the power of an entire internal universe! This was a cultivation method with extreme resource requirements, but also possessed an extremely high upper boundary. There was no theoretical end to this cultivation method. A practitioner could form an internal star system, galaxy or even an entire universe as long as he was able to absorb enough resources! Of course, Ves had no intentions to practice this stupid body cultivation method, but he became inspired by many of its processes, theories, techniques and possibilities. What if Blinky formed his own internal space through cultivation? What if Blinky absorbed Messier 87's practically limitless supply of E energy radiation to continually expand the volume of this internal space? What if Blinky converted the absorbed energies into a rich variety of stars and planets that contained a huge amount of different resources? It would be like having a galaxy like the Red Ocean or the Milky Way all for himself! His breath grew hotter as he became engrossed by all of the possibilities. Not only would Blinky be able to leverage the power of his own little universe, but he would also be able to grant Ves all of the resources he needed to construct his ultimate works! Of course, there were two huge problems with this ambitious plan. The first was that body cultivation methods were invalid for pure energy-based life forms. The second was that Blinky was only able to convert ambient spiritual energy into other forms of spiritual energy. Ves did not let these limitations stop him from pursuing this approach. His response to them was simple. "Let's start with keeping it virtual for the time being." He determined. "Blinky already excels at working with spiritual energy, so I need to maximize that advantage." If Ves let go of the demand to produce real physical materials, then the proposed cultivation method became a lot more viable! Instead of forcing Blinky to form a material universe inside his internal space, Ves would make his companion spirit form an imaginary universe. It would consist solely of spiritual energy absorbed from the environment. In fact, Blinky did not even have to process and digest E energy radiation in order to use it as the building blocks for his imaginary universe! He could directly devour the ambient spiritual energy in the environment and automatically have it fall into the appropriate places! For example, an imaginary star could be made up of spiritual energies attributed towards fire, stars, heat, light and many other related elements. An imaginary planet would largely be made from earth, rock, metal and mass. Blinky could even selectively seed the imaginary planets with life by injecting them with life-attributed spiritual energy. Perhaps his companion spirit might be able to create entire ecosystems and civilizations of intelligent imaginary life forms! This was not the end. While Ves expected this ambitious cultivation method to remain entirely virtual at the pre-divinity stage, it was a different story once it entered the post-divinity stage. Once Blinky evolved into a True God, he would have the option of gradually transforming his entire internal universe into a material universe! After all, the conversion of energy to matter was an inherent capability of every True God. While it was impossible for this incredibly energy hungry conversion process to transform an entire imaginary universe into a real one in a single instance, it should be more than sufficient to produce enough physical materials to meet Ves' daily needs! "This is crazy!" If Ves did not obtain the teachings of his mother, then he would have never dared to come up with such an insane-sounding cultivation method! Yet all of the theory he learned so far told him that it was absolutely viable as long as he configured the cultivation method correctly! The conditions were harsh. Not only did the practitioner need to possess a highly effective energy absorption ability, but it also demanded an incredibly energy rich environment. Ves predicted that it would ultimately not be enough for him to remain in the Red Ocean anymore. If he wanted to meet his companion spirit's exponentially growing energy needs at the later stages and especially the post-divinity stage, then he needed to relocate to Messier 87 sooner or later! Otherwise, Blinky would never be able to absorb the humongous amounts of energy needed to convert "This is fine." Ves possessed enough confidence in his ability to be able to navigate this gigantic and incredible galaxy in the future. He just needed to advance to Star Designer and build an incredibly powerful fleet and mech force to accompany him in this epic journey. "This is true Spiritual Ascension!"