The Mech Touch

Ves and Ketis saw demoncasting in different lights.

Demoncasting presented interesting possibilities to Ves.

Sure, the description given by the System gave plenty of warnings about how dangerous it may be, but that did not deter him too much.

Ves had always equated greater risk with greater reward!

As long as he and the users of his products were strong enough to handle the risks, then they stood to gain a huge amount of power!

This was incredibly vital in this day and age. If Ves was able to employ demoncasting to upgrade his most important gear and mechs, then that would make it even better!

What was even more important to Ves was that demoncasting was apparently so rare that it was unlikely that anyone else in the Red Ocean would be able to strengthen equipment in this strange and taboo manner.

This had the makings of another monopoly!

If Ves was able to create gear that was as powerful if not more so than Destroyer weapons, then he would be able to increase his value to the Red Three and remain in their good graces.

Oh, there was also Ketis. If she exposed the ability to perform demoncasting as well, then she would also raise her strategic value, thereby allowing her to integrate deeper into high society.

Another advantage to the uniqueness and high entry barrier of demoncasting was that the enemies of red humanity wouldn't be able to steal it. The Cosmopolitan Movement has transferred so many stolen human technologies over to the Red Cabal that the native alien forces were becoming increasingly better equipped.

This was one of the underlying reasons why it became increasingly more difficult to defend the remaining defensive bands!

After the native alien races sacrificed many of their old and outdated warships, they finally began to deploy their more modern vessels.

These hulls were not only equipped with state-of-the-art azure shield generators and human-developed superdrives, but also possessed much stronger human warship-grade armaments!

In a conflict where the enemy shamelessly copied as much human tech as possible, the benefits brought by Five Elements Mastery were much more replicable than Demoncasting.

Design applications based on the five elements may be difficult to copy if they were tied to his living mechs, but it shouldn't be too difficult for the major alien races to steal everything else!

As for demoncasting, Ves doubted that the aliens would be able to build up a high-end demoncasting workshop and know how to summon or create the necessary demons.

Ves already grew more and more excited when he thought about the prospect of becoming a demoncaster.

Wait.

Instead of letting his main self become a demoncaster, Ves felt it was much more suitable for Vulcan to become one instead!

After all, it sounded as if mechs could only be demoncasted if they were already designed and fabricated.

In that case, there was little point in letting Ves perform the demoncasting himself when Vulcan had already made strides in restoring the tattered legacy of traditional blacksmithing.

It was also a great way to isolate much of the potential risk and danger of demoncasting to the crafter to one of his incarnations.

Vulcan was not weak or vulnerable anymore. His Heart of Steel had grown by a huge extent after absorbing large quantities of high-grade energies from the Iron Resonant Crucifix Crown.

The Heart of Steel gave Vulcan the capital to resist the symbol of authority's pervasive corruption!

Several years of exposure had tempered the Heart of Steel so much that Vulcan would probably be able to resist the corrosive influence of demons despite not having developed any extraordinary willpower!

Ves continually grinned as he developed more and more promising plans in relation to demoncasting.

Ketis on the other hand continued to frown while keeping a firm hand on the Heavensword.

"So what do you really think about demoncasting, Ketis? Do you think it is suitable?"

The swordmaster paused for a moment before she shook her head. "Ultimately, no. While I can see the attraction it holds for you, I do not think I need it all that much. I can see why it may be useful for a mech designer and a swordmaster like myself, but I think that we are ultimately doing our clients and customers a disservice by pushing cursed products onto them. They probably won't be able to control their demoncasted mechs and weapons. I think that obsessing over them and becoming too reliant on them will cause too many to degenerate into slaves of their own arms. I would much rather work with the benefits brought by Five Element Mastery. The knowledge we gain may belong to others, but at least we can choose to apply it in a controllable manner."

His former student raised a good point. Just because Ves saw a lot of promise in demoncasting did not mean it was the same for the users of those products. They might taste the benefits at first, but they would soon have to pay the price for wielding arms that were too powerful for them to control and subdue!

Even so, Ves felt reluctant to give up on such a convenient and incredibly interesting means of improving existing mechs and gear.

"Let me study the final option before I get back to demoncasting."

[Upgrade Track #3: Superdimensional Transformation. This upgrade track will expand the Dimension Observatory. The new facilities will allow you to spend Ascension Points to initiate a transformation into an increasingly more powerful or versatile superdimensional entity. The augmentations that you can choose to apply to yourself can be based on the characteristics of exotic dimensions. These may grant you dimensional powers such as the ability to multiply your mental processing by expanding your brains into many more dimensions, or the ability to enter a dimension inaccessible to others where you can build a private refuge. This may allow you to transform into a native of that dimension, allowing you to natively enter, survive and persistently exist in it. Over time, you can choose to continually strengthen your relation to a small amount of exotic dimensions in order to cultivate strong dimensional powers. You can also choose to increase your relation with many different dimensions, allowing you to freely enter any of them and be able to make better use of their advantages.]

At first, Ves did not feel too impressed about Superdimensional Transformation.

Hadn't he already become one by turning into a phase lord?

However, as he continued to read further, he understood that the potential of this upgrade track was far greater than that. This option would drastically expand his interactions with different dimensions. This would not only make it easier to enter different dimensions and harvest resources from that. He would be able to improve his understanding of dimensional resources and also gain the choice to use them up to evolve his body into a direction of his choosing!

One claim that Ves paid great attention to was the part where he could amplify his thinking by expanding his brains in more directions!

This was an incredibly powerful benefit to all busy scientists and engineers!

If Ves was eligible to purchase these enhancements, then he would definitely do so first! Experience more tales on M-V-L

With vastly more brain power at his disposal, he could perform calculations far faster and solve difficult problems a lot faster than before!

This meant that he could successively increase his productivity and get a lot more work done in the same amount of time!

Ves readily ignored the other benefits and implications of the third upgrade track. He only ever really cared about upgrading his brainpower. This was the root of his success as a mech designer.

Out of all 3 upgrade tracks, the final one granted him the strongest hope of directly increasing his work speed!

He could design so many more mechs at the same time without getting overwhelmed or causing all of his work to suffer delays. This would not only directly speed up his progression as a mech designer, but provide a lot more useful products to his customer base.

He only had to spend a little time to quickly master a lot of difficult high technologies. Ves would no longer get stuck in his attempt to understand abstract and convoluted theories in strange fields such as archetech and luminar crystal technology.

He could also boost his effectiveness in research activities by improving his ability to interpret raw data and recognizing important patterns. This would allow him to waste much less time fumbling around in order to obtain the right conclusions!

All in all, the advantages brought by turning his brain into a superdimensional wonder were endless!

"Superdimensional Transformation has the potential to ease our greatest limitation." Ves observed. "As humans, our brain power is always far too weak relative to our ambitions. If we want to study more textbooks, design more mechs and complete more research, we need an awful lot of time to get all of that done. If we can directly improve our brains and make them bigger without taking up any extra space in the material dimensions, then we can directly improve our productivity and make much better use of our limited time. If we invest enough in these upgrades, I bet we can even obtain the raw processing power of a Star Designer in advance! This should be especially helpful to a time-strapped swordmaster and mech designer such as you, Ketis. Pursuing dual careers puts a much greater strain on your schedule."

The swordmaster did not hide her clear interest in this upgrade track.

"You are right about that. The possibility that you have presented to me is a strong attraction to me, but it is not the only part about this upgrade track that interests me. Of the three options, this one promises to strengthen my fighting capabilities the most. Think about it. If I can absorb strange dimensional matter and acquire their properties, I can make my body stronger, tougher, faster and more unfathomable. Maybe I can even unlock the ability to increase the mass of a volume of my body so I can fight against enemy phase leaders head-on. Demoncasting only allows me to strengthen my sword and other equipment, leaving my body almost as vulnerable as any other human. Five Elements Mastery will probably allow me to strengthen my techniques by leveraging the power of E energy in more sophisticated ways, but I will probably turn into a wizard in the guise of a swordswoman. Fighting like that makes me feel like I am turning my back on real swordsmanship."

Her considerations were different from that of Ves. That complicated the decision-making process.

While Ves had the right to make a decision based on his own selfish interests, he did not want to neglect Ketis' needs.

The swordmaster was not only his former student, but was also shaping up to become a dependable partner.

It was worthwhile to pay attention to her preferences and take her needs into account.

"All three upgrade directions have their own merits." Ves summed up the situation now that he went through all of them. "I can come up with arguments in favor and against each of them. I don't think that the System has presented any obviously inferior or superior choices, so we need to sit down and think about this further. I think it would be best if we form a set of criteria to understand what we want the most out of this. After that, we can score every upgrade track on how well they score on all evaluation criteria. This is the most rational and objective approach we can apply to determine our decision."

Ketis understood the merits of this approach and agreed with it. "That sounds fine, but what if our highest scoring options do not match with each other?"

"We'll figure something out. At least we have crossed one of the three upgrade tracks off our list."