The Mech Touch

There were several pros and cons to ingesting the Blood Cult Scarlet Oak Tree Growth Manual fruit.

The advantage was that it was cheap. It promised to provide Ves with a lot of theories and understanding for just 30 Ascension Points.

The subject was also relevant to Ves, though not in relation to the current crisis.

As long as he learned the ins and outs of the Five Scrolls Compact's version of a blood synthesizing machine, he bet that he could apply his newfound expertise on developing effective trees whose fruits could turn any human into an extraordinary individual!

However, the downsides were also serious.

One of his most serious concerns was that the cheap enlightenment fruit offered more advanced knowledge without including any of the basics!

It was the basics of biotechnology that Ves needed the most in order to get started on biomech design!

Ves was much more confident that the expensive Puelmer Mid-Level Transphasic Weapon Principles fruit would provide him with a systematic foundation from beginning to end. The description suggested as much.

The second issue was that Ves might not even be able to apply most of what he learned.

The mission he had in mind requested a biomech design, not a tree design!

If the Blood Cult Scarlet Oak Tree Growth Manual ended up filling his mind with little else than science related to trees and plant cells, then he could probably do little but design a biomech in the form of a living tree!

Ves winced at the picture produced by his imagination. It might be sturdy in a sense, but its abysmal mobility and reaction speed would definitely result in a low evaluation!

He needed to design a powerful biomech in order to earn a high enough score. Presenting a biomech design with fatal flaws certainly wouldn't impress the Mech Designer System!

"Well, it might not be as big of a deal as I thought. As long as I learn enough knowledge to call myself a biotech researcher, if only barely, I can quickly get started on biomechs by quickly studying the essential theories that go into the specifics of their design."

The jump from a conventional mech designer to a biomech designer was too big.

The jump from a biotech researcher to a biomech designer was not as intimidating!

Biomech design was often treated as a specialized branch of biotechnology to begin with. If he developed a good foundation in the latter, it should only take him a short time to understand the quirks that made organic mechs possible.

Since Ves was already highly competent in designing conventional mechs, he did not have to learn the necessities related to mechs in general. He already had that covered.

Although it was still necessary for him to study the essential theories related to biomechs, Ves did not have to worry about lacking the necessary learning resources.

"Even if there isn't any useful enlightenment fruit available, I can still draw on the database that I have integrated in my Unending Regalia."

When Ves developed the Unending Regalia, he had made sure to stuff it with lots of information in case he lost access to the galactic net.

He had even upgraded the memory banks of his combat armor over time, allowing him to store all kinds of relevant books and articles!

He not only included a comprehensive encyclopedia about everything, but also made sure to put in all of the textbooks and academic literature that was relevant to his profession!

Ves waved his hand and projected an interface that allowed him to explore the comprehensive library that he had put inside his Unending Regalia.

"I never thought I would be grateful to myself for stuffing all of the textbooks related to biomechs in my combat armor."

He had access to an extensive selection of textbooks. Many of them originated from the Friday Coalition, the Hexadric Hegemony and the Life Research Association.

Although the collection was hardly complete enough for his liking, they at least covered all of the basics as well as a decent selection of more advanced topics.

Learning all of it through self-study from scratch would definitely take years despite his current capabilities.

"I can't afford to waste hundreds of Ascension Points on this."

He needed to make sure that the enlightenment fruit that he was willing to absorb would give him the foundation he needed.

"Maybe this is not the best option for me at the moment."

He needed to address his immediate priorities rather than his long-term aspirations. All of his hopes about developing effective spirit trees and spirit fruits could wait for later.

Ves shifted his attention to an alternative that might have what he needed.

[Yarman Basic Organic Starhome Design Principles]

Price: 50 Ascension Points

Imparts a comprehensive set of essential theories and design principles related to design of the extinct yarman race's organic starhomes at the level of a junior ship designer. The yarmans were native to the Red Ocean but lost their home planet over the course of their history. They have become a nomadic species that have taken to living inside enormous, multi-functional bioships that the yarmans treat as mobile homes rather than ships. Yarman organic starhomes are not equipped with warp drives and can only traverse interstellar space at sub-light speeds.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 2.0 or higher.

This was a much bigger package. Even if the fruit only offered him knowledge that a relatively low-ranking shipwright was able to learn, that still provided him with a huge variety of expertise related to biotechnology!

The bioengineering of enormous organic starships likely touched upon a broad range of knowledge, with a high assurance of including all of the basics that Ves sought!

If Ves was able to design one of these so-called starshomes, then he should definitely be able to design a small and simple biomech!

There were a few problematic elements, though.

"The biggest issue is that I have no idea how easily I can combine all of this alien tech with human biomechs."

Reconciling yarman tech with human tech might be a lot more troublesome than he hoped. If that was the case, he would have to waste a lot of time and by extension Ascension Points on getting ready to design actual biomechs!

"Well, who says I need to go through all of that effort?" Ves suddenly thought. "Why can't I stick to alien tech as a base and go from there? A biomech is a biomech no matter its underlying design principles. I just need to make sure its performance is good enough."

Ves had another concern. From what he could tell from the description, the yarman race did not come across as a powerful or advanced alien race.

The fact that they managed to become a space-faring race only to traverse the void in organic versions of generation ships sounded archaic to Ves!

​ These yarmans obviously hadn't come into contact with the greater community of the Red Ocean. They would have been able to equip their bioships with serviceable warp drives if that was the case.

The knowledge imparted by the Yarman Basic Organic Starhome Design Principles fruit may not be sophisticated enough for his purposes.

"Damn, this is far from a perfect solution."

Ves believed that the System valued it correctly at 50 Ascension Points, but he was afraid that much of it was based on a lot of irrelevant nonsense about outdated organic ship systems that had no place in a biomech.

"What about the next one, then?"

[Nunser Basic Infantry Bioaugmentation Collection]

Price: 75 Ascension Points

Imparts a collection of comprehensive theories, methods and manuals related to the augmentation of able-bodied nunser individuals. The nunsers have a long tradition of infantry combat and have developed a great interest in strengthening their own bodies. The collection encompasses a broad set of augmentation plans at the basic infantry level.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 1.8 or higher.

This sounded a lot more promising. It was the closest to biomech design among the enlightenment fruits he could find.

Compared to the previous two fruits, this one was a lot more expensive. Ves found it difficult to imagine that he would be able to earn a significant profit if he used this as his starter.

"I not only have to spend 75 Ascension Points up front, but also a lot of AP on buying additional time. I not only need to adapt what I have learned, but I also have to design the damn biomech."

If he spent more than 75 days on this endeavor, then he would essentially give up on earning any profit.

He might even end up with less Ascension Points in his reserves than he started with! That was not exactly ideal even if he had become a qualified biomech designer in the process.

However, out of all of the options, Ves was the most hopeful about this fruit. It directly concerned the application of biotechnology in combat!

Not only that, but any knowledge related to the nunser race was bound to be sophisticated even if the tech mainly dealt with alien grunts.

From what Ves knew about the nunsers, the herbivorous aliens were anything but peaceful and fuzzy.

They possessed weird behavior quirks due to being a part of a highly communal race.

If the Larkinsons already valued family to a high degree, then the nunsers went absolutely nuts about protecting their own kind!

However, just because the nunsers intensely protected their own people against foreign alien races didn't mean that they all lived in harmony.

The nunsers engaged in a lot of duels and ritual fighting. They mostly fought about mating rings, status or the plain old motive of asserting dominance.

Whatever the case, the nunsers weren't shy about upgrading their formidable buddies so that they could stand a better chance at defeating their opponent in the dueling arena or the battlefield.

In any case, seeing how passionate the nunsers were about fighting with their augmented bodies, this enlightenment fruit definitely had to be good!

It didn't matter if the nunser biotech augmentations weren't designed with biomechs in mind. He merely had to scale up his work and make sure to learn whatever else he needed to design a viable biomech.

Ves only worried that he was at risk of putting all of this effort without earning much in return.

"The price is a bit too high. I can't really justify this purchase no matter how much I want to know how the nunsers get so jacked."

That left him with two viable choices.

After a moment, he signed and decided to take a gamble despite vowing not to do so earlier.

"My goal is to earn a handsome profit." Ves reiterated to himself. "30 Ascension Points for the Blood Cult Scarlet Oak Tree Growth Manual fruit is probably a bargain. It's human tech for the most part so I won't have to pay too much rent to adapt the knowledge. I only need to spend a relatively short amount of time on learning biomech-specific details before I can quickly devote myself to designing a biomech."

He wanted it to be as good as possible, but that probably wouldn't be possible due to his shallow foundation.

If he had to rush his work while he was at it, then the resulting end product would hardly be good!

"I should just treat this as a design contest if that's the case. "

It had been a while since he had last designed a competition mech. He needed to focus solely on maximizing performance and could not afford to think too much about optimization, bug fixing and other faults.

"Can I design a biomech in 30 days if I assimilate Blood Cult Scarlet Oak Tree Growth Manual?"

That sounded like a horrible rush job, but Ves didn't have much of a choice.

It should still be possible for him to design a serviceable biomech within a month, but he would have to take special measures in order to maximize his productivity.

"Am I going to do this?"

If he played his cards right, he might end up with 150 more Ascension Points than before!