Chapter 7274: Contamination or Cultivation

Saint Isobel Kotin frowned. She felt pressured by the proposal made by Ves. The notion of implanting a miniature mech reactor inside her artificial chest set off her intuition. She might not understand the science behind it all, but she was instinctively able to judge how much she would imperil herselft

Ves clearly sensed her reluctance. He did not let that stop him from making his case. If she wanted to reject her plan, then she should at least do so from an informed perspective.

He spent a bit of time thinking on how he should approach this issue. He had a lot of theories in his head. The goal was to convert that into words that could persuade Saint Isobel to cooperate with his new experiment.

Ves grasped the Artificial Fire Heart and lifted it from its container. "How would you describe this artifact in terms of attributes within 10 seconds? Use short keywords."

The command came abruptly, but Saint Isobel did not hesitate too long before complying. "Fire. Small. Powerful. Energy source. Rare. Expensive. Cybernetics. Risk. Reward."

"Good choices. You hit the nail on the head. These are all keywords that accurately summarize the nature of this object.” Ves praised the ace pilot. "Now imagine if you can copy these keywords and integrate them into yourself. You will go down a path that will make you stronger. While there are definitely risks associated with this method of cultivation, the rewards are greater than what you can normally attain by piloting mechs."

The female saint frowned in incomprehension. "I think I am missing a few steps here. What... are you talking about, exactly?"

“To answer that, you will need to understand a bit of theory. What is systematic cultivation?"

“It is the act of trying to absorb E energy or other special energies to strengthen oneself." She replied.

“That is a decent answer, I suppose, but it lacks a lot of depth." Ves responded. "Since you are an ace pilot, I think that you are ready to listen to my personal understanding of the nature of E energy and how it interacts with systematic cultivation. Have you ever wondered how absorbing fire-attributed E energy allows people to manipulate flames? How can they absorb raw energy and turn that into fireballs?"

“I don't know." Isobel frankly responded. *I have read a few theories about it, but they are too superficial.”

Ves put down the Artificial Fire Heart. Moments later, a bot arrived that carried a few simple experimental tools.

He picked up two test tubes. "This is filled with water. This is filled with artificial blood, the same kind we use for the Riot Mark Iil's Carmine System."

He proceeded to dump the contents of one tube into another. “Now, the vial of water has absorbed the contents of the vial of artificial blood. Through a very crude and uncomplicated process, the former has inherited the traits of the latter, if in a diluted form."

Isobel blinked her eyes. "Is this your analogy for systematic cultivation?"

“Yes. Possibly. What I just showed you can either be described as cultivation or contamination.”

“Contamination?”

“In my personal opinion, all forms of cultivation are a process of contamination." Ves replied with a smirk. *I am sure that not everyone can accept this answer, but this is what I believe. The difference between contamination and cultivation is that the latter produces more positive outcomes, enough to turn it from an adverse phenomenon into a beneficial phenomenon.”

This was indeed a rather shocking way to look at cultivation. Saint Isobel had to think deeper on this theory. She had been raised with the assumption that contamination was universally bad and should be avoided at all cost. To be told that “contamination’ also encompasses positive outcomes was a radical shift!

"So cultivation is a process where you deliberately contaminate yourself with other stuff and hope that you end up in a better state than before?" She dubiously asked.

"Exactly!" Ves responded with a grin! "The real process is much more complicated, but that is the process of “cultivation’ in its rawest and purest forms. When you strip away all of the complicated jargon and convoluted theories, you end up with this. Cultivation is nothing more than absorbing the traits of other subjects — be it E energy, exobeast flesh or most notably mechs — into oneself."

“I find that to be too simple of an explanation." Isobel said with less certainty. "If cultivation is as simple as injecting different substances into yourself, then we could have grown stronger by eating raw chunks of hyper materials.”

Ves grinned and lifted the only remaining vial that was filled with liquid. "That is true, but systematic cultivation must also account for qualifications. Every existence has their strengths and weaknesses. Baseline humans will die if they swallow a chunk of hyper material. Lucky on the other hand will easily be able to swallow, digest and assimilate the most beneficial aspects. The same goes for phasewater. If I inject a vial's worth of raw phasewater in your veins, you will die if you do not receive immediate treatment. If I inject the same quantity of phasewater in my own veins, my health will not depreciate in any notable way."

Isobel furrowed her brows. "Humans are fragile, but they are still able to absorb this stuff and make themselves stronger somehow."

“Correct. That is due to a combination of technology and techniques." Ves responded. “That is why the word “systematic’ is often attached to cultivation. It is a form of clarification. Hearing this word will make it clear that the process of cultivation is deliberate, purposeful, controlled and repeatable. The Phase Lord Department is a really good example of this. The Red Collective only needed a short amount of time to figure out how to turn humans into phase lords. Since we cracked this secret, it has only taken a couple of months to produce 360 human phase lords. That sounds pretty impressive considering that most humans will die when they are exposed to a small amount of phasewater."

A short moment of silence ensued as Isobel considered both the spoken and unspoken meaning of his words.

She shifted her gaze back to the dormant Artificial Fire Heart. "You want to tell me that as long as we are able to develop the right technology and methods, you can make it so that I can safely make use of this Artificial Fire Heart?"

Ves nodded and smiled. "You are not thinking far enough. What you are describing only amounts to regular augmentation, the kind that was common in the previous ages. My goal is not to turn the Artificial Fire Heart into a component of your cybernetic body. What I am truly looking for is for you to absorb the most beneficial traits of this artifact and imbue them into yourself. I want to make it so that the rest of your cybernetic body can resist heat and fire energy much better than their material composition suggests. I also want to make your spirituality and willpower more capable of controlling the power of fire."

“That... goes further than I expected.” Isobel looked mildly impressed. "No wonder why you are so insistent on it. How... can this even be done?"

Ves put away the props and activated a projected interface. "Let me explain your case in very simple terms. This theoretical model consists of three variables. One of them represents yourself. The other represents the Promethea. The third consists of the Artificial Fire Heart. Now, before your latest accident, you engaged in a form of willpower cultivation with your living mech. The process of piloting mechs for multiple years has tempered your willpower and allowed it to sublimate several times. At the same time, the Promethea has drawn strength from you and your willpower, allowing her to grow as a living mech and assimilate certain traits from you. A newly fabricated version of the same mech will be nowhere near as strong or special as the original."

He drew a line between the two variables, denoting their strong connection to each other.

He then drew a line between the Artificial Fire Heart and the Promethea. "Now if I integrate the artifact into the Promethea, the greatest beneficiary of this procedure will be the ace mech." Ves explained. "The living mech will be able to draw strength from the Artificial Fire Heart and strengthen herself in many different ways. While that is good and all, your benefits are not as good as you will only end up with second-hand goods. I think I do not need to elaborate why that is the case.” reakthrough. If you cannot solve this problem, then you can forget about becoming a god pilot."

He was right. Saint Isobel did not need to rely on her intuition to figure out that the process of artifact cultivation was not that much of a challenge compared to surviving the road to no return.

“What you are saying makes sense, Ves, but I do not think it is as easy to execute in practice. Much of your explanations are too abstract and simplified. It is like saying that the only thing you need to do to become a phase lord is to inject phasewater into your bloodstream. You are skipping many detailed steps in between."

“I know how you feel." Ves responded with a sympathetic expression. "For a long time, I was stuck in the same situation as you. I knew the broad strokes of what was happening, but I had no way of explaining the specific processes. That has changed. I am in a much better position nowadays. I have conducted many experiments and observations of different forms of systematic cultivation. I have also studied the theories developed by the Red Collective. It is not until I witnessed what happened between Saint Rosa Orfan and the Riot Mark Ill that I am confident that I have figured out the core secret of systematic cultivation."

"And that is..."

“The metaphysical transference of traits." (More chapters in Buyers club for TMT)

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