The Mech Touch

[Olthori Sacred Cleansing Ritual Manual Fruit]

Grants complete understanding of the Sacred Cleansing Ritual obtained and refined by the Olthori Sect. The Olthori Sacred Cleansing Ritual is used to cleanse priests after conducting blood sacrifice ceremonies and purify warriors after they have unleashed their bloodlust in battle.

Requirements: Intelligence must be 0.7 or higher.

???

“What kind of ghost thing is this manual?”

The System’s descriptions were always accurate, but they didn’t always clarify what Ves wanted to know.

Ves had never heard of the Olthori Cult and did not pay any attention to the name. What he truly wanted to know was the benefit of using this so-called Sacred Cleansing Ritual.

“Is this just a guide on how to clean your body after getting drenched in blood?”

If that was the case, then Ves might be able to wash off the stink off his body a bit easier if he accepted that Mission that involved killing and bathing in the blood of a hundred different alien individuals.

He did not think this ritual was that simple, though. A reward from a golden lottery ticket shouldn’t be this shabby, and it was impossible for this supposed Olthori Cult to write up a formal manual on how to use a bath.

“This is probably a method to cleanse the mind and spirit of those that have gone too far in engaging in a wretched activity!”

If that was the case, then this might be a pretty useful manual to multiple people, including himself.

However, Ves already had a better recipient in mind for this method.

“This should be a helpful enlightenment fruit for Lufa.”

Even though Lufa’s very nature already possessed a purifying quality, much of it was instinctual by nature. Lufa did not actually possess a lot of systematic theories and understanding on how his powers worked.

This meant that while he was able to enhance his brute force by mindlessly collecting spiritual feedback, he still had to do the hard work of developing his own methods and techniques from scratch.

Many design spirits were in the same boat. Only a few more special ones such as the Illustrious One and the Superior Mother inherited or obtained systematic knowledge from other sources.

Therefore, granting this manual to Lufa should definitely allow him to take his ability to negate harmful and unwanted effects even further!

Ves was ultimately satisfied with the enlightenment fruit. He was able to meet at least one more goal with the help of this lottery prize.

He turned his attention to the remaining fruit. He instinctively guessed that it was the most powerful of the bunch, so he saved it for last.

[Shadow Dance Dagger Style Enlightenment Fruit]

Grants complete understanding of how to master the art of the Shadow Dance Dagger Style, a combination fighting style that combines knifemanship, silent fighting, assassination and exploitation of shadow and darkness. The Shadow Dance Dagger Style can only be fully practiced by talented individuals who are limber, are implanted by specific augmentations and have developed an affinity for shadow or darkness. This enlightenment fruit allows an individual to ignore these conditions.

Requirements: Strength must be 0.9 or higher. Dexterity must be 1.3 or higher. Endurance must be 1.3 or higher. Concentration must be 1.5 or higher.

“This… is quite powerful.”

If Ves wasn’t familiar with Ketis and the Heavensworders, then he wouldn’t have taken a dagger style so seriously.

After all, he was just a mech designer who knew little about fighting. His profession also predisposed him to believing that battles were mainly won by fielding better mechs and superior equipment into battle. The individual fighting skills of mech pilots only played a relatively smaller role in the outcome.

However, the Swordmaidens and the Heavensworders proved that investing a huge amount of time and effort into perfecting a specific fighting style could earn great dividends in battle.

This was especially the case for the extraordinary sword styles that adhered to traditional swordsmanship!

From what Ves was able to gather from the description, the Shadow Dance Dagger Style was probably a derivative of the same tradition, or at least shared a common root!

That made this enlightenment fruit immensely valuable!

He supposed that he could swallow it himself as he certainly met the attribute requirements.

“It’s a complete waste, though.”

Ves was not a fighter. When would he ever be in a position that he would have to fight his way out of a sticky situation with a dagger?

Even if he ended up in a scuffle, he was more inclined to use the Amastendira than a pitiful blade!

He had two different candidates in mind for this enlightenment fruit.

“Venerable Tusa should be able to make excellent use of this fruit.” Ves concluded. “His combat effectiveness has been slipping. Even if I tried my best to bring up his combat power by upgrading his expert mech, all of the other ones got better as well.”

Compared to the more powerful melee mechs such as the Riot, the First Sword and the C-Man, the Dark Zephyr was inherently less impressive in frontal combat.

Though the expert light skirmisher performed fairly well when dueling against expert heavy mechs, it was not a fantastic fighter against expert medium mechs.

It couldn’t be helped. The volume and capacity of a light mech was inherently limited. Ves simply couldn’t stuff as many expensive toys in the frame of the Dark Zephyr as with other mechs.

If Ves wanted to make his first proper expert mech stronger, then he either needed to implement a more drastic design innovation or replace its cheaper parts with more expensive versions.

He had already done both during the last upgrade round, but even if he had inflated the design budget as much as possible, there were limits to how much he could spend to improve just a single expert mech.

Ves felt rather guilty about that as Venerable Tusa had persistently requested to boost the performance of his expert mech to the point where he could keep up with his peers.

“Light mechs don’t necessarily have to be strong in frontal combat, but… Venerable Tusa is quite an avid duelist.”

While it was clear that the Shadow Dance Dagger Style was a personal combat style that never took mech combat into account, Ves still believed that Tusa would gain a substantial improvement in combat effectiveness if he swallowed this enlightenment fruit!

“My upcoming grand expedition will become a bit more secure if Tusa is able to outfight more opponents!”

Ves spotted one concern issue, though. According to the description, the Shadow Dance Dagger Style was mostly attuned to assassins and fighters who possessed an affinity with shadow and darkness-related spiritual attributes.

This caused Ves to doubt whether it was a good idea to feed this fruit to Venerable Tusa.

Venerable Tusa could be rather sneaky when he wanted to be, but stealth and shadow was never really a big component in his piloting style.

Ves was afraid that if Venerable Tusa began to practice the Shadow Dance Dagger Style, the expert pilot would be led astray and develop in a different direction than what fit him best.

“That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, though.”

Expert pilots possessed a lot of mental fortitude. They could easily maintain their own stances in the face of overwhelming temptation.

The more likely outcome was that Tusa would learn enough about knife fighting from the enlightenment fruit that he could upgrade and refine his own fighting style. There was no obligation for him to practice the Shadow Dance Dagger Style as faithfully as possible.

“This still sounds like a waste, though.”

A fruit as precious as this should go to a warrior or an expert pilot that was much more compatible with the properties and attributes of this special fighting style.

It would have been much better if his clan had a more assassin-oriented expert pilot on retainer, but that was not the case at the moment.

Should Ves feed it to Tusa anyway or wait for a more appropriate expert pilot to emerge?

When Ves thought about the latter, he suddenly came up with a special candidate.

“Andraste!”

If Andraste managed to become a potentate and develop a liking for melee mechs, then feeding her this enlightenment fruit would give her a wonderful boost to her piloting career!

She would be able to become an incredibly powerful light skirmisher or assassin mech pilot if she managed to master this fighting style!

Ves began to like this idea more and more.

Due to Helena’s influence, Andraste’s companion spirit had developed quite a close affinity towards death.

Since Andraste had the potential to wield this potent and lethal attribute in battle one day, her lethality would be incredibly potent!

It was more than enough to compensate for the lack of combat power of typical light mechs!

However, piloting these thin and fragile mechs was precarious business. If his daughter was able to wield vastly greater skill in combat, then Ves would become a lot more reassured about sending his daughter off into combat!

“With a name like Shadow Dance, this fighting style probably emphasizes evasion and obfuscation over pure lethality.”

In other words, it was an excellent fit for Andraste!

The problem was that Ves was not certain whether his red-headed daughter would develop to a point where it made sense to feed the fruit to her. What if she couldn’t interface with a mech? What if she wanted to become a ranged mech pilot instead?

​ “Another problem is that it will take a lot of years before she meets the requirements of this fruit!”

The benefits brought by this enlightenment fruit were great, but so were demands!

Ves frowned. He fell into a difficult dilemma.

If possible, he wanted to wait a number of years and see how Andraste would develop.

Yet keeping this powerful fruit in his Vault of Eternity sounded like a wasteful course of action. It wouldn’t be helping anyone while it remained unused.

There was a powerful argument to be made about offering it to Venerable Tusa. This way, the expert pilot would be able to gain an immediate boost in strength and continue to refine his combat style in the following months and years.

This was an excellent way to increase the strength of his clan in the short term. Tusa would be able to put his new lessons to quick use once the Trailblazer Expedition commenced!

“Well, if it comes down to it, I can always tell Venerable Tusa to teach my daughter the style that he has learned.”

Teaching the Shadow Dance Dagger Style the conventional way was a lot slower, but perhaps it was for the best. It might be too much to overwhelm a teenage girl with a huge influx of foreign knowledge!

Now that he fully reviewed the gains from his golden lottery ticket, the time had come for Ves to start the main course.

He took a deep breath as he plucked out a precious radiant lottery ticket. He had managed to earn four of them. The System had credited each one of them to him after taking part in the fabrication of a masterwork expert mech.

Unlike a golden lottery ticket that often delivered iffy and inconsistent rewards, a radiant lottery ticket should be a lot more reliable when it came to awarding fantastic prizes!

Knowing that his chances of winning a fantastic prize would be much greater this time, Ves briefly considered what he should aim for before deciding to maintain the same approach.

“Give me another enlightenment fruit, a good one this time!”

Without further ado, Ves tossed the radiant lottery ticket into the fountain water.

Rainbow lights immediately escaped from the Wishing Fountain!

It was as if a dormant volcano had slowly risen from its slumber. The water boiled and bubbled even as it reflected every color of the rainbow.

Once the Wishing Fountain accumulated enough energy, it began to shoot out a large rainbow spout of water!

What was remarkable about this spout was that a glowing enlightenment fruit was hovering right on top of this spout!