Ves harvested several spiritual remains from powerful entities over the past year.

He not only obtained the essence of ancient existences referred to as the dark gods, he also expanded his collection with the spiritual remains of a couple of expert pilots and Journeyman Mech Designer.

The bounty he possessed was enough to make any spiritual engineer happy, not that Ves knew of any. Still, he felt a lot less poor now that he accumulated some spiritual resources again.

With the loss of Nyxie, the high-grade life-prolonging serum and the Grand Dynamo, Ves couldn't squander his spiritual energy as much as before. This was part of the reason why he hadn't touched the spiritual fragment of the Unending One and other spiritual treasures.

He didn't dare to do anything with them without a solid plan in mind!

The value of the spiritual fragment of the Unending One was inestimate to him. Not only did it possess a huge amount of potential, there was only one of its kind in existence!

Ves very much doubted that he'd be able to encounter another eons-old spiritual entity with a powerful devouring attribute over the course of his travels.

Though he felt tempted to use the spiritual fragment of the Unending One as an ingredient in several different experimental products, he didn't want to risk the chance of ruining the result.

This time might be different.

Ves possessed a real need for an energy source to solve a pressing need. The Blinding Mech was like a bot without an energy cell. Only after stuffing a compatible energy source inside would it be able to work as advertised.

Yet this wasn't the only possible application of the Unending One.

"I have needs as well."

He long held ambitions to develop a homegrown version of the Grand Dynamo that once supplied him with an abundance of spiritual energy.

While he had no hopes of replicating the sheer amount of useful functions of the original spiritual energy generator, he theorized that he might be able to leverage the Unending One's intrinsic properties to achieve a similar result, if at a much lesser degree of effectiveness.

In fact, he had so many other possible uses of the spiritual fragment of the Unending One that he simply couldn't choose.

The need for energy was universal. No one said no to extra energy. Ves believed he would come up with even more energy-hungry applications that required him to supply an additional energy source.

This was why he developed a plan to 'farm' the fragment of the Unending One.

Even though his mother killed the dark god, he knew that spiritual existences had an annoying tendency to restore elements of their old selves if they were fed with lots of energy.

Prophet Ylvaine was a very good example of that.

Ves never went through with his plan for this reason. If he wanted to grow the spiritual fragment of Unending One like a fruit tree and continually harvest additional fragments from it, then he had to make it stronger.

"It's too dangerous!"

Dark gods used to be incredibly dangerous due to multiple reasons. Not only did they possess an abundant amount of spiritual energy when they were alive, they also possessed a wealth of knowledge and experience in manipulating it all. They were so much better than him in manipulating spiritual energy that he only had to make a single mistake for them to make a comeback!

"The safest way to process them is to remove the possibility of letting them grow back to their old selves." Ves concluded.

That was what he effectively did with the spiritual fragment of the so-called Blinding One.

By forcefully merging it with one of his oldest design spirits, it effectively turned into a giant upgrade potion to the crystal leader.

The change was so profound that he turned into a much greater design spirit. This was why he called him the Illustrious One these days.

"Should I do something similar with the Unending One?" Ves asked himself.

He wasn't sure whether something like that could even work. The Unending One was far more dangerous than his other spiritual fragments.

The closest comparable entity to the Unending One was his own mother.

When Ves happened to have harvested a tiny spiritual remnant from Cynthia, he ignorantly used it as an ingredient to create the Superior Mother.

This was all the opening it needed. To his alarm, the creation process completely went off the rails as his mother's tiny spiritual fragment swallowed every other spiritual element around it and grew to enormous proportions!

While the results eventually worked out for Ves, that was only because the source of the hijacking incident was friendly towards him. The Superior Mother turned out to be an even greater boon than he ever thought possible after it fused with Cynthia.

"I can't expect a friendly reception if I try to do the same with the Unending One!"

It might be possible to avoid this outcome if he sterilized the fragment of the Unending One of all of its weird and hostile influences. Yet Ves knew very well that his method of filtering and cutting out undesirable spiritual attributes was very crude.

If Ves missed just a tiny portion of the original Unending One, the former dark god would definitely find a way to come back from the dead!

"Ahhh! This is too frustrating!"

Ves clutched his head and tried to think of a good solution while sitting in his temporary office.

"Meow?"

Lucky on the other hand looked puzzled at what Ves was doing now. What was the big deal?

"You don't understand, buddy."

The mech designer looked helplessly at the Blinding One. If he attempted to insert any element of the Unending One in it, then there was a possible chance that it might mutate into an unholy clone of the most powerful dark god that Ves had ever fought against!

Should he just shelve this plan and find another solution?

"No. I can't keep avoiding this issue."

The fragment of the Unending One was an incredibly valuable resource, but it did not help him at all when it was just lying around in his vault.

There were many other potential benefits of harnessing the power of the Unending One.

In the short term, he might be able to power up his prime mechs even further. Even if he didn't foresee any possibility of them needing to go into action, it was still nice to have that reassurance in the back of his mind.

He could also use this benefit to empower the custom mechs that he needed to prepare for his upcoming duel against Dr. Frederico Navarro.

While not all of his mechs depended heavily on their spiritual properties, it never hurt to supply them with more spiritual energy.

"I also have a personal interest in harnessing the Unending One."

He concentrated his mind and began to inspect his own mind. His Spirituality had steadily grown, and that showed in subtle ways. His design seed became a little more intense and the quantity of loose spiritual energy floating in his mind had increased.

There was little to complain about the natural growth of his Spirituality. He had the feeling he was growing just as fast if not faster than any other Journeyman in his position.

In fact, Gloriana also grew at a similar pace, but Ves had a feeling that was due to all of the progress she made whenever they succeeded in making another masterwork mech.

Juliet's spirituality grew at a significantly slower pace. She was probably a more representative example of how quickly Journeymen progressed.

Yet.. what if Ves had a way of growing faster?

He wasn't just thinking about adding another spiritual dynamo in his mind. In fact, he found it rather boring. Other than supplying him with an excess of loose spiritual energy, an isolated energy generator didn't really do anything to facilitate his personal growth.

"The other issue is that spiritual dynamos and spiritual energy generators are external objects." He muttered.

This was something that bothered him quite a bit. As long as it was detachable, Ves would never be able to retain it forever.

This was why he developed an ambitious plan. In the darkest depths of his mind, he cooked up an incredibly bold and crazy-sounding premise.

"What if.. I absorb the fragment of the Unending One?"

This was not a trivial suggestion!

Even the tiniest purified fragment of the Unending One was still dangerous. Yet if Ves had a way of mitigating or neutralizing the risks, he might be able to internalize the powers of the tentacled whale for himself.

He just needed to look at the Illustrious One to see an example of a successful absorption!

Even though the massively-strengthened design spirit exhibited an increasing amount of powers of the Blinding One, the Illustrious One was nothing like the dark god in terms of personality.

If Ves was able to pull off the same merger, wouldn't he be able to become a much more potent mech designer and spiritual engineer?

Still, there was one major consequence that immediately caused him to stop in his tracks.

Assuming he was able to control all of the potential ways the merger process could go wrong, absorbing the Unending One would definitely alter his mix of spiritual attributes. To put it in a more simpler way, his domain would change into something else.

Right now, his primary spiritual attributes were equally divided between mechs and life. He considered this the best balance to progress his current design philosophy.

What if it changed? What if he inserted a third spiritual attribute that didn't originally belong?

Ves could think of two possible outcomes.

The less desirable one was that he formed a mismatch between his attributes and his design philosophy. Ves was afraid that he might sabotage his promising mech design career due to his greed!

"Yet.. there is also another possibility."

The second outcome was that his domain and design philosophy somehow found a way to integrate the new variable.

"Wouldn't it be great if my spiritual creations could grow by eating or absorbing other sources of energy?"

This would definitely supercharge all of his products!

As long as he was able to control the side effects, Ves foresaw endless benefits if he succeeded in integrating a portion of the Unending One in his own spirit!

He just couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. The chance of catastrophic failure was too great. His inability to control every variable or predict every possible procedure meant that this amounted to a high-risk gamble where his very life would be at stake!

"Maybe.. I should take a step back. Maybe.. I should test it out on another mech designer first."

Ves groaned. He just recalled he killed a perfectly functional Journeyman Mech Designer not too long ago. Even though he did it to satisfy his revenge and earn brownie points with Gloriana, it didn't change the fact that he threw away a valuable test subject!

He would just have to find a way to get his hands on another Journeyman.

"I'll probably get one sooner or later." He crossed his arms. "I make so many enemies these days that it's a statistical certainty that I'll piss off a Journeyman."

For now, there was no reason to rush this ambitious plan. He needed to get back to solving his more immediate problem with supplying the Blinding Mech with an energy source.

Countless questions flooded his mind.

How should he make use of the fragment of the Unending One?

How should he integrate the prepared energy source to the spiritual foundation of the Blinding One?

How would he be able to prevent the Blinding Mechs from absorbing energy from its own mech pilot?

All of these issues required an extensive amount of thought and consideration. He might also have to perform a few risky experiments in order to verify his new ideas.

"Luckily I'm in a star system that is a regional center for biotech research." He grinned. "I might be able to obtain something that can help me realize my plans!"