The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5947 Fractalization

As Ves climbed his way to the upper ranks of human society, he gained access to increasingly more powerful tech.

From linking technology to the EdNet, he earned the qualifications to make use of the best and most advanced technologies produced by human civilization.

He even won the privilege to build and make use of his own battlecruiser recently!

The benefits were immense. Ves became more motivated to contribute to the Red Association and the Red Fleet. As long as he furthered their goals, the mechers and the fleeters would not be too stingy with their rewards.

Yet… there was only so much advanced tech and goodies that the Red Two could provide. They were all limited by the scarcity of resources and the shortage of brilliant minds in the new frontier.

It was difficult to develop amazing new tech when working under heavy resource constraints.

Dimension Breach Creation promised to solve one of red humanity's fundamental problems.

The solution?

Open a tear to an exotic dimension and figure out ways to farm the powerful matter and energy that resided on the other side!

Sure, the danger factor of working with all of this dangerous stuff was extremely high, but the potential rewards were equally as lucrative!

Though opening breaches to random dimensions could easily doom a planet or a star system, it could also grant the controllers a huge amount of wealth and other benefits!

Ves saw great promise in this option. It not only had the potential to solve red humanity's critical lack of resource availability, but it could even produce a more profound change on human-occupied space.

"If my suspicions are correct… then I might be able to turn all of human space in the Red Ocean into an artificial high-energy environment!

It would be ideal if he was able to find and breach a hole that led into a dimension that was rich with E energy, but Ves was not sure whether that was possible.

No matter. There were many other higher dimensions available that contained all manner of other useful energies.

As long as Ves managed to create enough breaches that led into energy-rich dimensions, the constant transfer of energy into the material realm would cause radical transformations to the environment!

Ves believed that if he went far enough with this, he could potentially increase the energy density of human space to the point where it started to match the energy density of Messier 87!

However, the risks were extremely high!

Who knew whether the dimensions were devoid of bizarre alien predators and other existential threats?

If he happened to open a breach that led into the wrong dimension, he may unwittingly unleash an ancient alien monster that could snuff out all life in the Red Ocean with just a single expression of its cosmic power!

Ves relaxed a bit when he reminded himself that the System would probably implement enough safety precautions to prevent such accidents from occuring.

He may have to pay a lot of AP in order to reduce the risks, but it was an acceptable price to pay.

Dimension Breach Creation had already become one of his favorite options.

Although Ves and other people needed to conduct a lot of research and exploration to figure out the best ways to exploit the dimensional tears, the potential profitability was insanely high!

The capacity to access other dimensions on a much wider and more consistent scale had the potential to supercharge the growth of red humanity.

The Larkinson Clan could also monopolize dimensional tears of their own. Ves would definitely try to open up access to dimensions that contained the most lucrative resources.

There was no need for the Larkinsons to claim large amounts of territory that was difficult to defend. They could just fortify a couple of planets and continuously mine resources in different dimensions without worrying about running dry!

Unfortunately, Ves did not think that opening up dimensional tears would allow him to evade the pursuit of the Subjugation King.

At most, it only gave him the ability to harvest powerful resources. It was up to him and the rest of red humanity to figure out how to convert them into powerful products.

In any case, Ves had one more upgrade track to consider.

"Next."

The environment changed to show a copy of his own true body floating in deep space.

Ves had grown really big as of late. His phasewater concentration measured at 3.8 percent last he checked.

Even though that was still far from reaching 100 percent, he had made a lot of progress compared to his previous state!

Replacing just 3.8 percent of his blood circulation could cause his body to exceed the height of a typical mech by as much as 3 times!

If this rate of physical growth remained constant at greater concentrations of phasewater, then a day might come where his body might become big enough to allow people to live on the surface!

"How absurd!"

Ves already guessed that the last upgrade track was related to promoting his phase lord cultivation.

The illusion of his true body began to show unusual phenomena.

He initially expected his true body to grow in size or display exotic new spatial abilities. It would make sense for the System to facilitate his body cultivation.

It could do this by giving him the option to spend Ascension Points to increase his phasewater concentration.

It could also increase his utilization of phasewater by implanting new phasewater organs and upgrading his existing ones.

Perhaps it would even allow Ves, and potentially every other user of the Mech Designer System, the option to purchase a phasewater production system without needing to hunt down a phase whale or greater phase lord!

Instead of doing that, strange lines formed on his body. These lines grew increasingly thicker and more numerous.

At a certain point, the space occupied by his true body suddenly started to fracture and break into cubes!

"What the hell is going on?!" Ves mentally wondered.

His true body broke apart, but it did not actually come to any harm. Instead, the unusual transformation changed his body in such an odd fashion that it became a lot stronger than before!

The illusion produced shadowy mechs that began to attack the fractalized version of Ves.

Powerful attacks slammed into the odd body, yet the attacks either reflected, broke apart or simply hit nothing as the space blocks moved out of the way.

Once the fractalized body went on the attack, it was able to break apart a powerful first-class multipurpose mech by pointing a finger at its target.

A second later, the mech broke apart into tens of thousands of cubes of space and matter!

Unlike Ves, the mech clearly wasn't able to remain functional after all of its parts got diced before being physically separated from each other!

The other hostile mech quickly retreated and tried to take Ves down by relying on long-ranged attacks.

The strategy was sound, but the fractalized version of Ves performed an even weirder move.

A few blocks moved away from the rest and started to grow in size.

Once these aberrant blocks grew big enough, they began to disgorge shadowy mechs that had been stored inside a part of his body!

These were clearly living mechs of his own design, though Ves was not able to study their exact designs.

What mattered was that the living mechs quickly went into action and employed their own powerful weapons to fight against the distant threat!

Since the friendly mechs outnumbered the enemy one, the ones 'deployed' by Ves quickly won the fight.

Now that they had done their jobs, the friendly mechs flew back and reentered the strange space blocks, which subsequently rejoined its cube-shaped brethren.

Ves' true body eventually reemerged whole after all of the space blocks rejoined each other again.

"What. The. Hell."

[Upgrade Track #7: Fractalization. Grants the ability to comprehend the power of space in a more profound manner, beginning with fractalization. This upgrade track can assist in promoting more advanced cultivation based on deeper as well as alternate forms of spatial manipulation at the cost of spending Ascension Points. The available services are not specific to phase lord cultivation, but can provide indirect assistance that can unlock more powerful or alternate forms of power expression. When a user has achieved great success in fractalization, it is possible for him or her to reproduce many of the actions enabled by prior upgrade tracks.]

"Huh?!"

Ves initially thought that the seventh and last upgrade track was just a really weird form of phase lord cultivation.

It was more than that. If he interpreted this correctly, it promoted a powerful form of qi cultivation based on the space element. If Ves ever managed to become powerful enough, he no longer needed to rely on the System to teleport to other galaxies or open dimensional tears.

This was because Ves effectively gained the power and expertise to accomplish these feats by himself!

"That is true power!"

Ves would be lying if he claimed that he was uninterested in grasping this power.

However, he was realistic enough to understand that the amount of resources and effort required to reach this ultimate state was probably much greater than all of the other options!

Cultivation was difficult! Ves needed to invest so much effort into qi cultivation that he would not be able to devote as much time in mech design or other productive activities!

"Fractalization is much more suitable for me if I chose to integrate the space element as a major component of my domain." Ves mentally frowned.

He had ultimately settled on a different course. That made this upgrade track much less attractive as he did not possess an innate advantage in this cultivation approach.

If he chose Fractalization anyway, then the System might transform Ves to the point where space became the fourth major element of his domain.

Alternatively, Ves needed to do the hard work himself. This would not only take a lot of years, but also slow down his progression as a mech designer.

"This is too big of a downside!"

The allure of being able to master the power of space in such a versatile manner was incredibly attractive to Ves. He was keenly aware that if he chose the other upgrade tracks, he would lose access to many of their benefits once he lost control of the System.

That would not happen if he managed to make high attainments in Fractalization!

His cultivation belonged to himself, so he would still retain much of his strength even if he bid farewell to the System.

This was a compelling reason for him to keep this final upgrade track into consideration.

"Besides, fractalization might not be the most suitable option for me, but what about other users?"

Ves could induct his children and other Larkinsons into the System. If they developed a powerful interest or affinity in the space element, he could encourage them to spend their AP on Fractalization!

Ever since he broke a psychological barrier that discouraged him from pulling other people into the Mech Designer System, he began to think a lot more on how to maximize their participation.

"Anyway, now that I know what I can choose from, I need to figure out what I need the most before narrowing down my selection…"

It was rather amazing how just 2.353 kilograms of EE-343F-00334R could open up so many wild possibilities.

He was pretty sure that the Rubicon Spatial Transfer System utilized a much greater quantity of this super-class alloy, yet it was only able to make teleportation a lot more viable in combat situations.

This meant that human technology was still too far behind! It was not as advanced as everyone thought!

It became even more important for Ves to make the correct decision. An opportunity like this only came once. Choosing one upgrade track meant forgoing the benefits of the other ones.

"Let's see…"