The Mech Touch

To be honest, Ves couldn't leave the Puelmer Mid-Level Transphasic Weapon Principles enlightenment fruit behind.

It was one of the most expensive enlightenment fruits hanging from the Tree of Possibilities. Its exaggeratingly high price initially deterred him a lot, but the more he thought about it, the more he appreciated its incredible value.

Although the description offered by the System was short, vague and far too open-ended to give Ves a precise idea on what it offered, he could make educated guesses.

Based on what he knew after studying the indigenous alien races of the Red Ocean, the puelmers stood as the greatest source of technological innovation in the local galactic community.

When the puelmer race burst into the scene, the scrappy and combative ball-like aliens quickly showed their worth by all of the adaptations they made after fighting against new and foreign opponents.

As preeminent technophiles, the puelmers learned quickly and constantly intensified their efforts to develop stronger and better technologies, especially when they came under pressure.

The puelmers had no qualms about reverse engineering and assimilating foreign technology. These uncultured, empathetic sentients did not attach any special subjective feelings to certain kinds of tech.

This was why the puelmers often maintained tense relationships with many other races. The orvens, the nunsers and so on all grew pissed whenever the tiny ball aliens stole proprietary tech and made it their own, all without ever asking permission!

Fortunately, as much as the puelmers excelled at learning and mastering existing technologies, they did possess one fundamental weakness that prevented them from progressing too far behind the rest of the Red Ocean.

"They're not creative enough." Ves chuckled.

Just like humanity, the puelmers initially rose into power by salvaging old products of technology and reverse engineering their principles.

It was easy to stand on the shoulders of giants, but it was a lot harder to become one of those giants!

Whereas humans utilized reverse engineering technology as a springboard for their own magnificent technological progression, the puelmers seemed to have stagnated all of a sudden!

"They're mostly plagiarists who are good at copying other people's homework but not as capable of doing their homework themselves. This is a sign of a distorted society."

There was much about the puelmer race and its society that looked distorted from his human perspective.

The ball-like aliens were apparently angry all of the time.

They easily became offended, especially when a member of a taller alien race commented on the diminutive stature of the puelmer race.

They were incapable of feeling love and affection.

They did not engage in recreation and never seemed to feel the need to have fun.

They did not care about art, music or any form of culture.

The puelmers were like organic machines in a sense. Most of them solely existed to reproduce and expand their numbers without ever contemplating any deeper philosophical thoughts.

"It's no surprise they find it difficult to engage in original research. Without passion and creativity, they don't have the drive and ingenuity to come up with their own innovations."

Ves found it perplexing that the puelmers managed to get off the ground in the first place. How could they have ever been wise and farsighted enough to rise so far when so many puelmers were as flawed as juvenile delinquents?

"There are plenty of theories on this matter."

The other members of the indigenous galactic community speculated that the puelmers were maybe similar to the orvens. Perhaps there was a secret caste of leader organisms that were pulling all of the strings, but so far there was no evidence of this kind.

To most of the local aliens, the puelmers were aggressive, touchy and annoying aliens who regularly flaunted their advanced and often stolen tech in front of others.

What was worse was that the puelmers never showed any remorse about stealing the technological fruits of other alien races!

Their only taboo was excessive biotechnology. They seemed to show a great aversion to augmentation, creating new species and other related activities.

This had to do with their fundamental beliefs that the puelmer race was perfect and not flawed in the slightest. To question this belief was to attack their self-esteem!

As flawed and stupid as these aliens appear to be, they had their good points.

The puelmer race's shameless and compulsive habit of stealing and assimilating many different alien technologies meant that their scientists and engineers had amassed enormous libraries worth of knowledge!

Not only did these libraries encapsulate their own research and development, but they also contained much of the technological fruits of other sentient alien races!

The puelmers had operated for many years. They stole the tech from almost every race and tinkered with the ties until they extracted anything of value.

Weak, redundant or unreplicable technology had no place in their libraries. Only the most useful, powerful or practical aspects of alien technology was worth the effort for the puelmers to integrate in their own products.

"This modus operandi is starting to sound familiar."

It took a lot of minutes for Ves to figure out why he paid so much attention to this detail.

His eyes widened as his illusionary body froze.

"Wait. Isn't this similar to what the MTA is doing in human society?"

Just as how the puelmers unceremoniously stole the technological innovations developed by the other native alien races of the Red Ocean, the mechers persistently collected the technological innovations of mech designers and other researchers!

While the MTA mainly relied on voluntary transactions because of the need to keep fellow humans happy, it was undeniable that the mechers had a penchant for grabbing other people's tech.

Ves had personal experience in that. It was hard not to resist the MTA's gentle 'requests' with regards to sharing his most influential inventions such as the transcendence glow.

"The MTA should be better than the puelmers, though. The former might rip people off but the latter don't even bother with providing any remuneration!"

Another point in favor of the mechers was that they invested a lot in original research as well.

Competition from the CFA, the first-rate superstates and the alien races that were still lurking in the Milky Way constantly put a lot of pressure on the MTA.

The mechers could never rest and take it easy.

This was unlike the puelmers who largely stopped coming up with new technologies after they had reached the upper echelon of their native galaxy.

It was only after humans came out of nowhere and overwhelmed the Red Ocean with a plethora of foreign but superior tech that the puelmers were kicked into gear again!

"Hm, if past historical records are any indication, the puelmers will definitely become the Big Two's worst nightmare in the near future. Their ability to assimilate foreign tech is disturbingly effective."

Ves tabbed his armored finger against the chestplate of his Unending Regelia in thought.

He was able to bring his Unending Regalia into the System Space because he had used the Inventorize Ticket that he had obtained some time ago on his personal suit of combat armor.

He could have saved it up for another device. One of the candidates he had in mind was a compact space-faring shuttle that was just small enough to fall within the limits of the Inventorize Ticket.

The reason why he decided against it was because such a shuttle did not fit in every situation, especially when he was indoors.

In contrast, there were many situations where he could use his Unending Regalia.

That wasn't the whole story, though. The truth was that Ves mainly chose to Inventorize his Unending Regalia because it had been with him for numerous years.

The heavy use of Unending alloy had turned it into a living product that was exceptionally capable of storing and channeling his energies.

After several years of intermittent use, it had become an extraordinary relic that had undergone a subtle transformation process that was similar to the willpower baptism phenomenon of powerful mech pilots.

Perhaps the differences weren't too big at this time, but that would certainly change in a decade or a century later.

The Unending Regalia in its current form was not worthwhile for him to Inventorize, but the good thing about technological products was that they could constantly change!

As long as Ves continued to take care of his trusty suit of combat armor, his Unending Regalia would eventually become so powerful that he would thank himself for making it available to him at all times!

In any case, one of the quirks about the Inventorize ability was that he could 'physically' send it to the System Space where he could store it, wear it or even work on it with the help of the Workshop of Creation!

"How much can I upgrade my Unending Regalia once I have mastered puelmer technology?"

By a lot, he supposed. An enlightenment fruit that was worth 850 Ascension Points definitely encompassed a huge quantity of technological know-how!

Since the puelmer race was the Red Ocean's version of the MTA more or less, mastering a portion of puelmer technology essentially translated to understanding a small but incredibly powerful slice of the best of what the new frontier had to offer!

What Ves especially paid attention to was that most of the major alien races were almost just as technologically advanced as first-rate states!

Even though puelmer technology was still inferior to the best of human technology, it was still far more advanced than what he had mastered up to this point!

"I am primarily a second-class mech designer. The reason why I can't design first-class mech is because I haven't learned nearly enough variations of high technology to get started."

Ves would be able to get a lot closer to becoming a first-class mech designer as long as he ingested the Puelmer Mid-Level Transphasic Weapon Principles enlightenment fruit!

Even if alien tech was still a lot different from human technology, Ves was confident that he could fully convert all of the alien standards, principles and theories into human equivalents over time!

It was a lot easier for him to do this than to learn all of the different forms of high technology related to first-class weapons from scratch!

"That reminds me. This enlightenment fruit should also supplement my understanding of phasewater technology."

Transphasic weapon systems were intricately intertwined with phasewater. Aside from the phase whales, the puelmers probably possessed the greatest understanding of technology derived from this powerful exotic!

Ves could skip many decades of difficult learning as long as he redeemed this enlightenment fruit and absorbed all of the precious knowledge contained within.

His mind wouldn't even get overloaded as the System would ensure that he integrated the fruit as smoothly as possible.

His eyes grew sharper as he thought of the most important implication of absorbing this powerful fruit.

"If I learn everything that a typical puelmer mid-level weapons engineer is expected to master, then I can probably figure out a viable way to resolve the current crisis."

The puelmers knew much more about offensive technology and phasewhater technology than him. They also managed to rise up and achieve parity against the mighty phase whale race.

It was not that big of a stretch to assume that the puelmer race managed to develop or most likely steal weapon designs that were particularly effective when employed against the phase whales!

"There is no way the puelmers have lasted this long without finding a way to restrain the phase whales from going too far! All I need is access to what they know so that I can design and make an effective weapon that can stop that unclean whale from teleporting us all into hostile territory!"

Ves felt tempted to exchange the fruit right away, but he constantly had to pull himself back for fear of going way past his budget.

If he spent 850 AP in one go, how could he have anything left to obtain vital resources and rent enough days in the Workshop of Creation to produce an effective weapon?

The fact of the matter was that he simply didn't have enough Ascension Points to obtain everything on his wish-list.

This frustrated him to no end. A compelling source of hope was dangling right in front of him, but he didn't dare to pluck this extravagant fruit for fear of running out of resources and time!

"Wait… if I don't have enough Ascension Points… is it possible for me to earn more, preferably during my current stay in the System Space?"

That… was an interesting idea.