"So how much do you have in your account?" Ves asked.
"419 Ascension Points. You?"
"383"
"Really."
"Hey! I started out with less AP than you because I had to expand my storage space! I urgently had to earn more Ascension Points just to be able to stay in this marathon! By the way, this reminds me that we should check on the results of my first attempts to produce a Middle Demon."
Ves or rather Veronica had spent enough AP to transfer 3 of the 5 Demon Mixers into the System Space.
He had to remove a lot of phasewater and other miscellaneous goods in order to make enough room for the demimechs.
For the entire duration of the marathon, Ves had simply placed the Demon Mixers in one of the expansive spaces next to the Workshop of Creation.
Normally used for storing raw materials as well as finished mechs and other goods, the three Demon Mixers had remained a constant presence on this section of the System
Space.
In the first month, Ves visited the Demon Mixers multiple times a day. He could not get tired of approaching them and verifying whether their 'jars' remained intact.
He was initially afraid that stuffing so many violent Minor Demons in a confined space would cause them to produce so much destructive activity that their collective efforts might break containment!
These fears steadily abated after a time because nothing actually happened that suggested that the Demon Mixers were sustaining damage.
Ves grew curious about what exactly happened inside the jars, but the principle of gu cultivation was that outside observers should never be able to track what was happening inside in real-time.
Just opening up the 'lid' to take a peek inside was already enough to taint or outright break the ritualistic process!
Even if this was not the case for this specific implementation, Ves did not want to take the risk of ruining all of those Minor Demons and wasting all of the time and effort to set up these experimental attempts.
Therefore, Ves tried his best to rein in his curiosity and stop obsessing so much about the state of the Demon Mixers.
He and Ketis kept them within the periphery of their sight, but no longer paid conscious
attention to them anymore. The three Demon Mixers may as well have become a part of the background scenery over the course of their marathon.
That did not mean they stopped paying attention to them entirely. They merely ceased to worry about anything going wrong.
The pair made sure to craft a few monitoring units to keep the Mixers under a constant state of observation. If the demimechs generated any unusual activity, then Ves would know about it in an instant.
Those monitoring units never generated any alarms since Ves placed them around the Demon Mixers.
This gradually caused his concerns to fade. He adopted a more laid-back attitude towards his first gu containers. Why bother worrying about success and failure when his actions had no bearing on the outcome?
The entire premise of gu cultivation was to set up the conditions to bring a lot of weak specimens together and have them fight each other to the death in an enclosed area.
In other words, the setup was the most important phase of gu cultivation. Much of the work depended on acquiring the right specimens, preparing the right gu container and making sure that the ritual would proceed as intended.
Once he closed the lid, Ves' only remaining responsibility was to store the active gu container in a place where it would not be disturbed.
There was no other way for him to intervene in what was happening inside.
Since the loss of agency was a feature rather than an error, Ves learned to accept the situation and maintain his composure. There was no point obsessing over what was taking place inside the jars as he could not meaningfully affect the fighting without spoiling the rituals.
As the months passed by, Ves paid less and less attention to them to the point where entire days passed by where he never acknowledged their existence.
This actually caused him to overlook the possibility that the Demon Mixers may have actually completed their tasks!
As Ves and Ketis approached the three Demon Mixers, they looked up at the machines to see if any changes had occurred.
"Since everything that takes place inside is supposed to be a secret, when will you actually know when the process is over?" Ketis wondered.
"That is actually easy to determine. I designed the Demon Mixers so that if the battle royale has led to a single surviving demon, that entity will subsequently merge with the living mech. We should have observed very obvious signs of demonization when this occurred. Seeing that none of these Demon Mixers have grown any spikes, turned dark all of a sudden and undergone other obvious physical mutations, I believe that the gu cultivation process has yet to produce a final result in these three cases."
That was disappointing. Nine whole months had passed. That was a lot of time for 40 to 80 Minor Demons to brawl against each other over the course of multiple rounds and
finally determine the winners.
What was taking them so long?
Though Ves knew that he wouldn't be able to sense the interior of the jar from the outside, he nonetheless approached Demon Mixer 2 in order to check up on the
machine.
He stepped closer and was just about to touch one of the four short legs that supported the demimech before he heard a warning.
"WATCH OUT, VES!"
Ketis had already unsheathed the Heavensword from her back by the time Demon Mixer
2 abruptly drew out its spikes!
It turned out that Demon Mixer 2 had already undergone the process of demonization,
but quietly!
For whatever reason, the demon that survived to the end happened to maintain just enough awareness to prepare a nefarious ambush for its creator.
This was not supposed to happen!
Demons were irrational beings that were too consumed by the need to destroy to form
any coherent thoughts!
They shouldn't be capable of planning and executing a quiet takeover and waiting for weeks if not months for Ves to stray close and get taken by surprise!
There was no time for him to consider his mistaken assumptions and blame him for failing to account for this possibility.