To be honest, Ves felt as if the Elegant Rage had resorted to cheating by borrowing the power of Gaia.
Major Jankowski barely had to do anything as the thorn vines spawned from the Gaia-empowered seed practically slaughtered the gas cloud by themselves!
While Ves acknowledged that the Elegant Rage was able to sit back and relax because he had done a good job at designing the Sprout Rifle, it did not change the fact that the mech was relying on the power of an external source.
It presented an interesting question to Ves. Could Gaia or any design spirit be considered as a part of the strength of a living mech?
Was their ability to call in long-distance support a violation of the rules, or just a part of the game?
Ves wasn't able to make up his mind.
His sense of honor told him that borrowing the power of a True God was not right, even if the tribulation storm let him get away with it this time.
His sense of pragmatism was a lot more accepting towards this approach. So what if the Sprout Rifle was able to borrow Gaia's power? This was the entire purpose of a blessed weapon!
Perhaps it was much like the priest characters in those popular virtual reality games based on fantasy settings. Unlike most character classes, the ones related to priests explicitly prayed to their gods to cast healing spells and resurrect dead bodies. The devoted characters were able to perform a lot of actions that were far beyond the realm of mortals, yet they were still allowed to do so within the rules of the game.
Perhaps the concept of blessed weapons was not all that different. Gaia had to pay a price in order to bestow the Sprout Rifle with her power.
This was also why Ves had formed a tentative deal with Gaia. He promised that she would be the design spirit of every Woodsap mech he would make in the future.
This was a beneficial arrangement so long as both sides maintained friendly relations. Ves would become assured that his Woodsap mechs gained a supportive supervisor and source of additional wood energy.
In turn, Gaia would gain a lot of high-quality spiritual feedback from pilots that would presumably enjoy greater success by forming Woodsap Pacts. Each of these pilots and their Woodsap mechs would probably have amazing compatibility with the Mother of Earth, so Ves had no reason to resist this change.
The only concern that Ves had with this arrangement was whether he was shifting too much power into Gaia's hands.
The True God not only possessed a lot of relations with plantlife, but also shared an unmistakable connection to Old Earth.
This meant that it was conceivable that Gaia would also be able to claim dominion over elemental Carmine mechs based on the earth element!
It was not acceptable for a design spirit to become the default design spirit for both wood and earth-aspected Carmine mechs.
To be honest, Ves originally intended to create another design spirit with a powerful wood or earth domain.
If he had been able to harvest the remnant spirituality of the Emperor Tree, then Ves would have the perfect ingredient to create a tree-based design spirit that inherited many traits of the calamity plant!
Alas, this was not possible unless Ves became willing to dismantle the Ebony Everchanger, which was not an option.
He would have to figure out a different solution. He could still spend money to acquire powerful mutated beasts based on either wood or earth elements.
"The thorny vine exhausted the gas cloud a minute ago. The next one is about to come." Jankowski said, pulling Ves from his thoughts. "This is the eight challenge."
That meant that as long as the Elegant Rage managed to pass 2 more tests, she would successfully earn the right to exist as the first Woodsap mech in existence!
Although it looked as if the Elegant Rage had almost made it to her destination, both Ves and Major Jankowski did not dare to become complacent.
After continuous strengthening, the lightning manifestation that emerged this time was bound to be even harder to defeat than the strange gas cloud!
"A considerably larger form dropped from the storm clouds. The lightning formed a vaguely familiar alien presented before the Elegant Rage."
"This one looks relatively familiar." Ves noted. "Messier 87 probably hosts a powerful species of sword wielders. This one holds two different blades. The alien can also do more. Can you sense the flow of E energy? One of the blades is attracting fire energy while the other is attracting ice energy!"
When combined with tribulation lighting, the twin blades of this sword-wielding alien started to look really scary!
This was the style of swordsmanship of Messier 87! In an energy-rich environment, every extraordinary swordsman apparently learned to amplify all of their sword techniques by borrowing the power of heaven.
Although this approach towards swordsmanship lacked the strong willpower and indomitability of human swordmasters, the alien style was nonetheless immensely powerful as long as there was a strong supply of energy.
It just so happened that the sword wielding alien could count on the storm clouds to gain a constant infusion of tribulation lightning. The four-armed alien with digitigrade legs was already taking advantage of this by increasing the lethality of its swords!
Major Jankowski frowned. "I am not sure whether the tonfas of the Elegant Rage can withstand the blows of those swords. That fire sword looks especially threatening against the wood of my mech."
Ves could feel the potent power of the sword-wielding alien as well. The tonfas may be able to give the Elegant Rage a chance to survive up close, but if the discrepancies in skills as well as hard performance became too great, then that would not bode well for the living mech!
"We need to leverage all of the advantages of the Elegant Rage that we can muster. Pick up the vine from below. I think we may need to borrow the power of Gaia yet again."
Major Jankowsky did not question the command. The mech flew towards the site where the vines had lingered after they killed the gas cloud. Much of the thorns still looked eager to inflict pain while sucking the life out of their victims.
Major Jankowski suppressed his apprehension towards the dangerous-looking growths and commanded the Elegant Rage to pick up one of the vines.
As soon as the mech did so, the vines suddenly collapsed and condensed until they turned into a single long green whip!
A whip that was covered in much denser and more deadly thorns!
"I am not proficient in the use of whips." Major Jankowski spoke.
"It shouldn't matter too much. Just throw it at the enemy. The vine is alive, so it should be able to entangle the enemy by itself."
If Ves had more time, he would have explored whether there was a way to change the shape of the vine into a physical shield, an additional armor layer or even a spear.
Alas, the tribulation would not give the Elegant Rage the time to figure out her new capabilities.
After the alien swordsman started to wield the power of fire and ice, it immediately started to charge straight at the Elegant Rage!
Major Jankowski only bothered to launch a few ebony seed shots at the incoming enemy, only for the alien swordsman to block the simple attacks with its flaming blade.
In the face of this aggressive approach, the Elegant Rage did not immediately throw out its vine whip.
Instead, the mech wrapped it up around her mech frame like a bandolier and intended to meet the charging alien adversary with a pair of tonfas!
"Wait, are you sure it's a good idea to—"
Bang!
Bang!
The Elegant Rage bounced backwards as the power unleashed by the two swords upon getting blocked by the tonfas proved to be too much!