1674 Faithless
Gloriana spent around 40 minutes in meditation. Throughout the entire experience, she completely ignored Ves and anything else. It was as if she had completely closed herself from reality!
The extraordinary state of mind she achieved exuded a degree of solemness and devotion that Ves had only witnessed from the most devout Ylvainans.
While he was aware that Gloriana had always been a strong adherent of hexism, she normally restrained this aspect of hers when she was with Ves.
However, now that Ves observed her earnest prayer or meditation up close, he realized that her faith was a much bigger part of her than he thought!
The sincerity that Gloriana displayed towards her beliefs frightened him. She was so devoted to them that her mind completely transformed into a different mode!
Ves utilized his perception to the fullest degree. He not only observer her from the outside with his spiritual senses, but he also borrowed from the induction of his dormant spiritual fragment which was orbiting Gloriana's design seed.
After patiently observing her wondrous state of mind, Ves somewhat figured out what was taking place.
The moment she began to meditate, she exercised some deep-rooted habits that cleared her mind of all distractions.
It was as if she had activated a couple of software programs in her mind!
These programs not only shoved all of her distracting thoughts aside, but also amplified her focus towards her faith!
She even started to forget herself. Her sense of self had diminished as if she naturally diminished herself in the face of greater beliefs.
There were plenty of other nuances at work, many of which seemed to facilitate the recovery of her spiritual energy!
Ves noted that her mind did not appear to be proficient in this aspect. Before, her spiritual energy levels had never been touched, which meant that her mind never had a need to improve this aspect.
Yet now, Gloriana was weaker than she had ever been. She instinctively sought to develop solutions to facilitate the restoration of her spiritual energy reserves!
All of this took place on an unconscious and uncontrolled level. If not for the lack of distractions, letting her mind manipulate her spirituality to this degree was extremely dangerous!
Spiritual energy was very potent and possessed remarkable properties. If misused, Gloriana could easily hurt herself!
This was why he possessed some scruples towards what Gloriana was doing. It was only by accident and coincidence that she managed to leverage her meditation to increase her natural recovery rate.
As long as she completed her meditation session, she would probably be okay.
However, any interruption might lead to a severe disruption of her current mental state. Ves observed that her mental balance was a lot more fragile than before!
Ves was not entirely sure how much damage she would incur if someone interrupted her meditation, but he was sure it wouldn't be light!
This was something that his intuition told him. Any thought about pulling Gloriana out of her meditation made his heart very restless!
Therefore, he patiently waited for more than half an hour before Gloriana automatically ended her prayer. Her lips stopped whispering silent words and her mind slowly turned back to normal.
The clutter of thoughts and emotions in her mind reasserted themselves. That was when Ves was sure that Gloriana returned back to normal.
She opened her eyes, revealing clear windows that completely conveyed her certainty and conviction in her beliefs!
"Do you see, Ves?" She smiled adoringly at him. "As long as you believe in something, you will certainly get closer to the truth that governs our lives!"
Ves automatically ignored her attempt to convert him to her faith. There was no way he would ever follow hexism as long as he was a man!
When Gloriana rose from her mat and took back her altar, Ves sat down on her place.
"Let me try something."
"Do you need me to return my altar?"
"NO!"
After Ves made his refusal clear, he began to imitate Gloriana and attempted to enter the same mental state.
He concentrated his mind and tried to rid himself of every distraction. It helped that he was already very practiced in this regard.
However, Ves quickly encountered obstacles. Emptying his mind of all thoughts and emotions fluctuated his mood in a way that he found very disconcerting!
This was not a natural human state! Ves felt as if he was hollowing out his humanity, leaving him as a soulless, immoral machine who only cared about executing instructions!
Normally, when Ves designed a mech, he never emptied his mind to this degree. The most he did was to shove aside his distractions instead of displacing them out of his immediate reach!
The thoughts and emotions he set aside weren't irrelevant when he was focused on designing a mech. They still played a role whenever he had a need for them! After all, his design seed intricately incorporated some of his thoughts and emotions when he initially advanced to Journeyman.
His humanity played a core role in expressing his passion in mech design!
Ves initially failed to comprehend how Gloriana managed to do anything productive while she was in this empty state.
However, he soon realized that her faith and beliefs served as vital anchors!
Realizing the answer, Ves tried to focus his mind on something that allowed him to take the next steps.
Unfortunately, nothing worked.
He first tried to 'worship' mechs. While he possessed a strong affection for them, he didn't necessarily elevate them into unfathomable existences.
His design seed became more active as soon as he tried to center his thoughts around mechs, which instantly caused him to abort this attempt!
While he was very dedicated towards mechs, he was too used to entering into a productive state, which was completely different from the extraordinarily empty state of mind that Gloriana adopted.
He tried to worship something else. He attempted to worship the Bright Republic, but his patriotism was very jaded. He could not summon much sincerity at all towards his home state.
He didn't give up. He tried to worship various other entities and concepts. He switched from worshipping the Larkinson Ancestor, humanity and the Milky Way Galaxy.
Nothing worked! He simply couldn't summon enough sincerity and devotion to worship something greater!
In his mind, his arrogance and confidence in himself had reached a very high level!
Even though Ves did not like to call himself a Holy Son of the Five Scrolls Compact, he knew that ever since he obtained the System, he was not inferior to anyone!
This kind of pride along with his secularist background made it virtually impossible for him to mentally diminish himself in front of other entities!
In an act of desperation, Ves attempted to worship two of his design spirits.
He first made contact with Ylvaine's spiritual fragment and attempted to devote his mind to it. However, the fragment instantly cut off the connection on its end as if Ves' prayers tainted its purity!
"Goddammit! Am I really that bad?!" Ves whined, causing Gloriana to look at him oddly.
In truth, he could guess why the spiritual fragment rejected his worship. He did not respect the fragment as a powerful entity at all. How could he when he literally took a tiny spiritual remnant and somehow managed to revive it into a strong and growing entity!
Though its strength was not comparable to when the spiritual remnant was locked inside Ylvaine's nutrient pack wrapper, Ves still placed himself above it as if he was its parent!
Since Ves essentially created Ylvaine's spiritual fragment, he decided to turn to a more powerful spiritual entity which Ves did not look down on as its creator.
His selection was very limited.
On one hand, he could try to worship Nyxie, the tyrannical alien spiritual entity that was locked inside the Ancient Sarcophagus.
On the other hand, he could try to worship Qilanxo, a Sacred God who had been literally worshipped by the degenerated descendants of the crew of the Starlight Megalodon for centuries!
Naturally, Ves instantly opted for the latter, especially considering that he possessed a very friendly relation to the former lizard.
He adjusted his posture on Gloriana's prayer mat and began to make contact with the powerful entity.
As soon as he did so, he began to feel the strength and richness of her radiant spiritual strength!
While she was merely the design spirit of the Aurora Titan, which didn't sell nearly as well as his Soldier product line, the quality of spiritual feedback was still incomparable!
Before he prayed to her, he communicated his intentions to her without obscuring his main motivation.
She replied with an amused emotion. It was as if she didn't think much of his prayers!
Ves was relieved that she allowed him to pray to her. Qilanxo used to be a creature who received a lot of worship from all kinds of people. She wasn't as picky as Prophet Ylvaine in this regard.
As Ves began to empty his mind and worship Qilanxo, the outcome he hoped for hadn't taken place.
Just like before, he didn't look up to Qilanxo as a greater entity! At most, he thought of her as an equal who was worthy of respect!
Not only that, but Ves instinctively felt that his prayers fell on deaf ears! Qilanxo remained completely unmoved by his attempts to grow closer to her on a spiritual level!
He wasn't sure why his prayers weren't being received. It actually didn't matter what Qilanxo thought about him. As long as he convinced himself that he was being sincere, he could sink himself deeper in his meditation.
It was too bad that he got stuck at the door without any hope of entering inside!
In the end, either his method was wrong, or unsuitable!
He couldn't replicate one of the essential conditions that Gloriana easily managed to attain!
"I can't do it!" Ves lamented as he opened his eyes and stood up from the mat.
"Of course you can't, Ves. You're faithless! As long as you don't recognize how small you are, you won't be able to surrender yourself to something greater! You've never prayed to something in your entire life, right?"
"I'm a Brighter."
"Exactly. Do you think it's easy for you to be sincere in your prayer? Like most Hexers, I learned how to pay my respects to the six phases of existence when I was young! I received instructions from fellow followers who are much more devout than me! A layman like you can't comprehend the glory of praying with people who share the same beliefs!"
Ves sighed and lowered his head in defeat. "You're right. It was disrespectful for me to look down on your prayers."
In the end, he gave up on trying to imitate her achievements in meditation.
They were two completely different people in this regard. Gloriana's faith made her exceptionally suitable to rely on this method to accelerate her spiritual energy recovery.
As for Ves, he already benefited hugely from his Grand Dynamo. While he was essentially relying on an external object to address one of his shortcomings, the Grand Dynamo was simply too potent!
His spiritual energy recovered so fast that Ves did not have a very strong desire to develop an alternative means of speeding it up. At most, he would develop a backup solution in the event the Grand Dynamo stopped working for some reason!
With all of the work that Ves had to do, exploring this direction was a very low priority.
"Cheer up, Ves." Gloriana soothingly patted his back. "I can keep up with you to an extent! This is just the start! I'll definitely improve in the future!"
Both of them exited the office after a few hours. Strangely, Ves looked a little down while Gloriana appeared more energetic!
It was a complete reversal from before!
The pleasure exuded by Gloriana was so strong that she partially managed to overcome her mental exhaustion!