5147 10,000 Permutations

For a brief instance of time, Ves had the illusion that his second daughter turned into a miniature living mech that was cultivating the Greater Larkinson Metal Guardian Mantra.

Had the arche or the puelmers secretly infiltrated his clan and surreptitiously replaced his flesh-and-blood daughter with a facsimile that actually consisted of a miniature mech?

Ves soon shook his head. This was a ridiculous thought!

He knew his children extremely well. Only his wife possessed a greater familiarity towards the child she once bore in her belly.

When Ves activated his spiritual senses, he began to study his daughter while she was cultivating according to an unknown method.

He immediately made several observations.

First, the cultivation method primarily centered around Andraste herself, but Yaika was able to pitch in due to her inherently spiritual nature.

Second, his daughter was exceptionally suited to cultivate as energy not only poured into her spirit, but also her blessed body!

Third, whatever cultivation method Andraste got her hands on was relatively mild and ineffective.

Fourth, Ves did not think that it was beneficial for Andraste to cultivate this method because his daughter was absorbing spiritual energies without making too many distinctions between their attributes.

While Ves did not sense that Andraste was actively causing any acute harm towards herself, that did not mean the cultivation method was benign.

For example, it might cause her to turn into an odd form of qi cultivator that completely precluded her from becoming a mech pilot.

The cultivation method might also cause her to develop an affinity into elements that did not suit her goals or inclinations.

There were way too many possible side effects and adverse outcomes for Ves to allow his daughter to continue with her activity.

Although Ves did not want to become an overbearing parent who had to control every single aspect of his children's lives, he did not want Andraste to engage in a method that would lead to unpredictable outcomes!

"Cultivation is not a game, pumpkin." Ves stated in a stern voice. "It is a life-changing activity that can be dangerous or irreversible. It is never a good idea to engage in a practice without guidance from an actual expert or authority in the relevant field. For example, you learned your swordsmanship from Ketis, who is both skilled and trustworthy enough to prevent you from inflicting harm onto yourself. Where did you find this method, anyway?"

The little girl grew a little timid as she rose up to her feet again. "I found it on the galactic net."

She proceeded to provide him with a brief explanation on how she stumbled upon a meditation method that claimed to turn any child into a potentate.

A lot of commenters expressed skepticism towards this dubious mantra. They apparently felt they did not gain any discernible benefits from practicing this strange method.

Andraste was the exception. She actually managed to experience real changes after she started to follow the written instructions!

Benjamin meanwhile was helpful enough to transmit a virtual document that contained the original text that described this so-called 'meditation method'.

Ves immediately entered into an analytical mode and started to dissect the entire text. He utilized his current understanding of cultivation science as well as spirituality to cut past all of the marginal content and decipher the more functional and critical components of the method.

The more he studied the method, the more he grew concerned.

"What do you think, grandson? Is there any truth to its claims?"

It took a few seconds for Ves to offer his response.

"This cultivation method definitely has a basis in authentic cultivation." He eventually said. "There are many parts to it that look like it has been copied from numerous ancient books before being pasted together to make up for a brand-new method. The author subsequently added a few original elements to the mantra in order to tie all of the components together in an attempt to produce a specific result. I can vaguely surmise that whoever did all of this work had no malicious intentions. It is truly an earnest if somewhat clumsy attempt to increase the chance for children to develop more suitable genetic aptitudes."

Andraste's eyes lit up all of a sudden. "Doesn't that mean that I will definitely pilot mechs in the future?!"

Ves immediately shook his head. "Not so fast, my girl. Did you just miss what I told you earlier? We have no idea whether its creator is competent enough to make a safe and effective cultivation method. It might not be good for you either because you are much different from normal humans. Without a central authority similar to the Mech Trade Association that can professionally check and certify whether a method meets all of the requirements, it is highly uncertain whether it is safe or not. You can't afford to make any mistakes in matters like this. You should have gone to me a lot sooner."

Andraste looked like she was starting to understand her mistake. "I'm sorry, papa."

"I need to confer with a more knowledgeable expert about this subject. Please wait for a moment."

Ves went still. Both Benjamin and Andraste thought that he was silently contacting another person through his cranial implant.

The actual truth was that he was using Veronica to pay another visit to Cynthia back in the Milky Way Galaxy.

His mother provided him with a lot of interesting insights that he missed due to lack of knowledge or vision. Her analysis and guesses about the motives of the unknown author made a lot of sense. She also gave him a few tips on how he could take matters into his own hands and do a better job.

Once Veronica concluded her little visit, Ves went back to addressing his grandfather and daughter.

"Okay, I think I know what is going on here." Ves said. "Let me bring up the galactic net and perform a quick search to see whether similar cultivation methods have recently started to show up in different communities and portals."

He called up an advanced search engine and rapidly set up a new search request that looked out for any texts that contained identical phrases or text structures to the method that Andraste practiced.

"Sure enough."

Both Benjamin and Andraste looked confused as Ves projected over a hundred different virtual documents!

Each of these texts had been posted in many different places. From a virtual game forum to an interactive yoga teaching site, all of these places offered visitors access to different variations of cultivation methods that all claimed to help children rearrange their own brains!

The documents had mostly been allowed to stay up because no one really understood them. Cultivation was still completely unknown to the general public, so the administrators did not understand any of the dangers.

This was a huge fault that was bound to produce a lot of accidents over time!

"Do you see what is going on, now?" He asked primarily to his daughter. "You should be able to see a lot of common elements between all of these cultivation methods. That is a strong indication that they were all authored by the same individual or organization. The purpose of doing this should also be clear. They all claim to produce the same result, but do so by slightly different methods. This is a classic experimental approach. The researcher has a vague idea on how to attain a desirable result, but hasn't dialed in the most optimal solution. He or she has therefore created a lot of different possible iterations that contain a lot of different permutations of the same set of variables."

The apparent truth of what was actually going on was extremely clear to a mech designer like Ves, but it was different for a young girl that was still a few years away from becoming 10 years old!

Fortunately, Venerable Benjamin helped out by offering a similar analogy.

He used his comm to project an old-fashioned numerical keypad with buttons ranging from 0 to 9. Such keypads were typically used to lock doors or containers.

"Imagine a safe, Andraste." The old man explained. "This safe stores a large sum of money and treasures. You really want to take possession of these riches, but in order to do that you will need to enter the right passcode. Let's assume that this electronic lock can only be opened by inputting the correct string of four numbers. How many possible combinations can you submit to this lock?"

A typical little girl would have no idea on how to answer this mathematical question.

Andraste was different. She received a lot of advanced tutoring as of late, and probability theory had been a part of her lessons early on due to its importance in many different sectors and professions!

"Uhm... to get the answer, I will need to multiply the amount of options for every number. That means 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000."

Ves grinned. "Correct! You can input 10,000 possible strings of four numbers into this keypad. The problem is that only 1 string is correct while the other 9,999 are all wrong. Let's expand on this analogy even further, shall we? If you input the correct keycode, then you will unlock the safe without incident and obtain a huge amount of money. If you input an incorrect keycode, then the safe will explode, which not only destroys what you wanted to get, but also kills you in the process!"

"That's dangerous!"

"Indeed." Ves seriously nodded. "Now think about the cultivation method that you just practiced and compare it to the other ones that I have easily found across the galactic net. Do you think the one that you originally got your hands on is the correct keycode that can make you rich, or one of the many wrong keycodes that will cause you to blow up into pieces?"

"...I did not feel anything wrong, papa. It's not dangerous... right?"

Ves sighed and wiped away all of the projections. He leaned down and softly patted his daughter's orange hair.

"You don't know that. You did not possess the right expertise to make this judgment or consult a qualified professional. That is really dangerous, baby. I cannot tolerate anyone turning my precious little girl into an unwitting test subject. This should be illegal as far as I am concerned. If I have an opportunity to do so, I will raise this topic with the Survivalists when I attend their upcoming conference. People cannot be allowed to recklessly spread dubious cultivation methods on the galactic net. It's not a big problem for now, but they can definitely produce a lot of accidents once exotic radiation has more time to transform humans into organisms that have adapted to a higher energy environment."

"What do you mean by that?" Benjamin frowned and asked. "Is it dangerous or not, Ves?"

"It's situationally dangerous. According to a reliable source, the cultivation methods all share a common flaw. They are derived from ancient but actually effective methods that are mainly geared towards people with spiritual potential. Long-term exposure to E energy radiation can vastly boost the chances of developing this crucial quality. However, the Age of Dawn has barely begun, so most people have yet to experience this benefit. A lot of gullible and ignorant children that have attempted to practice these 'mediation methods' have been wasting their time without any result, which is actually good compared to the alternative."

"Yet Andraste is different."

"Yes. She's special. All of my children are special. I imparted each of them with companion spirit seeds early on, which means that they all managed to develop spiritual potential from the moment of their births! Despite all of the possible risks, it is extremely helpful for people to obtain this quality. I did this in order to make Andraste and her siblings stronger."

"Your actions also prematurely exposed them to risks and dangers that they are not necessarily equipped to handle." Benjamin accused.

Ves grinned in response. "That's what I am for. Even if you did not bring up this matter to me, I would have noticed what she was doing sooner or later. In fact, Goldie should have warned me about this from the moment she detected my daughter practicing an unknown cultivation method that I most certainly did not approve of! You need to be more alert about this kind of stuff!"

The Golden Cat materialized into the office in order to defend herself!

"Nya nya nya nyaaaaa!"

"You were still negligent!"

"Nyaaaa!"