While complaining, Pei Guang also started thinking: was it possible that in the main story, he had already run into a bunch of Elation Path followers without even realizing it?

He even felt like he might be getting watched by the Elation Aeon, just one of the background entities in the main plot.

Given how that Aeon behaves, targeting players like this almost felt inevitable.

But it didn't matter.

Pei Guang didn't care about things like that.

To him, the traits of these Pathstriders were basically legendary-tier traits, glowing brilliantly. Compared to the average traits anyone could get, Pei Guang had made up his mind to mass-produce them.

"If offspring can inherit traits, then don't blame me for getting ruthless..."

As a player, Pei Guang would always choose what was most beneficial for the player. But the realistic sensations of this place had affected some of his choices.

Forcing people to breed? No, no, no—he was an excellent player. He knew how to exploit loopholes in the rules.

What's the point of forcing two people together? Obviously, it's more efficient to pair people with robots.

After all, the trait inheritance ability worked through reproduction.

Humans had their own way of reproducing, and machines had theirs: if you put humans and machines together, then logically, whether using a human method or a mechanical one, both should work.

So, Pei Guang decided to try a very simple and crude method.

First, he built an automated factory. With just one button press, the factory could assemble a robot.

Then, Pei Guang brought in the captured Pathstriders and handed each of them a robot. Human and robot—then issued them each a marriage certificate.

After that, he had every human-robot pair press the "Construct" button together, and soon, a brand-new machine was created.

Right at that moment, Pei Guang's system log updated with new content:

[Player has successfully bred an offspring with the trait: Path of Destruction.]

[Player has successfully bred an offspring with the trait: Path of Preservation]

[...]

Pei Guang confirmed that one human + one machine, using mechanical means to create life, was a mechanic permitted by the game. If even that was allowed, then everything that came next would be much simpler.

After repeated attempts, he found that creations made by humans and machines had a high probability of inheriting the corresponding Path trait.

Then, by combining machines that already had Path traits, he could produce units with even more Path traits.

Compared to forcibly pairing humans, having humans and machines first create machines, and then letting those machines create more was far more efficient.

However, during the continuous trait-inheritance experiments, Pei Guang also discovered some drawbacks in how traits were inherited.

Each individual could have at most four traits. Once four were obtained, no new traits could be added by any means, and existing traits couldn't be removed by any method.

Inherited traits only retained their original power, and this power could not be enhanced.

To put it simply, if the original trait boosted stats by 10%, then the inherited version would always stay at 10%. This kind of inherited trait could not be improved in effectiveness in any way.

Also, even for humans and machines, there had to be a gender distinction. Though robots didn't truly have gender, as long as they were labeled with one, it counted.

With a male and female label, using the method of machine creation would meet the requirements of reproduction and allow a chance of producing units with inherited traits.

As for marriage certificates?

After some testing, Pei Guang confirmed that marriage certificates weren't necessary. As long as the labels showed one male and one female, that was enough.

That's right: Pei Guang confirmed that actual biological gender didn't matter. As long as the tags were "male" and "female," the mechanic would activate.

Upon confirming this mechanic, Pei Guang could only mutter one word: damn.

While this setting totally made sense within game logic, after experiencing so much realism in the game world, Pei Guang had become somewhat affected by it. Now, faced with such a deliberately gamified mechanic, he didn't even know how to complain.

"So that means… I need stronger base units to create more powerful offspring, uh?"

After this round of experiments, Pei Guang knew exactly what to do.

Basically, to obtain units with top-tier traits, aside from Aeons, he would need Emanators or other special entities like the Vidyadhara.

That's right, once again, Pei Guang had set his sights on the Vidyadhara.

He was curious: what kind of traits would the Vidyadhara possess? He was also curious: what would happen if those traits were applied to robots?

That curiosity became his next big motivator…

Pei Guang already had a plan for what he believed to be the strongest trait combo: Abundance + Destruction + Preservation + any Aeon.

According to the setting, Hunt hadn't been born yet. Since the Aeon of Hunt didn't exist yet, there was no way for Pei Guang to catch any Hunt Pathstriders to get more traits.

Even so, he was still very interested in the Vidyadhara's power.

He'd already seen the strength of the "Dragon" race firsthand, and comparing the powers of the Vidyadhara and Abundance wasn't easy in his view.

After all, the strength of the Vidyadhara was enough to suppress Abundance's blessings. So getting his hands on Vidyadhara power should definitely be worthwhile.

Among all the traits, the first one Pei Guang had his eyes on was the blessing of Abundance.

Compared to other elusive Aeons who only showed glimpses now and then, the Aeon of Abundance was absolutely the most generous.

Pei Guang also looked into the current state of this universe.

At present, the Abominations of Abundance already existed, and the Aeon had bestowed many miracles, some of which had allowed those abominations to make a noticeable impact across the galaxy.

So Pei Guang set his sights on those Abundance blessings.

The only issue was that capturing them required some real strength… and a bit of time to develop.

Even though he could inherit traits via special techniques, his army still wasn't strong enough. Since he was going with the mechanical route this time, before taking action, he needed to mass-produce full-trait machines, enough to blot out the sky.

Pei Guang: "If I keep growing like this, maybe it won't be long before I can catch all the Aeons too? Then what kind of combinations should I make?"

He was really looking forward to the endgame.

After all, in reality, he'd never get a chance to mess with the Aeons like this. Even if it were possible, it'd probably only happen at the very end of the game.

But then again, was there even an end to this game? Two planets and one space station had already taken so long, who knew when the Aeon confrontation would even happen?

Besides, given how these games usually went, Aeons might seem strong now, but who's to say they wouldn't end up getting power-crept later on?

But that was for the future.

For now, Pei Guang quickly shoved those thoughts aside. He was already imagining how Abundance might pair up with Hunt, and whether a Hunt empowered by Abundance would be ridiculously strong.

Then he'd throw in gluttony + knowledge, Destruction + Propagation, and top it off with bugs + Elation…

Perfect. Absolutely perfect!

Pei Guang still remembered what Aha had done just before he left during his last visit to the Memory World.

Well, even if it wasn't Aha, that didn't stop a petty player from getting revenge.

Whether that guy had fun or not didn't matter, Pei Guang only cared that he was having fun.