Chapter 3026 - 1008: The First Priority for Becoming a Mechanical Sage Is Learning to Resist Worldly Desires

Chapter 3026: Chapter 1008: The First Priority for Becoming a Mechanical Sage Is Learning to Resist Worldly Desires

"What? Mechanics from Transylvania came all the way here asking to join our Mechanical Church? Are they insane? This organization is obviously about to go up in smoke—who in their right mind would jump onto a sinking ship at a time like this?"

Scram!

Tell them to get lost!

Don’t come here to mess with me, I’m already annoyed."

In the central area of the tangled sewer system under Charldo Harbor, in what used to be the main base of the Mechanical Church, the Grand Mechanist Marvin was packing up his lab, looking like he was about to go on a long trip.

Hearing what his follower came running to report, this slightly world-weary Great Sage wore a thoroughly pissed-off expression and casually waved his servant away.

His anger and resentment had reasons behind them.

After his private meeting with Minkus, he’d already realized that it was completely impossible to keep any Mechanical Church influence in Charldo Harbor; which also meant he himself was about to become one of the exiles.

For a Half-body Man who’s lived three hundred years, that’s really a bit hard to swallow—old as he is, he still has to suffer through a fresh round of being kicked out.

But if you look at Great Sage Marvin’s own history, it’s downright legendary.

Back when he was facing off against Old Bach, Master Minks had once exposed a sliver of Marvin’s past.

He, Minkus, and Old Flywheel were mechanics of the same era, though he was much older than those two prodigies. And compared to their jaw-dropping brilliance in engineering, Marvin, while still worthy of being called a master, was ultimately a step behind in pure talent. Worse yet, the poor guy came down with an incurable disease in the prime of his life.

Because of this, he practically scoured the entire Continent for treatment methods, even seriously considered joining the Avalon Church at one point; but the power of the Divine Spirit couldn’t fix an illness he’d been born with, straight out of the womb. Marvin was completely despairing at the time—until a visit from Minkus and Old Flywheel gave him a shady, off-the-wall idea.

If the body couldn’t be healed, then use the Half-body Man’s method to regain his health.

On their suggestion, Marvin joined the newly formed Mechanical Church for the sake of survival, and under the personal guidance of Old Bach—already somewhat unhinged in his old age—he underwent prosthetic replacement on himself.

Marvin’s prosthetic replacement was not some kiddy-level "swap out an arm" kind of deal.

The first cut he made on himself was to replace his already fragile, failing heart; after that, he carried out a series of heavily mechanized modifications on organs including his kidneys and lungs. The entire transformation process took a full twelve years to complete, and then went through continuous updates and maintenance for the next two hundred years.

The result was that Marvin basically discarded his entire body, turned his own brain into wetware, and in a very heretical yet undeniably badass way, completed his self-rescue.

Of course, that kind of salvation came at a price.

Old Flywheel and Minkus also had less-than-pure motives for bringing Marvin into the Mechanical Church; it was disciples worried about their mentor’s mental state, deliberately planting an undercover agent at Old Bach’s side. But the twist came later—after Old Bach died, Marvin’s mission was technically over, yet he chose to stay in the Mechanical Church.

Which is understandable.

After all, even in Half-body Man society, Marvin—whose entire body probably didn’t have two taels of meat left on it—was already a freak among freaks. Apart from the Mechanical Church, there was no other faction that would accept a "monster" like him.

Marvin himself actually didn’t want to get involved in the power struggle after the Mechanical Church lost its leader. At heart, he was the type who loved to slack off, someone who clearly preferred tinkering with machines over talking to living beings—a weirdo through and through.

But his seniority was what it was.

Being part of the first group of followers and having studied under Old Bach for decades was not something those later ambitious upstarts could just fake; bit by bit, Marvin drifted along from "planted mole" to "Great Sage of the Mechanical Church," truly ending up in a position of great power.

Even so, when Old Bach’s summons came, Marvin still decisively chose to defect.

As he said that day, he turned himself into this state purely to stay alive; the longer he lived, the more terrified of death he became. He no longer wanted to be involved in any so-called grand affairs, never had any lofty ambitions, and now only wanted to keep on scraping by.

Until one day death either finds him and drags him away, or simply forgets he exists.

Unfortunately, with the other two Great Sages dead, the storm-tossed Mechanical Church now only had him left. As annoyed as Marvin was, he couldn’t just dump these pitiful souls and run off alone.

Marvin believed himself to be a mediocre guy, pushed to where he was purely by damned fate; precisely because of that, he cared more about ordinary folk as mediocre as himself than true geniuses. As long as it didn’t harm his own interests, he was quite willing to help these poor, anxious nobodies who had nowhere else to go.

Accepting Transylvania’s official offer was the conclusion Marvin and Minkus arrived at after their talk.

Minkus told him this was the best option out of all the choices.

Murphy and his territory desperately needed a batch of mechanical talent, and the vampire lands didn’t have so many strict rules. Transylvania was in the middle of rebuilding; as long as Marvin seized the opportunity, he could create a future for his followers that would be much better than staying in Charldo Harbor.

Murphy even wanted Goat Men and Wolf People—if the Mechanical Church went over there, they’d be the true "high-end talent," guaranteed to receive some very decent treatment.