Develop clever shielding for vital complex (9)
I believe the answer is:
cultivate
'develop' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'clever shielding for vital complex' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
an anagram of 'vital' is 'ltiva' which is located in the answer.
'clever' could be 'cute' (I've seen this before) and 'cute' is found in the remaining letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cultivate that I've seen before include "Grow (crops)" , "Foster" , "Promote" , "Try to get in with" .)