The Mech Touch

When Ves, Gloriana and the rest returned to the base, the news of the remarkable ceremony spread by word of mouth.

Soon, the regional section of the galactic net went ablaze at all of the wild claims associated with Ves Larkinson's latest stunt!

Fortunately, the news was rather contained and did not have any further effects other than reinforcing his eccentric image.

Due to all of the precautions that Ves and the clan had taken, no direct recordings of the event had proliferated. Every single participant had to relinquish their comms and any other electronic devices. Those with internal implants that could have recorded the ceremony had already been filtered out beforehand.

This wasn't all. Every single mech and machine present at the event had to have their logs and memory banks scrubbed. Ves ordered Crindon and his team of security experts to do more than wipe out the data.

He wanted all of the physical storage hardware to be ripped out of the mechs and machines and melted down into scrap as soon as possible.

Ves did not want a single bit of data about the ceremony to be leaked onto the galactic net, or worse, the MTA!

Hearsay and stories should be enough to increase his notoriety as a weirdo. Ves did not want any detailed recordings to land in the hands of those who could possibly glean some clues from all of the events that took place.

Perhaps the most perplexing phenomenon of all was the sudden storm clouds that formed over the giant hexagon.

No one expected this to happen. It wasn't in the plans. Cinach VI's weather forecast also didn't say anything about storms or clouds.

If Ves bothered to retain all of the data recorded by all of the machines at the event, then he might have been able to figure out why the storm had come.

Sadly, the only data he had left was the internal memory recording he stored in his implant. When he rewatched the footage of his own perspective, he wasn't able to derive an explanation behind the sudden formation of storm clouds.

"It doesn't make any sense!" Ves complained.

Like most major settled planets, Cinach VI did not feature uncontrolled weather.

Ves had already looked up the meteorological agency in charge of managing the planet's weather on behalf of House Evenson.

The control the agency exerted was fairly strict. Sunshine shone on areas when it was good to do so. Rain fell on areas where there was a need to water crops or maintain the water table.

Though the degree of control the meteorological agency exerted was not that precise, the point was to provide every piece of land with the sustenance they required on a steady and predictable schedule.

Chaotic weather was bad for business. How would tourism agencies be able to hold sunny tours if a rain cloud suddenly drenched their destination? How could farms keep their plants watered at a precisely-calculated level if there was no pattern to the rain?

Above all, meteorological disasters had to be avoided at all costs. There was hardly any benefit to letting hurricanes, typhoons, tornados and other weird weather phenomena run their course.

In short, there was no reason for storm clouds to emerge at the site during the event at that specific time.

It was impossible for them to form naturally, especially when the clouds literally emerged out of nowhere before starting to rain down thunder and lightning several minutes later!

It was even more impossible for those storms to have been induced artificially. At the very least, someone had to seed the skies with something that induced the storm clouds to form, but they were almost always a lot bigger and a lot more uncontrolled!

Even if a third-parties intended to spoil the ceremony in this fashion, the mech patrols should have hindered their approach!

The day after the eventful ceremony, Ves and Gloriana both visited a secure chamber where the Larkinson Clan placed the statue of the Superior Mother.

The mech-sized object still radiated a sense of sacred motherhood when the pair of mech designers arrived.

Gloriana instantly lit up and respectfully bowed. "Good morning, Cynthia Larkinson!"

"Cut it out!" Ves admonished his girlfriend. "The Superior Mother is not my mother! She's a spiritual product! My mother is just.. tied to it. That's all."

Gloriana looked oddly at him. "You should be more respectful towards your mother, Ves. She's a goddess and a Supreme."

Ves palmed his face.

She took no notice of his reaction and happily approached the statue. She then proceeded to kneel in front of it in order to pray!

The sight disturbed Ves beyond belief. Though he expected his own girlfriend to become enamored by his new spiritual product, the fact that it was a part of his mother made this situation very weird!

As a Brighter, Ves abhorred superstition. What Gloriana was doing was no less than treating his mother as a goddess that deserved to be revered!

He slowly stepped forward and began to scan the statue with the equipment he had already brought forward.

Ves wanted to inspect the physical condition of the statue and see if it had changed due to the formation of the Superior Mother or the random lightning that struck its surface.

Fortunately, it quickly became clear that the statue was still intact and whole. How could mere lightning damage something as strong as his work? The statue largely consisted of Breyer alloy, which was tough enough to resist a lot of second-class ordnance! The power of a lightning bolt paled in comparison to a positron beam!

Nonetheless, his intuition hinted that the lightning storm was not as simple as it appeared. Perhaps its power was more destructive than he thought.

However, it was still a stretch to think that the lightning could have been powerful enough to damage something made out of Breyer alloy.

The odd thing about the statue was when he began to inspect it through his spiritual senses rather than his scanners.

The entire statue glowed as if it was one of his gold label mechs. It had somehow acquired a spiritual foundation that seemed to compliment the dorman ancestral spirit that resided within.

It gave the statue a sacred and inviolable quality that Ves had not intended to add to the work.

As for the Superior Mother herself, the newborn ancestral spirit did not respond to his spiritual queries. Ves guessed that the process that his mother used to turn the spiritual product into her incarnation might have sapped a lot of energy or something.

Whatever the case, the Superior Mother did not look sick or anything.

Since the Superior Mother was dormant, Ves took a closer look with his spiritual senses and tried to see what was different now that a portion of his mother now resided in her spiritual being.

He found nothing. As far as he could tell on the surface, the Superior Mother largely matched the product he set out to create from the start.

"Where is my mother?"

Perhaps Ves had to break the Superior Mother apart in order to uncover a trace of his mother, but obviously he couldn't do that. He just had to take his mother's word that the spiritual product was tied to her life.

Ves scratched his head as he proceeded to look for any bond or connection that led back to his mother.

He spotted nothing.

"How are they tied, then?"

His mother's abilities worked on different principles than the ones he was familiar with. Their methods were so different that his plan to decipher and reverse-engineer his mother's incarnation technique had failed!

Even though his mother told him no, Ves wasn't resigned to that answer!

"A technique with such a massive disadvantage should at least have a corresponding advantage. What are the uses of incarnation?"

Ves suspected that this might be the way for him to be in two places at once.

Wouldn't that be great? He could retain his main consciousness in his body while ordering Ranya to make a clone and somehow turn it into his incarnation.

If this wild plan succeeded, he could practically live a second life through his second body! Ves could opt to foist an alternate identity on his incarnation and leave him behind in the Milky Way Galaxy while he merrily left for the Red Ocean.

Sadly, his stingy mother declined to teach him this trick. According to her, it was too dangerous to leave in his hands.

"Tch. Why are you hogging all of the good stuff to yourself?"

His fantasy of living two lives at once were dashed.

Perhaps it was for the better. He already had his hands full with his current life, after all!

When Gloriana finally finished praying to his mother, she walked to him with a radiant smile.

"This statue serves as a much better altar than my other ones! I love basking in your mother's divine domain. I feel so validated and encouraged under its influence that I can't imagine resorting to anything else."

Ves pressed his lips. "It's too big, though. I designed the statue to impress a crowd of 66,666 men."

"Can't you reproduce it on a smaller scale? Preferably with the same glow?"

"I.. could.. but.. let's talk about that later. We should focus on our work."

Ves did not wish for his girlfriend to carry around a miniature altar based around the Superior Mother everywhere!

"What do you want to discuss?" She asked when her religious fervor subsided.

"We should finalize our mech design as fast as possible. Have we received any data on the tests performed on the first iteration of Hexer mech design?"

"My mother's people have already sent the first batch of test data. It's already very detailed. I suppose we can use that to start on developing the second iteration of our mech design. It's just.."

She looked uncertain.

"What is it, Gloriana?"

His girlfriend pointed at the statue. "I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to attach a Supreme to a male mech design. It seems.. wrong."

Ves sighed. "I already told you. The Superior Mother is not exclusive to women. As a design spirit, she is quite versatile. I designed her that way. While she is just a single entity, she also encompasses the six phases of existence and many of the facets of Hexers. In the case of our landbound knight mech, she acts as a reassuring mother that watches over her son. I believe our finalized mech will produce some surprising results once the Superior Mother takes hold."

One spiritual product, countless applications.

This was one of his other goals with the creation of the Superior Mother. He did not want to create a specific Hexer mech design for every other Hexer mech he designed.

Instead, he tried to make sure he added enough versatility in the ancestral spirit to add something useful in every mech design. Landbound or spaceborn, male or female, offensive or defense, the Superior Mother was compatible with every possible variety!

"I think my mother will be very impressed with our debut Hexer mech design." She smiled impishly at him. "In fact, once she learns that your mother is a Supreme, she will—"

"—NO!" Ves immediately turned and held her shoulders. "Do not tell your mother or anyone else about my mother!"

"B-But why?" Gloriana sputtered with shock.

"It's a long story. Suffice to say, there's a very good reason why she is gone."

He briefly explained that his mother attracted some very powerful enemies and was being persecuted. Gloriana predictably reacted with outrage and alarm, but Ves did not reveal anything about the Five Scrolls Compact or anything else that would get her in trouble.

"I see." She spoke after she calmed down. "If that is true, then.. it's best to keep this news under wraps. Will there be any problem with spreading the Superior Mother?"

Ves shook his head. "There shouldn't be. The Superior Mother doesn't contain any trace of my mother. If the ancestral spirit posed any threat to her, then my mother would have warned me or chosen another solution."

In fact, he suspected that his mother may have chosen to turn the Superior Mother into an incarnation because it hid her presence so well!

If Ves with his powerful spiritual sensitivity wasn't able to detect a trace of her mother in the ancestral spirit, then the Five Scrolls Compact and any other enemies would probably have no clue either!

In this way, Ves did not have to worry about attracting any unwelcome attention if the Superior Mother proliferated.

A curious thought began to enter his mind.

Would the Superior Mother be able to strengthen his mother and feed her addiction to spiritual energy?

His eyes lit up. In theory, this should be the case!

If everything went well, Ves would finally be able to get rid of his status as her personal energy battery! His mother should no longer have any reason to suck him dry!