The Mech Touch

Once Ves and Gloriana clarified some matters to their new assistants, the new recruits all left the design lab in order to resume their tour.

Ves directed some attention to his students. Maikel and Zanthar Larkinson had been listening quietly on the side while holding two feisty cats in their arms.

"Meow."

"Miaow."

"Are the two of you enjoying yourselves?" Ves asked.

"Oh, uhm, yes, sir." Maikel stammered.

Neither of the two youngsters knew if it was appropriate for them to play around with the cats.

"It's fine." Ves casually brushed aside the issue. "The Larkinson Clan is known as the Clan of the Golden Cat. Every clansman is allowed to bring their own cats to work as long as they are smart enough to avoid getting in the way."

"Really?"

"Yes. The Larkinson Assembly recently passed this rule."

As more and more people joined the clan, they became enamoured by the clan's association with cats. A trend had recently emerged where clansmen would go out into Cinach VI in order to buy or adopt a furry pet, which encompassed more than just felines!

The problem with this development was that the Larkinson Clan would be living on ships in future. This meant that their homes also functioned as workplaces to an extent.

Thinking of all of the cats, dogs, lizard, birds and more exotic varieties moving around the sometimes cramped corridors and compartments of a vessel gave everyone headaches!

Therefore, the Larkinson Assembly urgently debate this growing issue and came to a consensus.

The clansmen weren't forbidden from obtaining pets, but they were only allowed to adopt tame, intelligent and obedient pets.

They needed to be tame in order to minimize any risk of pets attacking fellow clansmen.

They needed to be intelligent in order to understand their limits and refrain from touching something sensitive.

They also needed to be obedient in order to make sure that they would not disturb people on duty.

This basically meant that no one was allowed to bring in any regular cats or animals. Only sentient genetic products such as the famous breeds of Felixia I were acceptable to the Larkinson Clan!

As for mechanical cats, those who possessed a fancy to them would have to subject them to an extremely thorough inspection. It was well-known that mechanical pets often functioned as a means of spying on their owners, and that was intolerable!

The security checks were so stringent that Ves did not expect many of the mechanical cats to pass. This was a deliberate suggestion on his part because not every mechanical critter was as unhackable as his gem cat.

The two young men already started to think about adopting their own cats now that these new rules have come into being.

Ves and Gloriana both served as stellar examples of success within the clan. The fact that both of them owned cats would doubtlessly spark a lot of copycat behavior!

What nobody knew was that Ves also had an ulterior motive for encouraging mass adoption of pets.

Though he hadn't really done his best to keep it a secret, hardly anyone was truly aware of his ability to talk to animals.

Spreading around cats and other pets onto every ship was basically the same as establishing spy networks in plain view!

Even if the cats were smart enough to become aware of their own existence, they hardly cared about complicated human affairs. Yet that did not mean they paid no attention to what the tall humans around them were up to on a daily basis!

This was why he strongly encouraged the assemblymen to pass such a generous policy. Hardly any spaceborn clan established a pet policy as loose and generous as that of the Larkinson Clan!

Anyway, Ves did not approach his students to encourage them to adopt their own pets.

"Do the two of you want to join us on our mission?"

"Uhm, is that okay?" Zanthar frowned in doubt. "We're not adults yet. I don't think the law permits us to join the mission."

Ves smirked. "I am the law. We aren't operating under the auspices of the Bright Republic anymore, so you should forget about how we do things back in our former home. Right now, there isn't any explicit rule that prohibits you from joining up. It's just that there is no reason for most of us to bring along a bunch of kids."

"What about us, sir?"

"You're different. From the moment you accepted my mentorship, you aren't an average clansman anymore. I'm not raising you to become another assistant mech designer. I want at least one of you to advance to Journeyman so that the trueblood lineage of our clan has at least one other dependable mech designer aside from myself. We original Larkinsons must continuously show our strength in order to maintain some of our hold in the upper hierarchy of the clan. You and our future expert pilots will be key in making sure the clan will stick our Larkinson values!"

With the enormous expansion of the clan in recent months, it was inevitable that most authority positions would eventually slip in the hands of adopted Larkinsons. The disparity in numbers between truebloods and adopted had simply grown too vast to prevent this trend.

If that was the case, Ves at least wanted his own group of Larkinsons to maintain at least some dominance.

"Our clan is set up as a meritocracy." Ves reminded the two Larkinson seeds. "Many opportunities exist for both the trueblood and the adopted. Officially, the two aren't even treated differently, so don't think you can rely on your bloodline to gain any unfair advantages. In the short and medium term, that might allow us to maintain our dominance, but in the long-term such arrangements will only distort our behavior and cause us to grow complacent. This is our clan doesn't provide truebloods like you with any inherent privileges!"

The Larkinsons had fought against too many Vesians in the past to realize the flaws of such an unfair system. Their current approach actually borrowed a lot of elements from the Mech Corps.

Despite the sporadic nepotism that took place in that large organization, as a whole the mech military of the Bright Republic had often been lauded for the opportunities it provided for the competent.

Due to the pressure exerted by the Vesia Kingdom in the past, any instances of gross incompetence or negligence often led to major military defeats!

Though the Larkinson Clan had long separated itself from the Bright Republic, many of the veterans in the original group still possessed much of the institutional knowledge they gained during their service.

Ves was well aware that the influence of all of these veterans caused the clan to develop a militaristic slant. He didn't think there was anything wrong with that since their fleet would definitely bump into a lot of threats in the Red Ocean.

The Larkinson Clan couldn't afford to grow soft!

He finished his discussion with the Larkinson seeds. They were so young and naive that they weren't even aware that Ves essentially forced them into taking part in the mission!

With his growing proficiency in social manipulation, it was literally child's play to make his two gullible students enthusiastic about entering a region filled with pirates and anomalous hazards!

"We won't disappoint you, teacher!" Maikel bopped his head in enthusiasm.

"We'll prove to you that we aren't cowards, sir!" Zanthar bravely thrust his skinny chest.

Hehehe. Ves would mold them into fine and brave mech designers yet. Perhaps he should put them through some combat training as well.

"Meow!"

"That's not important, Lucky."

With this matter taken care of, Ves met with Gloriana and entered a closed-off section of the workshop.

"Why did you bring me here, Ves? Wait, isn't that the Purgatory Envoy and the Fortunate Devil?!"

Both competition mechs were still in their original damaged conditions. Even so, their great bulk and the stories their battle-scars told gave them an aggressive air!

Due to its inactive state, the Purgatory Envoy's glow wasn't very noticeable. The Fortunate Devil also didn't exhibit any signs of spreading any bad luck to those nearby.

"I brought these mechs here for two reasons." Ves started. "First, did you observe my mech doing anything special yesterday?"

"Aside from helping Joshua advancing to expert candidate?"

"That was not in the scope of my design."

"Hmm.. I do recall your mech releasing a strange pulse."

"What if I tell you that the Superior Mother had nothing to do with that. It was Joshua who activated this ability, thereby causing his mech to shed some of the bad luck that had stuck its frame!"

"Really?!"

Since Gloriana possessed a basic understanding of his design philosophy, she understood how significant it was. Every other ability added to a mech so far wasn't really reliable or accessible.

For example, the Guided Aim ability associated with the Deliverer mechs was basically dependent on Ylvaine's spiritual fragment prodding the mech pilot to adjust his aim!

"I call them triggered abilities, and they speak for themselves. I'm still exploring the theory and mechanics behind it all, but I think I can apply this method to almost every future mech design!"

"That's fantastic news! You found yet another application of your design philosophy! You're finally starting to catch up to me!" Gloriana celebrated.

Ves briefly glowered at that. He knew that as much as he achieved some progress, his girlfriend advanced even more! Every single masterwork they fabricated provided an enormous amount of insights to a detail-oriented mech designer.

To someone striving for perfection, studying mechs like the Quint and the Little Angels provided her with a clear direction for the future. This not only accelerated her progression, but saved her a lot of fumbling in the dark!

If this pattern continued, then Gloriana would definitely advance to Senior before him! That would be a disaster of epic proportions!

He coughed. "Anyway, the more important mech is the Fortunate Devil. When I initially stumbled upon this wreck, I developed a very radical theory."

He told her about the potential to siphon the spiritual trace from the Fortunate Devil and use it as an ingredient to develop a design spirit that was capable of manipulating probabilities!

If the revelation of triggered abilities had made her happy, the news that Ves could potentially replicate Jovy Armalon's specialty sent her into an entirely different mood!

"That.. that's too powerful! I don't think it is that simple to replicate what Jovy can do, though." She responded.

A part of her was afraid if Ves could live up to his latest boast. If he could truly replicate anyone's design philosophy, then would he be able to make her redundant?

Her entire body shook at this thought!

"You're right. It's not that simple." Ves sighed. "Spiritual entities have interesting abilities, but they can't express most of them when they are enshrined as design spirits. For example, Qilanxo doesn't actually make our Aurora Titans tougher. She is only able to influence people's minds with her glow, and that applies to many of my other design spirits. Perhaps in the future they will be able to exert more power in the form of triggered abilities and the like, but my specialty has always centered around increasing the level of cooperation between the mech pilot and mech."

"Oh." She said.

Her relief was immeasurable!

"That said, even if I can't replicate Jovy's full abilities, I might be able to salvage something. It's just that a luck-oriented design spirit will mainly be able to make people feel lucky, that's all. The spiritual trace that is responsible for empowering the Fortunate Devil is very weak and very specific towards the mech."

If his previous ingredients could be likened to steaks, then the spiritual trace that Ves was able to observe from the wreck was as miniscule as a pinch of salt!

However, that did not take into account the methods he could employ to grow it. Perhaps it was difficult to grow it with conventional methods, but Ves remembered the instance where he created the Superior Mother.

The life-attributed energy that Ves derived from the serum appeared to be capable of fostering the growth of anything spiritual!

The question was whether it was worth it to waste the previous life-attributed energy on this specific endeavor. Would he really be able to do something useful with a luck-based design spirit without understanding anything about Jovy's design philosophy?