The Mech Touch

Peter Seterin's unfortunate death revealed a lot to Ves.

The serum's life-attributed energy was so potent that hardly anyone could contain it. The fact that his mother absorbed it with ease shouldn't be taken as a model.

Weaker spiritual entities simply couldn't handle the excessive vitality contained within a small portion of high-quality life-attributed energy!

Ves should have fed Peter with a smaller dose. Even if decreasing the quantity of life-attributed energy vastly decreased its potency and vitality due to its interconnected attributes, it was better to make some progress than induce another head explosion!

Still, Ves did not quibble over one of his test subject's death too much. While it was a bit troublesome to obtain replacements, the Nyxian Gap never ran out of pirates for him to capture.

At the very least, up until Peter's spiritual potential was no longer able to contain the excessive vitality, its growth proceeded very smoothly and evenly.

Even without any active guidance on his part, the serum's life-attributed energy was configured in a way to foster comprehensive growth without any biases or preferences!

This was good news to Ves. If he ever wanted to strengthen someone quickly, he could just provide as much life-attributed spiritual energy that the subject in question could safely contain.

There was no need for Ves to do anything risky such as trying to control and direct the absorption process.

What happened if he absorbed it directly? He had a suspicion that he might be able to accelerate the growth of his Spirituality and shorten the time needed to advance to Senior.

However, Ves couldn't guarantee that such a forced growth would affect his foundation. So far, his Spirituality had grown at a fairly quick but steady pace. He was already satisfied with its current growth rate.

In addition, even if his Spirituality grew stronger, his understanding of his design philosophy still remained the same. Unless he made great progress in research and reached a much better understanding in his specialty, there was no way he could break through to Senior!

"That's going to take a lot of years." He muttered.

If he advanced when he reached fifty, then that was an impressive accomplishment. That was his current target, and so far Ves believed he was on schedule.

"In any case, there is no pressure as long as Gloriana doesn't advance to Senior first." 

What interested him more was feeding the life-attributed spiritual energy to his design spirits. Some of them were weak, especially his earlier ones. Ves had long considered feeding life-attributed energy to the Crystal Leader in order to bring him up to par with his current standards.

Life-attributed spiritual energy also possessed remarkable healing properties. Before it strengthened a spiritual entity, it first healed the wounds and other impairments. Ves made this conclusion after seeing it work during the birth of the Superior Mother and the fatal experiment that he just performed.

Ves had long lamented the fact that some of his design spirits weren't as whole and undamaged as the others.

For example, the Crystal Leader was very deficient in many matters because its main ingredient was very damaged.

When Zeigra died, the Crown Cat's spirituality had become detached from its huge body and was just about to slip into the imaginary realm. Substantial portions had already crumbled away before Ves managed to recover Zeigra's still-living spirit!

The growth they experienced as Ves made use of them as design spirits did not heal all of the damage. It was as if they lost some of their limbs. Their natural healing processes were incapable of regenerating missing limbs!

Only outside intervention could fix this damage. Ves now became hopeful that he was able to address the congenital defects of all of his design spirits.

"It's still too risky to try this out." Ves whispered to himself. "If I somehow botch the process, I might lose a critical component that is responsible for empowering a lot of mechs!"

Ves suddenly realized he had not made sufficient preparations in the event that one of his design spirits left their positions.

What if they left? What if they became disabled? What if they died?

All of the mechs that depended on the design spirit in question would surely lose a lot of value! This would prove catastrophic to his reputation!

He didn't have any good solutions at the moment. The only method he could come up with was to hastily create a substitute spiritual product to take the place of the original design spirit.

It was best if the mech model affected by the design spirit's absence had already fallen out of use. Ves didn't care what happened to his oldest designs because hardly anyone piloted them anymore.

If that wasn't the case, then the more proper solution would be for the LMC to replace the invalidated mech models with newer models.

"This is a bit complicated." He thought.

Right now, it was too difficult to implement these solutions. This meant that Ves really couldn't afford losing any of his design spirits.

At best, he might choose to experiment on an expendable and unimportant design spirit. Bravo came to mind. The only purpose this feeble spiritual product fulfilled was to stroke Vincent Ricklin's ego!

"Hey! This is actually a pretty good idea!"

If his attempt to strengthen it succeeded, then Ves gained another option to strengthen his design spirits.

If the experiment failed and Bravo blew up, then no harm was done. Only Vincent actually suffered, and Ves believed that was a pro rather than a con!

Only his professionalism restrained Ves from making an immediate move.

From an ethical perspective, Ves had promised to deliver a custom mech to Vincent that performed up to a certain standard. He would be doing a great disservice to a customer if his product degraded and weakened ahead of time.

While it was normal to expect mechs to break down after they had been in service for five to ten years, for one of his mechs to abruptly lose its glow was not a regular malfunction!

"Hmm, I need to think on this issue further." He murmured.

When Ves returned to the Scarlet Rose, he continued to mull over his current research. While he hadn't collected enough data to make any solid conclusions, he was pretty sure he was able to help a mech pilot advance to expert candidate.

He was not as confident in helping the likes of Jannzi Larkinson or Tusa-Billingsley Larkinson in undergoing apotheosis. He still didn't understand the trigger to this phenomenon. All he knew that they needed to develop a very pure and solid conviction.

As Task Force Predator kept flying calmly through the dense asteroid fields of Maynard Fields, Calabast soon entered his stateroom.

"How is it going, Lucky? Would you like to undergo some additional training?"

"Meow!"

The gem cat jumped from the desk and floated towards the ceiling.

Ves stared up at his cat before directing his eyes to his strategic partner. "He enjoys your company, but he abhors training."

"Cats." Calabast shrugged.

"Yup. Cats."

When the black-clad woman strode forward, she leaned against the desk instead of sitting on the chair like normal people.

"Let me begin with the good news." She said. "Your Blessed Squire model has finally debuted on the battlefield, and it has already taken the Hegemony by storm."

Ves chuckled. "DIVA sure did a good job with rolling out the Blessed Squire. With the Hex Army on Marrakath III making much more progress than elsewhere, there is really no way for those boy-hating women to refute the effectiveness of my work."

In addition, the differences before and after the Blessed Squire's introduction was simply too big. Part of that was due to the complete lack of preparation on part of the Fridaymen, but it was undeniable that the Hexers fought considerably more enthusiastically than before!

"From the beginning, DIVA has targeted the Hegemony's opposition against mechs designed by boys. Fortunately, my former colleagues have managed to overcome the most difficult hurdle. It's very hard to argue that the Blessed Squire and your other Hexer mechs can be a boon to the Hex Army if the battle results haven't changed. In fact, if your mechs completely fell flat, then DIVA will be the first to pull them off the battlefields!"

"That's fair." Ves nodded. "I take it that the Blessed Squire's approval is only a matter of time?"

The lives of a lot of Hexer mech pilots was a stake. DIVA would never introduce something that imperiled the fate of the Hegemony!

Calabast nodded. "The matriarchs can't stop the vocal demand from the rest of the Hex Army. Behind the scenes, DIVA has made good use of the Little Angel to convince important Hexers to grant an exception to you. I'm not sure when the board of matriarchs will finally issue their verdict, but it won't take too long."

Once that happened, Ves would encounter much less hindrance when introducing other Hexer mechs. Even his female Hexer mech designs such as the Valkyrie Redeemer would probably make it through!

He briefly recalled his talk with Master Olson. His face grew serious.

"The Friday Coalition shouldn't be sitting on their thumbs, right? Do you know if they have made any moves towards the Blessed Squire?"

"I'm not sure." Calabast shrugged. "I'm no longer with DIVA so I don't have any access to intel relating to the Friday Coalition's response. If you ask me, the Fridaymen will never let a mech that has achieved such a drastic effect on Marrakath III to achieve the same impact elsewhere. It conveys too many advantages to remain unaddressed. That is all I can say about it. I'm not a mech designer so I do not know what kind of mechs the Coalition will present. Just take into account that your work will likely be targeted by the best."

"I'm aware. Masters are welcome to spend their precious design time on defeating my mechs. If nothing else, that means the Fridaymen are spending less time on figuring out ways to defeat the Hex Army's other models!"

"That's correct. Whether you win or lose, the Hex Army will always benefit. However..."

"What is it, Calabast?"

"You are overlooking something. With the great impact the Blessed Squire has made, you have definitely proven that you are capable of affecting conflicts between second-rate states. This is not only remarkable in the Komodo Star Sector, but also elsewhere. I am sure that many second-rate states in our neighboring star sectors are already paying close attention to what you can do. Some of their eminent mech designers may even feel threatened by your distinctive specialty."

Ves widened his eyes. "You mean that foreign Masters will develop counters to my mechs as well?!"

"If those foreign mech designers are observant enough to recognize the threat of your mechs, then they won't wait until you travel to their star sectors. They will likely develop countermeasures right away. Of course, these potential solutions all need testing."

The implication was clear.

"Those foreign Masters will cooperate or collaborate with the Friday Coalition to test out their unique solutions."

"This is a very great possibility. The Friday Coalition will not reject this foreign aid. Anything that helps stifle your mechs is valuable."

"Isn't this a bit too exaggerated?! While I'm okay with competing against the Masters of the Friday Coalition, it's another story if I have to resist the top mech designers of the rest of the Yeina Star Cluster!"

An ordinary Journeyman would never be able to withstand such scrutiny! While Ves believed he wouldn't buckle so easily, he knew that there were plenty of weird mech designers out there. Only one of them had to come up with a solution that completely suppressed or negated his design philosophy in order to set back his plans!

"Look, it's not that bad." Calabast attempted to reassure him. "If the Hexers become convinced of the value of your mechs and design philosophy, it's possible that some of the Hegemony's Master Mech Designers are willing to provide you with help."

Ves raised a very skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"

"...Perhaps not."

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