The Mech Touch

Something extraordinary took place. Commander Chancy, Juliet and several other Penitent Sisters who were standing by or monitoring the readings each felt as if the Superior Mother had descended from the beyond!

The small idol of the Superior Mother actively radiated the ancestral spirit's glow. Ripples of activity emanated from it. The ten chosen Penitent Sister mech pilots each prostrated themselves before the totem.

To them, this experience had transcended anything they had ever experienced in their lives! Not even the most solemn hexism ceremonies where they witnessed boys being impaled alive topped the majesty and profoundness of this deceptively bare and simple occasion!

The power of glows transcended any religious trappings. Churches, hymns, artwork and scripture were mere window dressing compared to direct exposure that the gullible Hexers mistook as a deific figure!

The control room adjacent to the testing chamber was no different. Not only did the glow emanating from the idol bleed over to the surrounding compartments, Ves began to appear as if he had become a channel for the Superior Mother as well!

This made the Penitent Sister Commander and her subordinates believe that something unprecedentedly holy was taking place. Some operators even forgot about their duties and began to kneel on the deck in order to demonstrate their sincere devotion to the boy who carried the blessing of the Superior Mother.

Not a single Penitent Sister present in the control room harbored any further doubts towards Ves! He was truly the son of the Superior Mother. As a boy who received the nurturing of the best mother in the multiverse, there was no way they could treat Ves like any other regular boy.

In their perspective, he transcended the idiotic boyness typical to his gender and had reached a greater status! Despite his youth, he was as wise and mature as a woman!

"He is truly blessed." Someone muttered with awe.

"I want to bask in the Superior Mother's presence every day."

"It's possible as long as we follow her holy son. We can't look down on the Larkinson Clan anymore."

Many of the Hexers here had already experienced a gradual shift in ideology. It wasn't much of a stretch for them to extend some of the same high regard they held towards the Supreme to Ves. After all, he was unquestionably her son, and that was enough for them to set aside most of their usual biases against boys!

In this profound moment, Ves wasn't thinking about his effect on the exiled Hexers at all. Instead, he was frantically trying to plant the framework of his battle network inside the Superior Mother as fast as possible.

"Stop shaking so much! Can't you just go back to sleep like a good mommy?"

From the moment he found out that the Superior Mother's spiritual makeup did not reject his touch, he eagerly dove in with his spiritual projections.

What he tried to do was in essence similar to what he did to the spiritual foundations of his mech designs. He attempted to create a new spiritual construct from the Superior Mother's own existence.

Not only that, but he also wanted the spiritual construct to be alive and capable of growth. For this reason, he donated a copious amount of his own spiritual energy. By steadily inserting his essence into his mother, the two slowly conceived a new form of life.

"This is it! This is what I want!"

Ves became more enchanted by the creation process. As someone whose domain largely centered around life, the act of creation always satisfied him to no end.

He lived for this experience.

Creating anything, whether it was a mech, mech design, spiritual product or whatever else, was an act filled with meaning. It was a process where disorder slowly made way for a certain kind of order.

His excitement was compounded by the fact that he was creating a new life by using his mother as a carrier. Normally, an entity as strong as the Superior Mother possessed her own pride.

Although Ves could easily approach Qilanxo and ask her to gift him a spiritual fragment every now and then, he had no illusion that she would refuse to allow him to manipulate her spiritual essence.

The spirit was the foundation of a sentient being's life! This was especially the case for entities that somehow managed to transcend their mortal coil!

Perhaps Ves might have better luck with his own spiritual products, but not everyone was as open to him as the likes of the Golden Cat.

Someone as proud, domineering and imperious as the Superior Mother would have never allowed him to get close enough to touch her without a good reason.

It was a good thing she was dormant at the moment. The ancestral spirit had never woken up after her birth. Ves chalked it up to his mother's attempt to turn the Superior Mother into her 'incarnation'.

While Ves rapidly built up the spiritual construct, his intuition warned him of an approaching threat.

For some reason, he began to feel a sense of growing doom. What he was doing clearly irritated the unconscious Superior Mother. Her spirituality continued to ripple and convulse as if it slowly became apparent that Ves was up to no good!

"Damn, I need to hurry up before something happens!"

He threw all caution to the wind and thrusted his spiritual projections deeper. He rapidly completed the framework of his prototypical battle network with little regard for the flaws and imperfections that showed up. He didn't really mind them. While they made the battle network less efficient, they also added character and uniqueness to the living spiritual construct.

As long as it was allowed to grow, the living spiritual product could either outgrow or transform these flaws!

Just fifteen minutes passed when Ves hastily ended his task. In the end, Ves managed to create an embedded living spiritual construct that took on the form of a crown!

Yes, a crown!

This crown instantly gave an even more dignified image to the Superior Mother. Due to the special nature of the spiritual construct, the new head ornament did not look quite solid. Instead, it gave off an ethereal and mist-like vibe.

As the living construct was not active at the moment, the crown looked very dim and almost unnoticeable. If not for his keen spiritual senses, he would have thought the crown had disappeared!

Ves barely had time to admire the creation he conceived before the Superior Mother finally couldn't take the violation any longer.

The unconscious spirit released a strong pulse that instantly crushed his spiritual projections and broke his concentration!

"Agh!"

The pulse was so strong that Ves immediately collapsed to the deck as if his mother had pressed him down. At the same time, both his body and the small idol leaked out the aftershocks of the violent pulse, causing every Hexer in the vicinity to experience the Superior Mother's might directly to the point of taking a few steps back!

"Amazing! The Superior Mother has blessed us! We are truly fortunate to have received her attention!"

"I will dedicate my life to worshipping her from now on! No matriarch has ever conveyed as much power as her. I have been worshipping the wrong Hexers all this time!"

As the Hexers all became enthralled by the magical moment they had just experienced, Ves was not feeling so good.

Mother or not, the punishment she inflicted on him dealt quite a bit of damage to him. With the accumulated worship of billions of Hexers, the ancestral spirit had rapidly grown stronger.

Just an unconscious pulse was enough to give him a gnawing headache!

The shattering of all of his spiritual projections along with the shock to his mind made it difficult for him to perform any further spiritual exertion.

The pain was no less than getting kicked in the nuts!

Couldn't his mother be a bit more gentle? She was his child, after all! He birthed her and breathed life into her! Why was it strange for him to touch her and knead her spiritual essence in order to fashion a new addition?

Still, punishment aside, he succeeded in his endeavor. The crown had taken shape and the Superior Mother did not appear to reject the new addition.

As the ancestral spirit slowly entered into a deeper sleep, Ves finally shrugged off most of his aches and lifted himself up to his feet.

He looked around but saw that he didn't need to be worried. Commander Chancy and the rest were so absorbed by their own experiences that they hardly took notice of his moment of weakness.

"Well, the first phase is over. Let's move on to the next one."

That surprised some of the Penitent Sisters.

"It isn't over yet?"

"This is just the setup! In fact, I thought I would have been able to complete the next phase, but my mother's patience isn't endless."

He miscalculated. Before he was ready to take the next step, his mother slapped him away!

This also made his next step a bit difficult. Right now, the ten test subjects who were supposed to be the first Penitent Sisters to connect to the battle network were still unchanged.

After managing the situation at the control room, Ves decided to complete the next step right away.

He entered the testing chamber and approached the mech lieutenant that led her unit.

"Sir." The Hexer bent her head as she remained on her knees.

Though the idol of the Superior mother no longer pulsed so vividly, it still radiated a firm but gentle glow.

Ves didn't bother calling her up her feet. Instead, he placed his palm on her head. His fingers sank lightly into her red hair that she had tied into a short ponytail.

"Please stay calm and keep thinking about the Superior Mother. You have witnessed her love, right? Now think about embracing it. As long as your mind is clear and your heart is pure, I will allow you to bond with her to a greater degree than before. Are you willing to become her adopted daughter?"

The Penitent Sister's lieutenant's eyes lit up! "Yes! I do! I shall give everything to receive this supreme honor!"

"Then close your eyes and prepare yourself. I don't know what will happen next, but you will likely feel some sort of disturbance. Don't resist. Open yourself up to the Superior Mother. No matter how much pain you feel, it will be alright in the end as long as you are sincere. Are you ready?"

The Hexer clasped her hands together and looked more earnest than she had ever been in her life!

"I am ready."

Ves began to feel her mind through his touch and sensed that she was a typical mech pilot without spiritual potential. Only a tiny, intangible mote of spirituality was present in her mind. Though weak, it was still potent enough to sustain a human experience.

How was he supposed to connect this little spark to his new battle network?

Ordinarily, Ves would have asked his mother to extend a connection to his test subject, but she was not very responsive at the moment.

Maybe he didn't need to bother with these solutions. His spiritual energy was already highly compatible with her own spiritual energy. This meant that it shouldn't matter much whose energy he used.

Ves began to create a new spiritual projection in the form of a very thin and long string. He 'tied' one end to his test subject. Though the woman frowned a bit and showed some signs of wanting to shrug it off, in the end her strong belief caused her to stay still.

Even so, the connection didn't seem to hold very much. Before his spiritual string disconnected from his test subject, Ves quickly cast the other end to the Superior Mother's crown.

The crown seemed to sense the approaching string. Due to its nature as a battle network, it automatically sensed that a very compatible mind was connected to the end.

The living spiritual construct began to follow the programming that Ves had instilled into it. The crown magically attracted the string and tied it to its structure, thereby establishing its first connection to a human!

A shudder ran through the Penitent Sister lieutenant's body.

"I can feel something!"

"What do you feel?"

The woman opened her eyes in astonishment." I feel.. connected to her! She is so powerful!"

Ves released his hand from her head and grinned. The connection was stable!