The Mech Touch

After introducing Arnold to his new 'toy', Ves stuck around for a few hours in order to make sure that the beast spent time with his gift.

In the beginning, the stupid creature didn't know what to do with the scale model of the stealth mech. Whenever he wanted to turn away and run back into the tunnels, Ves intervened and blocked Arnold from leaving the miniature Devious behind.

"Not yet. Bond with it first. Immerse yourself in its design and make it a part of you. I won't let you go back to your cave until you do as I ask."

Though Ves maintained a friendly tone, there was an undeniable hint of coercion in his words.

"Squeak…"

Arnold decided it was best to do as he was told. He approached the miniature and began to touch it with its snout and forelimbs.

Once he saw that the miniature wasn't dangerous, Arnold became bolder. He licked the surface of the mech and tipped it over so that he could step on top of the fallen object.

Ves frowned as he witnessed all of this. Arnold still lacked too much understanding. He turned the miniature into his new squeeze toy. If not for the fact that the miniature was made out of high-quality materials, it would have sustained damage from Arnold's rough ministrations!

After licking the miniature mech from top to bottom, left to right and front to back, the dumb exobeast did something even more ourageous.

It started to mount the miniature after flipping it over!

"Oh, hell." Ves began to look disgusted. "Is it..?"

Doctor Ranya awkwardly coughed. "Arnold's physical parameters are elevated. They match the levels of arganids that have become excited. I'm uncertain what has led to this result. It might be that a particular material in the miniature stimulated his hormones."

It could also be something else. Perhaps Arnold became more and more fascinated by the weak glow and subtle spiritual presence of the miniature mech.

Ves widened his eyes. Since the Devious carried a touch of the Superior Mother's presence, did that mean that Arnold acted this way because he was stimulated by this aspect?

Before he could order Ranya to separate the excited arganid from his new gift, someone else intervened first!

A giant, semi-transparent hand materialized out of nowhere! It quickly descended in order to pinch Arnold's body before pulling him off the miniature!

"WHAT IS THAT?!" Ranya yelled in astonishment.

"Squeak! Squeaaaak!"

The Superior Mother was very upset! Ves could feel the anger and irritation radiation from the powerful spiritual entity. He was afraid that she might squash his precious asset!

"Stop! Don't kill him, mother! Please tolerate him. He doesn't know any better!"

Whether she listened to him or not, the Superior Mother did not apply any further pressure. Arnold dangled helplessly above the surface while two giant fingers kept him trapped in place.

"I need him." Ves continued to beg to the Superior Mother. "Arnold can be a useful addition to the Devious design. Can you help me out with this? Do it for me and for your worshippers. The Hexers can achieve much better results in the Komodo War if the Devious becomes a more effective stealth mech with his aid. Don't blame him for anything. He's too young. You can educate him if you want."

His words may have taken effect. The Superior Mother was a mother by nature, so she was naturally more tolerant to those who were younger and more ignorant.

While Arnold wasn't a juvenile anymore, his ignorance and lack of any forethought obviously caused him to resemble a naughty kid. His looks and behavior were both adorable in a way.

Eventually, the giant hand put down the furry mammal. Arnold's body shivered as it stayed in place. The frightened exobeast did not dare to move in the face of such a powerful presence.

He already figured out that it was useless to run away from such a powerful entity!

Since the Superior Mother was listening to him, Ves quickly explained his intentions. By openly telling the powerful spirit what he wanted to achieve, he hoped to gain her assistance in this matter.

The words took effect. Ves wasn't sure what happened, but the Superior Mother's giant hand gently poked Arnold's head before tapping the miniature Devious that was covered in drying saliva.

"SQUEAK!"

Arnold's body convulsed as his spirituality suddenly underwent a change that caused quite a lot of distress! His mind experienced a lot of new stimuli that his limited mental capacity wasn't able to process!

"Mother! Ease up on it! Whatever you are doing, don't kill the poor creature!"

As Ves kept observing what the Superior Mother attempted to do, he gained a bit of understanding.

"Don't force it. Let me help. This is my specialty."

He began to concentrate and form some spiritual projections in order to assist in the attempt to bind Arnold to the Devious design.

Ves supplied some of his spiritual energy to the process. It acted like a glue and a facilitator that allowed Arnold's spirituality to bond with the Devious design.

It took a few minutes for Arnold to stop squeaking. His exhausted body slumped on the floor while the giant hand that had tormented him disappeared from view.

The pain had stopped, but the changes were here to stay. With the Superior Mother's help, Ves managed to master another spiritual technique.

He called it spiritual investment. It was essentially a method to turn a living, corporeal spiritual entity into a design spirit for one of his mech designs.

While that didn't sound too drastic at first, Ves already began to imagine how else he could apply this new technique.

Was it possible to turn humans into design spirits?

What would happen if he was able to invest one of his expert pilots as a design spirit to one of his mech designs?

Ves could scarcely imagine what that would do to the expert pilot in question! He always considered design spirits to belong to a different class of spiritual entities than expert pilots. Yet maybe this was just a mistaken assumption.

"Didn't I do something like this before?"

He shook his head. The situation back then wasn't comparable. Utilizing a stolen spiritual fragment taken from an expert pilot to create a new design spirit was not comparable to directly investing an expert pilot as a design spirit.

The latter was undoubtedly more direct and extreme!

For now, Ves set aside these radical thoughts. They sounded way too dangerous for him to explore them casually. He at least needed to test this idea with some disposable test subjects before he mustered the courage to extend this idea to his clansmen.

"Let's get back on track." He muttered.

As Ves inspected the Devious design, he could already spot the differences. While the Superior Mother still dominated the design, Arnold occupied a spot in it. This might be enough to transform the boring design into a more exciting product!

In fact, Ves already became inspired by what he witnessed. He immediately decided to augment the Devious design with a triggered ability. He ignored Doctor Ranya's persistent inquiries and immediately began to form a new spiritual construct attached to the spiritual foundation of his design!

He spent half an hour shaping the new spiritual construct. The inspiration he gained and the satisfaction he felt at accomplishing something new had supercharged his creative process.

Even though he was incredibly enthused with what he had learned, he still maintained enough awareness to exercise restraint.

Arnold was still a weak entity. He simply wasn't able to provide as much assistance to a mech as the Superior Mother.

"I need to minimize energy consumption as much as possible while still adding something useful to the mix."

This was quite a challenging requirement, but Ves already had a workable idea in mind.

Once he finished the new spiritual construct, he wanted to try it out right away.

"Wait, sir! Can you explain what just happened? Why did a giant hand appear from nowhere? Does it really belong to the Superior Mother? Why were my lab sensors unable to gather useful data out of the manifestation?"

Ves simply brushed aside Dr. Ranya as he raced towards the exit.

"I'll explain at a later date! For now, just keep Arnold under observation and stay on the lookout for any distress or unusual behavior. Bye!"

As Ves exited the lab, he began to call a few people in order to arrange and impromptu live test of the prototypes.

Two hours later, Ves stood in the observation room of a familiar testing grounds. The Devious prototypes had already been pulled from their hangar bays in order to prep them for the upcoming tests.

Despite the short notice, the subordinates he called up did complain. They were quite interested in seeing what Ves had done to the Devious mechs for him to look so enthused.

The mech pilots assigned to pilot the prototypes entered the cockpits and brought them online like they always did. Once they interfaced with the mechs, they immediately noticed the mech exuded a slightly different presence.

"Describe what you feel." Ves ordered.

"The mech is still as quiet and subtle as before, but there is a nervous quality to it now. I feel as if I'm slightly more sensitive towards potential threats."

This was definitely a consequence of adding Arnold to the mix. After receiving some more vague answers, Ves urged the test pilots to proceed with the test.

The first prototype began to get ready to perform an infiltration. The mech had to sneak around an alert mech pilot patrolling a stretch of the testing ground. While the Bright Warrior IB piloted by the guard did not possess any excellent sensor systems, they were still good enough to make a Devious mech wary.

Just before the test commenced, Ves passed on some specific instructions to the test pilot of the Devious prototype.

"Understood, sir. I will do as you instruct."

The first Devious prototype turned invisible as it activated its stealth system. Ves and the other observers were only able to track the mech through special means.

They could vaguely determine that the Devious was inching closer to the patrolling Bright Warrior.

Ves wasn't interested in seeing the prototype succeed in passing by unnoticed. He just waited for the moment when the test pilot finally activated the new addition to the Devious design.

"It's happening now!"

Not a single person or sensor detected what happened next. Only Ves was able to infer that something was taking place by tuning his spiritual senses towards the prototype.

The Devious transmitted a vague spiritual signal to the Bright Warrior. A dozen seconds passed before something changed.

Outside of every observer's expectations, the guard mech abruptly turned to a random direction and started to enter the maze of winding corridors!

The Devious seemed to anticipate this result and briskly started to march forward while still making sure it maintained its stealth.

Since the only guard mech had left the vicinity, it had become trivially easy for the stealth mech to pass this test!

"What.. what happened?"

"It's quite simple." Ves grinned. "The mech pilot of the Bright Warrior was chasing after a phantom mech. The target that he thought he was chasing doesn't actually exist!"

Mental Decoy was the new triggered ability he imparted to the Devious design. It leveraged an aspect of Arnold's ability to instill a mental illusion into the mind of an opposing mech pilot.

While Mental Decoy was unable to affect any electronic systems, it worked well enough against average mech pilots. This was very useful in certain situations and would definitely allow the Devious to stand out from every other stealth mech that the Fridayman and Hexers had encountered before!

"Now this is a mech that I can feel proud of designing!"

His excitement barely dampened a bit after subsequent tests revealed numerous limitations.

Mental Decoy only worked on a handful of people at a time. It only lasted up to two minutes depending on the strength and vigilance of the targets. It didn't work against expert candidates and expert pilots.

"It's fine."

The Devious was already good enough for accomplishing this much. In a way, Ves was glad that it was subject to so many limitations. If Mental Decoy became even more amazing, then he might draw a lot of unwanted attention!

Ves decided to complete the Devious design after confirming the latest additions hit the mark.

He quickly set his sights on the Blinding Mech. This was a trickier design that required a more drastic solution to solve its fundamental problem.

The enthusiasm he gained from his previous success quickly made way for trepidation. The reason why he felt so wary was because his next experiment required him to play with one of the most dangerous assets in his possession.

He drew out a box and opened it up to reveal a P-stone that contained the spiritual fragment of the Unending One.

The remnant of the dark god had remained dormant all this time, but what if that changed one day?

"I… cannot stave this off any further. Sometimes, I have to face my fears!"

No more delays. No more procrastination. Ves was determined to work with the spiritual remnant of the Unending One! He had to harness the former dark god's energy processing abilities in order to solve his growing energy needs!

"Let's begin!"