The Mech Touch

The Unending One represented both extreme danger and extreme benefit.

If Ves was able to harness the possibilities of the dark god's spiritual remnant, then he would no longer be as constrained by his existing energy limitations.

The insufficient supply of spiritual energy constantly hampered his work.

His mechs could be greater if they were able to fuel their spiritual abilities with an additional supply of energy.

He wouldn't be so hesitant about expending his own spiritual energy to perform various useful techniques if he obtained a replacement for his Grand Dynamo.

He might be able to help Gloriana, Ketis and other mech designers unlock their potential by flooding them with energy.

He could even elevate his prime mechs and future expert mechs by giving them the capability to generate spiritual energy independently, thereby lessening their reliance on mech pilots and design spirits!

All in all, there were countless more applications he could think of that all required a supply of energy to function. While he was aware the Unending One was not capable of generating spiritual energy out of nothing, the dark god's formidable processing capabilities made it a lot more convenient to supply it from different sources.

"There are some sources that possess an abundance of spiritual energy and some sources that are starved of it." Ves murmured.

The design spirits of his Hexer mechs and commercial mechs had no problem with keeping themselves flush with energy. The spiritual feedback supplied by millions of customers continually ensured the design spirits were being 'paid' for the services they rendered.

However, this was not a good solution for all of his design spirits. Ylvaine and the Golden Cat were the two most notable examples. The problem would likely become worse in the future as Ves created more exclusive design spirits.

While it was possible for them to 'borrow' spiritual energy supplied by another friendly spirit, this was not a risk-free procedure. Contamination and incompatibility issues would definitely occur if entities continued to channel energy that did not align with their own attributes.

What Ves wanted to obtain was a means to convert one flavor of spiritual energy into another flavor.

The fragment of the Unending One gave him the best hope of accomplishing this goal!

Just like how the Unending One was able to digest spiritual entities with completely different attributes, Ves wanted to create an energy converter that was keyed to different recipients!

For example, an energy converter that was keyed to his spiritual signature would be able to absorb the excess spiritual energies of spirits like the Solemn Guardian and the Superior Mother and convert them into spiritual energy that completely matched his attributes!

Ves could even establish trading relationships between the different spirits. Their spiritual energy became a form of usable currency that every spiritual entity was able to use. The ones that were rich with spiritual energy could trade favors with those who were starving such as Bravo.

"Hmmm.. that doesn't sound quite right." He frowned. "The rich will get richer while the poor will only grow further into debt."

Economics was not one of his strengths, so he didn't bother to explore this scenario any further. He would deal with the issue when it was possible for him to establish the necessary trade mechanisms.

For now, he set his sights lower. He just wanted to give the Blinding Mech the capability of absorbing spiritual energy from external sources so that it could employ its characteristic ability with more force.

While its Blinding Pulse ability technically worked, the total effect was too weak to affect expert pilots!

"Let's see if I can do something about this issue today." Ves rubbed his palms.

He spent a few minutes inspecting the P-stone that held the dormant fragment. Ves wasn't really sure what he should do at the start.

Should he feed it with spiritual energy so that it grew more powerful?

That was too risky. He was well aware that spiritual fragments had a tendency to come back to life if they were revitalized. This was an especially great concern when it came to an entity with strange abilities like the Unending One!

"I'll just play it safe." He decided.

This option entailed cutting a portion of the existing fragment. This would weaken the latter considerably. Yet this was a better alternative than the reverse.

"Let's do it then."

Ves already planned all of the steps in his mind. The only reason why he didn't act with confidence was because the consequences of screwing up were too dangerous!

Yet when he finally moved into action, nothing drastic happened.

He formed a simple spiritual knife and cut a modest piece out of the fragment. It was larger than a mote but far smaller than any ordinary fragment he possessed. The piece he obtained was actually rather weak, but that was only temporary he hoped.

"Let's proceed to the next step."

Ves wanted to be as careful as possible with what he wanted to do next. In order to control the situation further, he inserted the piece he took and inserted it into a spare P-stone before putting that into his B-stone lockbox.

For now, he kept the lockbox open, but he could always close it and cut off any energy transfer if the process ever ran out of control!

He also held his F-stone with its remaining offensive charge within his reach in order to have a powerful weapon at his disposal!

He even put on his Unending Regalia in order to prevent his own spiritual energy from being siphoned!

On top of all of these precautions, he even contemplated whether he should perform this experiment in the presence of the Statue of the Unending One or one of his prime mechs.

He eventually decided against this option because he was too afraid that the glows they emanated would rapidly feed the Unending One.

After checking that all of his existing precautions were in order, he proceeded with his plan.

He kept the helmet of his Unending Regalia open in order to allow him to observe and manipulate external spiritual energy.

Before Ves was willing to grow and revitalize the piece he had just harvested, he wanted to purify it. He could not allow the original Unending One to revive his consciousness through this tiny portion!

The reason why he harvested more than a mote became evident when he began to draw out and cut a large amount of unknown and ominous-feeling attributes. The piece quickly shrank in size as Ves ruthlessly cut out everything that wasn't relevant.

In the end, he was only left with 20 percent of the original piece. Ves roughly judged that the attributes that remained untouched pertained to the Unending One's devouring and digestion abilities.

"I'm not entirely sure, though."

The Unending One possessed so many different spiritual attributes that it was difficult for Ves to judge what they all did. He had to go by feeling and intuition which wasn't exactly the most rigorous method to identify and filter attributes.

Still, he had cut away so many other attributes that the personality of the Unending One in the remaining piece should be very sparse.

"At least, I hope this is the case."

He had a solution for that, though.

After making sure that the purified piece was as 'clean' as he could make it, Ves proceeded with the most important step of his experiment.

He grabbed yet another P-stone that was currently storing a small spiritual fragment that he had recently taken from the Illustrious One.

The luminar design spirit had grown decently strong after the proliferation of the Crystal Lord Mark II, but it still hurt him quite a bit to donate any portion of himself.

It was for a good cause, though. Ves did not allow the Illustrious One to refuse his demand.

The fragment of the Illustrious One was considerably larger and more powerful than the diminished piece of the Unending One.

This was on purpose. Ves trusted the Illustrious One a lot more than the Unending One, so it was a given that the former would dominate his upcoming product!

"Here goes nothing!"

Ves began to follow the same steps he followed when he wanted to create a new spiritual product.

He smashed the little piece and the larger fragment into shards!

This wasn't all. In order to ensure greater compatibility, Ves decided to do something he never attempted before.

He harvested a portion of the Blinding Mech's spiritual foundation and shattered it into shards in order to add to the mix as well!

"This is a brilliant idea! I should have thought about it before!"

Before the shards of the three ingredients had time to decay, Ves quickly mashed them all together and supplied his own spiritual energy in order to force them to merge.

Different from other times, Ves did not set out to create a new design spirit. That was still a bit too risky for his liking.

What he wanted to make instead was a more advanced spiritual construct!

Different from a newborn spiritual entity, a spiritual construct wasn't sentient. The latter was more of a machine than a living, thinking lifeform.

Of course, the line between spiritual entities and spiritual constructs wasn't always clear. What Ves wanted to achieve today inched closer to the middle.

He wanted the spiritual construct to be alive enough for his distinctive strengths to take effect, but he didn't want it to wake up and become intelligent enough to make its own decisions!

"I need an obedient puppy, not a clever troublemaker!"

While Ves generally believed that the evil of the parent did not pass on to the child, he wasn't willing to take any risks this time.

This was why he insisted on making a construct!

In order to make sure he did not birth a new abomination, he altered his overall approach by changing several steps.

First, he did not piece together the shards at random. Instead, he attempted to form a predetermined shape as best as possible. Even if the shards only reluctantly stuck together, he pressed them together anyway as long as it conformed to a predetermined shape.

Second, he explicitly thought about making a non-sentient, non-thinking spiritual product. His thoughts played a large role in how his spiritual energy went to work. He knew that it was key to creating new life, so by reining in this aspect, he hoped to avoid the worst outcome.

Third, the quantity of shards along with the quantity of his own spiritual energy was substantially less than before. Creating new life was an energy-intensive process, so Ves thought it was a good idea to withhold a lot of energy.

As the minutes ticked on, it seemed that everything was going according to plan. A new spiritual construct slowly came into shape. It was much less potent, powerful and lively than his previous spiritual products.

Usually, he tried to maximize the life of his new creations, but not this time. All of the restraint that Ves currently exhibited was having the desired effect.

The grin on his face widened as his new energy converter slowly became more complete. Once Ves affixed the final piece, an unprecedented new spiritual construct came into existence!

"My energy converter is complete!"

No complications or unexpected failures occurred throughout the altered procedure. The energy converter construct looked exactly as he envisioned!

Different from his previous spiritual constructs, the energy converter felt more alive. Ves carefully inspected it again and again to make sure it had not reached a worrisome level.

"Looks like it isn't generating any thoughts."

That was good. He did not need an energy converter that could think and act on its own. He wanted a machine that mechanically accepted input and spat out the correct output without any fuss.

After Ves was satisfied with his checks, he carefully took the newly-created spiritual construct and carefully installed it into the spiritual foundation of the Blinding Mech.

"Fits like a glove."

For the first time in months, Ves felt as if the Blinding Mech was truly complete this time! There was just something about adding an energy converter that significantly altered his expectations of his innovative mech design.

"Now, let's see if you can live up to your promises!"