The Mech Touch

Ves obtained a fruitful harvest after studying Ketis and Sharpie conditions. As a researcher who constantly pushed the boundaries of what he was capable of, nothing made him happier than to see one of his experiments flourish in the wild.

In fact, based on the results he had seen so far, the Sharpie Experiment massively exceeded his initial expectations!

He felt as if he was a farmer who just planted some random seeds in a field before going away, only to come back and encounter a lush field of fruit trees.

The best part about this development was that Ves did not do any of the hard work of elevating Sharpie to his current level of strength. Ves only designed the seed and planted it into Ketis' mind.

Once the seed fell into fertile soil, it grew under the persistent efforts of Ketis. Even though Ves never programmed any specific instructions on how Sharpie should grow, its existence was highly flexible and adaptable by nature. It took advantage of existing natural phenomena to evolve far beyond its initial state.

This was a crucial gain for Ves. As a spiritual engineer who lacked a heritage, he had always been groping around in the dark. Now that the course of nature presented him with an example of a very advanced application, he could finally derive some useful lessons from his observations!

Though the degree of complexity and mystery of Sharpie's current nature of existence was far beyond his current comprehension, Ves was already happy if he could figure out 5 percent of his structure.

As long as he applied what he learned in his future spiritual products, their starting point would become considerably higher!

This was very relevant to Ves. Seeing how Ketis managed to transform her life with the help of Sharpie caused him to develop a burning desire to gain the same level of benefits!

Of course, this did not mean that he wanted to create a replica of Sharpie and copy his exact benefits.

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He was a mech designer. While becoming a swordmaster made complete sense to someone like Ketis who wanted to dedicate herself to designing swordsman mechs, Ves had no reason to limit his range or products to such a narrow degree.

He welcomed variety and always sought to explore new and different mechs. If he kept designing the same type of mechs over and over again, he would quickly go crazy with boredom!

Therefore, his design for his personal living spiritual construct or augment could not be allowed to follow in Sharpie's footsteps. It was okay for him to take inspiration from Sharpie's development, but his needs were very different from that of his student.

"Besides, I have no desire to become a swordmaster or.... an expert pilot."

The latter was something of a theoretical possibility. As a child of the Age of Mechs, there was no way that Ves could resist fantasizing about becoming a dashing and heroic expert pilot who was capable of wielding reality-defying powers in a powerful expert mech!

Yet there were two big problems related to this fantasy that quickly dispelled this unrealistic dream.

First, how could he become an expert pilot when he lacked the most fundamental requirement to pilot a mech? Genetic aptitude was not a spiritual hurdle that Ves could magically solve by tinkering with his own spirit. Many mech pilots did not possess any significant spiritual strength yet managed to develop extremely high aptitudes. Becoming an expert pilot was completely unrealistic if Ves didn't improve his abysmal genetic aptitude first.

Second, even if he was able to solve these problems in some way, was it really wise for him to dedicate himself to a warrior profession so late in his life?

"I'm a mech designer. I chose this path early on and never flinched from it. Why would I want to start over in a completely dispensable profession?"

There was no reason for him to become a mech pilot when his Larkinson fleet already had tens of thousands of them who could already fulfill this role. Even if he did everything he could to polish his skills and turn himself into an expert pilot, so what?

He was nothing like Patriarch Reginald Cross who had to pursue martial strength above all else. The Larkinson Clan did not blindly worship expert pilots like the Cross Clan.

Him trying his best to become a powerful high-ranking mech pilot was as pointless as a Hexer matriarch trying her best to become good at repairing mechs!

Rather than using the opportunity to implant a living spiritual construct in his mind to create a new competency or plug one of his weaknesses, Ves would rather choose a different direction.

"I should strengthen my specialization!"

Though he was already good at his job in his opinion, he could always do better. The road to becoming a Master Mech Designer was long, and that was not the end of his ambitions.

His sights had always been set on reaching the fabled rank of Star Designer!

"It's damn hard for Masters to become one, though!"

The ratio of Seniors realizing their design philosophies in their lifetimes was low, but not too scarce. Otherwise, it was impossible for every decent second-rate state to nurture dozens or even hundreds of Master Mech Designers.

Yet when Ves recalled the number of publicly-known Star Designers in the galaxy, he instantly felt a lot of pressure.

"Every Star Designer is an exceptional mech designer. None of them are normal and managed to get where they are by working quietly in their design labs all the time."

Though the biographies written about them could not possibly detail all of the opportunities they obtained in their lives, there were plenty of inventive people in the galaxy who could make some educated guesses.

Each Star Designer experienced or gained something that allowed them to rise above the masses. If they hadn't become abnormal and exceptional in some way, they would have remained stuck at the rank of Master for the rest of their lives.

Even the Polymath, who broke the record of becoming the youngest Master and Star Designer in history, was abnormal from birth!

These cases emphasized the importance of acquiring a powerful advantage to mech designers. However, this was easier said than done. Not just any advantage would do. Unless they were born abnormally intelligent like the Polymath, mech designers had to find and create their own chances!

Right now, Ves saw hope of doing just that. Though his intuition didn't give him any solid clues about this matter, he nonetheless judged that this life-changing event had the potential to supercharge his mech design career!

This was not a baseless guess. Ves only had to glance at Ketis and recognize how much promise she held now that she had gotten one of the best possible boosts a swordsman mech designer could ask for. The only way she could have gotten something more was if she became an expert pilot who was able to pilot her own work!

No other swordsman mech designer in existence could ever replicate what she could do with her current capabilities. Not even rational mech designers like Master Willix who liked to steal other people's work were capable of harnessing a science-defying phenomenon like willpower!

"In fact, if my theories are correct, I may have inadvertently paved the way for her to become a Star Designer one day!"

This was an astounding assertion, and one that caused him to feel envious at her good fortune!

"Well, I can't really fault her for this." He muttered. "I subjected her to an experiment, after all. Sharpie could have easily cut off her path to advancing to Journeyman or even claim her life if anything went wrong."

Ves wouldn't have experimented on his own student if the situation in the Nyxian Gap wasn't so desperate at the time. Back then, he simply thought about applying what he could do with spiritual constructs in his mech designs to a human instead. He was happy that his experiment managed to work out in the end.

Though his theoretical framework on living spiritual constructs still possessed a lot of gaps, he was too impatient to wait a couple of decades before he knew exactly what he could do. Since he relied so much on autonomous growth for his products to grow in strength, he didn't have to design a mature spiritual construct right away. He just had to put all of the building blocks together into a good enough seed and let time and nature do the rest!

There was another reason why he felt confident enough to proceed with this experiment on himself in the short term.

"This is not an irreversible process." He confidently asserted. "If anything goes wrong with my living construct, I can always break it down and recycle its components in order to start anew."

It felt bad for him to kill one of his living creations, but he didn't want to joke around when it came to his own life and future. If his construct turned out to be a parasite or a threat to his life, then he would not hesitate to cut it down regardless of the damage it would do to his own mind and spirit!

Ves began to draft a serious sketch of what the design of his own living spiritual construct should look like. This was a rather vague and abstract design due to the special properties of what he was working with. It didn't really matter as he already found that intent was much more important than precision.

The most critical elements that defined the capabilities of his living spiritual construct were the ingredients it consisted of. They had the potential to grant different and potent abilities, but also introduced more pollution and undesirable side effects that might result in problems down the line.

"I have to make my list of ingredients as concise as possible." Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven skin as he leaned back on his office chair. "At the same time, I don't want my companion spirit to be too simple and one-dimensional."

Companion spirit was the new term he invented for this new category of spiritual products. It was a much more convenient way to refer to existences like Sharpie than using the phrase living spiritual constructs.

They were not as alive and independent as design spirits, but they weren't completely irresponsible and mechanical as ordinary spiritual constructs. This was enough of a reason to classify them in their own category.

The implication of using the word 'companion' was that they solely existed to help the person they were attached to. There should never be a case where Sharpie existed on its own unless Ketis had perished or something.

As Ves listed out the ingredients he had in mind, he selected three core ingredients that served as the essential foundation of his companion spirit.

First, he had to donate a copious amount of his own spiritual energy. It was not only responsible for providing his companion spirit with the spark of life, but also defined much of what it could do to assist him in his endeavors.

Second, he planned to use up a portion of the Unending One's spiritual fragment. Ves had long planned to acquire the deceased dark god's ability to absorb and digest heterogenous spiritual energy. While Ves wasn't sure if he could use this ingredient to turn his companion spirit into an actual energy generator, it was already sufficient if it was able to function as an energy converter.

"If the latter is the case, then I can just demand tribute from my own design spirits." He muttered under his breath.

Third, he planned to extract some of the universal life-attributed energy from one of the vials of high-grade serum he had just obtained to elevate the quality and power level of his companion spirit. This ingredient did not just function as an immediate supplement, but also increased the potential of anything it affected.

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Ves suspected that this was one of the vital reasons why Sharpie was able to grow past its limits so easily! He did not forget that he utilized the universal life energy derived from his previous serum to elevate Sharpie from the beginning.

"Since I'm stronger than Ketis at the time and not lacking in serum at the moment, I can make much more liberal use of this ingredient!"

Although he planned to make sparing use of the high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum he obtained from the LRA, he was too selfish to remain stingy when it came to augmenting his own capabilities. He wanted to obtain a strong companion spirit with lots of potential right from the beginning!

His eyes glinted as he thought about all of the potential benefits he could obtain. If possible, he wanted to obtain an immediate boost so that he could quickly apply his new gains to his upcoming expert mech design projects!

"I'm not going to shelve this experimental procedure any further this time. If I want to give my first true expert mechs an extra push, then I have to pursue this opportunity!"