The Mech Touch

Performing the implantation procedure on his unborn daughter was a lot easier than he initially expected.

For one, he did not encounter any strong reactions or instinctive self-defense measures from his daughter.

The unborn baby's spirituality remained completely unmoving even when he changed its very nature. During the entire procedure, Ves did not sense any notable guiding consciousness that could have sounded an alarm.

"It makes sense that this happened."

She was not only his child, but also the source of the energy that empowered her in the first place. Her spiritual compatibility to both him and Gloriana was so high that it was as if he was operating on himself rather than a stranger.

What further assisted in his efforts was that he was not engaging in spiritual engineering directly but did so through Blinky. The Star Cat was literally born to manipulate spiritual energy and possessed an incredible amount of control. When Ves took over his own companion spirit, he rid himself of all of his human clumsiness and was able to act as a native spiritual life form.

He was able to act with great care and precision. Ves did not dare to perform this procedure as sloppily as before as he would never be able to forgive himself if he inflicted permanent damage onto his own daughter. He deliberately slowed down his pace and expended plenty of spiritual energy in order to maintain his most intensive state as he worked to shape the companion spirit seed according to his design.

Slowly but surely, a vague shape of a kitten took shape. The fact that Ves was working out of Blinky made it even easier for him to visualize and shape another cat.

He tried his best to keep the tiny and delicate spiritual kitten as pure and unblemished as possible. Aside from mingling in his own spiritual energy in order to provide it with the spark of life, he mainly relied on his daughter's own spirituality to shape its form.

The only other compromise he made was to insert a tiny bit of essence taken from both Lucky and Clixie in order to make sure the companion spirit possessed all of the essential traits of a cat.

He was quite careful when he did this as he did not want to spread these extra ingredients to the rest of his daughter! While he loved cats, that didn't mean he wanted to turn his own child into a catgirl!

It turned out that his daughter was well-prepared for his actions. Her spirituality was quite firm and not that easy to contaminate. He was quite glad to see this as her resilience vastly increased the safety margin of this invasive operation.

The most delicate portion of the procedure came when Ves had to implant the ability spirit seeds into his creation.

Ves had stripped them down and minimized them as much as possible for two reasons.

First, their footprint had to be as small as he could manage in order to avoid taking up too much of his daughter's capacity.

Second, they had to be as still as possible in order to prevent them from contaminating his daughter. While it was fine for them to affect her companion spirit, they weren't supposed to spread their influence any further.

While this also made the ability seeds inactive at the start, as long as they gained an opportunity to grow, they could turn into powerful spiritual abilities that were uniquely adapted to his daughter.

What he envisioned at the start might become completely different a couple of decades in the future! Ves looked forward to seeing his daughter come into her own and pick one of the six ability seeds he prepared for her as her main ability.

In the end, Ves did not encounter any unexpected surprises when he slotted in the ability seeds. He spread them out in different parts of the spiritual kitten to give them enough space for development while avoiding any premature mergers and other unplanned interactions.

He inserted the ability seed based on his own Life domain into the spiritual kitten's heart.

He inserted the ability seed derived from Goldie into the tail.

He inserted the ability seed derived from Lufa into the brain.

He inserted the ability seed derived from Qilanxo into a front limb.

He inserted the ability seed derived from Illustrious One into the eyes.

He inserted the ability seed derived from the Solemn Guardian into the abdomen.

Though some of the ability seeds were squished a bit closer than was ideal, it was the best he could manage. The seeds derived from Lufa and the Illustrious One were especially close. Fortunately, their compatibility was relatively high so they did not reject each other's proximity.

The moment he implanted the ability seeds and finalized his work, his latest spiritual product finally took hold.

The young companion spirit did not wake up and let out a mewling cry or anything. It was so weak and tiny that it was no different from an unborn kitten.

Mrow~

When Ves pulled back his presence from Blinky, the companion spirit affectionately looked at the new spiritual kitten before he carefully departed.

Just like his daughter, her new companion spirit seed was akin to an unborn baby. They both needed time and nutrients to develop themselves.

From a certain perspective, Gloriana technically bore twins now, though this was a silly notion.

"Well, this looks like a job well done!"

No complications or dangerous deviations took place throughout the procedure. Ves chalked it up to good planning and design as well as the favorable circumstances that he was working in. If he hadn't actively fed his unborn daughter with his own spiritual energy every day, he might have faced more resistance.

In fact, the ease in which he was able to manipulate his little girl's spirituality reminded him of how his mother was able to mess with him in a similar fashion.

His face briefly contorted. "Did she do something similar to me? If so, what exactly did she change?"

He didn't have enough clues to answer these questions. Though it was clear that he was different from other humans, he wasn't exactly sure why that was so. His high spiritual sensitivity could have come from his mother's genes.

"If this is the case, then my daughter has a high chance of inheriting the same trait, if she didn't get it already from her companion spirit."

Ves monitored the condition of his daughter's altered spirituality and her new companion spirit seed for half an hour. When he became assured that their condition hadn't worsened or changed in an unexpected manner, he slowly let down his guard and sank into his bed.

He already had a long day. Completing the fabrication of the Vanguard Project and enacting his ambitious plan to augment his daughter while she was still in her mother's womb both took a toll on his mental endurance.

Fortunately, the results of both but especially the latter completely came as a relief for him. His ambitious plan to spiritually augment his daughter in the strongest fashion he could think of went exactly as he intended.

Though the situation could still worsen at any point in the future, Ves would just have to stay on guard throughout and make sure that no one harmed his wife while she was bearing his child.

"Good night."

As Ves fell asleep, both Lucky and Clixie softly climbed onto the bed and moved next to Gloriana's mid-section.

"Meow."

"Miaow~"

"Meow meow."

"Miaow."

The two cats laid on both sides of Gloriana's sleeping form and acted as sentries.

The next day, the wedded couple cuddled against each other for a time. Ves smiled when he saw that his daughter's condition was still as good as ever. Her new companion spirit seed had settled in nicely and both of them remained healthy and stable.

Though Ves was tempted to accelerate the growth of either of them by feeding them with universal life energy, his instincts strongly hinted to him that this might not be a good idea.

It was fine for him to accelerate the growth of artificial design spirits, but his children were another matter! Who knew what accelerating his daughter's spiritual development would do for her mental development. If she had skipped over her childhood and started off as an adult, then Ves was liable to regard her as a monster instead of a lovely little baby!

Besides, making her abnormally smart and mature while she was still an infant would feed right into Gloriana's obsession of hexism! According to this stupid belief system, every woman was supposed to be a wise and mature soul who had already gone through five successive phases of existence.

"I feel a lot better than yesterday." Gloriana said. "I needed this rest. I hope our child is still okay. I think I'm going to stop by the Dragon's Den in order to get another checkup."

"That's a good idea. Perform a full scan if possible. We need to collect as much data as possible so that we can track every change."

They both rose up and prepared for their day. After enjoying a sumptuous breakfast, they split up with Clixie trailing after Gloriana.

Meanwhile, Lucky looks questioningly at Ves.

"Meow?"

"There is always something to do. We need to prepare for our trip to the Vulcan Empire for example. Let's pay a visit to Shederin."

After the Larkinson Clan established its Foreign Affairs Ministry, Shederin moved over to the Vivacious Wal where much of the clan administration was based these days.

When Ves shuttled over to the capital ship, he noticed that a lot more Larkinsons were aboard the vessel this time. Dawn city had become a lot more lively as many families enjoyed their brief 'holiday' on the only ship that was worth visiting in their eyes.

Due to Amswick's heavy traffic restrictions, the Larkinsons were unable to provide shore leave to its clansmen. If not for the Vivacious Wal, they wouldn't have access to a decent vacation destination and would have remained bored on their own ships.

The value of a civilian ship like the Vivacious Wal became very apparent at this time. The happy faces and cheerful laughter that were prevalent in Dawn City lifted up his mood. He began to imagine what it would be like to take his own growing family on a vacation to this destination.

Although the Vivacious Wal was not as exotic as visiting a new and alien planet, it offered a wealth of attractions that were both family friendly and less than family friendly.

Of course, Ves would never allow any of his kids to stray into the 'bad' side of the entertainment ship. Twilight City was too rough and unrefined for any of his kids.

"I'll be damned if I ever catch any of them in a strip club or something."

To be honest, Ves didn't approve of erecting all of these depraved establishments in Twilight City, but a significant portion of his clan needed places to unwind. Young mech pilots especially had it rough as they had to train hard and constantly learn new skills and competences in order to apply and maintain their position in the elite mech legions.

Fortunately, the Vivacious Wal did a good job at segregating the good from the bad. Here in Dawn City, Ves didn't notice anything improper. It was a brightly-colored city that was full of clean architecture and pastel colors.

The hope and optimism that exuded from every corner of the place turned it into the best location for the clan administration to establish its government seat.

When Ves approached the center of the city, he looked up at an elaborate palace that consisted of a mix of marble-like stone and reflective metal. A giant emblem of the Golden Cat that was made out of Breyer alloy hung above the gates of the palace.

"Wow. The clan did a good job."

His clan had come far. Even though he relinquished a lot of control, it had already grown a lot larger and stronger than he imagined at this point of time.

With pride in his steps, he entered the recently-built palace and headed towards the wing that housed the Foreign Affairs Ministry.