The Mech Touch

One of the downsides of traveling alongside an MTA frigate was that Ves couldn't get away with as many shenanigans.

For example, Ves did not dare to allow Director Ranya Wodin to proceed with the more controversial secret experiments that they had initially planned.

They even had to remain mindful of the words they said to each other lest they inadvertently ran afoul of the MTA sensibilities.

Fortunately, the Larkinson Biotech Institute was not short of research topics. One of the more relevant and interesting activities to Ves was the acquisition and rearing of mutated beasts.

When the expeditionary fleet last stayed in Vulit, the LBI acquired large batches of exobeasts and designer beasts to fill up the remaining biomes of the Dragon's Den.

It was only now that the large bioresearch vessel was truly being utilized to her fullest. The amount of animals her hull contained were so significant that it became a real challenge to recycle all of the alien waste products and make sure that the vessel did not require an excessive amount of resources to sustain all of these creatures!

As Ves toured one biome after another, he encountered many interesting beasts. Many of them were native to the Red Ocean while others were unique specialty products developed by renowned beast designers that had initially risen up in different parts of the old galaxy.

Yet despite all of the biodiversity in the Dragon's Den, many of the unusual and exotic abilities these creatures exhibited were ultimately mundane in origin.

Ves had little use for animals that derived their power from their biological structures or because of the strange exotics they ingested.

Ultimately, more than 99.999 percent of beasts acquired by the Larkinson Biotech Institute turned out to be duds. While many of them were so abnormal that they were worthy to be called mutated beasts by others, Ves had higher standards.

The only mutations that he was interested in were the kinds that could become the source of a new design spirit or spiritual ingredient.

In other words, Ves wanted to obtain more creatures like Arnold.

After completing his extensive tour, he ended up detecting just 12 individual beasts with activated spiritualities. They consisted of 9 natural exobeasts that had evolved from different planets and 3 artificial designer beasts that several biotech experts had cooked up in their labs.

Director Ranya looked quite relieved after hearing that Ves managed to find at least some suitable creatures among the ones her institute had recently acquired for over a hundred MTA credits!

"I was afraid our selection wouldn't yield anything. At the very least, we haven't wasted our budget."

"That's true, but the yield is too low." Ves frowned. "In effect, we spent a dozen MTA credits for each mutated beast. While our clan can still tolerate this spending rate, over time we need to develop a more efficient approach to this. I don't want to waste too much money on overpriced beasts that serve little practical value to us if they don't have any extraordinary powers."

Ranya sighed. "It would help if you could develop a tool or a detector that can facilitate our detection process."

"If I was capable of doing that, I would have already provided you with one. This matter is way more complicated than you think."

To be honest, with his current level of spiritual engineering, Ves thought it was possible for him to develop a detection device that could detect whether humans or beasts possessed active spiritualities.

He did not dare to make it, though. Ves was reasonably certain that the MTA did not possess this tech. If it did, then the higher ups certainly kept it close to their chest!

In any case, Ves wanted to keep this capability for himself for the time being. Ranya would have to wait a few years more before he would even consider changing his stance.

Ranya turned the discussion back to the detected mutated beasts. "What do you wish to do with the twelve?"

"Keep them alive and well for the time being. I don't have a use for them right now, but that might change in the future. Some of them are too weak and useless in their current states. If possible, try to train them to use their abilities more. The more they exercise their powers, the stronger they become. I will make sure to drop by at least once a month to track their progress. Once their value becomes high enough, I might make other arrangements."

Ves truly hoped the mutated beasts he detected would become more useful to him. While they did possess interesting capabilities, none of them were as potent as that of Zeigra or Arnold.

A typical example was a jumping twelve-legged lizard creature that could make the air around it vibrate at a high frequency.

What was the use of such a useless power aside from making a high-pitched noise? A simple sound speaker could generate a much louder noise with ease!

It seemed that finding good mutated beasts was a lot more challenging than he thought.

Buying lots of random beasts from the market in the hopes of winning the lottery enough times was not economically viable.

Visiting untamed planets and scouring their surfaces for unusual alien beasts was too inefficient and time consuming.

Developing designer beasts inhouse in order to breed new mutated beasts was likely to fail more times than he could count.

The problem was that Ves still didn't understand why certain humans or creatures developed spiritual potential. As long as he was not able to figure out the reason and replicate the process himself, he had little choice but to settle for one of the aforementioned solutions.

Ves placed his hand on Ranya's shoulder. "Keep researching the mutated beasts that I have pointed out for you. Try and find a common marker that only they possess. Whether it is biological in nature or not, as long as all twelve of them possess this particular quality, then we can go much further."

"Understood, sir. I suspect that one of those common markers is heightened intelligence and self-awareness. All twelve creatures that you've mentioned are either sentient or behave close enough to pass off as one. We still need to investigate further to see whether their thinking has actually evolved."

"Good idea, I can imagine it is difficult to test for heightened intelligence among lots of different beasts. This is not a marker that we can use to effectively find new mutated beasts. We need to find a more solid alternative."

That was a huge challenge and Ves did not think that Director Ranya would succeed.

Still, it was better than doing nothing. Maybe the LBI would give him a pleasant surprise.

He discussed various other matters with Dr. Ranya including one of a more personal nature.

"You're in a relationship?" Ves looked oddly at the former Hexer.

"Yes. Why are you surprised?" The doctor smirked. "I'm not the only Larkinson who made good use of the shore leave we enjoyed in Vulit. Everyone is growing older, so there are quite a few people who have started to think about relationships."

"Who is the lucky clansman who has earned your attention?"

"Tusa."

"Wait, what?!"

"It's Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson, if you want to be more precise."

"How did you manage to persuade him to enter into any fixed relationship, let alone with you?" Ves asked in a perplexed tone.

According to the impression of his cousin, Tusa was someone who prized freedom quite a lot. The man acted as if he never wanted to tie himself down to another woman.

Director Ranya already expected Ves to react in this manner.

"Sometimes, I question that myself." She said. "I think it helps that neither of us has started this relationship with too many expectations. I'm a busy person and so is he. Both of us occupy high positions and there are times when we may be unavailable for days, weeks or even months. We have only gone on casual dates so far, but we continue to enjoy each other's company. Although I'm not sure whether this will last, I don't mind if we keep meeting each other from time to time."

"I see."

From what it sounded like, the relationship between the two was still fairly light. It could go anywhere really, but if Ranya and Tusa liked each other, then Ves could easily imagine them staying together for a long time.

Just because Tusa did not like commitments did not mean he eschewed them entirely. Perhaps it was good that he hooked up with a woman who didn't require his attention all the time.

Ranya briefly gossiped about the other couples that she heard of. She wasn't the prominent Larkinson to start dating with fellow clansmen.

So many new couples had formed now that the Larkinsons had reached the Red Ocean and come into their element that there were bound to be lots of marriages soon!

Ves ultimately welcomed this development. The Larkinson Clan constantly needed fresh blood and recruiting outsiders all the time was not a sustainable approach.

After he concluded his meeting with Director Ranya, he returned to the Spirit of Bentheim and checked the time.

"It's… now."

In one moment, he was standing in his office compartment aboard his flagship.

In the next moment, he had entered a luxurious compartment that displayed the distinctive aesthetic of the Mech Trade Association.

"Welcome aboard the Simile Halifax, Ves." Jovy greeted him as he waved his guest over. "Come taste this drink. It's a new kind of beverage that someone has adapted from alien swill."

When Ves approached his friend, he looked dubiously at the glass resting on the coffee table. He picked it up and sniffed it a few times.

"Smells like coolant fluid."

When Ves finally took a sip, he became bombarded by a combination of conflicting taste sensations!

"Ugh. The shock value is certainly there, but I can't imagine drinking this on a daily basis."

"A shame." Jovy set aside his own glass. "It's supposed to leave you wanting for more. Anyway, I'm not supposed to call you over to my ship, but I can get away with it as long as I don't tell you anything sensitive."

"I understand. I don't expect you to spill out information that you're not supposed to share." Ves said as he didn't want to put any pressure on his friend.

"Aside from wanting to enjoy your company, I thought it would be nice to talk about our work and bounce ideas off each other. I've been observing you working on a new mech design project. It didn't seem so special at the start, but the more you flesh it out, the more I realize how ambitious it is. You're truly serious about designing a standard mech that can contend against expert mechs, right?"

It did not surprise Ves at all that Jovy and the MTA knew what he was doing. What did he expect when the Simile Halifax permanently flew alongside the Spirit of Bentheim all the time?

Ves didn't even bother to use any signal jammers to increase the confidentiality of his work projects. It added a lot of inconvenience without actually hindering the MTA's attempts to snoop into his work at all. He might as well keep the windows open.

"If you know our clan as well as I think you do, then you should be aware that we have always suffered against enemy expert mechs." He said in a serious tone. "Our clan is relatively young and small so we can't bring out as many expert mechs as established forces. The only way for us to make up for the shortfall is to develop substitutes like the Fearless Project."

Jovy nodded in sympathy. "This is a logical response for you to make, and unlike many other mech designers, you are one of the few that might actually succeed in your goal. However… have you ever thought of the implications of putting your powerful new mech model to use against human expert mechs?"

Ves' expression fell. He realized that he had bumped into the biggest challenge of the Fearless Project.

Politics.