The Mech Touch

Kalo was a completely new spiritual product that did not have an inkling of the history and memories of the Titania. It started off with nothing but the materials derived from its ingredients along with whatever knowledge Ves had imprinted on his new creation.

Right now, Kalo was extremely weak and fragile. It did not benefit from accelerated growth because Ves chose to save his limited reserves of universal life energy.

He was willing to accelerate the growth of important entities such as Vulcan, but Kalo simply wasn't as important.

As long as his collection of design spirits continued to grow in the future, there was no need to treat them all as equally as if they were his own children. It was fine to play favorites and give preferential treatment to his more important and useful design spirits.

Though this might not sound fair to his lesser design spirits, they didn't require his hand holding. There were many other spiritual entities that could take over the job and the oldest or strongest among them already assumed leadership roles by themselves.

For example, soon after the birth of Kalo, Ves noticed that Qilanxo had descended in order to give the ghostly chameleon an introduction in the spiritual community.

With the big lizard attending to the tiny lizard, Ves had no worries that Kalo would go astray. He could leave all matters concerning the upbringing and acclimatization of the deception-oriented design spirit to one of his most trusted natural spiritual entities.

"Take good care of him, Qilanxo. Kalo hasn't received any powerful supplements so he is extremely weak and immature. It will take a while for him to reach a respectable amount of strength. I will try to help as best as possible by finding a way to mass produce my Deceptor Project mechs, but that might take a while."

Qilanxo expressed reassurance at Ves. She possessed a particular interest in mentoring Kalo because Ves had designed him as a chameleon.

Although appearances didn't matter as much to spiritual entities, Qilanxo nevertheless felt compelled to take responsibility over Kalo for her perception of their shared kinship.

Seeing her treat the new ghostly chameleon so generously made Ves think about whether he would see this pattern more often in the future.

This was the first time he thought about the racial makeup of his design spirit collection. A significant proportion of them were humanoid because they were derived from real people or human objects of worship.

The rest were relatively random though Ves felt it was wrong that he only had two cat-like beings in his collection up to this point. The Golden Cat and Zeigra were both opposites in many ways, but they could definitely use more company in order to make sure that cats were well-represented in their spiritual community!

"I'll have to think about adding more cats to the collection!"

He briefly thought about adding a bit of variety by adding a dog as well, but he quickly discarded the notion.

He was a cat person!

Why would he ever contemplate getting a dog when a cat could fulfill all of his needs?

Sure, cats were whimsical, selfish and didn't always follow orders, but that was part of their charm!

Besides, cats were much cuter than dogs!

"Cats it is, then. I'll think of a good opportunity to add not just one, but a whole set of them at a later date."

Perhaps he should have turned Kalo into a cat as well, but he felt that shaping him as a chameleon was an intuitively better choice. It fit with his powers and his themes.

With Kalo's creation, the Deceptor Project finally obtained a proper if somewhat weak design spirit.

While Ves didn't think the glow of the Deceptor Project would be that powerful or drastic at first, that was okay. By allowing the ghostly chameleon to grow organically at its own pace, it would be able to develop its powers in a direction that complemented the new Flagrant Vandal mech model better.

Of course, this might not work out that well if an enemy confronted the expeditionary fleet in the near-term. The Deceptor Project would not be able to contribute as much on the battlefield in that case!

"I really hope nothing happens."

Now that the Deceptor Project obtained its new design spirit, there were no further obstacles that prevented Ves from completing it. He worked extra hard to rush its testing and optimization rounds.

Once Ves was done with putting the finishing touches on his solo mech design, he finally stood back to admire his work as a whole.

"It's done."

Though he could still think of many ways to refine and optimize his mech even further, he wasn't as high strung as his wife.

It would take months to improve the mech's performance by two percent or so. That might be worth it for some people, but the diminishing returns were way too much for Ves. The Deceptor Project had reached a fine state at this point.

"Let's turn you into a real mech!"

In truth, the Deceptor Project had already been realized in the form of a prototype, but Ves deliberately kept its distance from it and ordered his assistants to fabricate it instead.

The prototype was purely a tool in his mind. It only served to refine the final product, nothing more.

This was why he did not hesitate to order its demise by sending it over to the Graveyard in order to disassemble it and recycle its raw materials.

Perhaps this was cruel treatment for a mech that had done nothing wrong but serve as a test subject, but Ves did not tolerate a rough and incomplete work.

"The mech I'm about to make will be the first true copy of the Deceptor Project." He whispered to himself. "This is the real deal."

Even though the Deceptor Project was not as important as the Minerva Project, he still valued it a lot. It was a reflection of his own efforts and a reflection of the progress he had made.

The Enlightened Warrior already showed him what he was capable of, but that was merely a variant. He lacked the flexibility to implement his full vision because he was still shackled by the Bright Warrior's template.

This was different. The Deceptor Project was a mech that he had designed from scratch. There was less reason to stick to his old solutions when he had the freedom to apply newer ones that were possibly better.

He already had a good expectation on how the Deceptor Project would perform based on the prototype testing sessions, but the addition of a design spirit along with other final changes should make the final result a little better.

He decided to fabricate the first copy of the new mech model straight away.

Ves moved to his personal workshop where he had already prepared a batch of materials. At least half of it came from the prototype that the Graveyard broke down and recycled.

Though there was no reason to think that the batch of materials prepared by his assistants were faulty or inadequate, Ves made sure to check the goods in person. Gloriana had instilled the habit in him and he didn't particularly mind adopting it given that it might truly make a difference in certain cases.

"Besides, touching these materials beforehand gives me a better feel for what I have to work with. Isn't that right, Vulcan?"

The hammer holstered on the side of his toolbelt pulsed its soft bronze glow.

Vulcan excelled at manipulating materials, which meant he also possessed a good understanding of them. Integrating a part of Cassandra Breyer's high-quality metal spiritual energy augmented his senses towards metallic materials in an unknown fashion!

While it was difficult to guess what benefits this incident had brought, Vulcan and by extension Ves managed to develop an even better understanding of metals.

This came in quite handy at this time as Ves was able to gain intuitive impressions of all of the slabs of materials.

Some were as rigid and solid as they should when they rolled out of the processing plant. Other materials were less consistent and possessed slight faults or cracks due to excessive exposure to swinging temperatures and atmospheric conditions, the presence of impurities or plain rough handling during transport.

Whatever the case, Ves was able to use the impressions he gained to make slight changes to how he planned to process the different materials into mech parts.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't have made much of a difference. No matter what, the suppliers of these materials were still professionals and they rigidly adhered to industry standards.

"Even the tiniest differences can have a remarkable impact on quality, though."

At his and Vulcan's level of craftsmanship, the deviations produced by inconsistent and lower-quality materials could absolutely make a substantial difference in the final product!

Previously, if Ves wanted to gain this much insight on the materials he was working, he had to put them all through rigorous tests and scans.

He had no doubt that the first-raters probably possessed technology that was advanced enough to replicate what he had done for the most part. Yet there was something intimate and personal about relying on his own intuition and feeling rather than cold machines to feed him their observations.

Ves even had the illusion that he was transforming the materials through his touch, causing them to become more aligned with what he had in store.

This was an illusion, though. He was ascribing more weight to the materials than they possessed. It was only when he processed them and combined them into a real mech that they would truly show their value. For now, they were just blocks of metal.

"Everything is in order. Let's begin."

Ves reached down and took a hold of his hammer. With a practiced motion, he tapped the flat end against his forehead with just the right force. It was firm enough to make him feel the weight of his action but not strong enough to actually cause any injury.

As soon as Vulcan partially melded with his mind, he began to see and understand concepts and ideas that previously remained out of his grasp.

"I missed this. You've improved, Vulcan."

His incarnation hadn't been doing nothing all of this time. Aside from getting a better grip on his abilities, the design spirit also started to derive some benefits from the totems that Ves had traded to Zachren Bilitsa and the House of Barach.

The differences were obvious. Vulcan's craftsmanship which was previously a close mirror to that of Ves had begun to branch out in other areas, if only tentatively.

The influence from Chief Fabricator Denner enhanced Vulcan's intuition when it came to making mechs with traditional fabrication equipment. Decades of experience enriched and augmented the theoretical knowledge that the design spirit already possessed.

Balancing that out was the contribution made by the House of Barach. Master Artisan Sivare Coriten Barach had not waited long to make use of the mini totem. What Vulcan gained from blessing the old tailor was an appreciation for art and a greater understanding of style.

The feedback that Vulcan gained from these two influences were still relatively minor, but Ves already gained more inspiration than before.

"I knew it was the right idea to get Vulcan in touch with more people." He smirked.

That said, Ves needed to be careful not to get subsumed by other people's preferences. He constantly had to remind himself that he should pursue his own style and only take light inspiration from other people's ideas.

Several days passed by as he fabricated the first proper copy of the Deceptor Project. Even though he worked alone, light mechs were smaller and faster to make, so it did not take long before Ves ended up with a complete machine.

He wearily stepped back and gazed at the final result. "Done."