The Mech Touch

When the news about the strange space rock spread throughout the fleet, a lot of Larkinsons started to entertain doubts about this expedition.

The Garimel System might not be as silent and empty as everyone thought.

General Verle and the legion commanders held numerous meetings before they directed the troops to become a lot more alert.

The mech legions deployed more mechs than before, causing the fleet to be surrounded by a larger swarm of metal. They also kept more mech pilots on standby in case they stumbled into another crisis.

Aside from that, the mech legions also spread out a number of their combat carriers outwards in order to scout the way ahead.

These scout units moved so far away from the main fleet that the main forces were unable to provide immediate support to the ships and mechs that went ahead.

This was the only way to make the reconnaissance units useful. They could hardly provide any advance warning if they stuck too close to the main fleet.

Even though Ves had approved of sending all of these units outwards, he did not approve of any measures to send a scout ship or task force to Garimel II in advance at first.

If there was nothing dangerous in the vicinity of the gas giant, then nothing would happen.

If the neighborhood harbored a threat, then the task force might get wiped out due to insufficient strength!

It took constant persuasion from the likes of Ketis, General Verle and the legion commanders for Ves to soften his stance.

"Fine! You may send out a single ship, but no more. Make sure she doesn't carry anyone important."

Eventually, a combat carrier of the Flagrant Vandals flew ahead and approached Garimel II at a faster pace.

At the same time, the rest continued to guard against possible threats while at the same time search for additional abnormal space rocks.

While the various scout units sporadically detected a couple of space rocks, their concentration in the current area was so low that it was normal to encounter them in this kind of place.

None of the space rocks exhibited the same kind of cut surface as the one discovered by Venerable Tusa.

Was it a coincidence? Were everyone's guesses wrong? What if the cut was made by a passing fleet?

If the latter was the case, then they might be overreacting.

Ves sighed as he felt this exploration had become a lot more troublesome than before. While he did not intend to give up on discovering what secrets the Garimel System held, he was not sure his fleet was strong enough to survive whatever surprises they might encounter.

"We need to form more effective scouting solutions."

The existing measures were not adequate enough. Sending valuable combat carriers away from the main fleet was a helpless decision as the fleet was severely lacking in dedicated scout vessels.

Normally, it should have been enough to send out the new Jhamper light carriers that had recently rolled off the Diligent Ovenbird, but the cheap vessels were so fragile that they could not adequately cope with the harsh environmental conditions of the Garimel System!

The smaller ships were fine for now, but as the expeditionary fleet continued to move closer to the center of the star system, it was no longer safe for them to bask in light of the blue supergiant.

The Larkinson Clan had already placed their more fragile ships in the shadows of their larger and more well-armored vessels.

Sheltering within the magnetosphere of Garimel II should offer them a bit of reprieve. The powerful magnetic shield of the gas giant was able to bounce away harmful solar winds and spikes of radiation.

However, who could tell if Garimel II hosted other threats? The planet might be the most dangerous location in the star system aside from the immediate vicinity of the blue supergiant star!

"Well, we'll find out what is going on over there sooner or later."

The size of the star system meant that it would take days to approach Garimel II. If nothing else happened, Ves had enough free time to work on his various projects.

"I should get to work on the Golden Tree Project."

He had not forgotten about his attempt to grow living coins on trees. Although it sounded like a silly idea, the significance of a tree that could grow living products could not be overstated!

Ves stayed aboard the Dragon's Den for a few days in order to assist with the development of the money tree.

There wasn't much he could do aside from contributing the design of the coins. He did not understand any of the biosciences and had to delegate the actual design of the money tree to Dr. Perris.

Fortunately, the development of the money tree did not take as long as he feared. Dr. Perris had already done much of the groundwork in the last few days.

It also wasn't difficult to bioprogram the money trees to grow specific coins. The only tedious change he had to make was switching the regular alloys with biometals that could easily be grown by the money trees.

Once they completed the design of their first money tree, Ves assisted with synthesizing the first money tree seeds that would eventually grow into full-sized organic production machines.

Although he didn't know how to manipulate the machines that spliced together the initial seeds, it was enough for him to listen to Dr. Perris' instructions.

This clumsy approach allowed them to obtain a seed that felt a bit more alive than usual. Ves hoped that this was enough to grow a money tree that could eventually grow coins that were utterly unique to humanity!

Once they figured out the process, they repeated it several times until they ended up with five Golden Cat Money Trees!

"How long does it take for them to start production?" Ves asked.

"I cannot fully say as this is the first tree of its kind that we are growing." Dr. Perris replied. "The specialized growth equipment that we have available in our laboratories should help with accelerating the growth cycle of the money trees, but don't expect to hear any immediate results."

This had always always been one of the weaknesses of biotechnology. If he had made an ordinary coin press, then he could have fabricated it within a day no matter its complexity.

"Alright, then. Please keep me apprised and don't hesitate to contact me directly if the trees have grown their first fruits."

Now that Ves finished his involvement in the Golden Fruit Project, he did not leave the Dragon's Den right away.

He briefly met with Director Ranya Wodin to discuss various developments before he decided it might be fun to visit the new 'guests' aboard the bioresearch vessel.

Despite designing the pakklaton prisoners as his test subjects, Ves hadn't done anything to the giant bird-like aliens.

The Larkinson Clan was still in the process of setting up the T Institute and the mechers that he had contacted a few weeks ago had yet to present him with a leader. There wasn't any manpower to work on the research projects that he envisioned.

He urgently needed a leader to take charge of this new research group!

"The MTA sure likes to take its time."

Just because he was on his own did not mean that he had to postpone his experimental studies. a???0?e? F u??. c 0 m

He could still think of a couple of experiments that didn't require a lot of supervision to yield results.

Given that Ves had promised to give Jovy a companion spirit, he decided it might be useful to get additional practice by experimenting on a few alien test subjects.

"Their minds and thinking processes are similar enough to humans that the results should be similar." Ves surmised.

While this was only a guess, it was enough for Ves to go through with this experiment.

He instructed the researchers assigned to monitor the pakklatons to bring out 300 potential test subjects.

"Cawww! Cawww! Cawww!"

The pakklatons panicked as the dreaded bots arrived to take the aliens away from their fake habitats!

No matter how much they resisted the metal arms of the capture bots, their naked bodies were no match to the power of technology.

The bots that grasped the pakklaton prisoners all deposited their cargo in the test chamber of a nearby biolab.

The group of aliens consisted of an equal number of young, middle-aged and elder pakklatons.

Ves did not intend to experiment on all 300 of them. That would take a huge amount of time.

"This is just the start."

He stood in front of a transparent viewscreen and swept his spiritual senses towards the confused mob of pakklatons.

"Caww! Cawww! Cawwww!"

He successfully discovered a small amount pakklatons with spiritual potential, just as he expected.

What was interesting was that four of them were fairly young while the remaining two were middle-aged.

Ves had not found any pakklatons in the elder generation that possessed any significant spiritual potential.

He frowned. "That's problematic."

He had long speculated that spiritual potential could wither if it wasn't properly stimulated.

Was this theory true? Who knew. Ves may have been unlucky enough for the capture bots to pick the wrong pakklatons.

The only way to know for certain was to capture all of the old birds, but Ves did not have the patience to go through such a tedious process.

"I'll just start with two test subjects instead of three." He shrugged.

Ves marked out the ones with the strongest spiritual potential while commanding the bots to return the other prisoners to their biomes.

Soon enough, only two male bird aliens were left in the empty testing chamber.

No matter their age, both birds were large enough to tower over a human like Ves. The angry birds attempted to peck their beaks through the transparent screen that separated them from one of the humans that kept them under capacity!

"CAWWW! CAWWW! CAWWW!"

Ves only grinned as he vaguely interpreted the meaning of their bird speech.

While the Larkinsons had access to translators that could enable humans and pakklatons to understand each other, he did not bother with using them. He was not interested in making friends with the pakklatons.

"Let's start."

He used the lab controls to forcibly restrain the two pakklatons onto operating tables. The two birds panicked and tried their best to break out of their confinement, to no avail. The alloy manacles were too strong!

Once Ves confirmed it was safe inside, he entered the chamber and approached the side of the middle-aged pakklaton.

"Let's see. Your spiritual potential is quite substantial for your age. That makes it easier for me to operate on you. Hold still and don't resist."

Since this attempt was just an initial trial, Ves did not attempt anything ambitious. He summoned Blinky and commanded his companion spirit to enter the mind of his first test subject!

Mrow!

"CAAAWWWW! CAAAWWWW! CAWWWW!"

The alien experienced a lot of pain as soon as Blinky went to work!

Carving out a portion of spiritual potential and infusing it with enough of Ves' spiritual energy to convert it into a companion spirit was not a gentle process!

This was especially when Ves tried to be as frugal as possible! He did not make use of any additional spiritual ingredients and he especially did not use any of his limited universal life energy.

He wanted to see if he could successfully pull off this procedure on a budget!

Ten minutes later, Blinky left the pained and exhausted pakklaton's mind.

The operation appeared to be a success.

"The damage to the spirit is not light." He frowned.

Fortunately, it already showed signs of healing. It would probably take a few months for the alien's spirit to return to health.

Until then, the test subject would probably experience constant aches, but that was no concern as long as he managed to survive.

"Caw… cawww… cawww…" The bird alien listlessly cried.

Ves only smirked at the sight.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Subject 1."