The Mech Touch

There was a reason why Ves not only drove a hard bargain but also resorted to foul play in his clan's negotiations with the Aduc Family.

The Aduc Family possessed a highly useful and relevant secret method that the Larkinson Clan did not possess.

Obviously, this was a grave state of injustice. As a valiant agent of truth and order, it was up to a hero like Ves to correct this travesty!

It was fortunate that despite their old and once-magnificent history, the Aducs had degenerated to the point where they became pushovers.

The Larkinsons used to be easy to bully around as well, but the recent successes of their clan had already given it the qualifications to act as a predator instead of a prey.

Ves grinned. Having tasted the benefits of becoming a carnivore, it felt good to sink his teeth into the flesh of a vulnerable prey. He understood much better why the bigger players liked to use this approach towards weaker parties.

It was a lot easier to gain stuff he wanted through extorting weaklings than to rely on more honest means!

Was there anything wrong with this approach? Plenty! Ves was not blind to the ethical and legal violations of forcing others to hand over their stuff. He himself fell victim to this behavior plenty of times.

The fact that the Mech Trade Association engaged in this behavior as well was the biggest irony to Ves! He and many other citizens had to contribute their earnings, their trade secrets and more to the greedy and insatiable leaders of this massive trans-galactic organization.

Of course, since the MTA had effectively taken over the mandate of ruling human civilization, the mechers were able to exploit without relying on overly coercive means. They utilized a combination of favorable rules and a monopoly on exclusive benefits to milk their lessers, all the while maintaining a fair and just reputation!

Ves figured it all out. He did not complain too much about giving in to the MTA's demands. Why should he? He was the equivalent to the Aducs in front of the Larkinsons in this case!

No matter how much he resisted an unfair trade deal, he had no choice but to dance to the MTA's tune because he lacked the power and support to resist the pressure!

The only consolation was that the MTA did not go too far because it saw value in maintaining good relations with Ves.

The mechers also wanted to set up a sustainable farm where it created a culture that encouraged mech designers and other researchers to voluntarily pass on their research results in exchange for scraps.

What Ves did to the Aduc Family was nothing different in this regard.

Sure, he may have been a little bit more heavy-handed than the MTA in his attempt to 'persuade' the Aducs into cooperating with him, but he was looking after their interests as well!

Once the Aduc Family seriously cooperated with the Larkinson Clan and began to develop all kinds of miraculous new applications at the T Institute, Ves was convinced that Matriarch Erexi Aduc and her scions would taste the sugar that came with cooperating with a mech designer as amazing as himself.

Just like the MTA, Ves learned to wield the power of mutually beneficial agreements to form a network of dependable allies and helpers.

He had come quite far since his starting point. Before he knew it, he and his clan established profitable ties with the Survivalist Faction, the Transhumanist Faction, the Hexer people, the Glory Seekers, the Cross Clan, the Wild Fighter Association, the Heavensword Association, the Murphy Family, the Voiken Family and many other smaller individuals organizations through the Open Consortium and the Creation Association.

Naturally, there was also his large and expansive customer base, one he was keen on expanding even further!

The power of the market did not just lie in being able to earn a lot of money by selling products.

What Ves as well was the influence and power he gained from building up a large following. His clan and mech company were still not too far away from small fry in the new frontier. The easiest way for them to become unassailable was by establishing a strong and vast network of interconnected interests!

He still had a long way to go before his network reached this point, but he had come one step closer to becoming a bulwark in the Red Ocean by roping in the Aduc Family.

Flush with this recent success and having obtained a lot of inspiration from observing the Old Lady's injured state, Ves became engrossed by all of the new possibilities he could explore.

Just the fact that he gained access to two brand-new spiritual attributes substantially widened the range of spiritual products he could make!

As an original source of both low-grade wood and low-grade earth spiritual energy, Ves already regarded the Old Lady as his latest spiritual livestock!

However, compared to the value of a single special oak tree, the Aduc Family possessed an even greater treasure.

The best had yet to come!

Shortly after he concluded his second visit to the Green Sanctum, Matriarch Erexi was finally ready to lead him to another chamber where the Aduc Family stored its second great treasure.

"We have never hid the Old Lady from the public." The matriarch spoke. "Though she is valuable, she is just a tree in the eyes of other people. She served as an excellent decoy for our second and more obscure heirloom. What I am about to show you is one of our greatest secrets. It is both the instigator of our family's exile from the Terran Confederation and also the reason why our terraforming services have earned a decent amount of renown in our line of business."

Ves became more fascinated by her explanation as they left the Green Sanctum far behind them and headed towards the stern of the Aduc Family's flagship.

Along the way, they passed through numerous biolabs, analysis departments, training halls, machine shops and other interesting facilities.

Though the Aduc Family wasn't as large and strong as the Larkinson Clan, their ability to transform lifeless planets that were inhospitable to human life into globes filled with green and life was absolutely amazing!

Ves and every other Larkinson had no idea where to begin if they ever wanted to do the same!

As the minutes passed by, Ves eventually noticed that they were heading awfully far away from the protected center of the Green Dream.

"Where are we heading to, matriarch?"

"The main engineering bay." The head of the Aduc Family replied. "We do not think it is wise to store two of our heirlooms in the same location. Since the Old Lady attracts so much attention, it is easier for our second heirloom to go unnoticed, especially when it is buried right underneath power reactors, an FTL drive and powerful forward thrusters."

"Ah, that does make it a good place to mask the presence of sensitive items."

All of the heat and energy emissions from this giant compartment could interfere with the functioning of all but the most powerful and advanced sensor systems!

The Aducs were probably not the first and last ones to use this basic trick to hide their treasures.

When they entered the engineering bay, Ves scanned the layout and noted that the positioning of all of the powerful systems and components did not obviously stand out. Nonetheless, he could still identify plenty of pockets of space where the Aducs could get away with hiding a sensitive object.

The matriarch led him to the side where they approached an empty area. She brought up her comm and pressed it onto a contact point.

Nothing appeared to have happened, but the woman looked expectant nonetheless.

"The deck plating before our feet has silently retracted while we waited." She explained. "What you see before you is a powerful physical projection to mask the change. Let us head downwards."

They both stepped onto the physical projection before the forces holding them aloft had disappeared.

Both descended down a tunnel and entered into a secret corridor that was deliberately squashed between a series of large power channels and tubes. The designer of this secret compartment even deformed the shape of all of these channels in order to open up a secret compartment that could not be found in any of the maps and blueprints of the Green Dream!

Ves could feel the powerful energies flowing just outside of his immediate surroundings. The Aducs constantly had to maintain a minimum threshold of power consumption in order to ensure that no sensors or scanners could detect this cavity!

The greater the amount of effort the Aduc Family put into hiding their second heirloom, the more he looked forward to getting introduced to it! He knew it was the right choice to extort this secret out of the Aducs!

The corridor wasn't long, but it was filled with all kinds of secret security measures such as turrets, gravity traps, crushers and other nasty surprises.

None of them posed a problem as Matriarch Erexi disarmed each of them through an unknown input method.

Once they reached the other side, they stood before a set of blast doors. Opening it up was much more complicated, but Ves didn't have to do anything but wait.

The surroundings soon began to rumble as the heavy blast doors slowly slid open, revealing a large and mostly empty metal chamber.

Ves briefly felt a faint pressure washing over his body. It was as if whatever was stored inside possessed a great magnitude!

He peered through the chamber which was not that brightly lit. The only feature of note was a pedestal made out of stone that stuck out of the middle.

Hovering just above this pedestal was a transparent cage that contained an object that instantly caused Ves to develop a lot of different associations!

"Is that…?!"

"Our heirloom is a scroll, yes." Matriarch Erexi said in a tone that made it sound as if this wasn't anything special. "We have owned it for centuries. We do not know how old it is, but its effect on us is so great that we have always tried our best to maintain its secrecy."

Ves was shocked by the possible origin and power of this scroll!

If this happened to be the mythical Earth Scroll, then how could a relic that was so powerful and sought after be hiding aboard a simple second-class capital terraforming ship?

The Big Two would have detected its presence somehow and snatched it a long time ago if it was real!

Besides, didn't he hear from a source that the Five Scrolls Compact still retained possession of both the Earth Scroll and the Water Scroll?

As the pair slowly approached the pedestal, Ves stared intensely at the browned and aged scroll.

It… did not exude the vibe of one of the great Sacred Scrolls that the Compact was so obsessed about.

A profound sense of disappointment ran throughout his body. He only maintained a faint hope that it may have been the real deal, but it was apparent that it was only a really old scroll.

"What is it, matriarch?"

The woman gazed reverently at the scroll that strangely did not contain any spirituality or spiritual energy.

"Our ancestors call it the Annals of Terra Vita. They obtained this great gift from a small and obscure cult that used to worship Old Earth but no longer exists as far as we know. The most remarkable aspect about the Annals is its text. We have tried our best to translate its contents over the centuries, and while we have not come close to deciphering its full and accurate meaning, what little we have learned has given us a method for us to become in tune with life and planets!"

If the so-called Annals of Terra Vita was the authentic Earth Scroll, then this mysterious cult would have never given it away to the Aduc Family as a gift!

Ves already ruled out the possibility that he was standing in front of a real Sacred Scroll. Even without the matriarch's explanation, he already felt it in his bones that the Aduc Family's second heirloom was not as grand, majestic and powerful as one of the five extraordinary relics that drove the course of human history.

A different possibility came to mind, though. He did not think it was a coincidence that the relic came in the form of a scroll.

Was it possible that it was a copy of the Earth Scroll?

The very notion of this possibility was enough to stop his heart!