The Mech Touch



"...What are you doing, Ves?"

"Isn't it obvious, sister? I'm charging the skull!"

"I am not blind, brother, but what is the purpose of doing this?! You are expending your energy and wearing down your mind by doing this. Shouldn't you be conserving your strength for what may come?!"

"I am not losing any of the energies I am putting inside this skull." Ves stated as he waved the glowing skull that he held in between his armored hands. "If you look carefully, this container is doing an excellent job at isolating its contents. Besides, I am extremely curious how this skull is automatically separating spiritual energy provided by different sources and how I can best leverage this property."

To be honest, Helena was right to be concerned.

This was because Ves kept connecting with different design spirits so that they could deposit their unique energies into his latest toy.

Since David's skull could continue to store these energies without causing them to contaminate each other, Ves wanted to find out if there were any limits!

If his suspicions about not possessing a limit was true, then Ves could think about a lot of possible uses for the skull!

Of course, he needed to make sure he did not inadvertently damage it or alter its fundamental qualities in the process. He wanted to see if he could find a practical application for this object that would provide him with a bit of additional assistance in this time of need.

It certainly seemed powerful enough to hide a lot of potential uses.

He had a feeling that Master Benedict Cortez would probably go crazy if the man found this magical skull.

Although Ves did not have a good understanding of what primordial humans and their bones were capable of, he could already conclude that David's skull was absolutely more remarkable than Object 335 which was meant to become the heart of the Geist System that he developed for his upcoming expert stealth mech!

Ves interrupted his current activity of channeling different spiritual energies into David's skull and directed a perplexed expression towards his sister.

After moving on from the disassembled pile of bones, the two had resumed their journey to the bottom of the ancient prison complex.

His sister looked a lot happier than before. Finding the well-preserved skeleton of a powerful primordial human that somehow got stranded in the Red Ocean over 100,000 years ago had been an unexpected gift to her. The Oblivion Empire that their mother had built in the Nyxian Gap secretly spent a lot of effort searching for one, but the chances of finding one was practically nil.

Too much time had passed in the Milky Way for such remains to be lying on the streets. Helena knew that the influence of the Five Scrolls Compact was too pervasive. Whether it was the Age of Conquest or the Age of Mechs, the Compact maintained a lot of reach.

The secretive cult's tentacles had stretched to every star sector and it had raised countless subordinate organizations that could search for anything of interest. It was obvious that the Compact would have an extremely high interest in retrieving any primordial human skeletons that hadn't already been destroyed by aliens or the ravages of the galaxy.

After all, if Cynthia Larkinson could bring her corporeal self back to life and mend the wounds to her most inner core, then so could the highest practitioners of the Compact!

Aside from that, the Big Two would definitely not let go of the remains of primordial humans either. Helena's eyes narrowed for a time when she went over the horror stories that her mother passed on to her. The Mech Trade Association especially rankled her due to how far it was willing to go to chase after ultimate power.

Even if the Oblivion Empire managed to secure a whole and complete skeleton of a strong enough primordial human back in the old galaxy, her mother's problems still wouldn't be over.

Depending on how much it became exposed to the environment, it could have become contaminated with all kinds of messy elements.

If the skeleton also came from an individual who had only died fairly recently, then the strong imprint and attachment to the bones made it virtually impossible for others to make use of it. The remains would have to be refined over a long period of time with resources that were pretty much unattainable to the Oblivion Empire.

David's skeleton therefore came as an enormous relief!

The only difficulty that bothered Helena was transporting it all the way back to the Milky Way before subsequently sending it to the Nyxian Gap.

It was impossible to employ a normal courier service for this crucial task. The Big Two inspected every piece of cargo that passed through the greater beyonder gates and the lesser beyonder gates. There was no way a primordial skeleton could ever get through without triggering a lot of alarms!

The only other way to bring David all the way to the Nyxian Gap was to have Ves use his strange and surprisingly effective dimensional storage capability to his advantage to smuggle the precious primordial skeleton over in person.

She didn't know how her brother would respond to such a request. Ves had invested so much into the Red Ocean that even a temporary departure would mess up all of his plans and arrangements in the new frontier.

It was due to this heavy demand that she was reluctant to raise the request to her brother.

On the one hand, she wanted her mother to get healed from her affliction that constantly caused her to leak out her power as if she was a starship that suffered a hull breach that couldn't be repaired.

On the other hand, she wanted Ves to remain happy and keep thriving in a dwarf galaxy where the hand of the Five Scrolls Compact still remained weak. Sending him back to the old galaxy would bring him far too close to the agents of the dreaded cult.

Though she said nothing during these minutes, Ves was sharp enough to pick up on her unease. He could easily guess the reason why she felt so troubled.

"Let us discuss what we will do with David after I have survived this ordeal. There is little point in worrying about it now when I am still in unfriendly territory. We need to focus on the matters at hand."

Helena nodded. "You are right. By the way, I think we are approaching a site of greater importance."

Ves turned his attention back to the path ahead. They had passed through a few halls and moved down to the lowest level of the facility.

He slowed down so that Blinky could proceed and scout the massive chamber located immediately ahead.

"Oh." Ves spoke.

"What is that supposed to mean?" His sister furrowed her brows. "I cannot sense anything up ahead. What did you find? Is it empty?"

"It isn't empty. I just need to wrap my head around what I have stumbled upon. I did not expect that there would still be intact storage containers in this empty facility."

Once Blinky tentatively confirmed that there shouldn't be any immediate threats up ahead, Ves and Helena proceeded forward.

Ves had been right in his hunch. Over a hundred cylindrical containers were neatly placed in different round clusters. They were significantly taller than mechs but were only half as thick. He found it odd that they had remained untouched all of this time. It was as if the former owners of this facility never bothered to take them away and just left them here to rest for thousands of years.

"Why do you think the previous occupants left them behind?" Helena curiously asked.

"The logical answer is that the containers don't hold anything worth transporting back to normal space." Ves replied. "The next most probable answer is that the previous occupants had to flee in relative haste and could not run away quickly enough."

As Ves moved closer to the nearest cluster of cylindrical containers, his armor suddenly bumped into an energy shield that just came to life!

"Ah! Damnit! That wasn't supposed to be there! How come there are still functioning energy shields in this place?!"

It turned out that the prison facility wasn't as powerless as he thought!

This was the first time that he came across a genuine powered effect in this prison. Everything else had been so simple that they did not require any energy to sustain their operations.

Both Ves and Helena grew a lot sharper. A storage facility that contained reserves of food or ordinary supplies did not necessarily merit such protection. There had to be a reason for the alien builders to add an additional layer of protection in this facility to prevent any escaping prisoners or intruders from exploiting the goods stored inside the containers.

Ves did not immediately proceed forward but instead moved to a bunch of other container clusters.

Each time, he bumped into the same energy shields, but he already expected that to be the case.

What he was actually paying attention to was whether the energy shields still remained consistent.

"Aha! I see!" Ves grinned behind his helmet as he studied the performance of the latest energy shield he purposely bumped into. "They're not the same!"

"What did you discover, Ves?" His sister curiously hovered closer. "It is just an energy shield, so what?"

"Hahaha, that may be true, but there are a lot of details that you are overlooking. First, these energy shields don't activate unless something approaches the area under their protection. They are normally turned off because keeping them on not only consumes a constant amount of power, but also wears out the shield generators."

"Okay? I could have made that observation as well, Ves."

"There is more. Did you notice that these energy shields are flickering a bit. They are still strong, no doubt, but they are hardly performing at their prime anymore. Unlike the solid transphasic stone material that we are surrounded by, any electric device is much more complex and much more prone to malfunctioning over time. I highly doubt the alien shield generators were designed to exist for so long."

"That sounds plausible."

Tz!

"Look at this energy shield!" Ves said as he slapped his armed hand against the protection barrier. "Did you notice another crucial detail? The alien builders have clearly demonstrated their mastery of phasewater technology. Their shield generators are bound to be transphasic, but there is virtually no noticeable transphasic effect acting on the barriers. The energy shields were meant to be transphasic, but the incredible passage of time has either evaporated all of the phasewater or caused it to decay in another manner. Whatever the case, the shields are incomparably weak compared to what they were at their peak!"

Helena finally perked up. "I see! You think it is possible to breach through these energy shields! If you can do that, you will gain access to a cluster of alien storage containers!

"Exactly! Before I expend a lot of effort to break one of these decrepit energy shields, I will need to scout ahead and see whether it is worthwhile to gain access to these containers."

He sent Blinky forth as always and did not look surprised as the alien systems responsible for watching out for intruders completely overlooked the companion spirit's passage.

In fact, even if an energy shield activated anyway, Ves still doubted whether they could block a spiritual entity's passage. The tech clearly hadn't been developed to account for spiritual intrusions.

As Blinky dove into a cylindrical storage container and explored what they container, Ves suddenly paused.

"What did you find, Ves?! Tell me, please!"

"I've discovered a stash of phasewater…"

"That's great news, Ves! How much did you find? Are the entire containers filled with phasewater?"

"Not exactly. Many containers are empty. The others show signs that they used to hold various quantities of phasewater, but I believe that the contents have long decayed over time. So far, I have only found three containers where there is only a bit of phasewater pooling at the bottom. There used to be a lot more phasewater stored in them, but even if much of it has disappeared, there are still many kilograms left after all of this time!"

"It is a start…"

He nodded in agreement. "It's a start."