The Mech Touch

Ever since the Impresario Prince had his entire mind blown by talking to the Devil Tongue, he had completely set aside his usual duties in order to deal with a more critical priority.

Instability reigned in the Rubarthan Pact. The losses in the frontline continued to escalate. The post-Great Severing economy still hadn't fully recovered from the crisis that started a year ago. The increasingly more tumultuous succession battle had begun to divide Rubarthans in several different camps.

None of these weighty matters occupied the prince's mind at this time. How could the very real problems of the first-rate colonial superstate possibly exceed the importance of his flawed art journey?

The Impresario Prince lived for his art!

His principality and all of his expansive holdings within Rubarthan space turned him into a wealthy and individual man, but none of them could directly improve his progression as an artist.

In fact, it was precisely because his progress as an artist had stalled that he sought to earn his great father's approval by supporting other creatives and building a media empire for himself!

Yet none of this seemed to make a difference. Even as Prince Casevir started to gain more control over the culture of Rubarthan society, he barely had any room to exercise his influence for fear of stepping on the toes of many other Rubarthan princes.

Unlike Casevir, his more powerful brothers and sisters easily possessed the ability to retaliate against him! Their hard power was much greater than his own! Soft power was not enough to defend against their tyrannical moves!

Becoming a patron of the arts was just a joke in his eyes. So long as his accomplishments did not attract the attention of the Star Emperor, then it was no different from wasted effort as far as he was concerned.

At least, that was his previous mindset.

Now that the prince looked back at his unceasing obsession with earning his great father's approval, he suddenly felt that this was the true joke all along.

"I'm a clown."

Shame and other complex feelings filled his heart. Prince Casevir tried so hard to justify his behavior, but whenever he did so, the poisonous arguments voiced by the Devil Tongue surged in his mind.

Professor Larkinson may have been abrasive when he confronted the issue, but his logic was still sound.

Prince Casevir was willing to admit that much. He did not want to replicate his more stupid and impulsive princes who refused to admit their own faults due to their overwhelming pride.

As one of the weaker and less successful descendants of the Seventh, Casevir was all too familiar with confronting his faults. He just never dared to designate his great father as the root of his problem!

"It is never too late to correct my course." He told himself.

Many artists failed again and again before they found their own path to success.

Of course, the harsh reality was that the frequency of this happening was too low. Far too many artists ended up muddling their way through life and never managed to break past their ceilings for the entirety of their careers.

Casevir believed he was different from these failed cases. His technical skills had earned universal praise. The best art-oriented augmentations combined with the best teachings that the Imperial Rubarthan Household could arrange had made him good enough to produce masterworks in theory.

He only needed to fix his mentality and form a healthier mindset in order for his renewed art career to experience the renaissance that he had always desired!

A chime sounded in the prince's personal atelier, causing him to regain his awareness.

Compared to just a day before, the entire place looked drastically different.

The prince had grown so disgusted at the sight of all of his flawed and deficient works that he had readily ordered his men to throw them into the incinerator!

If not for the fact that all of his sold and donated artworks already turned into other people's possessions, the Impresario Prince would have ordered to retrieve these pieces as well before erasing them from this plane of reality!

"Sir? Your shipment has arrived." The voice of one of his assistants transmitted into the chamber. "We have just completed a deep inspection and found nothing wrong. We can transfer it to you right away if you wish."

"Please do. I have been waiting for this shipment for too many hours now. I am impatient to begin my quest for love."

It only took a few minutes for a bot to enter the private work room.

The bot deposited a single box that the prince impatiently took in his possession. Casevir examined the markings as well as the electronic data attached to the container and nodded in satisfaction.

"You are finally here." He said with a voice filled with impatience.

He pressed a single button, causing the box to unfold on his favorite work table

"Mieu... mieu... mieu..."

The infusion of light seemed to startle the relatively young and sensitive kitten.

The juvenile cat flailed his adorably small limbs as he struggled to climb out of the clean white blanket that served as his bed.

Prince Casevir couldn't help but soften his expression as he beheld the kitten for the first time.

He had never adopted any pets in his life. His life didn't seem to have any room for one. He had always filled his time with studies, work and initiatives to improve his standing in Rubarthan society.

Let alone adopting pets, the Rubarthan Prince never even thought about starting a family of his own! He had long assumed that love and romance only slowed him down!

That was no longer the case.

From the moment he gazed at the black-furred kitten, his heart already began to melt. The warmth that had begun to slip through the gaps filled him with a sensation that he could only recognize as love and affection.

Laying his eyes on this precious and adorable kitten had a similar effect to coming into contact with the Golden Cat!

Of course, the ancestral spirit of the Larkinson Clan was much more powerful and impressive in any way. An ordinary flesh-and-blood cat could not compare against this radiant existence.

Fortunately, the prince did not mind the differences. He just wanted to obtain a cat for his own. Strength was not a criteria. The only factor that mattered to him was whether the cat was able to help him experience the feeling of love!

As Casevir carefully reached out and held the frightened kitten in his hands, his body heated up in a way that he had never experienced before!

Pure love started to flow from his heart!

"Mieu...! Mieu...!"

"Shhh. It is okay, my dear. Your new owner is here. I will take care of you from now on. You and I shall grow together for many years to come. Doesn't that sound exciting to you, my new pet?"

"Mieu..."

The helpless black designer kitten that he had ordered shortly after his latest meeting more than satisfied his expectations.

The Impresario Prince became overwhelmed by the release of all of the strange emotions that he had rarely experienced in the past!

The abundant surge of warm and fuzzy emotions produced strange reactions in his brain. His cool rationality suddenly took a backseat in order to make room for his new impulses!

For the first time in a long time, true inspiration had begun to visit his mind.

The prince began to come up with all sorts of new and fresh ideas on how he could commemorate this occasion.

From painting an image that utilized different colors to portray his changing emotions to reshaping metal into a stylized impression of this scene, Prince Casevir became delighted for the first time since he started to doubt himself.

This was because he personally confirmed that Professor Larkinson had been right!

The Impresario Prince truly needed to experience love in order to get back on the right track!

He became even more grateful towards the Devil Tongue. As his pleased and delighted eyes rested on his new kitten, he spontaneously came up with a name.

"Cara. Your name shall be Cara. As my Rubarthan Sentinel Cat, you shall stay by my side for the rest of my life. In turn, I shall attend to your needs and reciprocate all of the love that you have given to me. This is our contract. Do you agree?"

"Mieu..."

The prince had chosen to order this specific kitten with specific reasons in mind.

He ordered a kitten as opposed to an adult cat in order to experience what it was like to raise his own child.

Though he eventually intended to open his own heart and seek a real partner to share his life with, such affairs always took a lot of time to develop, especially for a man of high station such as himself.

Prince Casevir couldn't wait that long. His art reset was too important for him to get delayed by a number of years.

Although unusual, there was no rule that forbade him from adopting a cat right away.

He briefly struggled to choose which sort of cat he wanted to adopt. Ordinary house cats were beneath his status. This was why he directed his attention to various designer cats.

A Rubarthan Sentinel Cat was not an obvious choice. They were often associated with young girls as the cats were primarily designed to serve as their playmates as well as their animal protectors.

The designer breed had also become old-fashioned in the Age of Dawn. The company responsible for developing the product line had made sure to regularly update its gene template, but that did not stop Rubarthan Sentinel Cats from falling out of vogue.

The latest trend in the designer pet market was to develop a new category of pets whose genes were composed of an amalgamation of regular pet DNA and mutated beast DNA!

The goal of splicing and fusing all of these genes was to produce a superpet that was as docile as a modern cat but also developed the superpowers of one of the many mutated beasts that gained a lot of power from absorbing E energy radiation!

Though the results were incredibly mixed, even without mutations the designer pets still proved to excite their new owners!

Yet... a cat was all Casevir needed to experience true affection. He had known that the wife of the Devil Tongue had adopted a Rubarthan Sentinel Cat many years ago.

Since this breed was good enough to satisfy the Larkinsons, then it should surely be good enough to satisfy his own yearning for love!

He was glad that he was proven right. As Cara slowly started to grow comfortable in her new human's presence, Casevir continued to caress the black kitten's fur with more care and attention than when he applied the delicate brush strokes of his paintings.

"I love you, Cara."

"Mieu!"

"Ouch! Baby, don't hurt me! My finger is not your chew toy!"

As the Impresario Prince continued to coddle Cara as if she was the most precious gift of his life, his administration had worked quickly to finalize the biggest business deal in a long time!

The cooperation between the Larkinson Clan and Isthmus Manufacturing was pretty much set in stone. Ves had concluded the biggest deal by far at this point. There was little reason for him to stick around any longer.

After handling a few other miscellaneous affairs, Ves only awaited the conclusion of one more development before he was ready to depart from the Bortele System.

"Sir? The recruits have arrived. I have brought them outside your doorstep. Each of them are awaiting your summons." Alexa reported to her mentor after several days of absence.

"Are they any good?"

"I believe you will be pleasantly surprised. They are not as brilliant as you, but no Journeyman Mech Designer can make this claim. That aside, they are more competent in their own fields. The majority of them are direct disciples of many different Master Mech Designers, but I have made sure to emphasize that they will have to end their teacher-disciple relationships before they can join our clan."

"I see. Well, bring them in already."