The Mech Touch

No one knew how much control the sandman emperor exerted over his entire race.

Some believed the death of the sandman emperor would make the invading sandman fleets directionless.

Others suspected that the rest of the sandmen would continue to obey their instructions regardless of what happened to their highest leader.

Evidently, the latter appeared to be the case. Like cleaning bots that continued to clean up a house after their occupants had died, the sandman admirals continued to drive their fleets head-first into sandman space without any pause!

The jubilation from seeing the sandman empire meeting its end quickly made way for grim resignation.

The mission of the CFA only ensured that the flow of reinforcements would eventually stop. What happened until then was anyone's guess.

Ves already knew that the Bright Republic was enduring an unimaginable amount of pressure.

When everyone realized that nothing had changed, everyone soon forgot about the incident.

While the CFA managed to show off their might, it hadn't said anything about wiping out the sandman invaders assaulting human space.

The MTA was still in charge of defending the interior of human space. Even if the Association refused to discharge its responsibility, it would certainly object to the CFA intruding onto their turf!

For this reason, many people found it hard to care about the CFA's service.

Perhaps if the Big Two wouldn't have been so dismissive of the Komodo Star Sector if it was a lot more prosperous.

A few days after the fall of the sandman empire, Gloriana finally returned to work. While she didn't look as energetic as Ves had been accustomed to, she wasn't as tired as he expected.

"Gloriana! Have you settled in your new condition yet?"

She nodded and smiled at him. "I managed to find a way to cope."

They drew close and hugged each other for a moment. As Ves became enamoured by her scent, he discreetly inspected her spiritual state.

"Huh?"

Ves quickly concentrated some more in order to observe her mental state better.

The coy smile on his girlfriend's face showed that she already guessed what he was doing. She straightened her posture as if to preen herself in his view.

"This.. how can this be?" Ves gasped. "Your condition is much better than I expected!"

He expected Gloriana to require at least two months to recover after she exerted her energy to help birth their new spiritual product Bravo.

Although more than a week had passed, she still had a long way to go before she regained her optimal state.

However, in contrast to his expectations, her spiritual energy level had somehow recovered remarkably quickly!

He estimated that it would only take a month before her spiritual energy reached saturation!

That was an amazing accomplishment for someone who didn't possess a Grand Dynamo!

She wasn't able to exert conscious control over her spirituality! How could she have found a way to accelerate her spiritual recovery?!

"How.."

"Hehe." She drew back and wiggled her body in a teasing manner. "That's a secret~!"

Ves openly scratched his head. Did Gloriana possess a better aptitude in spirituality than him? Was that why her spiritual energy regenerated faster?

He wordlessly shook his head. From his extensive interactions with Gloriana, he firmly believed that she did not possess any remarkable ability in this aspect.

Though Ves felt very ambivalent about his mother, he was pretty sure he inherited her aptitude in spirituality. Out of every person he met, no one else besides his mother and himself could perceive and manipulate spiritual energy so adeptly.

That was not to say that no one else possessed this talent. He had seen some extraordinary applications from the Five Scrolls Compact or the groups affiliated with the cult.

Clearly, spirituality was something that was deeply intertwined with this secretive organization.

Still, as far as he knew, Gloriana was not a part of their lineage. She was a pure Hexer whose family line stretched back all the way to the original founders of the Hexadric Hegemony.

Unless the Hegemony was founded by the Five Scrolls Compact or something, Gloriana should just be ordinary in this aspect!

"Come on, Gloriana. Please don't leave me hanging."

She smiled wider and leaned in to peck his cheek. "You're so cute sometimes, Ves! You're not the only one who can come up with brilliant ideas."

"Let's head somewhere more private."

They entered an isolated office in the design lab in order to talk more freely.

As Gloriana made herself comfortable, she couldn't wait to gloat about her success!

"The truth is that I merely stumbled upon the solution." She began. "While I tried to busy myself with my studies and other activities, I'm not reconciled with my lengthy recovery time. It's unacceptable for me to be so tired and uninspired for months at a time, especially when we repeat our earlier miracle!"

Ves had already described and summarized what they did during the creation of Bravo. Gloriana pretty much made up her mind that what had happened was nothing less than a miracle!

"So you tried to find some way to solve this problem?"

She nodded vigorously, causing her hair to flutter. "Solving problems is what engineers do. As a mech designer, I've never resigned myself to a loss. There is always a way to overcome a problem!"

"What did you do, then?"

"Many things." She said. "I tried some hobbies such as cooking, flower arrangement, painting, piano practice and so on. That didn't go so well. Everything that I used to think of as fun now feels flat and boring. I was only going through the motions. Without inspiration, how can I enjoy any creative pursuits?"

"That makes a lot of sense. The exhaustion you are suffering from mainly impacts your passion and creativity. Any activity that relies on those traits won't interest you anymore." Ves concluded.

"I took a different direction. Since creative pursuits are no good, I tried to engage in my professional pursuits, mainly by reading a lot of academic literature and keeping up with the latest developments in the industry."

"Did it work?"

She shook her head. "Mech design is inherently creative, as you very well know. Even when I try to stay away from anything that strays too close to mech design, I can't avoid it. Mech design is all about exercising our vision and imagination to design a distinctive product. I can't divorce my desire to design a custom mech while I'm shoring up my expertise in mech locomotion or something."

"Maybe you need to tighten your focus." Ves suggested. "I didn't have much of a problem when I was in my low state back then. As long as you study something that is more abstract, you'll be able to divest yourself from thinking about mechs."

"I can't do that." She shook her head. "Everything I learn for my profession is about designing mechs. I thought you would be more like me. Are you really a mech designer, Ves?"

He glowered at her. "Don't joke around."

"Hihi! Just kidding! Anyway, after I tried and failed to get what I wanted from studying, I turned to something else."

"And that is..?"

"Hexism!"

"Uhh.."

"I'm telling you, it works! My faith has not forsaken me! In fact, it has saved me from wasting my precious time by languishing under this state!"

Ves was caught off-guard by her answer. How could her faith possibly make her recover faster? Did some kind of female god take a fancy to her when she was praying?

As a Brighter, he simply couldn't believe that the answer was so simple!

"Tell me how you managed to recover faster." He demanded with gritted teeth.

Despite making Ves crazy, Gloriana continued to smile coyly at him. It wasn't often that she managed to outsmart her boyfriend. She was enjoying this moment very much!

"Instead of explaining it to you, let me show you instead."

She briefly exited the office and received a box from Melody. After she reentered, she opened the box and retrieved a six-sided altar.

He recognized this altar. It was something that Gloriana sometimes prayed to at weird times of the day.

Each side of the altar depicted one of the six phases of existence described by hexism.

Life, death, godhood, damnation, dust, woman. Ves recognized each of these faces from the six facets of the miniature altar.

Gloriana often prayed to a specific facet of the altar according to some rules that Ves didn't even bother to understand.

"Hexism isn't what you think." She spoke after she read his face. She was becoming increasingly proficient in figuring out his thoughts. "We don't literally elevate the six phases of existence or treat them as exalted. It is more about paying respect to the truth of reality."

"And this 'truth' just so happened to place women on top of men." Ves sardonically remarked.

"Of course, Ves. This truth has been proven over and over again!"

Neither of them wanted to rehash their differences of opinion on this matter, so Gloriana quickly moved on and decided to proceed with her demonstration.

"Please don't disturb me while I pay my respects."

She retrieved a luxurious mat from the box and unfolded it on the floor. The mat was so high quality that Ves couldn't spot any creases!

She placed the altar on the mat and sat down on the other end of the surface in a cross-legged position. She calmly placed her hands on her hips and closed her eyes.

At this moment, Ves had the illusion that something exceptional was taking place. The air in the office grew stagnant. The stillness of the moment expanded to envelop the entire room, as if Gloriana's ritual demanded complete silence!

For the current session, she decided to pray in front of a small statue that depicted a crumbling monument.

This was the phase of dust, which in Gloriana's words described a state that was worse than death!

At least someone would still remember you when you died. When you reached the state of dust, no one remembers your existence anymore!

To Hexers, dust was one of the scariest and most unfathomable phases of existence. To avoid it, each Hexer strove to be remembered in some way. They pushed themselves to achieve something in their lives and strove to leave behind a legacy to be remembered for the ages!

Ves believed that this was one of the reasons why the Hexers had been unusually successful in founding a second-rate state in the Komodo Star Sector.

Gloriana's lips wordlessly moved as if she was speaking something. Ves wasn't proficient in reading lips so he had no idea what she was saying. He was probably better off not knowing either.

He instead tried to observe her mental and spiritual state. As she started to get more immersed in her ritual, Ves noted some abnormalities in her head.

Her spirituality had entered a different state! Just as Ves tried to guess what was going on, he no longer needed to do so because the answer was clear.

While the difference was small, with his sensitivity he immediately managed to detect a difference in how fast her spiritual energy recovered!

It was recovering at least fifty to a hundred percent faster!

After a bit of thought, Ves finally found out the truth.

Gloriana was meditating!

Through meditation, she entered a peculiar state where her mind and spirituality both became more in sync. At the same time, the clutter in her thoughts had temporarily settled down, causing her mind to become unprecedentedly clear!

Her entire mind focused solely on a small number of thoughts associated with her beliefs. Even emotions stopped affecting her state when her meditation reached a deeper state!

Ves was relieved that no gods or other external forces aided her in recovering faster.

She was purely relying on her own efforts to accelerate her recovery!

If he wasn't afraid of disturbing her mediation, he would have hugged her and thank her for coming up with this method!

Although it was useless to him now that he possessed the Grand Dynamo, her discovery solved a lot of problems related to her own use of spirituality!