The Mech Touch

The Larkinson Mandate was not a simple book.

It was more than an heirloom.

Though its symbolic importance to the Larkinson Clan reached an unprecedented height after the marking ritual, this was not enough!

In order to elevate the tome as the defining treasure of their clan and bloodline, Ves wanted to leverage more of his strengths.

He was not only an artist and an engineer, but also a spiritual sorcerer, if only a very rudimentary one due to his self-teaching.

Even though he only developed a modest toolbox of tricks, this was enough to give this ceremony some extra oomph!

What he was about to do was something he had envisioned at least a month ago.

Ever since he gained some insights from Aisling Curver's design philosophy, he began to yearn for something greater that could watch over the Larkinson Clan.

The Larkinson Clan should be more than a simple organization.

Perhaps the best way to describe his desire was that he wanted to make the Larkinson Clan come alive.

Yes, alive!

What better than to create a spiritual product that belonged to the Larkinson Clan as a whole?!

Ves had never created anything like this before. However, he figured that it wouldn't be so different from creating a custom-made design spirit.

The biggest difference was that instead of making the newborn spiritual entity become the spirit of a mech design, Ves would instead enshrine it as an ancestral spirit of his clan!

Did it sound crazy? Perhaps. Could it go wrong? Certainly. Did that stop Ves from proceeding with this experiment? Hell no!

Though it was anything but guaranteed that the experiment led to the desired outcome, he was determined to fight tooth and nail for its success!

Before this day, Ves already made arrangements with two of the three spiritual entities ahead of time.

Qilanxo readily donated a miniscule but extremely potent mote of spirituality.

The Solemn Guardian painfully separated a larger spiritual fragment from its hole.

Zeigra resisted the demand to no avail. Ves straightforwardly attacked the spirituality of the former Crown Cat and managed to carve out a small spiritual fragment!

Ves collected all three spiritual traces and infused them in the last three pages he prepared beforehand.

He had already prepared each of their pages with their names and a lively sketch of their appearances.

Qilanxo's page depicted the Sacred God in her prime when she was still alive.

The Solemn Guardian's page showed a humble Desolate Soldier as it drifted silently through space.

Zeigra's page displayed the ferocious Crown Cat roaring furiously at an invisible challenger.

No matter if they were willing or not, Ves had appointed each of them as the clan's inaugural guardian spirits.

In other words, Ves turned all three spiritual entities into honorary members of the Larkinson Clan!

He considered his options carefully before deciding on this selection. Each of them brought something unique to the table.

With Qilanxo, the Larkinsons gained a spirit of protection and nurturing.

One of the main goals of the Larkinson Clan was to protect its members. Not only that, but Ves also wanted the clan to provide an excellent nurturing environment for the subsequent generations that picked up where their predecessors left.

A clan without descendants was a clan without life!

The original Larkinson Family had always placed an immense amount of importance to the wellbeing of the young and old, and Ves wanted the clan to inherit this emphasis!

The addition of the Solemn Guardian served to remind the Larkinsons of the importance of duty. For centuries, the Larkinsons answered the call of duty and defended the Bright Republic and its citizens against the aggression of the Vesians.

With the founding of the Larkinson Clan, Ves sought to retain this noble calling. By selecting the design spirit of the iconic Desolate Soldier, the clan gained a simple but formidable guardian spirit that neatly kept the compulsion of duty alive!

There was one important difference.

This time, the clan members no longer pledged their duty to other entities.

Instead, Ves intended to steer this calling towards the clan! After separating from the old family, the clan members should only fight on their own behalf if he had his way!

As for including a furious and resentful spiritual entity like Zeigra, Ves hesitated many times before settling on this final choice.

The former Crown Cat never forgave Ves for his involvement in its slaughter. Even though he managed to salvage the huge cat's spirituality after death, no one liked to die! Though a lot of time had passed since the completion of the Crown Hunt, Zeigra still hated his guts!

The spiritual entity's unwillingness didn't matter. Ves was strong enough to manhandle Zeigra, and he managed to do so without any complication.

If the unwilling beast resisted more powerfully than he anticipated, then Ves was more than ready to draw upon the strength of the F-stone he stored in a hidden compartment of his throne.

Fortunately, it didn't come to this point, allowing Ves to preserve the exotic's precious charge.

Ves had a good reason to draw upon Zeigra's strength despite the risks of drawing strength from a hostile entity.

The Larkinsons not only embodied duty, but also courage!

None of his relatives had been raised to become cowards. Tales of heroism indoctrinated the younger generation into becoming daring individuals when they grew up! If not for fostering this courage, the Larkinsons would have never made as many achievements in battle!

The cost was great, though. Many promising Larkinson mech pilots met their end in battle. When Larkinsons continually took risks, eventually they suffered a bad roll.

There was nothing Ves could do about that. He merely accepted this as the necessary price to retain the vigorous and daring character of the Larkinson Clan!

Time passed as the three newly-appointed guardian spirits became intertwined with the fate of the Larkinson Clan.

No one was aware of their enshrinement except for Ves! Yet their influence could already be felt in many subtle ways with the Larkinson Mandate as the nexus of exchange.

Everyone who left their mark on the book began to feel a little odd. Though nothing happened, the Larkinsons became too engrossed by the faint sensations that swept their minds and bodies.

It was.. as if they noticed that something was connecting them to each other!

Even Gloriana who had also left a piece of herself experienced sensations that reminded her of the Aurora Titan and Desolate Soldier models.

As someone who played an integral part to the next step, Ves already clued her in on his intentions.

She threw a pointed glance at him while whispering a final request.

"Make it female."

Ves had no time to contemplate her last-second demand, as the book in his hands heated up in a spiritual sense!

With the hidden empowerment of the final three pages, the Larkinson Mandate appeared charged with energy. The infusion of the last three foreign elements in an already crowded mix seemed to spark to an energetic reaction!

This was the time for Ves to make his move!

In order to distract the crowd, he quickly addressed the crowd that he neglected for the last couple of minutes.

"Now that we have formed our clan and given our pledges, let us hear from the Larkinson Family that has decided to continue its original legacy. Even though we separated from the old family, we will always share some ties to our brother and sisters residing in the Bright Republic."

Ves waved his hand, causing the projection of the emblem to make way for the visage of a respected member of the old family!

His uncle, Colonel Ark Larkinson, appeared in view, gracing every Larkinson with his splendor!

"My fellow Larkinsons. It saddens me to see you leave, but it gladdens me to see you chasing after your dreams. As my nephew has alluded to, there is more to the galaxy than this tiny corner…"

The expert pilot's innate charm soon drew the attention of the entire audience.

In the meantime, Ves stopped paying attention to anything else but Gloriana and the book resting on his lap.

Normally, if someone brought a bunch of spiritual energy and fragments together from completely different sources, they would always clash or at the very least stay as far away from each other as possible!

It was not in the nature of spiritual energy to blend and mix with each other if their attributes were incompatible. Trying to merge them together did not result in anything except a violent reaction in ordinary circumstances.

Ves knew of a way to merge so many different spiritual elements.

He simply performed the same steps he used to make a spiritual product!

The first step was to shatter the fragments and any self-contained spiritual entities. This was fairly simple as he formed a powerful spiritual projection and infused it with a considerable portion of his spiritual energy.

He then proceeded to smash the motes and fragments donated by Qilanxo, the Solemn Guardian, Zeigra, Jannzi, Tusa and even himself!

Once he shattered everything into minute spiritual shards, he began the lengthy process of merging them back together while infusing the whole with the spark of life.

This was a very draining and burdensome procedure, especially when he had to do it while he was seated in front of hundreds of Larkinsons while his uncle was giving a speech!

Nonetheless, none of his manipulations were visible to the naked eye or any sensors present in the auditorium, so Ves proceeded without fear of exposure.

"Gloriana." He said. "Get ready."

She furrowed her eyebrows and tensed up as Ves turned his empowered spiritual projection from a hammer into a knife.

He then proceeded to cut a spiritual fragment from her mind, causing her to wince in pain!

Ves moved quickly once he obtained his prize. He stuffed it inside the mix of spiritual elements and quickly shattered it into shards.

Just as he finished, Gloriana's spirituality acted on her own and formed a spiritual projection that reached straight down at the soup of spiritual elements where Ves hid her stolen fragments!

Both of them went to work.

Ves began to merge the spiritual elements together as quickly as possible. In order to hasten the process, he didn't hesitate to deplete his spiritual energy reserves.

He burned his spiritual energy to increase his speed and effectiveness.

He infused the spiritual mixture with his spiritual energy in order to strengthen its spark of life.

In the meantime, Gloriana strained to keep her autonomous spiritual projection from lashing out. Even as it tried to recover her missing spiritual energy, it quickly sensed the imperfections in Ves' results.

Her perfectionist tendencies came into play as her projection soon began to devote more time in correcting the faults!

Soon enough, the spiritual product gained more and more coherence.

The large amount of spiritual influences caused it to gain a muddled and multifaceted character. This was not a spiritual product with a strong, singular focus!

Instead, it appeared to be developing into a more complex spiritual entity that inherited at least some of the traits of its ingredients!

After Gloriana finally couldn't bear the strain any further and retracted her spiritual projection, Ves continued to bull through the process while investing more spiritual energy than ever before!

It seemed that a complex spiritual product required much more spiritual energy to support its creation process!

Fortunately, Ves had already been prepared for this outcome. He expended as much energy as needed as he continually drew upon the stored reserves of the P-stone he also hid inside his throne.

After ten minutes of effort, the process finally came at an end. The spiritual products came to life when Ves finally fit the final pieces in a very unique puzzle.

The Larkinson Mandate released a spiritual shockwave that momentarily shocked every member of the audience and even took Ark aback for a sliver of a moment!

Time seemed to still as Ves witnessed the birth of his fourth spiritual product.

Both Lucky and Clixie no longer maintained their statuesque poise anymore. They interrupted their silent vigil by yowling into the air as if to herald the arrival of a great entity!

The Golden Cat was born!