The Mech Touch

Progress on the Larkinson mech stalled as Ves sought to explore the Golden Cat's properties and strengths.

He wasted half a day in examining and interacting with his latest spiritual product.

Compared to her predecessors, the Golden Cat was a lot more vigorous and lively. Vescas, the Solemn Guardian and Bravo had all been created with a very narrow purpose in mind.

Not so for the Golden Cat. Not only did Ves invest more effort and resources in her creation, he also broadened her scope and purpose to live up to her role as the totem spirit of the Larkinson Clan.

All of this sounded great, but what kind of benefits did she actually provide? How could Ves leverage her distinctive properties to empower the Larkinson mech and other future mech designs?

As Ves continued to examine the Golden Cat without much result, he began to scratch his head.

Though he disliked Gloriana's habit of distorting his specialty in the lens of the hexism belief system, he had to admit that sometimes her analogy became handy.

If the Golden Cat was a god in the making, then what godly powers did she possess? What was she trying to develop and what would she excel at in the future?

When Ves attempted to ask the Golden Cat these questions, she merely replied with a senseless 'nyaaaa' before pawing at Ves to scratch her head!

Though she was adorably cute, Ves still had a mech to design! He couldn't afford to divert too much time on this exploration!

Ves sighed and closed the book. "Maybe I should change my approach. Further examination won't bear any fruit."

The Golden Cat didn't even know what she was good at. How could she possibly answer his questions?

Unlike his prior spiritual products, Ves merged many properties and influences in her spiritual makeup. The result was an amalgamation of values, thought, emotions and ideals that made up for a very complex entity.

This complexity was a boon in some ways as the Golden Cat could adapt to many different circumstances.

However, there was a distinct lack of focus. Aside from her affection and sentiment towards the Larkinson Clan, there wasn't anything about her that stood out in the way his more narrowly-defined design spirits conveyed.

The Solemn Guardian was all about the ideal of duty.

Bravo revolved around both false bravado and immaturity.

Even though the former was stronger and far more prominent than the latter, that did not mean that Bravo was weak!

His long-term bond with the Adonis Colossus and Vincent Ricklin seemed to make him take on their traits. Each time Ves periodically inspected his design spirits, Bravo reminded him more and more of the codpiece enthusiast!

Ves was actually quite interested to see this experiment develop. What was the long-term influence of a bond between a design spirit and its sole mech pilot? How much would the design spirit influence the mech pilot and vice versa?

Was there a possibility that they would eventually grow to become identical to each other? Ves had no idea what was possible, but it sounded crazy enough for him to look forward to the result of this experiment!

In any case, the Golden Cat was different from Bravo in that she was bound to the entire Larkinson lineage rather than a single individual.

While she favored specific individuals such as Ves, no one would ever be able to gain sole 'ownership' of her. Her core identity did not allow her to neglect the clan in order to devote herself to a single clansman! Ves had hardwired her to prioritize the needs of the collective over the individual!

"Maybe I'm going at this the wrong way."

The Golden Cat couldn't answer his questions and his examinations yielded no results due to her complex spiritual makeup.

In order to figure out her domain, Ves had to take a different approach, and he knew just the way to tease out her strengths!

"Lucky! Come over here!"

"Meow?"

Lucky jumped from the work table and floated over to Ves. His tail swished curiously as he looked at both Ves and the Golden Cat residing in the book.

"The Golden Cat could use some.. exercise. Why don't you play with her and teach her the ways of a cat? Don't hold back. Push her to her limits."

"Meow?"

Did Ves think that Lucky was the same as him? Unlike his owner, the gem cat did not have a habit of bullying cats!

"Just do it, Lucky! The Golden Cat needs to learn how to defend herself. You don't want her to grow up as a weak and defenseless kitty, do you? You're a tomcat. Now go do what dads like you are supposed to teach to your litter!"

Even though male cats didn't make for great fathers, that was only the case for the lowest breeds.

The smarter, sentient and genetically-modified breeds of cats were always designed to take parenthood seriously. Though Lucky was a gem cat, he was not an uncaring dad considering how much attention he paid to the Golden Cat!

Though the Golden Cat wasn't technically his offspring, it made little difference to Lucky and Clixie!

Once Ves managed to convince Lucky to 'teach' the Golden Cat how to protect herself, his cat went about his job with gusto!

"Meow!"

Nyaa? Nyaaaa!

Lucky pounced on the Larkinson Mandate and used his intangibility to his advantage! Not only was the mechanical cat able to grip the Golden Cat's intangible body, he also ignored any physical obstacles in the process!

This basically meant that the Golden Cat had nowhere to hide!

Nyaaaa! Nyaaaa!

Spiritual cries of distress escaped from the book as Lucky started to roughhouse with the Golden Cat!

Ves quietly observed Lucky teasing the ancestral spirit. Though they were two completely different entities, Lucky still possessed the upper hand due to various reasons.

He found it interesting that Lucky's intangibility powers allowed him to interact 'physically' with other spiritual entities.

This was something that Ves hadn't fully explored. This basically meant that Lucky could not only defend himself against physical threats, but also spiritual ones!

"If that is so, why didn't he defend me against Cassandra?" He whispered.

His cat was very unreliable. Ves would be better off if he learned how to defend his mind on his own. He never gave up on his intention to develop spiritual mechs. He was only forced to postpone it because he didn't install his bioimplant yet and he still had his current design project to take care of. Once he was done, he would definitely explore this avenue further!

Nyaa! Nyaaaaa!"

"Meow meow!"

"Miaow?"

For now, his focus lay on the Golden Cat, who became increasingly more panicked at her inability to fend off the seasoned killer!

Clixie looked concerned, but not too much. She knew what Lucky was doing and tentatively approved.

Every cat had to learn how to fight and how to hunt! No matter how many generations humans spent to tame their species, cats were still predators at heart!

The Golden Cat spent far too much time in the comfort of her book to learn how to fight. Right now, she was forced to get a crash course in how to defend herself and how cats fought as Lucky showed little mercy!

Though Lucky's attacks seemed cruel, Ves knew it was all a facade. A sense of playfulness emanated from him and he never showed off his claws.

Regardless, he was so much stronger than the Golden Cat that the pressure he exerted was too much for the innocent ancestral spirit!

Nyaaa!

A shift in mentality eventually took place. The Golden Cat grew angry at the indignity of being subjected to such treatment. She was a noble creature! As the spirit who watched over a clan of valiant warriors and honorable mech pilots, how could she be worthy of her august position if she couldn't even fight?

The Golden Cat started to counter-attack. Though her diminutive size, her lack of strength and her gap in experience posed no threat to Lucky, her effort was admirable!

She was a fast learner. Through some means unknown to Ves, he somehow managed to impart her with the full range of instincts and traits of a cat. Now that she was being pushed for the first time, she slowly discovered her feral roots!

Though that was still not enough to defeat Lucky, he gave her some space and granted her several openings to launch her attacks!

The two cats tumbled off the work surfaces and began to float around midair as they asserted their superiority over each other!

Lucky, though maintaining the upper hand, began to feel increasingly more pressured. The Golden Cat was becoming more proficient in beating him back!

Though Ves was rather pleased that Lucky managed to draw out the fighting spirit of the Golden Cat, he failed to notice anything different.

"You're going too easy on her, Lucky. Fight harder! Push her to her limits! She can take it! She can do more!"

His cat seemed to agree with his instruction as the intensity of his attacks increased. He became even more shameless at leveraging his superior size and strength and he also started to bite the Golden Cat's fur here and there!

The sudden barrage of attacks caused the poor victim to feel much more frightened! An instinctual panic started to build up as the Golden Cat became more and more desperate to dislodge her attacker!

Eventually, something drastic happened! The Golden Cat seemed to glow even brighter and stronger than ever before!

Ves tuned his spiritual senses even higher as he observed her panic reaction.

As her spiritual intensity increased, the Golden Cat began to draw additional strength from somewhere!

To Ves' utter surprise, he felt a minute amount of his spiritual energy being drawn from his connection with the ancestral spirit!

He wasn't the only one to donate a portion of the strength! Others who formed a bond with the Golden Cat experienced the same!

Ves looked at Clixie and Gloriana to observe a tiny hint of their spiritual strength separating seamlessly from their spiritual presences and zipping all the way towards the Golden Cat!

What Ves found curious was that he and Gloriana contributed much more spiritual energy than Clixie. This caused him to feel relieved as this showed that the Golden Cat wasn't overdrawing from the entities connected to her in spirit.

The strength she gathered did not just come from the couple of people and cats in the design lab. Tiny motes of spirituality emerged from other directions as more and more Larkinsons paused as a strange sensation came over their minds.

"What was that?"

"Did you feel that?"

"I need more coffee."

Instead of drawing hundreds of motes, thousands of them rapidly converged to the increasingly more energetic spiritual cat!

The Golden Cat did not just draw strength from the members of the Larkinson Clan, but also every other Larkinson such as those who were still a part of the old family!

Ves even noticed two particularly strong motes of spirituality that he unmistakably identified as belonging to Venerable Ark Larkinson and Venerable Ghanso Larkinson!

With the infusion of this power, the Golden Cat seemed to reach a critical stage!

She radiated so much power right now that Lucky became scared. He floated back and attempted to escape, but before he could do so, the energized cat made her move!

NYAAAAAAAAAAAA!

A golden beam of concentrated spiritual energy escaped from her throat, striking Lucky with significant spiritual force!

"MEOW!"

Lucky practically acted as if he had been punched in the gut! All of his formidable physical defenses didn't avail him much as he was much less proficient in defending himself against spiritual attacks!

The gem cat collapsed on the floor. Ves paid no attention to his abused pet and instead focused all of his attention on the ancestral spirit.

The Golden Cat deflated now that she had unleashed her ultimate attack.

"Nyaaa…"

The Golden Cat tiredly dove back into the Larkinson Mandate and turned dormant.

All the while, Ves continued to recall the sensation he felt from her as she mustered up all of her strength.

"I see now.." He muttered in fascination. "So this is her domain! This is the true strength of our Larkinson Clan!"