The Mech Touch

Ranya Wodin's induction into the clan did not proceed smoothly.

Her pride as a Hexer and a member of the Wodin Dynasty caused her to be very reluctant to push those identities to the side.

While she would still be both, the Larkinson Clan demanded primacy. A clansmen was not allowed to put the interests of another state or organization above the interests of the clan! This was one of the primary rules that Ves had inserted in the pages of the Larkinson Mandate from the very start!

Ves abhorred double loyalties, especially when someone's loyalty to an enemy or rival power exceeded the loyalty to himself and the clan! He explicitly created and empowered the Larkinson Mandate to stifle the activities of any hostile spies, informants, traitors and saboteurs!

While the Wodin Dynasty wasn't hostile to the Larkinson Clan, it was its own separate entity that primarily looked out for its own interests. As long as their relationship remained this way, there was no way Ves could trust a Wodin like Ranya to an intimate degree!

The initial reluctance that Ranya displayed showed that it was difficult for her to shift her mentality. The oath failed to take effect as the Golden Cat inside the Larkinson Mandate sensed that the Wodin was still unwilling.

"Is it done?"

Ves shook his head. "No. Just saying the words is not enough. You need to mean it! I advise you to not hold any duplicitous thoughts. Whatever intentions you harbor, as long as they disadvantage our clan in any way, you can forget about becoming a part of us. When you become a Larkinson, you need to surrender to us in heart and mind! My book can tell if you are not sincere!"

Though Ranya was rather skeptical of his claim, she did observe a lot of weird behavior from the clansmen for some time. Each of them, both trueblood and adopted, exhibited a remarkable high degree of cohesion!

If she didn't know any better, she would have thought that Ves managed to drug or brainwash them somehow!

Perhaps the only reason she didn't freak out was because she extensively checked the health of many Larkinsons throughout the past months. None of the clansmen exhibited any traces of illicit handling.

Even if the Larkinson Clan did employ those means, Ranya was confident she could defeat them all! Aside from the standard anti-brainwashing augmentations she received as a Wodin, she also upgraded her body further with her own self-developed flora-based augmentations! Her green, leafy hair wasn't the only weird part about her altered physique!

"Let me try again." She composed herself.

"Open your heart. Let down your guard. Embrace the Larkinson Clan."

Once Ranya relaxed, she successfully managed to become a Larkinson!

Ves saw with his spiritual vision that the Golden Cat finally approved of her. The ancestral spirit generated a new spiritual bond with the Hexer with some difficulty.

It seemed that Ranya still harbored some other thoughts, but Ves didn't worry about that very much.

Once her mind hooked up to the Larkinson Network, she experienced a faint sensation that she gained access to something profound!

Her eyes widened as her insufficiently-spiritual mind tried and largely failed to parse the magnificence of a spiritual network filled with Larkinsons!

Not only that, but the warmth emanating from the Golden Cat felt a lot warmer and more significant to her! Once she considered herself a Larkinson, she experienced a kind of affection that she rarely felt in the cold and competitive confines of the Wodin Dynasty.

The Larkinsons prided themselves on their focus on family and fellowship! Within the clan, no Larkinson felt alone! Even if they were by themselves, they could always a hint of the collective they were a part of through their connection to the Larkinson Network!

Ves smiled as he felt an unusual sense of intimacy towards the Hexer. This was one of the many changes the new connection brought!

Through all of these subtle mental and spiritual influences, Ranya would slowly come to appreciate the Larkinson Clan even more. Ves predicted that she would gradually grow cooler towards her previous affiliations.

Being a part of a group with a spiritual network was vastly different from one that lacked such a magical benefit!

"Do you feel it?" Ves asked. "Can you sense the bond you share with your fellow kin?"

"This.. this is impossible! How can a mere oath induce such drastic effects!" She gasped.

She stared wide-eyed at Ves, Lucky, Nitaa and Major Verle! Each of them were part of the Larkinson Network as well. This caused her to feel the urge to treat them with a much closer degree of closeness than before!

It was as if they were akin to some of the closer Wodin relatives back in the Hegemony!

And that wasn't all! When she laid her eyes on the book she just withdrew her hand from, it somehow seemed to radiate a sense of belonging and worship that she had never experienced before!

As an exobiologist, she was a bit more aware that such strange emotional reactions was anything but normal!

"This book.."

"The Larkinson Mandate is the ancestral heirloom of the Larkinson Clan." Ves stated with pride. "It is the heart of our clan. As long as this book exists, our clan will never be extinguished!"

It took some time for her to regain her composure. Though she was still in shock, this was not the time to explore these inexplicable new sensations.

"I guess I'm a Larkinson now." She said in a helpless tone.

"Ranya Wodin-Larkinson." Ves recited her new name. "As a member of our clan, you are now qualified to get in touch with some of our closest secrets. However, that doesn't mean you can pass on what you know to any random clansman. Please keep what we are about to unveil to yourself. Don't tell ANYONE about this, not even my girlfriend, understood?"

"I understand." Ranya nodded seriously.

Her curiosity towards the mysterious object inside the armored container had grown. For Ves to go through all of this effort to rope her into the clan meant that it must truly be remarkable!

Once Ves obtained the necessary guarantees, he turned to the armed container and began to unlock it. As a cage built by himself, he implemented all kinds of advanced locking mechanisms.

It took a fair amount of time to disengage all of the locks. The armored container basically consisted of more than a dozen different layers, each with their separate locks!

By the time he passed through all of the barriers, he entered a very cramped compartment where a single box rested in the middle. It was held in place by a lot of cushioning and buffer materials.

It took several minutes to disentangle the head-sized metal box from all of those bonds. Once Ves finally pulled it away, he brought it out of the container before placing it on a table that had been brought into the enclosed compartment.

"You're up, Verle."

As the major began to utilize his codes and keys to disengage the locks of the box, Ves activated his signal jammer and checked to make sure it was working properly.

Ranya in the meantime observed all of the precautions with an increasing sense of foreboding.

"It's done." The major said. "Are you ready, Ves?"

"Open it." Ves commanded. "I never did manage to catch a glimpse of it when your men initially retrieved it from the Starlight Megalodon."

After a small pause, Major Verle finally lifted open the lid. Inside the protective confines rested a single vial.

Ves held his breath as his gaze landed on the high-quality transparent vial. He failed to identify the material, but whatever it was made of could probably resist the direct attack from a mech!

He soon peered through the surface material and observed the liquid substance contained within.

It was like an ocean in a bottle.

The liquid within was luminescent. It radiated a teal light that added a grand sense of mystique to the substance. Not only that, but it also swirled and moved as if it never rested!

"This!" Ranya practically shouted! "This can't be! How can you possibly obtain a dose life-prolonging treatment serum?! And this light.. this is not an entry-level serum."

"Correct." Ves grinned as his eyes lovingly studied the precious vial. "This serum is the key requirement to the third round of life-prolonging treatments! I didn't like when I said this vial is of incredible worth!"

Ranya was truly shocked! Such a vial should never fall into the hands of someone like Ves! It was simply impossible for him to be rich and powerful enough to redeem one from the MTA!

"Where did you get it?! What's its providence!?"

Ves looked at Major Verle, who briefly explained the Aeon Corona Mission.

"You looted it from a derelict CFA battleship?!"

"It's more than three-hundred years old?!"

Though Verle skipped a lot of details, what little he revealed already blew Ranya's mind! The story he recited sounded straight out of an action drama!

She grew incredibly serious all of a sudden. When she understood that the serum came from the CFA, she became less sure that it was some sort of counterfeit.

Selling 'smuggled' life-prolonging treatment serums was one of the oldest scams in the galaxy. As the key to extending their material existences, an incredible amount of elder people were willing to sacrifice everything they owned in order to stave off their deaths for another century!

When people became this desperate, they became very susceptible to ill-intentioned scammers looking to rip them off!

Yet the extreme quality of the vial alone along with the unique activity exhibited by its contents were both signs that the serum might be authentic.

She didn't know how to respond if that was the case.

"What do you require of me?" She asked in a shivering voice. Hardly any of her pride as a Hexer remained intact at this moment! "While I am confident of my research abilities, a serum of this grade is so ridiculously beyond my competences that I am afraid I might ruin its efficacy!"

Ves frowned a bit. "I want you to study it as carefully as possible. I want you to confirm it is exactly what we think. I also want you to explore the possible ways to utilize this dose to extend someone's lifespan."

"Impossible!" She immediately declared. "The study on how to extend a human's life and how to perform the treatments is exclusive to the Big Two! Only themselves or the people they have authorized to learn this restricted field are permitted to work with such a valuable serum! In addition, the higher grades of serum are much more difficult to work with, especially on a patient that is already of an advanced age! You need true specialists to make proper use of such a valuable substance!"

In other words, it simply wasn't possible for Ranya to be able to perform such a complex, high-level treatment on someone.

Ves looked disappointed. Did he rope her into the Larkinson Clan for nothing?

"Can you at least study the contents of the vial and tell me if it's the real deal?"

"I don't know." She frowned. If you would allow me to obtain a minute sample and perform some field research, I can tell you more."

This was a heavy request, but not an unacceptable one. After Ves weighed the pros and cons, he decided to extend some of his trust to the latest member of the Larkinson Clan

The vial came with a high-tech stopper that was able to extract a precise quantity of substances.

Ranya expertedly manipulated the advanced mechanism until a drop the size of a bacteria entered the chamber of the bioscanner she carried on her person.

Though the handheld scanner wasn't very powerful or sophisticated, it was enough for her to obtain some preliminary results.

In the meantime, Ves sensed something strange when Ranya extracted the tiny drop of serum.

He narrowed his eyes and picked up the vial. He lifted it close to his eyes and studied the inexplicably harmonious swirls of the glowing liquid.

On a hunch, Ves extended his spiritual senses.

Though he didn't sense anything at first, he tried to penetrate deeper. Once he powered through, he managed to come in touch with something absolutely astonishing!

He came in touch with something that contained the vibrancy of life!

"Ahhh!"

He immediately retracted his senses as the concentration and magnitude of life that was locked inside the serum surpassed his tolerance! It was as if he had flown too close to the sun!

The pain didn't bother him. He was too shocked at what he discovered back then. He never expected the life-prolonging treatment serum to contain such a humongous spiritual component!

"What!?" Ranya suddenly uttered in shock yet again!

"What is it, doctor!"

"This serum is partially made out of organic exoplant tissue! What little I have learned has already opened up my mind!"

Ves suddenly recalled something relevant.

The Five Scrolls Compact originally invented the treatment!