The Mech Touch

Ves spent almost half a day inside the vault. Though it didn't offer any proper lab facilities, he didn't require any. Not a single piece of lab equipment could do anything meaningful to spiritual energy.

As Nitaa stoically remained on guard and Lucky dozed on the deck, Ves continued to fumble with the tiny sample.

He tried various ways to extract its spiritual energy and transfer it to a P-stone.

Suffice to say, this was easier said than done.

Due to the living properties of the serum, its spiritual energy was essentially tied to its existence.

Ves couldn't just scoop it out and drop it into an empty P-stone. He first needed some way to separate the bonds that held these two elements together.

In essence, it was no different from harvesting a life.

Though it all sounded macabre, Ves didn't have any trouble with it. He would hesitate if he was about to perform this procedure on a living person or one of his mechs.

However, the serum wasn't really a sentient lifeform as far as Ves was aware of. Despite its abundance of spiritual energy and the sophistication of its operation, Ves did not recognize anything that suggested that it was actually a lifeform who he could talk to. He had already tried to communicate it with his Spirituality, but received absolutely no response.

Even if this assumption was wrong, then that wasn't his fault. The serum should have opened its mouth if it objected to being treated as his latest test subject!

"I don't even really know what I'm doing." He muttered.

Ves was basically trying out something on a whim at the moment. Without any mech designs to work on, he grew bored. He could have spent his time on managing the Larkinson Clan, but he had already set an overall direction. There was no need for him to swoop in and micromanage everything.

He supposed he could have taken a break. He could have taken Gloriana out. He could have spent his time on researching imaginary mechs.

Instead, he felt compelled to play around with a sample of the serum.

Since he owned something so extraordinary, why should he let it warm his pocket?

Over the past week, Ves had carried it around everywhere in a pouch made of Synthra Umbra. He frequently took the time to extend his spiritual senses towards it in order to view the profound interactions of the life-attributed spiritual energy.

Time and time again, Ves sighed in admiration at the grand feat of spiritual engineering he witnessed in the serum. In fact, he wasn't even sure whether the serum had been created artificially.

There was just something about the interactions that felt as if they were in tune with the laws of nature.

This made his current actions a bit difficult to stomach. Ves wanted to rip the spiritual energy out of the droplet he extracted from the vial and stuff it into a P-stone.

That was tantamount to ruining the sample!

Not only would the droplet lose the life energies that made it so remarkable, the life-attributed spiritual energy he extracted would also lose its organic support.

Deconstructing something of high value into two elements of much less value was not worthwhile in most cases.

However, Ves believed it would be worthwhile in this case.

First, the serum was far too complex and potent as a whole. By deconstructing it, Ves would obtain two much more manageable elements that could be studied to a much greater degree.

Second, Ves wanted to make use of the life-attributed energy. However, he had no use for the organic components. If Ves made use of the entire sample in its original form, then the chance of its existence leaking was substantial!

"Ranya can study the droplet that remains after I have extracted the life out of it." He determined.

As Ves tried out various methods to separate the life-attributed spiritual energy from the droplet, he achieved no result. Hours went by as Ves failed to make it budge!

"Damnit! Do I really have to make use of an F-stone?"

Ves had a faint hunch that it might be possible to cut the life out of the sample if he utilized the offensive charge of his F-stone.

However, it wasn't worth it to waste its charge on this procedure. He needed to preserve the strength of the F-stone as much as possible in order to guard against a rampaging Nyxie!

"How can I separate it then if I can't employ a sharp enough implement?" He frowned.

He had already tried to shrink the sample. While that reduced its spiritual strength, Ves soon found out that it also decreased the complexity of spiritual interactions.

The smaller the sample, the less sophisticated its spiritual nature became. Ves didn't want that. For his next experiment, he wanted to retain as much complexity as possible!

"The higher the quality, the better!"

He turned to his dozing cat. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Meow."

"I doubt that will work."

"Meow?"

"Don't speak nonsense. How can that possibly work? Although it's alive, it isn't sentient!"

"Meow meow!"

"Huh. I didn't think about that."

"Meow!"

Lucky's expression turned smug. Even a cat was able to outsmart Ves!

The serum was alive, but not sentient as far as he knew. However, there were many forms of life that didn't possess any conscious minds yet still reacted to external stimuli.

Plants, bacteria, viruses and so on did not exist in isolation. They interacted with their environment. No matter their complexity, they were all 'alive' in at least some sense of the word.

As Ves turned his attention back to the tiny container that contained the sample, he began to look at its spiritual qualities from a different perspective.

"It's not a sentient spiritual entity. It's not a collection of spiritual building blocks either. The energy and its attributes are all intricate tied together like the circuits of a processor or the programming code of a piece of software."

Following this train of thought, what kind of stimuli could he employ to get a reaction out of it? Ves immediately thought of his own spiritual domain.

He concentrated his mind. He deliberately depressed the mech aspect of his spiritual expression.

Then he began to form a spiritual projection and extended it towards the sample.

He didn't dare to make contact directly. The closer his spiritual expression got, the more he felt as if he was approaching a sun.

Making direct contact would definitely burn him! That was what he guessed!

"It should be enough to maintain close proximity."

Subsequently, Ves tried to communicate it. He spent a lot of time throwing random commands at it, thinking that he might be able to trigger some inbuilt command.

"Separate."

"Partition."

"Extract."

"Divide."

None of these commands worked. Even as Ves dredged up a dictionary and some programming textbooks from his implants, not a single word triggered a response.

"Is my approach wrong?" Ves frowned.

Did he have to employ a different language?

"No. The language shouldn't matter. My method of communication is universal."

This was his superpower, of sorts. He was able to communicate with all sorts of living beings no matter if they were cats or exobeasts through his Spirituality.

Perhaps he needed to employ more complex commands. He shrugged. It was worth a try.

"Separate your spiritual energy from your material form."

"Let me extract your energy."

"Grant me administrator access."

"Open sesame!"

Nothing worked, but Ves wasn't deterred. The brute force method he employed was not only stupid, but also time consuming. Failure was normal. To expect quick success was folly, especially when Ves wasn't even sure if this method was viable to begin with! He might as well have been talking to a wall all the time!

Even Ves didn't know why he chose to employ this method. All of it rested on shaky assumptions. The only reason why he persisted at all was because of his intuition.

Though it had been acting wonky all this time, Ves nonetheless perceived some positive signs. His intuition had rarely failed him and it was one of his most useful strengths. It had always played a key role in many of his successes and played a starring role in the creation of his masterworks!

Of course, his intuition only dealt with certain issues. Ves couldn't help but remember the time where his intuition allowed him to unlock a very difficult puzzle, only to unleash Sigrund upon the galaxy!

Ves did not think he faced such a situation this time. As potent as the sample appeared, Ves doubted that it contained some spiritual monster.

Still, as much as he believed in his current approach, several hours went by without result. Even he began to run out of patience!

"I'll beat you up if you don't give up your energy!"

"Let me harvest your life!"

"Offer me your tribute!"

The sample suddenly shone in his spiritual senses! Before Ves could react, the spiritual energy that had been attached to the droplet suddenly separated on its own accord!

It happened in less than a second. The transition was so abrupt that Ves almost couldn't believe what took place.

"..It worked?"

Ves quickly shook off his befuddlement. He quickly swiped a P-stone he kept on hand.

As soon as the rock came near, it automatically sucked in the life-attributed spiritual energy. This stopped the separated energy from decaying now that it had lost its original material shelter.

Ves still couldn't believe it actually worked, and with such a unique phrase. There was something imperious about telling a sample of the serum to offer him tribute. It was as if he was a god demanding a sacrifice from his subjects!

Had the creators of the life-prolonging treatment serum programmed this specific phrase in the serum? Or had he simply said something that vaguely resembled the actual command?

"No matter. The point is that I succeeded!"

He spent way too many hours on this procedure! It turned out that his hunch was right!

Ves keenly studied the separated elements.

He first took a close look at the sample. He could already tell it started glowing less. Without its spiritual energy, the sample seemed to have lost all life.

When Ves studied the P-stone that contained his prize, it seemed to have become warm in his spiritual vision.

Something remarkable entered the rock!

His grin widened as he carefully inspected the state of the separated spiritual energy. As expected, it had lost a considerable amount of life as well. Yet it hadn't died entirely!

The best way to describe its current state was that it had entered hibernation. Most of its interactions slowed down or froze entirely as it tried to conserve as much energy as possible.

"Good. Good." He muttered with a grin. "This is exactly what I need!"

The thought had been brewing in his mind for a while. What if he could extract a bit of life from the serum and transferred it to a P-stone? What if he subsequently made use of it in something else?

"This seed of life is key to my next creation!"

Ves caressed the rocky surface of the valuable P-stone, feeling the weakened but still lively spiritual energy locked within.

"Meow!"

Lucky immediately floated next to the stone and attempted to take a bite!

"Oh no you don't!"

Ves grabbed onto Lucky's neck with both his hand and a spiritual projection!

"Meow meow meow!"

"No! Absolutely not!"

"Meeeeeoooow!"

It took a long time to push away his cat! Even though he managed to stop Lucky from eating the seed of life, Ves did not feel reassured.

Even if Ves locked it in the vault, Lucky would just phase through every obstacle in order to take a bite out of the spiritually-empowered rock!

He glanced suspiciously at Lucky. His downcast pet continued to look longingly at the P-stone.

"This isn't for you!"

"Meow?"

"Then watch! I'll show you what I'm going to do right away!"