The Mech Touch

To Ves, the P-stone in his hands truly deserved to be called the seed of life.

It contained a large amount of life-attributed spiritual energy. Even though it had been separated from its source, most of its sophisticated structure and interactions remained intact. More than a hundred different varieties of life melded together in a symphonic whole.

Even if that symphony had fallen silent, it hadn't been disbanded.

"That's good enough." Ves nodded in satisfaction. "A seed exists to be planted. Or eaten."

He carefully put the seed of life in a prepared container and kept it close. With Lucky constantly drooling at it, who knew whether the naughty cat would swoop in and take a bite!

Ves did not wish to lose any of its potency. Even now, the life-attributed spiritual energy continued to decay!

While he didn't have to worry about anything for a couple of days, from the rate of decay he estimated it would take just a week for it to degrade its quality!

"I'm on a time limit!"

Fortunately, the ceremony he planned would take place in a couple of days. This was plenty of time to process the seed of life.

"I can't wait!"

He inspected the vault one more time before exiting it. He moved straight to the mech workshop compartment and made sure that it was secure.

His comm suddenly rang. Ves accepted the call.

"Ves." A projection of his girlfriend popped up. "You're late. What are you doing on your ship? What have you been up to? We were supposed to eat dinner right now!"

"Don't wait on my accord. I won't be going back today. I'm occupied with a very important personal project right now."

She frowned. "Can I help?"

"Not at the moment. However, make sure to show up on time the day after tomorrow. I have something very big in store."

"Okay…"

After a bit more chit-chat, Ves eventually ended the call and turned his attention back to the container that held the seed of life.

"Well, let's see what I can make out of you. With so much life inside of you, I don't believe you can give birth to something weak!"

He inspected the materials he had already prepared beforehand. He not only brought in enough Breyer alloy to fabricate a light mech, he also ordered some additional exotics.

Not all of them were relevant to fabricating mechs. In truth, they mainly played a decorative role.

Ves made a thorough effort in his inspection. He threw out every piece of material that wasn't pure or contained other defects.

In the end, he was left with a smaller pile of high-quality materials.

"Let's begin!"

Ves began to activate some production machines and began to process the materials.

The question on how to utilize his seed of life hung over his head.

He had two choices. Either he could keep it as a whole, or he could break it up into dust and blend it into the materials.

"The latter sounds way too risky. What if the spiritual energy leaks out? I can't afford this outcome!"

He reluctantly decided to keep the seed of life intact. When he finished the material processing stage and moved on to the fabrication stage, he modified the design in order to accommodate the seed in the interior of his next creation.

"While I'm at it, I should also make some other modifications."

Ves turned his head and looked suspiciously at Lucky.

"Meow."

"No means no! You can forget about it. When I'm done with this fabrication run, let's see whether you still have the guts to covet my seed of life!"

He turned back to his work and tried his best to fabricate every part.

When it came time to assemble his work, he began to piece together the parts as if he was assembling a mech. While this was not a traditional way to create such a work of art, Ves was not a sculptor. He was a mech designer.

"It doesn't matter. As long as it looks good, that is all that matters!"

During this process, he carefully pulled out another object he brought out of the vault.

The remnant of the Idol of the Superior Mother. Ves had already cleaned it up so that its burn marks no longer blackened its original marble-like surface.

"This piece originally belongs to the chest. In fact, it's quite close to the area corresponding to the heart."

When he designed his current work, he left enough room to slot in this piece! He carefully shifted it in place before surrounding it with other parts.

Eventually, a statue came into being. It was a statue of a proud woman that bore a very strong resemblance to the original Idol of the Superior Mother!

In fact, Ves originally intended to recreate the destroyed statue to its exact dimensions!

It was just that Lucky's greed for the seed of life caused Ves to alter the design and put his own touch on it. Now that he did so, he had to admit that his hastily-revised design possessed a bit more charm than before.

Though its appearance deviated from the classic form of superiority of the original statue, it took a completely different meaning in his eyes!

Aside from slotting in the remnant of the original idol, Ves also added some other objects to his statue.

After a bit of thought, Ves decided to place the seed of life in the location of the womb.

He then retrieved the wooden statuette that his mother had carved and placed it in the middle of the statue's brain.

After he finished slotting these objects, he completed the assembly and took a step back.

The outer surface of the statue made it seem as if it had been carved out of a large piece of marble.

In truth, Ves merely covered it with a layer of modified Breyer alloy. He had altered its composition and added several other materials that weakened it but also made it more aesthetically pleasing.

To Ves, it was worth it. He had managed to reconstruct some of the charm of the Idol of the Superior Mother while employing the methods of a mech designer.

"Hahaha! It looks better than I thought! What do you think, Lucky?"

"Meow…"

Lucky looked at the statue with a reluctant expression. The cat no longer dared to swoop in and eat the delectable seed of life.

This was because Ves had shaped it in the form of his mother!

"Hahaha, even if you don't respect me, you still respect my mother!"

The shape of the Idol of the Superior Mother didn't differ drastically from the shape of his mother! After examining his memories and studying the old archival recordings of his mother when she lived on Cloudy Curtain, he managed to reconstruct her appearance to a very accurate degree!

Most of his alterations concentrated on the face of the statue. Aside from that, he didn't have to put much effort into altering the proportions of the other limbs. Perhaps the only challenge he encountered was to reduce the height of the statue.

His mother wasn't as tall as the original Idol!

As Ves finished evaluating his work of art with his eyes, he switched over to his spiritual vision.

The statue exuded a considerable amount of spiritual activity. However, it was all a bit disjointed and inconsistent.

The head exhibited no activity. The heart section barely registered in his senses. Only the womb exuded significant activity.

Even from a distance, Ves could easily sense the energy contained within the seed of life!

"It's enough!"

This was not the complete form of the statue as far as he was concerned! Ves still needed to perform another step.

Unfortunately, now was not the time!

"Let's go, Lucky. Don't think about doing anything to this statue."

"Meow.."

Two days later, Ves along with numerous transports, shuttles and other vehicles arrived at an empty plain on Cinach VI.

A large number of Avatar and Sentinel Mech had been called to guard the premises. No uninvited guests were allowed to get close!

The Avatars and Sentinels didn't just patrol the premises. They also installed some prefabricated structures and fixtures.

If people looked down from orbit, they would find out that the Larkinson Clan was constructing a giant hexagon!

Soon enough, anyone peering at the site would suddenly find out that their views turned fuzzy!

In order to block any snooping, the Black Cats erected numerous pillars around the Hexagon that formed a giant interference field in the air!

As the enormous hexagon took shape, some of the construction crew erected a tall pedestal in the center. Then, a couple of heavy-duty lifter bots brought forth the second edition of the Idol of the Superior Mother and carefully installed it in place.

While all of this construction work proceeded, a lot of people emerged from their vehicles.

"What's this all about, Ves?" Gloriana asked with concern. "Is this part of the ceremony you have been hinting about?"

He nodded. "Yup! Are you surprised?"

"I'm aghast! You don't know anything about hexism, Ves! I don't know what kind of ritual you plan to conduct, but this is completely crazy! If the Temple of Hexism knows about this..."

"I'm not conducting a religious ritual!" Ves shouted at her! "I'm merely channeling some symbolism! I'm doing all of this in order to create the best possible design spirit for our upcoming Hexer mech! You wanted me to create a design spirit that would impress your fellow Hexers, right? I'm doing exactly that!"

"You should have consulted me! Compared to a layman like you, I know tons more about hexism!"

"This is my ceremony, not yours. If I just follow your lead, I can't guarantee the best result."

While the two argued, a large amount of people started to enter the giant hexagon. Ves had issued a lot of orders, contacted a lot of local officials and made some many other arrangements in order to bring in so many people!

The interior of the hexagon had been split up into six different zones.

Each zone corresponded to a phase of existence.

66,666 men stepped into the zone representing the phase of life.

The men largely consisted of locals drawn from the population of Cinach VI. The curious commoners had no idea what they had signed up for. All they knew was that they stood to earn a lot of money if they cooperated.

The men took up a lot of space. In fact, it almost looked as if the zone was about to overflow!

6,666 coffins holding the bodies of the recent deceased were placed in the zone representing the phase of death.

It had taken a lot of effort to secure those coffins. Ves not only needed to convince the local authorities to play along, he also had to gain the cooperation of a lot of families of the deceased!

Fortunately, as long as Ves threw enough money at them, the families easily agreed to delay their planned funerals.

6 small containers were placed in the zone representing the phase of godhood.

Ves winced at the small number of containers. He didn't dare to bring in any more. Each of them contained P-stones containing various spiritual entities or spiritual fragments of some of his design spirits.

It had been a bit troublesome to obtain the fragments, but Ves didn't care about the damage.

666 glowering women stepped into the zone of damnation.

Each of them were Penitent Sisters. Commander Chancy, Head Designer Stameros and Commodore Evern all looked profoundly unhappy to take part in this blasphemous-looking ritual!

When Ves initially ordered the women to cooperate with this ceremony, it almost seemed as if the Penitent Sisters would rebel against him right on the spot!

However, in the end, they refrained from breaking their oaths. If they wanted to keep their chances of redemption alive, they needed to play along with any reasonable orders!

Even then, Ves had to offer the Penitent Sisters numerous concessions in order to provide enough Sisters to represent the most heinous phase of existence!

666,666 small, thumb-sized containers were moved in the zone representing the phase of dust.

All of them contained a single sandman corpse, each resembling a single grain of sand. Ever since the Sand War broke out, a lot of dead sandmen floated in space. Each of them used to be part of a sandman vessel but had lost whatever animated them when the human defenders blasted them to pieces.

Even though Ves brought in a lot of grains of sand, they didn't take up any space!

66 women were supposed to enter the zone of phase of women. After a lot of thought, Ves decided to reserve this honor to the Swordmaidens.

Commander Dise and 65 of her strongest Swordmaidens proudly strode forward and occupied the large zone.

With all of the pieces moving into place, the people or objects representing six phases of existence all surrounded the statue placed in the center of the hexagon from six different directions!