The Mech Touch

Though the second experiment seemed to have made no difference, after studying various other signs, Ves still considered it a partial success.

His original intention was to isolate his second test subject's cruelty or aggression and lock it up in a box.

While Ves indeed managed to make these changes, the results were much more modest than he anticipated.

First, the box he created to contain the pirate's undesirable spiritual attributes wasn't big enough to fit much.

Second, he could only stuff away a portion of the spiritual attributes related to the test subject's aggression before the defense mechanisms kicked in. He felt very frustrated by these hindrances, but he also felt hopeful he could slowly overcome them over time.

One of the guesses he formed was that the degree of control he could exert on someone's spirit was partially determined by his mental strength.

Becoming stronger probably wouldn't help him override someone else's defense mechanisms. What he did expect to get better at was the fine control he could exert.

As the third, fourth and fifth test subjects came around, Ves experimented with various methods. He found out that he had a lot of difficulty in manipulating someone's weaker and less prevalent spiritual attributes.

He needed to exert more and more strength in order to grasp the rarer spiritual attributes. At some point, he hit a ceiling as he reached the upper range of his spiritual exertions.

This caused him to develop a new hypothesis.

The stronger his Spirituality, the more fine control he could exert over someone's rarer spiritual attributes.

This meant that if Ves wanted to turn the original William Urbesh into a courageous mech pilot, he had a much easier time in bottling up his fear rather than amplifying what little courage he possessed.

Through his subsequent experiments, he also figured out some other rules.

"It's difficult to change someone into something he is not. It's easier to amplify something that is already important."

Turning a bloodthirsty killer into an even greater homicidal maniac was easy. Ves essentially avoided arousing his test subject's defense mechanisms by inducing a change which the pirate in question had always desired to become.

"I WANT TO CUT YOUR LIMBS FROM YOUR BODY! I WANT TO CARVE OUT STRIPS OF YOUR BELLY!"

Ves and Calabast looked at each other again.

"I still don't know what you are doing exactly, but you seem to have a talent in bringing out the worst in people." The spymaster remarked.

"That's because they are deplorable to begin with. I'm sure I'll achieve much different results when I apply these techniques to someone decent."

The limitations of using pirates and awful criminals as test subjects had become very apparent at Ves. Due to the rule that stated that it was easier to induce changes that people already desired, it was difficult to transform them into better people.

The few attempts he made to force the process did not end well. He either broke them to the extent that their defense mechanisms kicked in, or found himself short of the power necessary to overcome all of the resistance.

Ves did grow curious at whether he could employ some other method to reduce his difficulties.

Perhaps he could expend his own spiritual energy in order to force a change.

However, when he tried to push it, his test subject violently rejected his influence and treated it as an intruder!

A living spirit was different from a lifeless one. Once something spiritual came alife, they turned into their own self-contained beings. They naturally resisted external influences unless a close relation existed.

This was why his mother was able to absorb his spiritual energy and why Gloriana willingly hosted his spiritual fragment in her mind.

This little experiment didn't yield any fantastic results, but Ves intuitively guessed more rules. He began to get a better sense of his own spiritual domains as he continued to manipulate his test subject's spirits.

His design seed hosted two strong domains. Just like any other mech designer, one of those domains centered around mechs. Pretty much every strong mech designer that Ves had met shared this particular focus.

What it actually did, Ves wasn't too sure. He knew that it was responsible for imparting extraordinary properties to mechs and mech designs, but he didn't think it was that simple.

Now that he manipulated something that wasn't a mech, Ves began to make a bold guess.

Perhaps his mech domain enabled him to treat everything else as if they were machines.

Though this domain mainly enhanced his affinity and fluency with mechs, Ves suspected that it also came with side effects that he could leverage.

This explained why it became a little easier for him to craft other gear such as weapons and totems.

A small portion of this benefit also affected his ability to manipulate human spirits, but only to a minor extent. When he attempted to expend his spiritual energy in order to empower this aspect of his, he did find out that he was capable of exerting more control over his test subjects, but only to a modest degree.

The biggest problem with this method was that it was very inefficient! Ves wasted much more of his spiritual energy than he wanted to in order to effect a change.

"This means that while it's possible to force a process, I'm not strong enough to achieve anything too meaningful."

He needed to grow stronger before achieving a better effect. He certainly did not wish to halt this direction of inquiry.

His initial in depth exploration of his own mech-attributed spiritual energy even caused him to make another bold conclusion!

The great importance of this specific domain caused him to develop the suspicion that developing it and nurturing it was the key to advancing up the ranks!

The logic made a lot of sense. When domains grew more powerful, they became capable of distorting reality to a greater degree.

To mech designers, the mech domain determined how much of their intrinsic specialties could stick to their mech designs.

A low-ranked mech designer possessed a very weak ability to empower a mech design. Part of that was due to their low spiritual energy, but the attributes that it consisted of also played a role.

All of this meant that when Ves grew stronger, he needed to make sure that his mech domain grew in the same pace as his life domain. If the latter's growth outpaced the former, then he feared whether he could still design a good mech.

As for the life domain, Ves became inspired by the way the life-attributed spiritual energy from the serum easily fed other spiritual entities during the Superior Mother's birth.

Though the spiritual remnant that originated from his mother absorbed most of it, before that the other spiritual ingredients managed to absorb it as well. Ves became particularly impressed at how life-attributed spiritual energy exhibited no incompatibilities at all no matter which spiritual entity it encountered!

Could Ves achieve the same?

It would provide him with an alternative to using up his finite supply of life-prolonging treatment serum if that was the case! His eyes lit up at the amazing benefits he could secure if that was the case!

The next test subject that the Black Cats brought into the room looked angrily at Ves and Calabast. Just like any typical pirate who knew they were destined to die, the fellow was very defiant.

Ves didn't care. He ignored the pirate's meaningless ramblings and began the tedious process of isolating and infusing his life-attributed spiritual energy.

For a moment, Ves believed that the pirate's spiritual potential fed off his donation.

"Ahh!"

Then, a huge rejection reaction took place!

From the brief moment of contact, Ves sensed that while the pirate's spirit desperately wanted to absorb the life energy that Ves had cultivated, the spiritual imprint that came with it ruined the entire process!

They were too incompatible!

""Hmm. Damn." Ves shook his head in disappointment.

It was too good to be true. He at least learned something interesting from this failed test. The high-quality spiritual energy from the serum possessed special properties which allowed it to become compatible with everything. Perhaps its spiritual imprints were unusually docile and unpossessive.

Ves speculated whether he might find more success if he infused his life energy into someone more intimate to him. After all, his mother effortlessly sucked him like a popsicle because of a lack of resistance from his own spiritual imprint. By this logic, it might be possible to transfer some of his life energy to a Larkinson.

The closer his relationship to a Larkinson, the greater the likelihood of success!

It was far too soon to try out this idea, though. Considering the pain and personality changes that his test subjects experienced, Ves was far from confident in applying any of his current methods on people he actually cared about!

He fell into thought as the latest test subject was brought away. The fellow's spiritual potential had collapsed in on itself in order to defend itself against the hostile intrusion of life energy.

"Maybe I need to erase the imprint first."

Ves had already developed a technique to erase spiritual imprints. When he applied it to his own spiritual energy, he actually had to expend quite some effort to do it because his imprints were strong!

When he fed the ownerless life energy to the latest pirate test subject, the result he anticipated did not take place.

The pirate's spiritual potential did not absorb the meal that Ves prepared!

"What the hell? Why? Am I not tasty enough?" Ves puzzled.

After exploring the situation further, he began to develop a good guess why his life energy met with a different reaction.

The lack of imprint robbed his spiritual energy of his unique strengths.

The role of spiritual imprint went beyond claiming ownership. It actually imparted spiritual energy with some unique properties that were more valuable than he thought!

Spiritual energy without an imprint was akin to form without substance or food without flavor.

Ves disappointingly reclaimed the ownerless spiritual energy. As soon as he did so, the energy seemingly came to life again. The imprint they gained seemed to make it part of his spiritual domain again.

After messing a bit more with the test subject, the pirate eventually got dragged away.

"You've run through all of the pirates you have marked out, Ves. Unless you want to grab more pirates from their cells, we can't supply you with more."

"It's useless." Ves shook his head. "The pirates who I've passed over don't have the properties I want. The Larkinson Clan can handle them according to our existing rules and customs."

A brief silence ensued as Ves reflected on this session.

"I can see from your expressions that you have managed to make many discoveries." Calabast interrupted the silence. "Despite your gains, you don't appear to be very satisfied. You wanted to achieve something, but fell far short of your goal."

Ves shrugged. "That's the normal outcome of experiments, especially preliminary ones like mine. You're right that I've learned plenty of new interactions. Messing with people is a lot more difficult than I thought. Still, I'm glad that I managed to gain a lot of insights and learned a bit more about my own strength."

In particular, he believed that he could leverage his life-attributed spiritual energy for something more than facilitating his communications with sentient animals and exobeasts.

As long as he could figure out a way to feed it safely to other people, he might be able to accelerate the advancement of those with spiritual potential!

An even greater hope was the possibility of granting spiritual potential to people who did not possess it in the first place!

This was such a wild and revolutionary possibility that the very course of human civilization would change once word of it spread!

However, Ves did not need to make use of his intuition to know that this was a very daunting and challenging goal. It was best if he set his sights a little lower.

"Changing people is harder than I thought."