The Mech Touch

Ves enjoyed Gloriana's warmth as she pressed against him. Both of them rested comfortably in the backyard of their mansion.

Further ahead, their cats curiously reacquainted with themselves.

The Larkinson Mandate rested on a quaint little garden table. As Lucky and Clixie sniffed and licked each other, the Golden Cat suddenly emerged out of the book.

"Nyaaa!"

The radiant cat that appeared out of nowhere playfully pounced on Clixie and physically rubbed her head against the Rubarthan Sentinel Cat!

"Miaow?!"

Clixie jumped in shocked!

"Nyaaa nyaaa!" Goldie playfully swished her tail.

"Meow." Lucky vouched for Goldie.

"Miaow miaow?"

"Meow!"

"Miaow!"

It didn't take long for Clixie to recognize the Golden Cat. After all, as a pet who Ves had personally inducted into the Larkinson Clan, the organic feline possessed a strong connection to the Larkinson Network.

Soon enough, Clixie no longer questioned how it was possible for Goldie to manifest herself physically. Instead, she teamed up with Lucky and eagerly pounced on the spiritual cat in order to give her a thorough bath!

"Nyaaaa! Nyaaaaaaaa!"

Both Ves and Gloriana observed Goldie appearing and interacting with Lucky and Clixie in shock.

"That's new." Gloriana spoke. "Am I looking at a projection or is she really…?"

"She's the real deal."

"As expected of a female proto-god!"

While Gloriana easily accepted the new phenomenon, Ves was still mired in shock. He never expected that the Golden Cat developed the ability to manifest her spiritual body into a physical form!

He concentrated his mind and studied Goldie's form a little further. He sensed significant changes in her makeup.

A month ago, she sustained severe wounds from her battle against the dark gods. Joshua managed to channel her in a giant energy projection. While that allowed Goldie to manifest herself into reality to a degree, she also became exposed to damage.

Now, she not only recovered from her wounds, but also grew stronger!

There were several reasons why. First, she personally took part in a battle against a comparable spiritual entity. Even though she lost, she gained a lot from the confrontation.

She might have stolen the technique to manifest herself from battling the Unending One!

Yet that was not enough for her to be able to materialize herself into a physical form. The gulf between the imaginary realm and the material realm was considerable. The former was where spiritual entities like her were anchored. The material realm operated by different rules and did not support the existence of spiritual entities.

She needed a source of energy.

"The expert pilots." He whispered.

"What?" Gloriana asked.

"The strength of the Golden Cat is directly related to the strength of our clansmen. When we grow our numbers, Goldie gains more energy, but normal people don't really add that much. It's the expert pilots that are key to her evolution. The high-quality energy they produce is a great tonic to entities like her. Half a year ago, we didn't have any expert pilots. Now, we have five all of a sudden! This is a massive upgrade to Goldie and any other entity tied to those expert pilots!"

Ves briefly checked up on Qilanxo and could already sense that she had grown stronger as well!

The difference wasn't as dramatic. Goldie was young and only existed for over a year. Qilanxo was a seasoned sacred god who lived for several centuries. Due to the latter's greater strength, the addition of three expert pilots who formed a bond with the big lizard did not make much of a difference.

This would definitely change once Venerable Jannzi, Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise progressed their force of wills.

Right now, Goldie happened to be the biggest beneficiary out of the design spirits. While her bonds with the expert pilots weren't all that strong, she had equal access to everyone. This meant she gained access to multiple sources of high-quality spiritual feedback that was also supplied in considerable quantities to boot!

Before the Nyxian Gap Campaign, Ves and Gloriana were the only members of the Larkinson Clan who were able to supply her with premium feedback.

The new sources of feedback differed because it did not just consist of spiritual energy. The expert pilots also supplied a small amount of their will!

The addition of will opened several new possibilities for the Golden Cat. While willpower was very hard to work with, being able to leverage it so that she was able to create something similar to an energy projection was very impressive!

Of course, that didn't mean that Goldie suddenly turned into an omnipotent commando cat like Lucky.

When Clixie attempted to bite Goldie in the scruff of her neck, the radiant cat's form couldn't handle the pressure. She exploded!

"Miaow!"

"Meow!"

Both Lucky and Clixie were frightened at the display!

"Nyaaaa."

Goldie emerged out of the Larkinson Mandate again without showing any discomfort. Nothing happened to her, causing everyone to feel relieved.

It turned out that her physical manifestation was still too weak. Once it sustained too much damage, it popped like a balloon. Goldie simply turned back into a pure spiritual entity and lost a bit of energy.

Even without sustaining damage, Goldie couldn't hold her form for long. Her physical manifestation fizzled out as she reached the limit of her endurance.

Nyaaaaa….

"Miaow…"

Clixie looked upset. Unlike Lucky, she possessed no remarkable spiritual potential at all, which meant she wasn't able to interact with Goldie.

"Meow meow."

Lucky tried his best to console his furry companion.

"They're so cute." Gloriana grinned. "Now that Goldie can appear like this, I can play with her! We can even display her during our wedding!"

"Uhm, I don't think that's a good idea. We can't reveal Goldie's true nature."

The two argued a bit about that. Ever since Ves returned, most of their discussions revolved around the planning for their upcoming wedding.

Both of them held different opinions on how it should go. Gloriana wanted to go all out and make the wedding into the most memorable occasion of their lives.

Ves just wanted it to proceed with as little complications as possible.

While their goals didn't necessarily contradict each other, Gloriana refused to settle for less. It gave him a lot of headaches.

However, Ves also took advantage of that by making a rather presumptuous request.

"Gloriana?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I.. uhmm.. need to borrow something from you. Could you open your mind for a moment and allow me to grab some of your energy? It will hurt a bit and it will make you tired for a time. I planned something special for our wedding but I need to borrow your strength."

"Okay." She simply said.

That was what he liked about her. She trusted him to a large extent. She didn't even question him any further.

As Ves initiated the procedure he had in mind, he soon came across another surprise.

When he entered Gloriana's mind, he discovered that Gloriana exerted considerably greater control over her mind than before.

Ves sensed no sign of discomfort from her. Her mind did not exhibit any rejection to his presence at all. Before, her design seed always maintained its vigilance towards his spiritual projections, but that was not the case anymore.

"Do you remember the time when you brought the Superior Mother to life?"

"Yes.."

"Your mother taught me a few techniques! Look!"

To his surprise, Gloriana spontaneously formed a spiritual projection of her own! Though it was crude and rough, she was able to exert enough control over it to reach out of her mind and interact with other spiritual entities!

Ves grew a little upset. His mother hardly bothered to teach him anything while his fiance gained a crash course in spiritual manipulation without doing anything.

This wasn't fair!

Maybe his mother was secretly a Hexer after all. How could she show so much favor to a woman while leaving her own son in the dust?

As Ves studied what Gloriana learned, he realized that her ability to control her spirituality was very rudimentary. The main stumbling block was her dim spiritual perception. She had to borrow the capabilities of his spiritual fragment in order to know what she was doing. This was a rather strenuous process.

Aside from that, Ves noticed that the defenses of her mind had grown more structured as well. This allowed her to resist spiritual pressure a bit better.

It wasn't as if his mother transformed Gloriana into a full-fledged spiritual sorceress.

Time was limited. Ves shrugged off his confusion and proceeded with his plan.

He needed to perform two procedures. Since one of them was bound to damage her mind a bit, he first turned to his spiritual fragment.

It originally came from a spiritual projection that he had sent into her mind in order to snoop on her thoughts and emotions. Once her mind cut it off from him, it eventually turned into a loose existence that was only tenuously tied to its source.

Ves did not inject more energy in it. Recklessly increasing his presence in her mind would only lead to distorting her domain.

Instead, he began to mold a very simple spiritual construct. He already formulated a design beforehand, so it did not take much time until the spiritual fragment changed shape.

The load-bearing capacity of this small spiritual fragment was very limited. Ves didn't want to change the entire fragment either, because that would cut off a lot of useful functions.

He ended up making a tiny visor of sorts. It took quite a bit of trial and error for him to make the visor permanent. He even had to donate a small portion of his spiritual energy in order to stabilize its shape.

Ves lost something in the process that he couldn't easily replace. He figured the tradeoff was worth it because he would be taking something important to her as well.

"Alright, this is going to hurt. Try and keep yourself as still as possible, okay?"

"I'm already used to it. Just do what you need to do, Ves."

Seeing that she had braced herself, Ves made his move. He reached deeper into her mind and scooped out a small but dense amount of her spiritual energy. Because this energy was close to her design seed, it was especially rich. Removing it from her would definitely impact her ability to design a mech until her mind slowly made up for the loss!

"Ouch! What are you doing?!"

Even though she tried her best to keep her mind under control, she wasn't able to restrain it for long!

Fortunately, Ves already deposited his prize into his mind, thereby avoiding any possible retaliation.

The consequences of his actions immediately became clear. Gloriana entered into her low state again. She had experienced it several times and knew how severe it was. She glowered at the culprit.

"What is the meaning of this? We're about to get married soon. I can't go to my wedding when I'm in this awful mood."

"I didn't take too much. As long as you don't miss your prayers, I think you'll recover in time."

Even if his estimates were off, no harm was done. Mellowing Gloriana out like this meant that she wouldn't be as frantic and demanding as before.

Ves disregarded her whining and studied his prize. Though he hadn't taken much, he could already sense the potential of her spiritual energy. Once he processed it into a spiritual fragment and shaped a portion of it into a spiritual construct, he would obtain a mirror of what Gloriana currently possessed.

That took care of one aspect of the wedding. He needed to do much more in order to placate Gloriana's existing demands.

"I want you to work on our wedding clothes."

"What? I'm a mech designer, not a tailor!"

"I don't care. I want you to create something similar to your Pride of Dusk. Our clothes have to be memorable and unique. I'm not settling for anything less."