The Mech Touch

Nitaa watched quietly from the furthest distance she could manage while staying in the same room as her charge.

She had accompanied the Holy Son for quite some time now. What she witnessed behind his back was more than enough to convince her that he was a great man. Having tracked his growth, she knew beyond all doubt that he was completely worthy to carry one of the Sacred Scrolls!​​

Yet.. there were some times where she felt less at ease with the man she swore an oath to serve. Holy Sons were unfathomable to her, so she did not presume to question the patriarch's actions.

Everything he did had a purpose. Each of his experiments yielded at least some useful or ground-breaking result. She had no doubt that this latest study would provide yet another useful insight. She just wished that Ves wouldn't perform so many tasteless experiments.

"Hehehehe…" Ves began to laugh. "Let's see how long you will last, traitor. I hope you won't succ.u.mb too soon. The Aspect of Transcendence is the greatest of the four statues, so I have great expectations for it. If there is any scrap of brilliance in your foul and delusional mind, then I hope you will cling to it. This is probably the only way for you to remain strong!"

He truly believed that Dr. Redmont might have a chance of getting through this experience.

According to his design, the ambitious Aspect of Transcendence was supposed to bring out the best of people and make it greater.

Ves wasn't really sure how he managed to come up with such an ambitious idea in the first place. All he knew was that once his inspiration came up with it, he just had to implement it on the spot!

As a result, he ended up with a statue that was far too intense to be made available to other people.

The Aspect of Transcendence was not supposed to inflict harm. It was just that in order for it to take effect, Ves had to configure its mental suppression settings in a way that gave full play to an individual's greatest obsession or aspiration.

While he was not a mental specialist, he experimented with enough people's minds to know that human minds were quite turbid by nature.

What Ves found curious was that expert pilots entertained less distracting thoughts than others. Their strong will caused them to become more single-minded. This caused their minds to have less room for diverging and irrelevant thoughts.

This phenomenon explained why many expert pilots experienced drastic shifts in personality. The purer their minds, the more they divorced themselves from their human side. Expert pilots essentially sacrificed a portion of their humanity in order to make room for greater power!

Ves wondered if this trend continued with ace pilots and god pilots. He theorized that as a mech pilot's will grew stronger, more and more sacrifices had to be made in order to accommodate a greater mental and spiritual component.

Would god pilots even be relatable anymore? It was quite possible that they had shed so much of the complex mix of thoughts and emotions that defined a human that they turned themselves into monsters!

Ves shook his head. This was no time for him to go on a tangent. He needed to pay close attention to the active experiment! Since he only had a single test subject at his disposal right now, he had to make sure he tracked every change in the specimen's mentality.

No sensor or scanner in his possession was able to observe someone's mental and spiritual fluctuations. Ves had to perform this task in person.

Fortunately, his Archimedes Rubal implant made it easier. He was able to convert his thoughts into a digital form. As long as he processed the raw data into something that looked systematic, he could perform a thorough analysis on what he captured.

Right now, Dr. Redmont started to shake his body after his body remained still for some time.

Initially, the Aspect of Transcendence caused the test subject to quiet down. Just like the Aspect of Tranquility, the fourth statue projected a broad dampening field that muted nearly every conscious mental activity.

He no longer pleaded for mercy to Ves because he no longer possessed the urge to escape his current predicament.

As Ves literally sensed how Dr. Redmont's active mind instantly quieted down, he became both fascinated and horrified at what took place.

People's minds were never supposed to be so silent. Not even those who succ.u.mbed to sleep were completely free from their conscious and unconscious mental impulses!

The difference with those who were subjected to the effects of the Aspect of Tranquility was that Dr. Redmont's mind had not blanked out entirely.

Instead, a single d.e.s.i.r.e still remained untouched.

In a normal human mind, a strong d.e.s.i.r.e might cause an individual to become more focused and driven, but it was hard to maintain this state for long.

Other mental activities constantly competed against this strong d.e.s.i.r.e for attention. Hunger, boredom, irritation and more were all capable of interrupting someone's obsession.

While that sounded annoying, it was actually a defense mechanism. People needed these other signals in order to maintain their health and continue living. After all, someone who was completely devoid of hunger, thirst or pain would easily be able to kill himself without even realizing the danger!

Yet that didn't take away the fact that most humans were simply too inundated by distracting thoughts and d.e.s.i.r.es to bring out their best.

His drive and motivation was not derived from a single impulse. Instead, he had multiple reasons why he wanted to design a living mech. In some cases, fear was a powerful motivator to design something better! If Ves was spared from this pressure, he would doubtlessly slack off a bit, thereby causing him to produce an inferior result.

"What is taking place is definitely unnatural."

However, just because the Aspect of Transcendence induced changes that weren't natural didn't mean it was useless. Far from it. Just like medicine and drugs, forcing someone to experience a different state of mind could produce a beneficial result!

This was what Ves was hoping for. Even though he had already condemned Dr. Redmont to death, he still wanted his test subject to make it through this test alive.

"Now, let's see what an older biomech designer who hasn't achieved any great successes in his career can unleash."

Since almost everything positive and negative had been purged from Dr. Redmont's mind, the sole obsession that remained suddenly had a lot more room.

Ves could see how Nigel's singular belief and purpose became more magnified in his mind. As long as the Aspect of Transcendence's glow was still in effect, Nigel's obsession gradually occupied more and more mental real estate.

"Huhhh…"

The test subject's breathing became more active. Ves suddenly realized that while Redmont's obsession had grown more intense, it did not come paired with other d.e.s.i.r.es and impulses!

"I need…"

"What do you need, Redmont?" Ves curiously asked.

"I need… to purify more biomechs."

"What?"

"Melting twenty biomechs is not enough. There are at least four-hundred more biomechs that are being profaned in the hands of our clan every day. The thought of how many filthy hands these poor biomechs are exposed to makes me sick. I need to liberate them. It.. it is my holy duty to free them from their corruption. Let me go, please. The polluted biomechs must be put out of their misery! Our clan doesn't deserve to own those poor organic machines!"

Ves abruptly grew less pleased at this experiment. He should have expected this. Redmont was so crazy about 'freeing' the biomechs he considered tainted that he even risked his life in order to accomplish his goal!

Even though his test subject chose the wrong obsession to dedicate himself towards, Ves did not turn away. Regardless of what he thought about the man, the Aspect of Transcendence was not finished. Dr. Redmont's mind continued to experience changes.

Ves noted that as the test subject's obsession grew bigger, his mind became more active all of a sudden. Redmont fell silent as the weight of his greatest d.e.s.i.r.e grew bigger.

"Ack.."

While he didn't actually perceive it because his ability to register pain had been muted, his brain was heating up. It was as if so much of his mind was concentrating on a singular issue that it began to resonate with itself!

Not even Ves was able to reach this level of focus and concentration!

As Redmont's mind became more and more aligned, his eyes clouded over as he became swept by an indescribable experience that occupied his entire mental capacity!

Ves became captivated by this exceptional state. Redmond's obsession dominated both his mind and spirit in a way that caused them to resonate with themselves and each other!

The spiritual fluctuations emanating from the test subject started to spike.

Soon enough, Dr. Redmont generated much more spiritual activity than an average person like him ought to exhibit!

As an average biomech designer who wasn't even good enough to pursue a career in designing biomech, he did not possess any spiritual potential.

If he did, he might have been able to achieve more academic success, thereby allowing him to become something more than a forgettable biomech technician and feeder pool supervisor.

Yet from the strong spiritual pulses emanating from his mind, Ves could have easily mistaken him for Ketis!

"The moment of transcendence has come!" Ves became more excited. "Embrace your enlightenment and raise yourself up to the heavens! Prove to humanity that even an average person like you can evolve beyond your human limits!"

The intensity in Dr. Redmont's mind grew so great that Ves sensed that the critical moment had arrived!

"TRANSCEND!"

BOOM!

The spiritual pressure in Dr. Redmont had spiked so high that he simply couldn't take it anymore! His mind, body and spirit simultaneously broke from the pressure!

Ves only perceived that something was about to go very wrong at the final moment. He didn't even have enough to abort his experiment before his test subject exploded on multiple levels!

His spirit collapsed into shards!

His mind fractured into pieces!

His head along with the rest of his body exploded in the most violent and bloody fashion possible!

The observation window became splattered by liters of red and acrid blood as the test subject's body simply disintegrated to a degree where every organic tissue aside from the bones had become shredded!

"MEOW!"

Lucky had become so frightened at Dr. Redmont's violent death that he turned around and left the observation room by phasing through the wall.

There was no way he wanted to stick around after witnessing such a horrible experimental result!

As the blood dripped down from the heavily-stained window, Ves did not pay attention to Lucky's departure, or all of the mess that the cleaner beetles practically had to turn themselves into leeches in order to make the entire test chamber spotless!

Instead, the grin on his face grew wider and wider. His unhinged expression grew so extreme that his lips and cheeks were about to slip apart!

"Hehehehehe…. hahahaha… transcendence indeed. Lufa… you wonderful angel. You addressed a problem that I have never come close to finding a viable and practical solution."

Despite the violent end, the Aspect of Transcendence managed to induce one pivotal transformation.

Just a short moment before Dr. Redmont lost his life in the name of scientific progress, his non-existent spirituality grew stronger until he attained genuine spiritual potential where none existed before!

The implications of this brief but extremely rare occurrence was massive. As long as Ves could replicate this result in other people without the messy aftermath, he could grant spiritual potential to anyone, no matter how lacking they used to be in this aspect!

"Hehehehe… hahahahaha… HAHAHAHA! I HAVE UNCOVERED THE PATH OF TRANSCENDENCE!"