The Mech Touch

When Ves returned to the Spirit of Bentheim, he knew he didn't have much time left before he had to devote himself to his work.

He wanted to spend what little time he had left on knowing what Blinky was capable of and how all of the changes affected his mech design capabilities.

While it was interesting to learn more about how Blinky could manipulate or harness the Worclaw energy in his body, Ves was not a swordsman or commando. He had no pressing need to turn himself into a miniature version of an Alshyr alien, and he doubted that he could even replicate their powers.

The human body was simply too different from that of the giant aliens!

As his shuttle docked in the hangar bay, Ves left the vehicle and returned to his grand stateroom.

"Lucky? Where are you? I hope you haven't sneaked off somewhere."

Ves quickly managed to track his gem cat down in his personal office. The cat comfortably lied on a pillow placed on the desk.

"Meoooww…?"

"You look a bit better now. That's good. I hope it won't take long before you recover."

"Meow meow…"

"Anyway, I didn't come to inquire about your health. I want you to meet a new addition to our family. Please say hello to Blinky!"

At his signal, Blinky left his mind and half-materialized into existence. The purple cat floated closer to Lucky while lifting his paw in a friendly greeting.

Mrow.

Unfortunately, Lucky was not that happy to see a new cat appear out of nowhere.

"Meow…!"

Lucky acted as if he was facing another threat. The mechanical cat hissed and uttered challenging growls as he lifted himself off the desk.

Mrow mrow?

Blinky acted rather confused. Why was Lucky so unfriendly?

The inevitable finally happened. Lucky jumped on Blinky and tried to suppress the new cat!

For a moment, the two cats wrestled against each other. Though they refrained from using their claws or other lethal weapons, they had become fully invested in establishing dominance over each other!

Ves palmed his face. He felt a bit exasperated at Lucky's inability to accept the new cat right away. He also felt a bit ashamed at the fact that another part of him couldn't help but get caught up in this silly struggle.

The two cats fought increasingly harder against each other. Though Lucky possessed a killer instinct along with an abundant amount of experience, Blinky was not that much worse off. His spiritual body was very substantial for his very young age and he did not back off from the challenge.

Unfortunately, Blinky was still too young and rarely managed to keep the upper hand. He was still strong enough to prevent Lucky from winning the bout entirely so his performance was not that bad.

Ves even thought that Blinky might excel in battle as he matured. Of course, the nature of his existence meant that he was only able to fight against spiritual threats, but the story might be different if he was able to harness Worclaw energy.

In fact, one of the motivations for Ves to create companion spirits was because he wanted to equip himself and others with spiritual guardians.

While Ves lacked the time and opportunity to explore his imaginary mech concept, he believed that companion spirits were able to fulfill this role to an extent.

Having one was better than having none to most people as they did not possess any active defenses against spiritual threats.

Ves even hoped that everyone who possessed one would be better equipped to fight against oppressive enemies similar to dark gods! Aside from ancient spiritual entities, there were other scary existences among humanity.

He could never forget about the threat posed by the Five Scrolls Compact. That temple protector from the galactic center was so powerful that he could probably eat the dark gods for breakfast!

Though it was unlikely that Ves would ever be able to bump into a similar threatening figure, that was no reason for him to sit back and assume that the danger was over. He managed to bump into the cultists and their many off-shoots in several locations in a relatively remote region of the galaxy.

If the Compact was able to spread its tentacles in the Faris Star Region, the Kinner Tribe and the Nyxian Gap, then they should also be present in every other region of human space!

In short, Ves did not think it was redundant for his companion spirit to be able to fight on his behalf. With all of the universal life energy that he pumped into Blinky, his new spiritual pet ought to be able to take care of all manner of spiritual threats!

He was still too young though. As the brawl between the two cats went on, Lucky slowly managed to limit Blinky's ability to resist.

"Meow! Meow!"

Mrow more mrow!

Ves couldn't stand the idea of seeing a part of himself lose this silly bout, so he eventually decided to intervene.

"Alright, that's enough! The two of you are part of the same family now, so don't try to fight all the time."

"Meow!" Lucky responded with a resentful expression.

Mrow! Blinky looked aggrieved.

"Lucky, you're not being replaced. You are still my first pet. Blinky is simply… different. He can't produce gems or travel too far away from me, but he is an augment that I have brought to life. He will be able to assist me in different ways. He'll also be able to protect me, which should make your life easier."

No matter what he said, Lucky did lower his hostility to the new cat, so Ves quickly gave up. He knew what his first cat was like and figured that he would slowly get accustomed to Blinky.

After all, as his companion spirit, Blinky would always be present around Ves.

"Meow."

Lucky retreated to a cabinet but remained vigilant towards Blinky.

Ves didn't care too much and sat down behind his desk before studying his latest companion.

"What can you do, Blinky?"

Mrow?

The young cat innocently blinked and pressed his paw against his chest.

"I created you with the intention that you would be able to help me in my endeavors. You were born with powers and your accelerated growth should have expanded their effects. Let's begin with your primary function. I've already witnessed the Unending One using your stomach to digest and convert energy. Let's see if you can harness it just as well as the original source of this ability."

Ves borrowed a bit of spiritual energy from one of his design spirits and fed it to Blinky.

He could sense some activity taking place in his companion spirit's stomach. It only took a few seconds to digest this small quantity. Soon enough, Blinky released a smaller quantity of processed spiritual energy that was virtually indistinguishable from Ves' own spiritual energy!

"Yes! You can do it! Good job, Blinky!" Ves affectionately rubbed his new cat's head.

Mrow~

From this brief attempt, Ves confirmed that Blinky had not lost control over his spiritual energy digestion system. He was also able to ascertain that there was nothing with it despite temporarily getting hijacked by the Unending One before experiencing rapid growth.

Generating spiritual energy compatible with Ves was Blinky's primary purpose. It would have been a considerable problem if Ves did not gain an additional supply of energy despite making use of so many valuable ingredients!

Ves began to borrow spirit energy from different design spirits and fed them all to Blinky. He noted the differences between input and output and methodically documented the most important parameters.

"Well, it looks like you are quite a capable boy. I am pleasantly surprised by your speed, though your efficiency could still use a lot of work."

Mrow.

It was rather insane how quickly Blinky was able to digest heterogenous energy. This was his greatest advance. Even if Ves shoveled a lot of spiritual energy inside Blinky, his companion spirit only needed a couple of minutes at most to break it all down and reconstitute it into a form that Ves could directly take over.

In this regard, its potential output was far higher than that of the Grand Dynamo!

Though the fantastic spiritual engineering product did not require any input from Ves, its output was too stable and fixed. There was no way for Ves to quickly supplement his spiritual energy. This forced him to inject a constant amount of spiritual energy inside his P-stones to steadily build up a reserve in the case of accidents or emergencies.

"I don't have to bother with that now." Ves grinned. "I can just ask my wealthier design spirits to dump a lot of their excess spiritual energy into you so that you can fill up all of my P-stones at once."

In fact, it wasn't strictly necessary anymore for Ves to build up so many spiritual energy savings. With how fast Blinky was able to digest different kinds of spiritual energy, Ves could just make use of this capability on the spot whenever he was working on a demanding project!

The only downside was that Blinky's yield was quite awful. Though Ves somewhat expected it, he still felt a bit distressed by how much energy was ultimately wasted.

The exact yield depended on how closely the input resembled the output.

For example, Goldie's spiritual energy only had to undergo a moderate degree of processing before it turned into energy that was completely compatible with Ves.

It was multiple times worse when Blinky processed spiritual energy that was very foreign. While Ves was happy that he at least had a way to convert less desirable forms of spiritual energy into a much more desirable one, he still wanted to improve this yield so that Blinky could do more with less.

"You still have a lot more room for growth." Ves stated as he gently rubbed Blinky's back. "You should continuously try your best to improve your yield. An average of just 20 percent is just too wasteful."

Mrow mrow.

Ves proceeded to explore other possibilities. For example, he tried to see if Blinky could produce different kinds of spiritual energy.

"Do you recall my wife's spiritual fragment? Try and replicate the spiritual energy you have sensed. Let's see if you can produce different attributes."

Mrow.

It turned out that Blinky did not have as much versatility as Ves hoped. The companion spirit was only able to produce one kind of spiritual energy and nothing else.

This meant that Ves wouldn't be able to use Blinky to spare Gloriana from exhausting herself whenever she worked on special projects.

Mrow…

"It's okay. There is still a possibility that you can acquire this ability. You just have to work towards it. As long as you keep growing, there is always a possibility that you will be able to develop a new solution!"

Though Blinky couldn't do as much as he hoped, Ves was already happy with what he got. He couldn't ask for more and the cat's current capability truly solved a serious problem.

"Well, this will doubtlessly be helpful in some design applications, but that is not enough. Let's see what else you can do. I did not put so many different ingredients in you for nothing."

Ves continued to explore what Blinky could do. For example, he ordered Blinky to move as far away as possible.

Blinky was only able to move around a couple of compartments away from Ves before bumping into a limit. This was actually the same distance limit of his remote spiritual projections and constructs.

"Damn. I can't send you far away and have you perform errands on my behalf like Lucky."

"Meow." Lucky grew smug.

Ves was not too disappointed. What Blinky could do was already helpful. He could completely replace the functioning of his spiritual ear and spiritual eye. It took quite a lot of effort as well as conscious control in order to be able to make use of these simple spiritual augments.

It was too bad that Blinky wasn't able to affect touch solid when he was out and about. Perhaps this was another capability that Blinky could acquire through his growth.