The Mech Touch

Trisk possessed a whimsical and curious personality. As soon as the ever-shifting bird came into existence, it exhibited a curiosity that made it difficult for Ves to settle down.

He had to call Goldie to take Trisk under their wing and show her latest colleague the ropes.

Nyaaaaa.

Chirrup chirrup!

Nyaa nyaaa.

Chirrup chirrup!

The two cute spirits hit it off immediately. Trisk's shifting colors started to lean towards gold as the bird flew on top of Goldie's head.

It did not surprise Ves that Goldie and Trisk easily befriended each other. The former donated an ingredient to create the latter, so the avian spiritual product could be regarded as Goldie's offspring.

Not that the two saw it that way. The two acted more like sisters than anything else. Many of the other design spirits were far too dour and serious for a young spirit like Goldie to play with. Trisk's birth neatly solved her lack of playmates.

"Be sure to watch over Trisk, Goldie." He reminded the cat. "I'm not sure if the Inexorable One is still lurking around or something, but I don't want one of our old enemies to come back from the grave."

Goldie nodded at Ves.

Nyaaa.

This was his only lingering concern. While Ves was quite happy that Trisk's creation process proceeded smoothly, he felt oddly disturbed for some reason. The dark gods had proven to be incredibly wily and he should never assume that the threat had passed.

"In a way, I would rather suffer an immediate attack than be left with uncertainty." He muttered.

At least the Unending One pounced at the opportunity straight away. Whether Trisk also served as a vessel for a dark god, Ves didn't know.

"Perhaps I am just being too paranoid."

His approach towards Trisk's creation process was considerably more refined than before. Before this point, Ves had always relied on his own capabilities to create his spiritual products.

The addition of Blinky enabled Ves to work alongside his first spiritual assistant. As a companion spirit that was both an extension of his own capabilities and an inheritor of a portion of the Unending One's great affinity for spiritual energy, the Star Cat turned out to be a fantastic helper!

He realized that Blinky could offer even more assistance. His companion spirit's excellent control over spiritual energy allowed him to manipulate and transform spiritual energy in ways that Ves could only dream of. Several interesting ideas came up that he had previously dismissed due to determining that he lacked the required ability to realize them. Now that he had a wonderful assistant at his disposal, perhaps he might be able to revisit these promising applications!

"I'll leave that for later, though. For now, the Disruptor Project takes priority.

Its completion came closer and closer. While the mech design still required a lot of refinement, Ves was already confident that it would be able to perform well right out of the box. The inclusion of both Arnold and Trisk rounded out the spiritual design of the expert light skirmisher. This marked the completion of his most important responsibility.

"Gloriana will be happy." He smiled.

His wife had been nagging him about how long it took for him to deliver the goods, but he had always been holding out until he felt that the time was right.

He packed up his goods and put them back into the vault. As Ves returned to the design lab, he dutifully informed his wife of his latest development and went back to work.

Blinky emerged from his mind and began to form a design network that brought together the mech designers on shift.

A few days went by. Though Gloriana had lowered the intensity of work schedules, she slowly ramped it up when she felt the assistants had enjoyed enough of a rest. Everyone went back to crunching work for long hours at a time.

The work they performed was not too strenuous, but the fine details they were working on demanded great finesse and precision. Gloriana and every mech designer constantly had to judge whether it was worth it to invest hours or even days of their time to accomplish a 0.1 improvement in performance.

Gloriana definitely insisted on pursuing these opportunities as even the smallest difference was essential in her eyes. However, Ves and the other Journeyman possessed a more practical outlook.

There was no guarantee that the solutions they came up with would actually realize a clear performance gain.

In many cases, improving the effectiveness of one part often reduced the performance of another part.

Was it worth it to reduce the heat capacity of the Disruptor Project by 2 percent in order to gain a 1 percent boost in forward acceleration?

Was it worth it to increase the power of the mech's arms by 3 percent but reduce its mobility characteristics by 2 percent?

As the project head, Gloriana had to weigh all sorts of tradeoffs. In order to end up with the most optimal design, she had to find the best balance points for all of these issues. Her work became a lot harder when changes rarely affected a single variable.

In truth, a change as significant as reducing the size of a part produced a cascade of consequences. The demand on processing power grew greater as the mech designers constantly had to calculate whether their proposed solutions would end up improving or harming the mech design.

Whenever they ended their shift, the wedded couple returned to their grand stateroom in an utterly tired condition. Gloriana was barely able to muster up any energy to enjoy her sumptuous, brain-boosting meals.

Despite her exhaustion, Gloriana glowed with contentment. As they slipped into bed, she sidled up to Ves and leaned her head against his chest. The aroma of her bath scent tickled his nose, causing him to squeeze her slender body closer.

Their cats settled for a nap as well. Clixie jumped up to a cat bed set on the side and yawned.

"Miaow~"

Lucky floated down from the air and occupied the other half of the bed. He nuzzled Clixie before yawning as well.

"Meow~"

As Gloriana idly stared at the two cats, she issued an abrupt declaration.

"It's about time for us to start having kids."

Ves, who was already beginning to slip into his dreams, jerked open his eyes!

"What?!"

"You heard what I said. It's time to take our relationship to the next level. We love each other, do we not? Then we should move straight on to performing our marital duties and raise six lovely kids who share our genes."

"Uhmm.. I'm not objecting to that, honey, but isn't this too soon? We have plenty of years left ahead of us. Our clan is still undergoing rapid growth and I don't think the current state of our fleet is good enough to provide the best growing environment for our kids. We can still do better."

"It's enough for us to be their parents." She smiled and rubbed her stomach. "A good growing environment is important, but my mother succeeded in raising me back in the Hexadric Hegemony. Our fleet isn't much worse in comparison. With the Superior Mother's help, I am confident that I will be able to raise the most beautiful, clever and diligent children in the galaxy!"

That was a considerable boast! Though Ves wanted to argue about the validity of some of her assertions, he was still caught up in how soon she wanted to take their relationship to the next level.

"Uhm, we should at least wait until we have reached the Red Ocean and gain a footing over there." He argued. "We will both be swamped with design work and other duties before that time. How can we spare any time to pay attention to our children?"

"We'll manage." She dismissively said. "Work is important, but family is also important. Plenty of mech designers have managed to balance these two necessities. I don't see how we'll be any worse. Right now, the main reason why we are working so hard to complete the expert mech designs is because our clan urgently needs to cover its deficiency in top-level strength. After we complete the current round of design projects, there is much less urgency to rush through our subsequent projects."

She was right. The projects that they would embark on next were still important, but it wasn't a big deal if they had to spend an additional month to complete them. Besides, as long as the Design Department continued to expand, the lead designers were able to delegate more work to each other and to competent assistants.

These were just a handful of the methods that married mech designers employed to cope with the increasing demands of their time. Though Ves felt tempted to make the most out of his early golden period and work hard to close the distance to Senior as much as possible, he could not ignore his emotional need to start his own family.

He sighed. "If you think that we can handle it, then I'm not as opposed anymore, but don't you think we should at least postpone this decision until we have departed from the Milky Way?"

"No. I want the opposite. I want our first child to be born in the galaxy where we were born and raised. I don't know what the future holds, but if we never go back, I at least want one of our blood to carry the mark of our home galaxy."

This was a sentimental notion that probably made no practical difference. As far as he was aware, there was no meaningful difference between children born in the Milky Way and children born in the Red Ocean.

Yet Ves became swayed by the sentiment. As nonsensical as it sounded, Gloriana's argument resonated with his emotions.

"Suppose I agree with your suggestion." He said. "Having kids is not simple for the likes of us. Both of our genes are so altered that the chance of natural conception is too small. Even if we manage to conceive a child through a natural process, my messed up DNA will likely result in biological product that is better off dead."

"VES! HAVE SOME CARE! DON'T EVER TALK ABOUT OUR POTENTIAL BABIES LIKE THIS!" Gloriana angrily slapped his chest. "I am aware of the risks. I have already discussed this issue extensively with Ranya. We have picked up plenty of Lifer doctors and geneticists who are specialized in developing designer babies. I have already booked an appointment with them. We just need to visit the Dragon's Den a number of times over several months in order to perform inspections, conduct tests and proceed with the fertilization procedure."

A weird feeling ran through his body. "You've already made an appointment."

"Of course I did. We need to make sure that the doctors do the best possible job. I don't want them to spare any expense or withhold any good ideas. Didn't our clan borrow a lot of money recently? Please set aside a trillion hex credits for me. The MTA offers a suite of very potent augments and I must ensure that our designer baby enjoys the best that we can offer!"

"A trillion hex credits? Are you crazy?!"

A pair of scorching eyes pinned him down. "Crazy? Are you sure about that? Don't you want to set our first child up for our success? I don't want her to fall behind our subsequent children. A trillion hex credits won't even allow us to afford the best that the MTA can offer. I'm depending on our biotech specialists to add their own contributions to our future firstborn daughter."

This was getting crazier and crazier. Though Ves also wanted his children to gain a head start in life, this was starting to get overboard. There was nothing wrong with raising normal kinds as far as he was concerned. Was it really necessary to go through these extreme lengths in order to design the perfect baby?