The Mech Touch

Ever since he and his mother began to infuse his unborn daughter's body with spiritual energy, he began to develop an interest in how it interacted with biological tissue.

Clearly, there was a stronger relationship between the two than he initially thought. It made sense in a way as the spiritualities of the vast majority of sentient beings were anchored to their bodies and more specifically their brains.

For a long time, he thought that the bond between the two was loose. As long as the brain was sufficiently complex enough to produce a meaningful degree of sentience, the intelligent creature in question was able to gain and activate their spiritual potential.

In all of his theoretical frameworks, Ves based all of his subsequent theories around this simple assumption.

So when Ves encountered a case where his daughter's brain was incredibly underdeveloped yet still managed to reach a point where she gained spiritual potential, something had to give.

What did it mean for someone's entire body to generate spirituality instead of just the brain?

Would his daughter become even more talented and powerful in this area than himself?

Just thinking about it caused him to shudder. Would she become a monster? Would she become… a god?

No!

Not if he could do anything about it! As long as he was there to guide his daughter into controlling her potent spirituality, nothing should go wrong. The companion spirit seed he intended to plant in her would also help a lot in regulating her excess power.

As long as everything went well and his daughter managed to grow up alongside her companion spirit, she would start off her adult life at a much higher starting point than himself.

On one hand, he felt immensely pleased at the prospect of being able to raise a daughter who was much more powerful than him, at least when she graduated from her studies and started her first job.

One the other hand, he wasn't sure whether he would be able to control such a powerful offspring. Who knew what she wanted to do and how much she was willing to defy her 'dearest daddy' with a heap of power at her disposal!

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this was a realistic risk. Even though his daughter still had several more months to go before she was finally born, already the potential of the growing fetus inside Gloriana's belly was frighteningly powerful at this very early stage.

God or monster?

The former did not exist and he would definitely make sure to prevent his daughter from ever becoming the latter!

In order to help him understand this strange new phenomenon, Ves needed more data. That meant that he needed Ranya to conduct focused studies on this topic.

Naturally, he would never allow her to treat his daughter as her test subject. Just the thought of taking a few cells from his baby girl just to implant them into a mouse or something sounded abhorrent!

This was why Ves bravely decided to volunteer himself. If anything detrimental happened to him, then he would at least be able to spare his upcoming daughter from the suffering.

His eyes firmed up as he took one last look at the dead white mouse that Ranya had experimented upon. Dr. Ranya's initial attempt failed abjectly, but the clues that he was able to derive from it were quite novel and refreshing.

"How many mice do you have?"

"Do you really have to ask that?" Ranya responded with a mirthful look. She waved her hand across her expansive laboratory. "The Dragon's Den is not just a lab ship, but also a bioproduction plant akin to a miniature version of the Spirit of Bentheim. The mass cultivation of lab mice is an essential function to any site that conducts bioresearch. We can literally grow millions of mice at once from any known genetic strain we can think of. We can even cultivate other animals and exobeasts for experimental purposes on a large scale. If any of our research has reached an advanced scale, we can even switch over to mass producing clones."

Ves jolted a bit after he heard that last part. He stared directly in her eyes.

"Are you talking about sentient clones that are capable of living like actual humans?"

She shook her head. "We do have the capability, though only a handful of senior Lifer researchers are capable of conducting advanced human cloning. For experimental purposes, generating low-order human clones is more efficient. They aren't humans per se. They are merely sacks of meat that look like humans but don't have any consciousness."

"I see. So are you able to produce these low-order clones en masse?"

"We are, but for most experiments, we usually start off with humble lab mice. They're smaller, cheaper and easier to grow and maintain. They leave smaller messes behind and they can be disposed of with much less hassle. If we move on to conducting experiments on full-sized human clones, we would have to occupy a special lab that is configured for handling human bodies and there are only so many of them aboard this ship. Right now, most of them are already occupied by research teams developing new genetic augmentations, minor longevity treatments and specialized implants for mech pilots."

The Larkinson Clan could easily purchase off-the-shelf versions of these products off the market, but Ves and several people within the clan thought it was prudent for the clan to master these industries. This way, they not only reduced their dependence on external services, but could also turn biotechnology into the second revenue source of the Larkinson Clan.

Not every pioneer who ventured into the Red Ocean was able to grab thousands of talented biotech researchers from a state that possessed a strong heritage of raising them. It would be an enormous waste if Ves allowed the Lifer scientists and the Dragon's Den to become underutilized.

Ves felt very pleased that he had access to his own bioresearch division. Not only was he able to commission studies on any topic he deemed interesting, but he was also able to do so without bothering with any of the annoying ethical and moral challenges that he would get if he contacted an outside company.

The benefit of effectively controlling the Larkinson Biotech Institute was that it had become his playground for any fascination related to biotechnology. Initially, he wanted to use it to provide augmentations for his clansmen and cultivate new mutated beasts that had the potential to expand his collection of design spirits?

As for now? Ves began to figure out that Dr. Ranya and her teams of researchers might also be able to help him discover more about the nature of spirituality and how it empowered humans. Considering that he had haphazardly treated his own unborn daughter as an experiment, it became more critical than ever for him to expand his studies in this direction!

"I'd like you to do something for me, Ranya."

"What is it you require, patriarch?" She asked, becoming more attentive as she noticed his demeanor had grown more serious.

"I need you to set up a.. secret research department. I trust you to handle my more sensitive requests with discretion, but you are not enough for what I have in mind. I need you to gather a team of trusted researchers who can keep their mouths shut to perform broad research on the properties of spirituality and figure out ways to harness it in humans."

This was not a casual request. Dr. Ranya weighed the possibilities.

"I can set up a new research department and keep it confidential easily enough. I imagine that my own measures probably won't be thorough enough, so I will need a lot of help from Calabast and the Black Cats to make it foolproof."

"You will have the help you need, and the funding." Ves said.

The former member of the Wodin Dynasty thought a bit more about the steps she needed to take. "It shouldn't be a problem for me to obfuscate the administration and set up a secret lab aboard this ship. The real challenge is finding the right personnel. I can imagine that you already know what the Lifer researchers are like. They are very professional when it comes to maintaining their confidentiality. Their loyalty also shouldn't be in doubt considering that they have taken well to joining a clan that is willing to provide excellent facilities and abundant funding for their project."

"Then what's the problem?" Ves frowned.

"These Lifer researchers come from a state that has always emphasized the importance of innovation and developing new products in order to expand and diversify the biotech industry. As a result, they can be.. a bit overenthusiastic about their research. What I mean by that is that they sometimes lose sight of their limits and go too far with their experiments. Much of what I am trying to improve at the moment is to implement more oversight among our research teams. This will be more difficult to implement in a secret research department because it can't involve too many people."

He could see why this would be an issue, but he did not let that stop him from going through with this essential plan. "We can't remain as ignorant as we are now with how spirituality and spiritual energy interacts with humans. I mean, I don't even know what's going on with my daughter anymore due to all of the spiritual energy that she has sucked up! I'm not afraid of any experiments going too far. What I need are results and confidentiality. Give me answers and try to keep what this new department is doing as secret as possible. Can you do that, doctor?"

The director of the Larkinson Biotech Institute nodded solemnly. "I will make sure that you will have your results. I will personally see to everything. I have a high interest in these studies as well. I haven't heard anything like it in other biotech researchers. From what I have seen and inferred so far, spirituality may be the key property that will truly lead humanity to a new stage of evolution. Spirituality is responsible for making mech pilots, mech designers and swordmasters special. Imagine what it could do to our race if every person and every profession becomes extraordinary!"

Such a radical change would completely upend human civilization, and Ves wasn't sure whether it was for the better. Even if this scenario was the utopia that the MTA was striving towards, handing lots of power to an endless amount of people was extremely dangerous. After all, there were many individuals who weren't able to use their powers as responsibly as himself!

"Don't take spirituality lightly, Ranya." He warned her. "I know first-hand that messing with people's spirits in any way can easily turn fatal. Start your studies on small, disposable animals and work your way up to clones of the low-quality kind. My main interest right now is to find out how we can infuse human flesh with spiritual energy and what that does to an organism. I have a few hunches but I don't dare to voice them yet. I just want to understand what it does to a human."

To be honest, he had also become a bit jealous of his daughter's fortune. Unlike her, his own body tissue was not infused with spirituality. He felt as if he was a defective human compared to his future offspring.

Was he happy that she had the potential to become stronger than him? Certainly.

Was he happy about the prospect of being left in the dust? No.

As a responsible parent, Ves felt the need to overtake her and make sure he remained in the lead so that he could guide his daughter's development. The last thing he wanted to see was for her to make a mistake and steer her spiritual development in the wrong direction!