The Mech Touch

As soon as Ves decided to dump the Four Aspects of Lufa onto Ranya's lap, he quickly made the arrangements. He informed the doctor with a brief message and also packed up the statues into special containers before making sure they were shipped to the Dragon's Den with the use of bots.

He did not want any clansman getting close to any of the statues.

There was no question that the Aspect of Transcendence was fatal to anyone unfortunate enough to fall within the range of its glow.

What Ves was less certain about was whether the empowerment that the organic statues had gone through also affected the expressions of their glows. He did notice that they were stronger and more pronounced than what he remembered, but he was easily able to block their effects.

He had no idea whether someone who didn't possess his level of spiritual strength and resilience would get badly affected or not. He did not dare to presume that the Aspect of Tranquility and the Aspect of Healing were as benign as before. Even if his instincts and his own impression of them just now were positive, as a proper scientist Ves should not make any conclusions without obtaining definite proof.

Ves stuck around long enough to make sure that a swarm of automated bots slowly brought the statues out to the hangar bay while the route was temporarily cleared of personnel.

Once he became assured that no one was about to suffer an accident because they strayed too close to the Four Aspects, he returned to his main office and decided to leave this matter aside.

"I won't get any answers quickly and I have other business to take care of at the moment." He muttered.

"Meow." Lucky settled onto his desk and began to take a nap.

He was still concerned about the Four Aspects of Lufa because of its parallels to his own daughter. In both cases, a source of spiritual energy or other types of energy pumped into their physical forms, triggering a transformation that made them a lot more powerful while at the same time causing them to become more spiritually reactive.

This was a completely new form of spiritual empowerment that led to complete unknowns. Though he didn't think it was likely that they were harmful, it was best for Ves to make sure. This was why he sent them off to the Dragon's Den straight away.

Even if the researchers over there weren't able to study the more esoteric properties of the Four Aspects, they should at least figure out how the expirable organic tissue still remained alive and well.

"I wonder what this will mean for my daughter?"

Would her body essentially remain stuck as a baby once she was born? That would be an absolute tragedy and one that would definitely devastate Gloriana!

Ves vigorously shook his head. "The Superior Mother personally blessed my baby! She would never do something so cruel to her own granddaughter!"

The fetus had already grown by a lot since the Superior Mother did her business. There was no indication that his unborn daughter had stopped her physical development, so this theory was unlikely to be true.

"Well, I need more data first. All of this empty guesswork is pointless."

For now, he was willing to assume that his daughter's development remained healthy despite all of the spiritual empowerment she received. Ves might have no clue of what was going on, but the Superior Mother should know her craft. Raising kids was literally her job!

After he succeeded in setting aside his concerns this time, he tried his best to move on and summoned his core advisors to his office.

It took a bit of time for all of them to gather. Some of them were stationed on the Spirit of Bentheim and merely had to interrupt their original schedule to answer the call. Others had to leave their current ships and shuttle over to the factory ship because Ves insisted on holding this meeting in person.

Ves and the people who arrived earlier quietly waited as the latecomers finally arrived. The last one to arrive was Calabast. She sidled into the office with Arnold waddling in her wake with her long boots clacking against the metal deck as of she was playing an instrument. After a brief sweep of the office, she approached a couch and laid her body down as if she was in a lounge instead of a serious meeting.

"Squeak."

Arnold tried and failed to jump onto the couch. His chubby body and multitude of weak limbs weren't conducive to jumping.

Strangely enough, Calabast did not do anything to help her pet climb up. She simply looked at her pet with an expectant look.

Eventually, Arnold gave up his futile action and decided to get up through another method.

"Squeak!"

Ves snapped towards the arganid clisenta as he detected elevated spiritual activity in the exobeast's direction.

Much to his surprise, a dark corona surrounded Arnold's body for a moment before it split up into multiple versions of himself.

What was notable here was that each of them were stacked on top of each other!

This tower of exobeasts reached as high as a meter!

While it already showed signs of toppling over, the Arnold at the top happily plopped forward and landed on a soft cushion that automatically molded to his body.

"Squeak…"

The other Arnolds that made up the rest of the stack dissipated into black mist that quickly faded from existence.

"Good boy." Calabast grinned and reached out to scratch her mutated pet's furry back.

"Squeak~"

Suffice to say, everyone else in the room was quite shocked at the display. It wasn't every day that they saw such an abnormal display. If not for the fact that this wasn't even the weirdest phenomenon in the Larkinson Clan, the others would have long freaked out already!

"Calabast."

"Yes, kid?"

"Please secure this compartment."

"Isn't it secure enough already?"

"I just want to make absolutely sure this time."

"Fine, fine."

Calabast personally activated the security suite in the office and also deployed additional jammers and devices that offered another layer of insurance.

Though Ves was 99.99 percent sure that his security hadn't been breached, it was best to make sure considering the topic he was about to discuss with his fellow advisors.

"First off, thank you for attending this meeting in person. I know it can't be easy for you to drop what you were doing to answer my call."

This was the first time he gathered most of the top leaders of the clan for an important meeting. An impressive lineup of powerful Larkinsons who held most of the executive power in the clan were all paying a lot of respect to Ves. This made him feel pleased as it was a solid sign that he was still in charge.

The recently-appointed chief ministers sat directly in front of his desk. Chief Minister Magdalena, Chief Minister Novilon and Chief Minister Raymond had already made a name for themselves by starting up many initiatives that introduced a lot of welcome changes.

General Verle already had an inkling of what this meeting was about. It seemed that Ves could not go by for too long before landing in trouble again.

Shederin Purnesse could also tell that this meeting was of great importance. The old man's face already turned grave as he thought of what could cause Ves to take this matter so seriously.

As for Calabast, she was highly focused and alert right now despite her casual posture. The chubby exobeast that was currently enjoying her ministrations might look cute and harmless, but had actually grown a lot more powerful in recent times.

Ves briefly scanned Arnold with his spiritual senses, causing the living design spirit to feel as if he had been violated for a brief amount of time.

"Squeak!"

Interestingly enough, now that Ves knew what to look for, he also managed to detect a degree of spiritual empowerment from Arnold's physical state. The only difference was that it was hardly detectable in this case.

The implications were disturbing. A cubic centimeter of body tissue from his daughter contained much more concentrated spiritual energy than the same sample of flesh from the mutated beast.

What this actually meant, Ves wasn't sure, but he hoped that she retained enough humanity for him to regard her as a daughter rather than something else.

He mentally shook his head. He was being way too alarmist about this issue. He decided to resume the meeting.

"Ahem, As you may have guessed, I did not call you here to talk about trivial matters. A few hours ago, I visited the Hemmington Cross in order to hold a lovely little discussion with the patriarch and head designer of the Cross Clan. A couple of weighty topics came up that I think I should share with you. I can't figure this out myself so I need your help to get some answers."

Ves briefly summarized his visit to the Crossers. He relayed his meeting with Patriarch Reginald and Professor Benedict as best as possible.

The most difficult part in relaying his story was how he should address the Aspect of Transcendence. He eventually decided to skim over it and instead referred to a vague experimental procedure that was exceedingly dangerous and had not yielded any success up to this point.

Once his advisors took in the story, they calmly mulled it over and sorted out their own thoughts.

General Verle spoke up first. "I've encountered my fair share of expert pilots, but Patriarch Reginald Cross is really something else. He's a damaged soldier. All expert pilots are damaged to an extent, but he has it worse than others. His twisted admiration and hero worship towards his father is driving him to chase after every possible means to catch up to Saint Hemmington's splendor. If he is crazy enough to think that one of your unproven and highly experimental procedures can turn him into an ace pilot, then he is truly beyond saving."

Many of the others nodded. They were all knowledgeable enough to know that expert pilots weren't exactly normal. They were defined by their obsessions and convictions. Sometimes, that led to rather wholesome characters like Joshua and sometimes this permanent shift produced deranged, mule-headed idiots like Venerable Ghanso.

If Ves created a spectrum and put Joshua and Ghanso at the opposite ends, then Patriarch Reginald would definitely fall close to the side marked by the deceased expert pilot!

"What I don't understand is why Professor Benedict Cortez has not raised any objections to this crazy-sounding scheme." Chief Minister Raymond Billingsley-Larkinson frowned. "The current Cross Patriarch is the pillar that supports the current Cross Clan. It would have never been able to make it this far without his strong personality. Although the worst has already passed, the Cross Clan is still in a fragile state and could easily disintegrate if he is gone."

"I think it is helpful to think about who would succeed Patriarch Reginald as the next clan leader if he is no longer fit to rule." Calabast spoke.

Ves slowly nodded. "The Cross Clan's culture is still shaped by the customs of the Garlen Empire. The expert pilots are always expected to be the leaders. Who else is there?"

"The Cross Clan currently has three expert pilots in total." Calabast answered. "Aside from the Cross Patriarch, there is Venerable Linda Cross and Venerable Imaris Cross. Neither of them are as prestigious, strong, forceful or commanding as their patriarch. Reginald is simply too strong and his blood relationship to an ace pilot grants him a lot of legitimacy. His prominence is so overpowering that the other two Crosser expert pilots seem much paler in comparison."

"Do you think that the Crossers will have trouble accepting the rule of either of them if Patriarch Reginald is gone?" Ves asked.

"Oh, I'm sure of it. Venerable Linda and Venerable Imaris are good fighters, but that doesn't make them capable leaders."

"Aren't we forgetting about someone here?" Shederin spoke up. "There is one more strong figure in the Cross Clan who may be able to gain control over it as long as Patriarch Reginald Cross is taken off the board. Who says that expert pilots have to be the ones in charge? Why can't a prominent leader such as Professor Benedict Cortez not assume leadership instead?"

"That's impossible! The Cross Clan would never respect someone who isn't an expert pilot or ace pilot!"

"Are you certain about that assumption?"

That was a good question.