The Mech Touch

Ves didn't know what was going on, but the light show didn't last long. Only half a dozen seconds had passed after he had tapped his hammer against the mech figurine before the strange glow disappeared.

"What has changed?"

The quality of the mech figurine didn't seem to have improved. The life it contained didn't grow any stronger either. Ves became more confused as he picked up the figurine and turned it around in his hands.

"What the hell did you do, Vulcan?"

His incarnation failed to supply him with an answer. Vulcan was so unfamiliar with his powers that he couldn't explain his instinctual action!

Ves palmed his face. "I think you've broken the record of being the stupidest design spirit at your strength level. This is embarrassing, you know that?"

"…"

"I know you're just a day old, but how can you possess so little control over yourself!?"

"…"

"Maybe you need to go back to school. As soon as you stabilize your current condition, you should approach Qilanxo and the Superior Mother for lessons on how to utilize your power."

"…"

"Is the Superior Mother your mother? That's a good question."

On one hand, Ves was inclined to say no, because Vulcan's ingredients did not contain any spiritual fragments derived from the Superior Mother.

On the other hand, Vulcan was his incarnation while the Superior Mother was Cynthia's incarnation. This turned Vulcan into the Superior Mother son in a twisted way.

However, Ves had a feeling that his mother would not be amused if her son was a dwarf!

"Ugh, that's not important! You're all on the same side, so the other design spirits will definitely lend you a hand!"

Ves remembered that Goldie spent a lot of time with Qilanxo in her early days to master her own capabilities.

Spiritual products were different from natural spiritual entities who once existed as living mutated beasts. The latter developed their powerful spiritualities over a lifetime as real organisms. This kind of background provided entities such as Qilanxo with deep foundations that were closely anchored to reality.

It also helped that Qilanxo was able to exercise her potent spiritual abilities for several centuries. None of his spiritual products could ever catch up to the big lizard in terms of accumulation!

"…"

"Yeah, you do that."

Ves turned his attention back to the mech figurine. He had hoped that tapping it with his hammer would instantly increase its quality level in the same way as integrating it with a gem, but it turned out that he was being too optimistic.

"This isn't magic."

The problem was that Ves still hadn't obtained any clues after inspecting his work for twenty minutes. He even disassembled the mech figurine in order to inspect the parts. When he reassembled the miniature Valkyrie Redeemer, he tried his best to do even better, only to find that nothing had changed.

He scratched his head. "What the hell? What did all of that energy do? Where did it all go? It shouldn't have disappeared without performing some kind of work!"

If tapping the hammer onto the mech figurine merely caused the spiritual energy released by Vulcan to go to waste, then Ves would have been able to notice all of it flowing away.

That hadn't happened. Instead, Vulcan instinctively employed an unknown ability that caused all of the spiritual energy to be spent on accomplishing something!

He eventually grew so frustrated that he tossed the mech figurine aside. "This is a dead end. I should look at Vulcan's capabilities from a different angle."

Vulcan should have been capable of doing so much more. Ves had programmed many different potential functions into his design. Though Ves didn't think that all of them became possible, his incarnation was designed to be versatile!

He was similar to the Superior Mother in that regard. Ves invested a lot of different and powerful ingredients in both of them. This allowed him to provide them with multiple different ways to express their power.

Vulcan was akin to another spiritual toolbox. While Ves already built up quite a formidable spiritual toolbox based on his own capabilities, it was always better to gain another set of tools, especially if they were different from his existing ones!

"It doesn't mean that I should always make use of these additional tools, but it is quite handy to have them at my disposal than otherwise."

His current frustration stemmed from the fact that Ves hadn't deciphered any of the new tools in his new toolbox!

He let out a breath in frustration and swung the hammer around in his hand. "What can I do with you exactly, Vulcan?"

Perhaps he was being impatient and expected too much from an entity that was just a day old. It also wasn't wise to mess around with a powerful design spirit that had no control over his own power. Though Vulcan was not supposed to be a destructive design spirit, who knew whether an accident could prove fatal!

"Speaking of accidents…"

A strange idea popped up in his mind. Ves lifted the Hammer of Brilliance in front of his face and adopted a speculative expression.

"Should I…"

He struggled with his decision for a moment before he decided to just pull the trigger and see what happened as a result.

"Well, I'll use myself as a test subject this time!"

He raised his hammer above his head and slowly whacked the flat end against his head!

As soon as the hammer made contact with his skull, its bronze glow flared as it spread to his entire head!

Ves momentarily felt as if he was flooded by Vulcan's essence! A myriad of different sensations ran through his mind that caused him to feel much more active than before!

"This!"

As soon as the light show had passed, Ves looked around his environment in wonder. The way he looked at reality had become a lot more special than before. When he looked at his mech figurine, he suddenly felt displeased at its quality and thought that he could make something better if he made a couple of minor adjustments that aligned his design style better with such a small but intricate object.

Ves retrieved another batch of raw materials and hungrily began to make another mech figurine.

This time, he was making the same miniature Valkyrie Redeemer as before, but his state of mind was much different this time!

Not only did he become a lot more invested in this trivial project, he also saw more than before and came up with numerous interesting ideas that he never thought of previously!

When he finally finished his second figurine, he stopped and stared at it with a stupendous expression.

"It's… a masterwork."

Ves couldn't believe it. Although it was theoretically a lot easier to create a masterwork of a small and simple crafted object, he didn't think it was likely for him to make a masterwork mech figurine with his current capabilities!

Though Ves created four different masterwork mechs which made it easier for him to produce subsequent masterworks, this was only a minor boost. At this level, the effect was still too slim.

"My odds of making a masterwork mech figurine under normal conditions shouldn't be high, especially because it is just a toy instead of an actual mech." Ves muttered as he rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "If I have to define the probability, then I would say that I only have a 0.1 percent chance of making a masterwork mech figurine!"

Did he happen to hit the jackpot this time or did tapping his head with his hammer cause him to cheat?

Ves thought back on the state he was previously in while he made his masterwork mech figurine. He felt so much joy and pleasure at the beginning that it reminded him of a highly precious state of mind that he had once experienced in his career.

His thoughts went back on the days he fabricated the Devil Tiger. He committed so much love and effort to his first passion project that when he was finally able to realize his tiger mech design, something within his mind had burst, causing him to put together his mech with an unprecedented amount of desire and motivation!

"I recall now!" His eyes lit up! "My mentality just an hour ago is similar to that of the inspired state that I was in when I fabricated the Devil Tiger!"

This was a state of mind that he had always been chasing after since he created his first masterwork mech! Just the notion that whacking his head with his own hammer would enable him to enter an inspired state on demand was enough to change his life!

His breath grew heavier as he greedily eyed the Hammer of Brilliance.

"Let's try again!"

Ves struck the hammer against his head a little harder this time. Perhaps applying more force would strengthen the effect.

"Ouch! My head!"

Unfortunately, other than giving him a new headache, the hammer didn't accomplish anything.

"Why not?"

After a bit of puzzling, Ves eventually came to the guess that there was a limit to this ability.

"Is it me or Vulcan?"

Maybe Vulcan had just expended a scarce resource that needed to be replenished first.

It could also be that Ves had exhausted his potential for the day and needed time before he became receptive to this artificial mind state again.

"Limitations or not, this is still a powerful ability!"

As Ves began to spend more time on comparing the different times he was in an inspired state, he realized that the hammer-induced one was not as good as the real deal.

It not only lasted shorter and tapered off sooner, but also provided him with less drastic inspiration.

There were many possible explanations why this was the case. Ves had long assumed that inspired states represented a psychological breakthrough after a long period of work accumulation.

If he forced himself to enter an inspired state while not building up much of an accumulation by performing his routine work, then he wasn't really qualified to enter this state of mind. It was only logical that the improvement wouldn't be so drastic.

Perhaps the lesser boost was enough to turn a simple mech figurine into a masterwork mech, but he was much less optimistic about making a real masterwork mech.

"There are other potential explanations as well."

It could be that Vulcan simply didn't possess enough proficiency to employ this capability in a skillful manner. Ves was able to sense that Vulcan completely relied on his instincts to perform his active abilities.

According to this theory, as long as Vulcan exercised his skills and became more proficient with wielding the power he commanded, the artificial inspired state that he was able to induce upon people would become a lot stronger than now! The difference might be as great as night and day!

When Ves thought about how many more masterwork mechs he could build with this capability at his fingertips, his eyes grew hot when he stared at his glowing hammer.

"I can't allow anyone else to use you like this!" He concluded. "You're too powerful to lend this ability to others! Aside from me and anyone I choose, don't empower them in this manner, you got that, Vulcan?"

"…"

"Especially don't bless any dwarves!"

"…"

"What do you mean, they're your compatriots? You serve me, not the Vulcanites!"

"…"

"You're not supposed to be an actual god to the dwarves! That's just a fake title."

As an incarnation, Vulcan still possessed a personality that deviated substantially from that of Ves. Due to using several spiritually activated dwarves as ingredients, the newly born design spirit somehow acquired some of the personality traits of Vulcanites.

Fortunately, they weren't too strong. Vulcan possessed both a human and dwarven side, and it was up to the beholder to determine which form he took.

"Vulcan, come out for a second."

A small spiritual manifestation of Vulcan emerged out of the Hammer of Brilliance. The dwarf looked like a short and stocky version of Ves. His muscles were large and thick, but not to a ridiculous degree.

The design spirit's most notable visual trait was his long, bushy, braided and majestic beard that Ves had styled after the statues commissioned by the Dwarven God Cult. Vulcan also wore a leather blacksmith's apron and some other embellished articles that made him look like a down-to-earth god.

An entire minute passed by as Ves kept staring at this warped version of himself.

"Why do you look like a dwarf to me?" He eventually asked.

"…"

"You're supposed to look like a human! Hurry up and grow taller!"

"…"

"What do you mean you can't?"

"…"

"You lie! It's not because of me. It's your fault somehow! You're defective!"