The Mech Touch

Ves stretched out his Hammer of Brilliance and commanded Blinky to charge it up as well.

Surprisingly enough, the Hammer shone a lot brighter and gained a more silvery corona after getting filled!

He discovered that Vulcan got along with metal-attributed spiritual energy a lot better than himself.

Vulcan was not a human, but a pure spiritual energy that started off at a much stronger footing. As an existence whose strength level was analogous to an ace pilot or a Master Mech Designer, his tolerance towards high-end spiritual energy was a lot higher!

In addition, as the God of Dwarves, Mechs and Craftsmanship, two of his domains were directly or indirectly related to metal. The design spirit was definitely compatible with the element of metal.

"Feed Vulcan with that metal energy!"

Mrow!

Through his direct connection, Ves could sense that Vulcan actually exhibited the same reaction as himself. It turned out that his expectations were too optimistic and that Vulcan was far from ready to absorb the powerful metal energy!

However, different from Ves, Vulcan did not completely reject Cassandra Breyer's energy. The design spirit's much higher tolerance allowed him to absorb a trace of metal energy even as he was forced to reject most of the input!

Although the efficiency of this dangerous process was abysmal, Ves was still glad that at least some of the energy didn't go to waste.

Vulcan was slowly changing as he absorbed a tiny bit more metal energy. Though it didn't appear that he was evolving towards a higher state or anything, the tiny proportion of high-end energy that he managed to absorb already strengthened him in an unknown way!

"There's a limit, though." Ves regretfully ascertained.

He could feel that even though Vulcan was able to gain a little benefit from the influx of metal energy, the strain he had to endure was rapidly becoming more unbearable to the design spirit!

Eventually, Vulcan would become so exhausted that he simply couldn't force himself to absorb Cassandra's purified metal energy any longer!

"Ah well, this is already an incredible harvest."

He thought about feeding his other design spirits with Cassandra's high-quality elemental energy. He successively called upon Goldie, Qilanxo, the Superior Mother, Trisk, Arnold and so on to see whether they could take advantage of this situation as well.

They didn't necessarily have to absorb the metal-attributed energy.

He figured that the Illustrious One might have a higher compatibility towards fire-attributed spiritual energy and that the Superior Mother was able to cope with wood or water-attributed spiritual energy.

None of them succeeded in replicating Vulcan's success. Each and every other design spirit failed to absorb even a trace of high-end elemental energy. Not even the Superior Mother, whom Ves thought had the greatest chance due to Cynthia's influence, was able to integrate any of the five elements!

"A pity."

Interestingly enough, the Superior Mother did not exhibit any odd reactions towards Cassandra Breyer. Ves was afraid that there were some relations between the two, but it turned out that he was thinking too much.

If the Superior Mother disapproved of what he was doing to Cassandra Breyer, his mother's avatar would have stepped in a long time ago.

Later on, Ves made a more unpleasant discovery. While his Unending Regalia was able to store a small quantity of metal energy, that didn't mean it remained stable.

He could sense that the stored energy was slowly decaying as if it was unable to maintain its existence in its current environment.

This behavior was a lot like how a hot cup of coffee released more heat into the air than a lukewarm cup of coffee. The greater difference in temperature resulted in a higher rate of heat dispersal.

Although Ves had never encountered this phenomenon with spiritual energy before, it was a pretty major setback now that he gained an endless greed towards this powerful energy type.

"It's use it or lose it, I guess."

The good news was that the rate of decay was not that fast. As Ves continued to observe the rate of energy decay, he estimated that it would take about sixteen to twenty hours before all of the stored metal energy disappeared.

That was enough time for Ves to perform a number of quick experiments with this ultra-precious ingredient!

"I need more!"

Unfortunately, Cassandra Breyer was not an endless faucet of elemental energies. Just as Ves was thinking about commanding Ketis to bring over his entire stockpile of P-stones and ordering all of his expert pilots to bring over their expert mechs, the pressure in the secret compartment gradually weakened.

After outputting a huge amount of spiritual energy, Cassandra Breyer was already starting to bottom out her reserves!

Ves breathed a little easier as the mummified corpse released less and less spiritual energy. Blinky had a much easier time with siphoning energy away from the energy ball that Cassandra attempted to strengthen.

"Don't suck up too much energy, Blinky. I'm not sure what Cassandra will do if you devour it whole. Control your absorption and make sure to keep it weak without collapsing it entirely."

Although the recent developments led to an unexpectedly huge bounty, Ves did not forget that the source of all of this power originally belonged to an extremely dangerous spiritual sorceress!

Ves wouldn't be able to derive any of his rich gains if Cassandra managed to liberate herself from her crippled state and took revenge on the little thief who attempted to suck her dry!

He did not want to take any more risks, and the best way to do that was to maintain the current status quo. With Blinky foiling her only effort at performing an unknown spiritual technique, Ves didn't have to do anything aside from staying out of the way.

As Cassandra's apparent threat level slowly dropped, Ves even had time to appreciate the impressive light show thrown up by the release of so many different energies.

His closed helmet filtered out a lot of the brightness, enabling him to observe the differently-colored glows released by Blinky and the more balanced coronas leaking out of Cassandra's form.

Minutes passed by as Cassandra's spiritual existence continued to deflate. Ves felt the urge to relax once she grew weaker than a typical design spirit, but he had learned his lesson from last time.

"I can't let down my guard. Spiritual sorceresses like my mother and this mysterious witch are much harder to get rid of than normal!"

He remained ready to whack his hammer against Cassandra's ancient corpse or call upon the help of his design spirits to fend off a surprise assault.

It felt rather strange that nothing drastic ended up happening. He expected Cassandra to exhibit more reactions, but she continued to lose energy even as she tried and failed to perform a single technique.

Once her corpse no longer contained any spiritual energy that Ves could perceive, the energy ball that she was trying to strengthen dissipated entirely.

Ves grew more nervous than ever as he gripped the handle of his hammer tighter. Would Cassandra magically burst out a huge amount of spiritual energy from yet another source, or was she really dead this time?

Several seconds passed as utter silence dominated the room. Everything seemed to have become still as Cassandra Breyer did not show the resilience and tenacity that he expected from a figure that should have been one of the top figures of human civilization at one time.

When an entire minute passed without any other changes, Ves slowly became more relieved. Blinky did not sense any other active energy sources inside Cassandra Breyer, so it became increasingly more likely that she was truly… gone.

Ves slowly stretched out his arm and tapped the sharp end of the hammer against Cassandra's dry, outstretched hand.

Woosh.

"What the?!"

It was as if a silent wind blew through the compartment. Ves watched on with astonishment as Cassandra's mummified corpse as well as her escape pod fractured from existence as if they were both made out of ash!

Strangely enough, the particles that made up the physical matter disappeared from the material realm as they sank into the imaginary realm.

Ves couldn't do anything to stop it, not that he wanted to. What happened was an incredibly encouraging sign. Seeing that Cassandra Breyer's physical form had broken down on its own suggested that she was finally unable to maintain her existence and her anchor to reality!

"Are you… truly dead this time?"

Though Ves couldn't help but relax a bit, he still acted as if he was being stalked by a powerful predator.

Thirty minutes went by as Cassandra never made another appearance. Ves remained tense throughout this period, but when Nitaa, Lucky and the remaining crew of the Scarlet Rose regained their wits, he finally accepted the outcome of this event.

"She's dead. I'm finally rid of her presence."

He felt a lot more ambivalent towards her departure than he initially thought.

Who knew that this unassuming ghost was such a powerful font of high-end elemental energy? The value of all of that energy that spilled out and disappeared from the material realm was worth as much as several star clusters put together!

Just the thought that Ves had been unable to capture or absorb any more of it due to his lack of preparation and inadequate means gave him a lot of pain!

"Luckily, I still saved a bunch." He reluctantly smiled as he tapped the side of his hammer against his chest plate.

All of the metal energy that he managed to stuff inside his Unending Regalia and the Hammer of Brilliance increased his own spiritual pressure, making it hard for others to approach him. He didn't care about that, though. Even as he observed their states, he could clearly sense that the metal energy was gradually decaying over time.

"I can't waste any time!"

He could reflect on what happened later on. Right now, he needed to find a way to make the most out of his remaining booty!

After making a final, thorough sweep of Compartment G-13, Ves stepped out and began to issue numerous instructions to his personnel.

Although the Larkinson Clan detected the strong activity from the Scarlet Rose, it hadn't led to any negative outcomes other than knocking out the skeleton crew serving aboard the mobile supply frigate.

This was a relatively trivial event as far as the Larkinsons were concerned so Ves was easily able to suppress the incident.

Once he addressed this chore, he hopped onto his armored shuttle which hurried back to the Spirit of Bentheim.

Once Ves reached his personal workshop, he quickly removed his Unending Regalia and placed it on top of a work table.

During the journey back to his flagship, he already came up with numerous ideas on how to experiment on the metal energy.

He initially thought of a way to stop its decay by using it as an ingredient to create or upgrade a design spirit.

"As long as the energy is part of a living energy, it shouldn't decay any further."

However, Ves quickly had to drop this promising idea after he discovered that the potent metal energy simply didn't behave like any other spiritual ingredient.

He couldn't solidify it into a spiritual fragment.

His attempts to merge it with other forms of spiritual energy didn't yield any favorable results either. It was so powerful that it burned or destroyed anything weaker, which happened to be pretty much every type of spiritual energy that Ves was able to draw upon.

This was also the reason why his own mind and Spirituality was unable to cope with it at all. The difference in energy states was too big. It was like trying to store hot plasma in a paper cup. The flimsy container simply didn't stand any chance!

Vulcan was the exception to the rule due to his special circumstances, but even he was like a dwarf standing before a biojuggernaut. Just because they were both organic didn't mean that they were at the same level!

When Ves inspected his design spirit incarnation's ragged and injured condition, he noticed that only around 0.01 percent of Vulcan current spiritual composition consisted of recently-absorbed high-end metal-attributed spiritual energy.

Even so, this merger was only tentative. It was way too powerful and volatile for Vulcan to absorb completely. The design spirit needed a lot of time to slowly digest and integrate the bounty stolen from Cassandra Breyer.

That meant that Vulcan was unlikely to be able to absorb any further metal energy."

"Oh well." Ves shrugged.

He had to find another use for his decaying haul.

As Ves kept trying to rack his mind for new ideas, elsewhere on the Spirit of Bentheim Gloriana briefly frowned as she fed Aurelia with a custom nutrient solution.

She thought she felt a chill blowing against her back.

"Are the temperature regulators malfunctioning?"

"Miaow?"

Clixie twitched her tufted ears as she also sensed a cold sensation. She gazed around in order to find the source of this strange wind, only to discover nothing unusual.

"Miaow."

The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat settled down again and relaxed… She was completely oblivious to the subtle five-colored light shining the gem socketed in the middle of her ornate necklace.