The Mech Touch

　　"Do you want a kiss from daddy, Aurelia?"

　　"Wuaaaa…."

　　"You do? Here I come, then!"

　　"Hihihihihihi!"

　　The emotional and spiritual bonds between them had grown to impressive levels. At this stage of her life, Aurelia became cognizant enough to interact with people in a more complex fashion than before.

　　Ves really felt that she was starting to remember what he said, though that might be his father's bias at work.

　　Whatever the case, he enjoyed spending time with his baby even more. Even though she still cried on a regular basis, she always injected a lot of joy in his heart.

　　He didn't even want to start his work day without making her laugh!

　　Her happiness directly boosted his happiness as well. Ves found that whenever he started his work day in a delighted mood, his productivity always soared.

　　The same applied to Gloriana. The New Man Project proceeded smoother than ever and her other two custom mech design projects were chugging along as well.

　　Both parents were in paradise.

　　Other Larkinsons were making progress in their personal lives as well. Over a thousand weddings were on the agenda. Dawn City on the Vivacious Wal became the favorite site to conduct weddings and all of the good locations were booked for several months.

　　A lot of hype and anticipation built up for Joshua and Ketis' marriage ceremony. The two prominent Larkinsons had turned into the second fairy tale couple after Ves and Gloriana.

　　Yet they weren't the only high-ranking clansmen who were planning to tie the knot.

　　Venerable Tusa surprisingly agreed to make his relationship with Director Ranya Wodin permanent. Though many people assumed that Tusa cherished his independence far too much to limit himself to a single lover.

　　The same applied to Vincent Ricklin. The masculine expert candidate had proposed to Director Raella Larkinson, who for some reason agreed to marry the flamboyant man!

　　Though Ves suspected that there was an element of practicality behind these marriage decisions, he didn't object to any of the pairings. He was not their nanny, so if their relationships crashed and burned, it had nothing to do with him. Failure was a part of life.

　　That said, Ves suspected that it was unlikely for these marriages to end in an undesirable fashion. He could easily see Goldie meddling when she wasn't supposed to. He would have to keep an eye on her to make sure she did not exert any excessive influence through the Larkinson Network.

　　Work proceeded as usual in the meantime. Out of all of the design projects that Ves was involved in, none of them were more challenging and complicated than the Minerva Project.

　　The expert mech designed for Commander Casella Ingvar incorporated a lot of new technologies that none of the Journeymen were familiar with. They never worked on a command platform, especially one that was so powerful and high-end.

　　Fortunately, Professor Benedict Cortez was always there to provide guidance whenever necessary.

　　The Senior Mech Designer never told the Larkinson Journeymen the answers to their problems directly. Instead, he adopted a teaching posture and always provided just enough guidance for the younger mech designers to figure out the solutions themselves.

　　It made Ves and the others involved in the project feel as if they became students again, not that they minded. They appreciated any learning opportunity.

　　Just like his other projects, the biggest question concerning the Minerva Project was its design spirit.

　　Though Ves initially wanted to employ Goldie as its design spirit, there were good reasons to look for alternatives.

　　Gloriana held their napping daughter as she explained her thoughts.

　　"So far, Commander Casella has demonstrated the remarkable capability of syncing and empowering our Larkinson mech pilots. If Goldie assumes responsibility for the Minerva Project, Casella will doubtlessly be able to strengthen our own mech pilots even further. However, it may also prove to be redundant. Her own talents along with Goldie's contribution might overlap with each other, leading to wasted potential. Have you ever thought about that, Ves?"

　　He furrowed his brows. "To be honest, I didn't think of that. I don't have enough knowledge or data to figure out whether you're right or wrong. This is all new to me. It doesn't help that it's hard for Casella to replicate her enhancement capabilities without the support of an expert mech."

　　It was a difficult situation.

　　In order for Ves to best figure out how to augment Casella's natural abilities as an expert pilot, he needed to put her into a compatible expert mech to collect enough data.

　　Yet that expert mech did not exist as of yet. The Minerva Project was supposed to be Casella's first tailored machine, but in order to make it right, Ves needed data on her performance which he lacked.

　　While the logs taken from the Quint and the other Larkinson mechs during her dramatic breakthrough to expert pilot provided him with crucial reference data, it was not enough. The arena battle was not set up as an experiment or observation session so plenty of details were missing.

　　Most importantly, Ves hadn't attended the G-Aeana League match at all, so he did not witness how Casella personally connected to her fellow Larkinson mech pilots.

　　It was conundrums like these that mech designers generally didn't go all-out for an expert pilot's first new machine. The initial expert mech partially served as a test and observation platform to collect more data on the expert pilot's performance and resonance abilities.

　　As long as the expert pilot managed to grow stronger while surviving long enough, the mech designers could harvest all of the data and make use of what they learned to design a much more tailored expert mech.

　　This was the usual process when it came to handling new expert pilots, but Ves didn't like this approach. It was appropriate for large military organizations that employed lots of expert pilots but had to make do with a limited budget, but the situation of the Larkinson Clan was the opposite.

　　The Larkinson Clan could easily get its hands on additional money, but it was a lot harder to nurture a lot of expert pilots from its current population base!

　　This was why Ves wanted to provide Commander Casella with a strong expert mech straight away.

　　While Ves continued to think, Gloriana lovingly gazed down and kissed her sleeping baby. Aurelia already grew a lovely tuft of hair on her head that felt exceptionally soft and delicate.

　　"Do you know what I think?" She spoke after she made sure her daughter was fine. "I think that Commander Casella might have the potential to assist other friendly mech pilots. As long as they are receptive enough, Casella should be able to reach out to them no matter their allegiances."

　　Ves looked intrigued. "I… don't know whether that is possible, but I am open to the possibility. Is it necessary, though? It should already be enough for Casella to boost our own mech pilots."

　　"Well, you never know when you end up in a situation where you are cut off from the rest of the Larkinson Army. Remember your time on Prosperous Hill VI? If you had someone like Commander Casella at your side, you would have been able to command that rag-tag bunch of local biomech pilots a lot more effectively."

　　"You're right."

　　"Also, we're already fighting alongside other friendly forces. If Commander Casella can boost the performance of the Glory Seeker and the Crosser mech pilots with the help of an appropriate expert mech, we can defend our fleet a lot better!"

　　Gloriana presented enough arguments in favor of a broader approach for the Minerva Project that Ves bought into the idea.

　　He eventually embraced her suggestion. "Maybe you have a point. We'll need to employ a new design spirit though, one that specializes in this aspect."

　　There was great potential in a Minerva Project that was more universal and a design spirit that could facilitate this kind of operation.

　　He already had a suitable key ingredient in storage. The spiritual remnant taken from the only sentient part of the Titania possessed many of the key elements that allowed it to be useful in this case.

　　However, he already intended to employ it in another way. The Titania's use of living projectiles reminded him of missile-carrying mechs.

　　Wouldn't it be great if he paired up a design spirit based on this ingredient with a ranged mech?

　　Still, nothing said that his design spirits should only excel at one job. Depending on their nature, they could easily be utilized in multiple different mech models.

　　Although he already intended to create several new design spirits, he decided to embark on this one first.

　　As far as importance went, the new command and missile-oriented design spirit based on the Titania's spiritual remnant was not too high and not too low.

　　While Ves did not think it would surpass the importance of Goldie, the Superior Mother and Vulcan, it should at least be more relevant than his lesser-used design spirits.

　　Yet before he proceeded, he needed to make an important choice.

　　Should he try to retain the remnants of its original, ancient personality or should he wipe it out by fracturing the spiritual fragment?

　　"Usually, I do the latter."

　　The risks were often lower in that case because he would wipe the slate clean. By dumping much of the baggage carried by the original entity, Ves wouldn't have to worry about old victims and enemies coming back from the dead.

　　Yet… it would also be an enormous waste to discard so much value just because he was afraid of improper behavior.

　　Back when the exobiologists studied the Titania's humongous carcass, they estimated that its age surpassed 6 millenia.

　　6000 years!

　　Any entity that could live for such a long time had to be extremely knowledgeable, capable and wise.

　　Though astral beasts were generally a lot simpler and less complex than other life forms, Ves had a hunch that its driving intelligence should not be weak.

　　In any case, after so many years of growth and exercise, the Titania's ability to leverage its extraordinary powers must definitely have reached an impressive level!

　　Since the time that he had successfully captured and rescued the Titania's spiritual remnant, he frequently tangled over whether he should process the ingredient or restore its strength.

　　The spiritual remnant was only a shadow of its former self. Ves estimated that it had only retained up to 7 percent of the Titania's spirituality at its height.

　　However, 7 percent of an entity that was powerful and managed to live for more than 6000 years should still be powerful!

　　If Ves fully revived it to a vigorous state, then it would definitely be stronger and more developed than many of his design spirits. Those that were born or put into use a short time ago such as Arnold and Trisk simply couldn't compare when it came to age, wisdom and accumulation!

　　If Ves and the Larkinson Clan managed to persuade the revived Titania to work on their behalf, they would obtain the services of an extremely unique and powerful asset that was substantially different from any other of its kind!

　　Not even Qilanxo could match the Titania's accumulation!

　　The more he thought about it, the more he became greedy to harness the Titania's original abilities.

　　He decided to take a chance. While he acknowledged the risks, he was confident enough in his own means to suppress any hostile or recalcitrant design spirit.

　　Even if he was not strong enough, he could always call upon the aid of other strong spiritual entities such as the Superior Mother or even Vulcan.

　　"Blinky, it's showtime."

　　Mrow?

　　The purple companion spirit woke up from his rest and emerged from his mind. The Star Cat wearily shook his body as if to shake off the dust from his body.

　　The cat soon grew more alert as he gazed at the P-stone containing the rescued spiritual remnant of the Titania.

　　Even if the Titania was weak in its current state, Blinky was sensitive enough to perceive a hint of weight, power and age.

　　The difference between a typical design spirit and the Titania was akin to the difference between grape juice and finely-aged wine!

　　"Maybe I should employ a few precautions."

　　There was no need for him to embark on another desperate experiment. He had plenty of time on his hands at this moment.

　　"Let's get everything together."