The Mech Touch

　　The frustration grew so much that certain Larkinsons grew pretty desperate. They submitted proposals that expand the mech capacity of the Larkinson fleet in an emergency. They ranged from converting civilian vessels such as the Vivacious Wal and the Dragon's Den into temporary fleet carriers to installing external storage compartments on the hulls of every ship.

　　Though each of these ideas were viable, there were plenty of reasons to reject them. The non-combat vessels all excelled in different roles and added a lot of extra capabilities to the Larkinson Clan.

　　Ships such as the Discentibus could definitely be converted into a fleet carrier if Ves gave the word. However, the price was not worth it in the end. As an academy ship, the vessel did an excellent job training the next generation of Larkinson mech pilots.

　　From the periodic reports that Ves received, the abundant amount of support provided to the Larkinson Mech Academy combined with the excellent qualities of the Chiron model had elevated the skills of the older mech cadets to an impressive level!

　　Once the first proper batch of mech cadets graduated into full mech pilots, they could probably blow the more average mech pilots in the Larkinson Army straight out of the water!

　　"If only I had enough ships to accommodate the extra mechs!"

　　After welcoming a couple of new mass production mech models and anticipating the completion of several more, Ves increasingly felt this situation was unsustainable.

　　There were no easy ways to break this bottleneck. Options such as allowing the Larkinson Army to suffer major losses or magically getting his hands on additional carrier vessels were simply not desirable or attainable.

　　The other leaders in the Larkinson Clan experienced this frustration as well. The Larkinson Army had over 20,000 mech pilots among its ranks but less than half of them were able to deploy at any time.

　　The mech legions did its best to maintain everyone's readiness by rotating the pilots of different mechs. This was a pretty normal solution in many other mech forces with an excess amount of pilots, but it was not ideal in this case.

　　Living mechs were supposed to attune themselves to single mech pilots. As the machines grew older, they complimented their designated pilots a lot better. This could easily improve the effective performance of long-standing pairs by 10, 20 or even 30 percent!

　　Ves had already studied the mechs that were frequently being shared by two or three different mech pilots. While the machines in question still grew over time, they did not develop the same degree of fit and individualization that he saw in mechs such as the Shield of Samar.

　　Though he was still certain that these living mechs would still be able to contribute more in battle, Ves ultimately figured that their potential were being squandered if they had to keep catering to several different pilots.

　　As someone who dedicated his life to improving the synergy between mech and mech pilot, how could he tolerate all of these half-baked relationships?

　　The Larkinson Clan needed to make more substantial changes in order to do its mechs and mech pilots justice.

　　It was for this reason that he scheduled a meeting with General Verle.

　　Before the meeting commenced, he was looking after his daughter, who sat on his lap while hugging a mech plushy.

　　"Guuuaaaa… buuuuubuuu…" The baby babbled as she chewed on the soft head of her toy.

　　"Come on. You're smarter and brighter than most girls your age. You can do it, Aurelia. Just say papa. Pa. Pa. Paaaaapa."

　　Aurelia innocently looked up at her father's eyes and blinked.

　　"Wuuooww…"

　　Ves wanted to palm his face.

　　"Miaow."

　　Clixie, who was lounging at the side, looked embarrassed as well!

　　"Blinky, can you go out and lend a hand?"

　　Mrow.

　　His companion spirit made an appearance, which immediately made Aurelia more excited!

　　"Wwaaaaaaa! Hihihihi!"

　　Mana quickly emerged from Aurelia's head and flew over to Blinky in order to cuddle and play with the larger spiritual cat.

　　Miew!… Miew!…

　　Mrow~

　　Blinky licked Mana's intangible white fur, but did not forget about the job he was supposed to do. The cat concentrated for a moment before extending a spiritual connection to Aurelia.

　　However, just as the bond reached Aurelia's mind, it bounced away.

　　Mrow?

　　The cat pumped extra power in the spiritual bond before driving it forward with greater strength, only to behave as if it collided against the hull of a CFA battleship!

　　"That's odd!"

　　"Wuuuuaaa…?" Aurelia grew more curious as Blinky failed to penetrate her mind.

　　Ves frowned. He never expected this to happen. He had studied Aurelia's mind once before, but these were relatively harmless sweeps that did not do anything.

　　The last time he truly did something to Aurelia was feeding her bits of spiritual energy in order to nurture her own spiritual development.

　　Though Ves was able to peer into his daughter's spirituality without much issue, it was a different story when he tried to extend a more substantial influence in her mind.

　　Her external defenses didn't seem impressive, but whenever Ves tried to get in, her skin, flesh and skull prevented him from gaining any purchase!

　　"What the hell?!"

　　This was abnormal! Even though Aurelia acted as if Ves had caressed her head with his hand, he originally intended to do much more!

　　In the next few minutes, he repeatedly tried to intrude into her mind. Though his daughter was much stronger on a spiritual level than any average human, she should not be strong enough to repel his invasion.

　　Yet not only did she do so with ease, she also thought was Ves was tickling her at the moment!

　　"Hihihihi! Hihihihihi!"

　　Aurelia cutely squirmed her body as she continued to gaze at Ves with pure adoration. She looked up at him with so much love that he couldn't bring himself to persist any further.

　　If he continued with his actions, he was liable to hurt his daughter, and that was absolutely taboo as far as he was concerned!

　　"Is this why your mother hasn't been able to get you to say mama?" He questioned.

　　"Waaaa….wuuuuu…"

　　Both he and his wife were competing on Aurelia's first word. Given Gloriana's compulsion to be the best, she was working hard to encourage their daughter to say 'mama' before 'papa'.

　　He didn't put it past his wife to employ Alexandria's design network to teach Aurelia how to say mama more directly.

　　In fact, that was exactly why he attempted to connect to Aurelia's spirit as well. He was afraid that Gloriana had already started her dastardly plan. If he didn't keep up, how could he still have a chance in this contest?

　　Apparently, his fears turned out to be overblown. As Ves lifted up his daughter and used his spiritual senses to examine her entire body, he discovered something amazing.

　　Her entire body had become inviolable.

　　Passive observation worked fine, but as soon as he tried to intrude into any point of her body, her smooth baby skin turned into an impenetrable shield!

　　"This… is actually amazing."

　　It took a lot of probing and theorizing for him to gain an answer on why his daughter became so good at defending against spiritual intrusions.

　　"It's my mother!"

　　He recalled the instance where the Superior Mother descended and channeled a portion of her prodigious strength in her 'granddaughter'. Ves had always wondered what Cynthia's incarnation had actually done, and now he finally learned what she truly had in mind.

　　Aurelia's flesh and blood had become infused with so much spiritual energy that they had become a lot more extraordinary than normal. Ves had never seen this in any other human and had long grown both hopeful and concerned about these unfamiliar changes.

　　Now, he knew. The Superior Mother somehow blessed Aurelia in a way that made the baby girl strong in a special way.

　　"You're quite amazing, you know that?"

　　"Hihihihi!"

　　In fact, during his probing, Ves discovered an additional defensive measure. When he probed her head instead of any other part of her body, he found that his spiritual projections weakened by a considerable margin.

　　The reason why this happened was not due to Aurelia's spiritually-enhanced flesh, but her remarkably strong spirituality!

　　"Miew…! Miew…!"

　　To be more precise, it was a product of one of the seed abilities that he had bestowed on her companion spirit.

　　Ves picked up Mana and studied the intangible Persian kitty. Compared to before, he found the cat to be even more innocent and pure than usual.

　　"You… you activated one of your seed abilities already?!"

　　"Miew!…"

　　Mana innocently mewled while she wagged her short tail back and forth.

　　When Ves originally designed a companion spirit for Aurelia, he had to take her extremely weak mind and spirit into account. Back then, she was still a fetus inside Gloriana's belly, so how could she possibly accommodate a companion spirit as powerful as Blinky?

　　Ves therefore created a highly-reduced companion spirit that was supposed to rely on growth to get up to strength.

　　In order to ensure that the companion spirit gave Aurelia plenty of choice on how to develop herself in the future, Ves did not bestow it with a single strong spiritual ability like he did with oher companion spirits.

　　Instead, he inserted six different ability seeds into Mana so that any of them could activate and grow according to Aurelia's needs and desires.

　　According to his original expectations, the seeds should quietly accumulate strength and germinate a few years later.

　　They weren't supposed to activate when Aurelia wasn't even able to speak a coherent word yet! This growth rate was way too fast!

　　"And how come you activated your purification ability seed at this time?"

　　The six ability seeds that Ves had inserted into Mana were derived from the spiritual fragments of different sources.

　　Life, which corresponded to the heart, came from Ves himself.

　　Family, which corresponded to the tail, came from the Golden Cat.

　　Purification, which corresponded to the brain, came from Lufa.

　　Protection, which corresponded to the front paws, came from Qilanxo.

　　Light, which corresponded to the eyes, came from the Illustrious One.

　　Duty, which corresponded to the abdomen, came from the Solemn Guardian.

　　Ves had high hopes for Mana for this reason. She was a completely new sort of companion spirit from Sharpie, Blinky, Respa, Alexandria and so on. Aurelia was the first human to have a broader choice in how to develop her other self.

　　He expected her to grow up into an energetic little girl who came up with big dreams about her future.

　　He expected his daughter to come to him so that she could receive his guidance on what kind of career path she should try to pursue.

　　He expected her to make up her mind and consciously work together with Mana to stimulate one of the six ability seeds that aligned best with her future ambitions.

　　Instead of all of that happening, Aurelia activated one prematurely.

　　Though there was no rule that stated that Mana could only ever unlock the potential of one ability seed, the first one was undoubtedly the most important one that would define how Aurelia lived her life!

　　"How did this happen?"

　　There could only be one viable explanation. Someone tried to intrude in her mind. Aurelia or Mana sensed this was wrong and tried to evoke whatever means they had to defend against it.

　　This inadvertently caused Mana to activate her Purification seed ability so that she could provide Aurelia with an added insurance against spiritual or mental intrusions!

　　A part of Ves was quite happy to see this. If Aurelia retained the protection of her inviolable body and purified mind, it would be impossible for her to get brainwashed or indoctrinated!

　　Powerful spiritual entities wouldn't be able to mess with her either!

　　That didn't mean he was okay with this, though. He could only think of one culprit who might be responsible.

　　"Gloriana!"

　　"Miaow?!" Clixie grew alarmed.

　　"I need to have a good talk with my wife!"