The Mech Touch

　　The Everchanger then proceeded to enter the sphere in preparation for the experiment.

　　In order to make sure that the expert mech did not do any further harm than necessary, the Larkinsons had to relocate all of the pakklaton prisoners and unhatched eggs from the ships.

　　For now, the Larkinsons decided to confine the prisoners to a couple of the larger biomes inside the Dragon's Den.

　　The bioresearch vessel was not meant to function as a prison, but she was designed to carry a myriad of alien exobeasts.

　　These creatures may be large and dangerous so the biomes had to be sturdy enough to prevent them from breaking out and wreaking havoc inside the rest of the Dragon's Den like an overdone space horror drama.

　　It was easy enough for the researchers to free up the necessary biomes and adjust their environmental conditions to make them livable for the pakklaton race.

　　The exobiologists tuned the air, temperature, humidity, radiation and other variables to keep the avian aliens comfortable.

　　The Larkinson Biotech Institute even dug out the plants and other flora inside the alien vessels and proceeded to transplant them into the specific biomes.

　　The goal was to give the pakklatons the illusion that they were residing on a location on their home planet. The only fault was that they were prisoners rather than guests. The Larkinsons could not possibly hand them back their freedom and tech.

　　The most difficult part of this logistical operation was to transport tens of thousands of pakklaton prisoners to the Dragon's Den without bringing in a single voribug!

　　This caused the operation to become a lot more laborious than normal, but once the subdued occupants of the alien vessels relocated to their temporary new accommodation, the Everchanger could finally begin.

　　"Good morning, Joshua." Ves said as he monitored the situation from the Spirit of Bentheim. "Today, we are attempting to study the effects of glows on the voribugs. To do this, we will be using your expert mech to cycle through all of the design spirits on the list. Do you understand?"

　　The expert pilot nodded. "I do. I hope we find a glow that can work."

　　"You don't have to amplify your glows just yet. Start by flying to the coordinates I'm giving you. There's a cluster of voribugs that is fairly close to the exterior that we can easily monitor."

　　When the Everchanger was in position, Ves instructed Joshua to alternate the design spirit of his expert mech.

　　He also issued an extra instruction.

　　"I think you have noticed that all of the design spirits on the top are supportive. We're not interested in making friends with the voribugs, so make sure you consider them hostile. Our goal here today is to find an effective countermeasure against this species. Do you understand?"

　　"Yes, sir."

　　"Don't worry. I have already briefed the design spirits. They all know what we are asking of them. Your Everchanger should be able to call upon them easily enough."

　　The session began at this point. The Everchanger did not possess a native design spirit on its own, so the expert mech could channel all of them with decent compatibility.

　　Ves found it fascinating to observe how switching the design spirits changed his overall impression of the Everchanger.

　　The physical mech remained the same, but its aura and demeanor fluctuated with every switch.

　　In one moment, it inspired duty and loyalty from any friendlies affected by the glow.

　　In the next moment, it exuded a sense of bravado and manliness that Ves did not traditionally fit with the masterwork mech.

　　Witnessing how effortlessly the Everchanger adjusted from design spirit to design spirit made Ves proud of his work. This living mech was truly the champion of his design philosophy! No other machine was as versatile and all-encompassing as the machine he specially designed for Joshua.

　　It was too bad that much of the results were relatively boring so far. The glows exuded from relatively harmless design spirits such as the Solemn Guardian and the Golden Cat did not affect the voribugs in any noticeable fashion.

　　The stupid insects still multiplied and fed on the pakklaton starship as usual.

　　"Their reaction is no different from that of other hostile humans." Ves noted. "So far, the results haven't defied my expectations."

　　That could be both good and bad depending on the circumstances.

　　To be honest, experiments where everything happened completely according to expectations were boring to him. He enjoyed a bit of excitement and wanted to elicit new and different reactions from the voribugs.

　　The experimental session finally started to get interesting once the Everchanger channeled the more interesting design spirits.

　　Ves leaned closer as he paid greater attention to a projected feed that displayed a cluster of voribugs.

　　The insects behaved a little more agitated than usual as they came under the influence of different glows. Even though the effects so far weren't all that great, the voribugs didn't appreciate getting messed around so many times.

　　"Switch to the Superior Mother in her death aspect."

　　The Superior Mother was a special design spirit. Having designed with the six phases of existence in mind, she essentially came in six different flavors.

　　Of them all, other phases didn't do so much against the creatures.

　　Sure, her life and godhood aspect made the voribugs a little more vigorous, but the other ones did not produce any significant changes.

　　It was impossible for the Superior Mother's death aspect to kill others when she was merely channeling her presence through the medium of a mech.

　　A glow was a passive power phenomenon while the attack launched by a battle formation was an active power phenomenon.

　　The latter could produce much more drastic effects, but the cost and effort required to make it possible was also greater!

　　As a result, when the Everchanger adopted this specific glow, the voribugs only became a bit more lethargic. They slowed down their actions by up to 10 percent, which was hardly meaningful.

　　"I see." Ves hummed.

　　He already formed a preliminary conclusion on the effects of different glows towards the voribugs.

　　Compared to humans, they were a lot more simple-minded and driven by their instincts.

　　More erudite design spirits such as Ylvaine and the Illustrious One were not able to affect the voribugs in a significant fashion. The creatures were just too bestial for subtlety to work.

　　If that was the case, then more drastic glows should produce stronger results.

　　"Try out Lufa's glow." He instructed Venerable Joshua.

　　He looked forward to this part of the session.

　　When the Everchanger began to adopt a pure and tranquil glow, the voribugs finally exhibited a greater difference.

　　They slowed down a lot this time!

　　The voribugs did not possess a lot of thoughts in whatever passed for their minds, but trying to blank them out successfully reduced their activity levels.

　　"The voribugs are resisting the glow!"

　　The creatures were sensitive towards danger. Once the voribugs realized they were subjected to an undesirable effect, they tried to move away from the Everchanger.

　　Still, Ves was happy enough with these results. He learned that he could leverage his angelic design spirit as a pest control solution.

　　"I think I can earn a lot of money if I design a mech that specializes in repelling voribugs."

　　Seeing how much damage a voribug infestation could do to a starship caused him to recognize the importance of such a solution.

　　Even a single copy of this hypothetical mech could make a difference!

　　As long as it was stationed close to critical sections such as engineering, the voribugs would not want to go to that place.

　　Though Ves theorized that the voribugs might be able to resist Lufa's glow and push through anyway, the insects normally wouldn't choose to do so unless they already hollowed out the rest of a starship.

　　"It's like the difference between staying in a comfy home and going outside to brave a freezing storm."

　　He quickly came up with a preliminary mech design concept that could provide the greatest value for the least amount of cost.

　　"The mech doesn't have to be too big or expensive!"

　　While normal mechs were susceptible to getting swarmed by voribugs, his anti-bug model did not have to worry about this problem as much. A glow like the one that the Everchanger was exuding was the best form of defense against these insects!

　　"In case any voribugs are desperate enough to attack it anyway, this mech should possess enough firepower to defend itself."

　　A light shotgun should do the trick. The weapon didn't need to be large because most voribugs weren't all that tough. In fact, most mech weapons were actually overkill against these vermin.

　　A lighter weapon was not only more efficient against this kind of opponent, it also allowed his mech to carry more shotgun rounds.

　　Ves could go a step further and make the mech as small and light as possible!

　　By making it smaller, Ves could not only save on a lot of costly materials, but also enable the machine to squeeze into smaller spaces.

　　This was especially relevant for starships and space stations where the interior was always cramped!

　　"A light mech? No, that might be too big. How about an ultralight mech?"

　　Mechs varied considerably in size. Light mechs were generally the smallest ones to enter a typical battlefield but there were even smaller machines than that. Mech designers could be highly creative when they needed to shrink their products to an even greater extent.

　　Still, at that point, mechs became so small that they lost far too many scale advantages. They could only function as cannon fodder if they ever dared to take part in a mech battle.

　　"An ultralight mech should still be fine if it is solely used to deal with voribug infestations."

　　If Ves designed this mech, he could change the way that humanity dealt with voribugs and other comparable pests!

　　While he was sure that humanity had already developed a lot more effective detection, repelling and killing solutions, the key to his own mech design was that it could be a lot cheaper and more economical!

　　"I don't necessarily have to make it a second-class mech. A third-class mech will do, just like my Sanctuary Treatment Edition models!"

　　Ves was a bit reluctant to go that cheap, though. The voribugs may be weak, but the power of a third-class mech might not be enough to guarantee the safety of the mech.

　　He resolved to think about that later. The current session hadn't ended.

　　After he was finished with observing the effect of Lufa's base glow, Ves instructed Joshua to mimic the glows of the Aspect of Healing and the Aspect of Rationality.

　　As expected, the glow from the Aspect of Healing didn't debilitate the voribugs in any fashion.

　　What Ves didn't expect was that the glow from the Aspect of Rationality did not produce any noticeable differences from Lufa's base glow.

　　Other than slowing down and repelling the voribug, the rationality-oriented glow did not appear to make them smarter.

　　"I see."

　　Ves skipped the glow of the Aspect of Transcendence. He did not dare to unveil it in such an open place, let alone subject lots of voribugs to this dangerous glow!

　　This was the only glow that Ves had invented that could actually kill people. He didn't think it would work against the voribugs due to their simplistic thought processes.

　　What if he was wrong, though?

　　What if he could not only make a lot of voribugs explode, but also cause a tiny proportion of them to… evolve?

　　"Is this how dark gods are made?" He fearfully speculated.

　　Ves did not want to see what would happen!

　　"I should stick to my original objective. I just need to find a way to make it easier to eliminate all of the voribugs."