The Mech Touch

When Ves originally came up with the concept of a companion spirit, he quickly developed concerns about control.

A companion spirit originally came from a part of a person's spirituality. Ves essentially scooped up a portion of someone's spirit and infused it with life, causing it to develop a measure of independence.

However, Ves always made sure to make the companion spirit both loyal and subordinate to its originator.

He never grew concerned that Blinky would grow out of control because of these measures.

The issue was that nothing was absolute and any companion spirit could mutate in ways that contradicted their initial design.

That was the effect of life and growth. Companion spirits were never static and always grew over time.

In Sharpie's original design, Ves had never intended it to become a clone of Ketis. He actually contemplated this possibility before but always developed nightmares about the clone taking over the life of the original!

Though Ves could see that Ketis and Sharpie got along like bosom buddies at the moment, what if this changed one day? What if one of them started to resent the other?

Ketis did not exhibit much fear, though.

"That won't happen, Ves. The two of us are inseparable. Even if Sharpie grows smarter and more human, we are still the same person more or less. I am Ketis and Sharpie is also Ketis. If I was not so assured of this, I would not have expanded Sharpie's autonomy."

The certainty and self-assurance in her tone left Ves with little doubt that she was determined to make Sharpie more human.

She had already taken the first steps on this new path. There was no way someone as willful as her would back out at this point.

Ves looked helplessly at her former student. If she was someone less important to him like Melkor or Vincent, then he would have treated her as a test subject and given her his full blessings.

Unfortunately, she wasn't expendable to him. He would feel terrible if she suffered a mishap one day because of her continued attempts to push the boundaries of her companion spirit.

There wasn't much he could do. Ketis was an adult who was responsible for her own decisions. She had weighed the pros and cons by herself and decided that this was the best course of action.

If she made a mistake, she was already prepared to own up to it. She bet her future in the hopes of obtaining a fantastic advantage once Sharpie developed to a monstrous point in the far future.

"What is your endgame, Ketis? What is the goal that you are trying to reach by humanizing Sharpie?"

Mrow mrow!

"Sharp! Sharp!"

Though the current iteration of Sharpie resembled a cute doll that a child like Aurelia would love to play with, Ves could clearly sense the sharp and unshakable will inside her diminutive form!

Sharpie actually gave him a sense of threat that was similar to that of his mother when she was in her own small ghostly form.

If the companion spirit was already this strong as an 'infant', how powerful would it become after a century of growth? Would Sharpie grow to the size of an adult human?

Maybe Sharpie might grow even bigger to the point where it could contend equally against mechs!

At that point in time, the traditional shortcomings of swordmasters might no longer apply. After all, whereas human warriors were always limited by their scale, a spiritual entity that could constantly morph its body was not as constrained!

Ketis threw an intriguing smile at Ves. "Wouldn't you like to know? I have a few ideas, but I am taking this one step at a time. As you have just said, this is all new to the both of us, so any plans I make right now are based on incomplete information. The only way I can go forward is to rely on my instincts and observations to figure out my next moves."

That was the wisest course of action. Ves was relieved that Ketis did not possess the hubris to construct a complete model out of limited data and assume that it provided her with an ironclad formula for success.

Innovation was much messier than that. Anyone who groped in the dark continually had to remind themselves that they rarely held the right answers.

"Now that I'm here, I'd like to bring up a more important topic with you." She said.

"Oh?"

Ketis glanced at Sharpie who kept playing games with Blinky. At one point, she even sat on top of the Star Cat as if she was riding a battle mount!

"How long has it been since you created those organic statues?" She asked. "Ever since you made them, all you've done is put them in your personal workshop and allowed them to collect dust. You have hardly made use of them aside from making those strange Sanctuary variants of yours."

"What are you driving at, Ketis?"

"Do you know how I came up with the idea of leveraging your Aspects of Lufa to solve my doubts?"

"No."

"Thought so. You can thank your Sanctuary models for that. I checked up on how your customers made use of them. While they haven't sold well in the old galaxy due to their poor marketing and extreme pricing, a few military organizations have actually bought them in bulk. Interesting, is it not? Why would they buy so many overpriced third-class mechs at once?"

Ves grew curious as well. He activated his terminal and searched for this topic. He soon discovered that the LMC wrote a few reports about how the local agents speculated that the military organizations were actually taking advantage of the Sanctuaries to treat expert pilots!

"What a brilliant solution!"

He didn't know who came up with the idea and how they convinced their bosses to purchase the Sanctuaries just so they could present them to different expert pilots, but the approach seemed to bear a bit fruit.

Of course, all of those psychologists and other specialists were being extremely cautious about experimenting with the Sanctuaries. The new methods were still unverified and any procedure involving a state's precious expert pilots had to be conducted with the utmost care!

Therefore sales of the Sanctuary Treatment Editions hadn't skyrocketed, which explained why Ves hadn't noticed this development.

However, he could already foresee a trend where his customers would make more use of his Sanctuaries once the specialists figured out the correct way to make use of Lufa's glows.

Once a single state managed to crack the code, all of the other states would adopt the same methods as well!

After all, if one state managed to make use of the two Sanctuary variants to produce more expert pilots and raise their resonance strengths at a faster rate, then it would eventually attain regional superiority!

The Komodo War had already shown how being able to field more expert mechs could change the fate of a state. No one would say no to pursuing greater power!

Ketis' reminder caused Ves to recognize that his Sanctuary Treatment Editions turned out to be even more useful than he thought!

Perhaps he should have priced it at an even higher level!

His eyes sparkled as he expressed his gratitude towards his former student. "You are right. I haven't been paying as much attention to my old work as I should. I am always obsessed with my upcoming mech designs that I rarely put serious effort into looking back. Maybe I should check up on how all of my other old commercial mech models are doing. The mechs that we have produced over the years are all living mechs, after all. With the passage of time, I bet that plenty of them have grown formidable in their own different ways."

"Anyway, when I looked into your Sanctuary mechs and read all of the reports on how different people have benefited from the Tranquility and Healing variants, I became inspired. Why should you limit their use to norms? They can work equally well on expert pilots as long as they take the initiative to open themselves up. Although the glows are not beneficial all the time, as long as an expert pilot is troubled, your Sanctuary mechs can help make the problem go away!"

  Ves widened his eyes. Ketis opened him up to new possibilities! There was so much potential in his existing work, but he didn't recognize it before! It took someone younger and more junior than him in order to figure out these basic truths!

"I never thought much about how glows interact with expert pilots since they can easily resist any mental influence. However, if the pilots lower their mental defenses on their own initiative, the treatments will definitely have an effect!"

This realization sounded so simple, but the implications were massive!

Demigods were essentially brain-damaged mech pilots who derived their strengths from extreme convictions and obsessions.

Were they normal?

Absolutely not!

Every expert pilot was insane by definition. While this was good in terms of moving closer to the rank of god pilot, this could also be bad because distorted personalities always produced mental problems!

Given these circumstances, wouldn't it be great if expert pilots could regain their balance 

Ketis grinned like a shark. "In my opinion, your Aspects of Lufa become twice as relevant when they are used to help expert pilots sort out the hindrances that drag down their growth. While I'm not sure about the Aspect of Rationality, the other three statues can definitely help people like myself and Venerable Joshua!"

"Even the Aspect of Transcendence?" Ves skeptically asked.

"I have made use of it in person so I know it can." Ketis confidently answered. "I don't recommend you expose it to our expert pilots too frequently. They need to be able to do most of the work themselves, or else they won't work as hard as before. The Aspect of Transcendence should only be used to facilitate breakthroughs or help people past their bottlenecks. Don't worry. Even the weakest expert pilot won't be at risk. The threat level is completely different to powerful people."

Though Ves wasn't sure about all of this, Ketis had a lot in common with expert pilots. She could speak with authority on this issue.

"I am truly impressed you came up with this idea."

Ketis smirked and crossed her arms. "You should have known about it sooner. The reason why you didn't is because you cling too closely to your many secrets. You never let anyone get involved in your Aspects of Lufa, so there was no one with you that could look at your work from a different angle."

"You're right." Ves sighed. "While I do keep a lot of secrets, I suppose it isn't necessary to hold onto my Aspects of Lufa so tightly. I could have made more progress in my research if I had a bright mind like you in my research team."

"Hehe, if you think my earlier idea is useful enough, then my next one will definitely make you rethink their usage. From what I have gathered, your Aspect of Transcendence is your way of helping mech pilots advance, right?"

Ves reluctantly nodded. "Yes…"

"And your attempts never succeeded, right?"

"Uhm, that's not strictly true. I managed to create a few successes, but the costs are too high."

"You're going about it the wrong way." She plainly told him. "In matters like this, why haven't you asked our expert pilots to help out the people that are hoping to break through?"

"Huh?"

"Our expert pilots can keep a close eye on how much progress a mech pilot is making. I know that the Aspect of Transcendence is dangerous, but so what? With the guidance of an expert pilot, anyone who tries to break through while under the effect of its glow do not have to fear too much! As long as an expert pilot is sharp enough, he or she can vaguely understand what is taking place. I believe this is the right way for ordinary people to take advantage of the Aspect of Transcendence!"

What a radical idea! Ves never thought about using expert pilots as mentors to the people hoping to achieve a breakthrough, but Ketis' suggestion made a lot of sense!