The Mech Touch

After hearing that his new sister would be willing to reciprocate his gift, Ves became a lot more driven to succeed in his first spiritual firearm project!

He worked faster and more diligently than before. He put extra effort into channeling his artistic flair and made sure that Helena would become happy and delighted by his gift for a long time.

Making his transformable spiritual firearm as pretty as possible was only a sideshow, however.

The true challenge was realizing all of his ideas for his Death Lotus!

Ves was embarking on radical new territory here. While he was just creating another living spiritual product on the surface, the power and threat of his new spiritual firearm was much different from his previous creations!

He had never developed a spiritual product for the purpose of creating the most lethal killing weapon possible.

His previous products were all centered around creating new spiritual entities that possessed their own personalities and could grow by themselves over time.

While it was possible for design spirits such as the Illustrious One and companion spirits such as Blinky to develop powerful new attacks, the crucial distinction here was that they were not designed for this purpose from the start!

The Death Lotus was different. It wasn't as lively as his previous spiritual products, but Ves believed that focusing on its lethality and power above all else would allow him to create an unparalleled spiritual weapon, one that still retained enough living aspects to grow and evolve over time!

In order to make sure that he was able to implement all of his ambitious design targets, he did not hesitate to lift up his Hammer of Brilliance and give himself a good whack on the head!

"Ouch!"

Even though he bumped his skull a bit harder due to his enthusiasm, the pain was not as important as all of the inspiration he gained from connecting so many different ideas and solutions together!

His eyes fully lit up as his passion raged like a firestorm in the middle of a planet suffering from a heatwave.

The Death Lotus design seemed to bloom before his eyes. It not only possessed an increasingly more intricate internal design, but also gained numerous features that did not possess an equivalent in reality.

Though Ves added more experimental features and design solutions to the weapon design than he originally intended, he was confident that his efforts were not in vain!

In fact, it didn't matter if his work didn't quite work out the way he intended to. Since he intended to breathe life to the Death Lotus, it would become a living spiritual entity, thereby transforming its initial form into a living state that could constantly improve and correct itself through continuous growth and evolution!

This was the corrective nature of spiritual life. Through the power of growth, Ves felt assured that his Death Lotus would definitely reach its ambitious performance targets eventually.

It could even grow beyond the level that Ves envisioned by growing even further!

As long as Helena took good care of the weapon and made sure to feed it with her spiritual energy, the Death Lotus would slowly become more powerful and remarkable.

His sister would definitely be able to defend herself against even the most formidable threats from the Five Scrolls Compact in the future!

Of course, Ves understood that the Death Lotus had a long way to go before it could attain this level. The power of the Death Lotus was also highly dependent on the strength of its wielder. If Helena did not grow fast enough, then the power of her gun would become difficult to control.

As Ves tried to take all of this into consideration, Helena decided to play with Lucky while keeping an eye on her brother's work.

"Mother told me a bit about you. You're so handsome, Lucky. You must get all the lady cats."

"Meow." The gem cat arrogantly lifted his head while he settled on the spiritual manifestation's lap.

"Since Ves is my brother, you belong to me as well, isn't that right?"

"Meow…"

"Who do you listen to first, our mothers or Ves?"

"Meow!"

"That's right!" Helena smiled. "I should come next, do you agree, Lucky?"

"Meow."

"Ves should go last, of course. He's the runt in our family, though his creative talents are quite powerful. Nonetheless, that doesn't change the fact that he will need my protection going forward. He's too weak!"

"Meow meow!"

"Hm, you're partially right. His mechs and mech pilots are powerful, alright, but the reason why many of them are so strong is because they borrow the strength of other gods! If Ves didn't have access to deities such as Qilanxo, my mother and that odd Ylvaine person, he would have never made it this far! In the end, all he has ever done is borrowing the strength of others. He hasn't spent enough effort into improving his own strength."

"Meow meow meow."

"He's not a human anymore. There are many paths to ascension. Just because he calls himself a mech designer doesn't change the fact that he has far surpassed his mortal limitations. Every high-ranking mech designer is a god, essentially. The only difference is the degree to which they have surpassed their mortal limitations. My mothers have taught me that Star Designers are the scariest of all of them. Even I need to take a detour if I ever meet them in person!"

"Meeeoow!"

"Don't get me started on god pilots. They are combat freaks who are even more perverse. It's a miracle that they have emerged at all. There is no greater nemesis to a god than a warrior who can overpower any attack through limitless willpower. It is a pity that the final hurdle is so difficult to overcome. These powerful ace pilots must all brave death in the hopes that they can ascend through the force of their willpower alone."

A complicated expression appeared on her face. Though she had faith in her own strength and potential, entities at her level had learned to respect and fear the deities in human form known as god pilots.

"It's done!" Ves uttered as he just put the finishing touches to his spiritual firearm design!

Helena perked up and floated closer to his side. "Is that the complete design?"

Ves nodded. "Yup. I won't explain too much about how it is put together. I doubt you will be able to understand its mechanisms. Just trust me when I say that my Death Lotus will not disappoint you in terms of power. I just need to know whether you are happy with its visual design. Are you pleased by the looks of the two modes?"

"Hmmm…"

Helena found the Death Lotus to be charming. It completely fit her theme and would look great in her hands no matter the form.

The only point she was hesitating about was whether she wanted to add a bit of color to the Flower Mode and the Pistol Mode.

"On one hand, I feel tempted to ask you to make it red. However, that doesn't quite fit with my main element. Never mind. I am happy with the way it looks."

"Don't worry about it." Ves smiled. "The Flower Form may look like a plain black lotus, but it should have a bit of extra flair once I complete it. The appearance of the Death Lotus isn't static either. If you desire to change its shape or accentuate its current look, it will slowly grow to match your wishes. That is the benefit of owning a living product."

Helena grinned and gave him a hug. "I'm so eager to get my hands on this gift! Hurry up, Ves! I don't want any longer!"

"Okay. I'll go and prepare the ingredients. Don't forget that you will have to make a sacrifice as well. The Death Lotus can only be fully attuned to you if I make it out of your spiritual energy."

Ves did not speak any further nonsense and left his office for his personal workshop.

He did not forget to bring the masterwork mech figure of the Valkyrie Redeemer along as well. It not only acted as a relay for Helena to manifest her form in the vicinity, but also happened to serve as a small and useful container of her spiritual energy.

It was easy for Ves to obtain the other main ingredients of the Death Lotus.

Aside from his own spiritual energy, he also plucked a spiritual fragment from both Vulcan and the Illustrious One.

The reason why he wanted to make use of the spiritual fragment of the Illustrious One was obvious. Ves did not want to make a firearm that only superficially channeled Helena's death energy into a beam attack.

His sister could already do that by herself by projecting her energy from her spiritual form!

What Ves aimed to make was an energy weapon in its truest sense. This meant taking one form of energy as input before processing and transforming it into a form that inflicted much more effective damage to any enemies struck by the weapon's discharge!

"I really hope this works."

As for Vulcan, Ves added a piece of him to the Death Lotus in the hopes of emphasizing the engineering and the functions of his creation. He wanted his new spiritual firearm to be more of an object with a defined purpose rather than a pet with a more scattered focus.

"This should be enough. I don't need to add more."

More ingredients weren't necessarily better. They could add more complexity and other functions to the Death Lotus, but that would also weaken its strongest functions and affect its purity.

The last consideration he had to make was whether he should use up any of his universal life energy in order to speed up the growth of the Death Lotus.

He shook his head. "It shouldn't be necessary."

The Death Lotus was not an independent spirit but one that was attached to an existing entity. It could rely entirely on Helena to speed up its growth and evolution.

Ves felt that Helena would ultimately benefit more if she was able to feed and nurture her new spiritual firearm step-by-step!

"Alright, let's start."

After gathering all of the necessary ingredients, he took a deep breath before summoning Blinky from his mind.

Mrow!

"How cute! Your cat form is so adorable, Ves!"

Before Blinky could get to work, Helena's floating form instantly raced to his side and pulled him into a hug!

The Star Cat looked a bit comical for a moment as he tried to pry himself out of the Daughter of Death's embrace!

"Uhm, sister, can you let go of my cat, please? We really need to process all of the ingredients I've gathered."

"Ah. Sorry about that. Here you go. You can proceed."

Ves and Blinky proceeded to work while Helena and Lucky watched from the side.

The fact that Ves tackled an entirely new category of spiritual products did not stump him at all. The Death Lotus still possesses similarities to design spirits and companion spirits that he could continue to apply his existing framework and solutions.

The most important difference was that Ves had to make sure to sculpt and shape a lot more elements that ordinarily belonged to physical weapons.

While Ves was smoothly able to shape his ingredients according to his design, he still wasn't certain whether the Death Lotus in its initial state would be able to fire an attack comparable to an actual luminar crystal weapon.

The only way for him to find out was to complete his work and pass it on to Helena so that she could test its firepower in person!

"If this actually works… can I pair it up with my mechs?"

This was an interesting question and one that had massive implications for certain projects!

However, Ves did not dare to get ahead of himself. He needed to verify whether spiritual firearms was a viable concept first before he could think about applying it in other ways!