The Mech Touch

"Phew." Ves wiped an imaginary sweat off his brow. "Nothing bad happened in the end."

The accidental destruction of the Annals of Terra Vita did not affect the relationship between the Larkinson Clan and the Aduc Family.

Though the loss of such a precious relic was not a trivial matter, the Aducs who knew about it did not act as if they suffered any loss.

The rise of Gaia and her occupation of the body of the Old Lady was far more significant to the Aduc Family!

Gaia's emergence overshadowed every other concern that the Aducs might have. They didn't even care anymore about the fact that the Larkinson Clan originally blackmailed them into giving up a lot of concessions.

This was just as Ves predicted!

He once again experienced the power of faith. It seemed that whenever gods got involved, everyone that got taken in by them instantly lost at least 75 percent of their rationality and common sense!

"Not even scientists and engineers are exempt from this phenomenon." Ves contemptuously sneered.

For all of their passion for exogeology and exobiology, the highly-educated terraformers had allowed themselves to get taken advantage of way too easily now that Gaia had come into the picture!

Their current tolerance and lack of critical thinking was a far cry from how the Aducs initially behaved and sounded like at the beginning!

"I will never allow myself to fall into the same trap!"

Ves did not believe in any god and he intended for that to stay this way!

It didn't matter whether his new primordial earth 'goddess' had become so powerful to the point where she was able to harvest the earnest faith from all of the devoted worshipers of Old Earth without getting overwhelmed.

Faith was just another form of energy to Ves! As an engineer and a mech designer, no form of energy was sacred to him. Whether it was spiritual or not, he was confident he could design and make the right machines to harness every form of energy as long as he accumulated the appropriate knowledge and resources.

In his mind, Gaia was merely a living spiritual machine that accidentally got to absorb and process faith energy in advance.

Now that he thought about it, almost everything about Gaia was either accidental or unintentional.

As Ves leaned forward and picked up the wooden statuette of Gaia that he had recently created, he tried his best to reach out to his new spiritual product and see whether he could have a good talk with the entity.

"...Nothing."

Ves grunted in disgust as he tossed his little totem back onto the deck.

Gaia was still out of control!

If she was as weak as the likes of Kalo and Trisk, then he would have easily been able to smack some sense into the Mother of Earth.

Unfortunately, in his infinite wisdom, his decision to jumpstart her growth by sacrificing all of the universal life energy of an entire vial of high-grade life prolonging treatment serum was far more consequential than he thought!

While he expected this radical act to make Gaia a lot stronger from the start, she wasn't supposed to be strong to the point where Ves couldn't apply any levers to control her behavior anymore!

"Goldie. Come out and see me for a moment."

Nyaaaaaa!

The adorable ancestral spirit of the Larkinson Clan seemingly woke up and emerged from the Larkinson Mandate that was hanging on the side of his chief bodyguard's combat armor.

Goldie quickly floated over to Ves and pressed his cheeks with her own intangible form.

"You're such a good kitty." Ves grinned as he scratched her chin and stroked her slender back. "You're much more obedient than Lucky."

Nyaaaa~

"Why can't Gaia be as cute and open to dialogue as you. Maybe I should have made her as a cat instead of a human woman."

Nyaaaa!

The Golden Cat obviously liked the idea and wiggled her soft paws in response.

Ves sighed. "Gaia is one experiment that I will not repeat. I can't let my impatience get the better of me and pursue blind power at the cost of giving up control. Why spend all of that time, effort and resources into creating a new spirit only for it to go AWOL?"

Nyaaa nyaaaa.

"I would be grateful if you and your fellow spirits could do that. It might be too late, but anything you can do to pull Gaia closer to our clan is appreciated."

He talked a bit more with Goldie. Even though she had grown a lot smarter, wiser and more powerful after years of receiving spiritual feedback from an expanding and increasingly vigorous population of Larkinsons, to him she was still the adorable mascot that he made to liven up his clan!

Compared to natural spiritual entities such as the Titania and artificial spiritual entities that received a rapid growth spurt such as the Superior Mother, he still liked the ones that started off weaker but grew step by step alongside the Larkinsons over several years.

As Ves reflected on his current collection of design spirits, he concluded that he needed to slow down and consolidate his existing relationships with his intangible friends.

While Ves possessed the power to create any spirit as long as he had access to the right spiritual ingredients, blindly creating one spiritual product after another without managing them properly sounded like a disaster waiting to happen!

He frowned a bit. "I'll stop once I have dealt with the Phase King. There is no pressing need to add any additional spirits for the time being as my existing collection already covers a wide range of possible mech designs. Even if there is no perfect match, I just need to learn how to stretch and expand the scope of my existing options."

The way he differentiated Lufa's glow by selectively filtering out different components was a great source of inspiration to him. He felt that he could achieve entirely new results by tinkering with the glows of spiritual entities such as Helena and the Illustrious One.

"I need to increase my utilization rate of my existing spirits before I should think about adding any new ones!"

He already formed a few possible ideas on how to do that for his next batch of design projects, but he would have to wait until he could properly explore this research direction.

"Let's take care of my immediate business first."

For the following days, he spent time on various necessary chores.

He met with the Aducs several times in order to decide on how to staff and organize the T Institute's first round of research projects.

He provided his input on the selection of the site where the Larkinson Clan would build its first manufacturing compound on the surface of Davute VII.

He liaised with various other business partners such as the Murphy Family and the Voiken Family to increase his friendship with them and make sure their planned cooperative ventures remained on track.

He also made a start with tackling his design projects, though his heavy responsibilities prevented him from immersing himself into his work and entering the best possible state of mind to design his upcoming machines.

The reason why he couldn't put his all into his design work was not because Aurelia increasingly demanded his attention, but because he was waiting for one important event.

One day, his comm received a chime. Ves grinned as he received the notification he was waiting for. He reached down and opened his desk drawer in order to pull out a few boxes. "I'm ready to go at any time."

His body and cargo dematerialized from his office aboard the Spirit of Bentheim and almost instantly appeared at a secret location that did not look like any other places he had visited before.

"This should be an underground base." Ves quickly concluded.

The expansive entry hall was covered with strong materials and displayed several pieces of advanced tech. The markings and symbols instantly revealed that the facility belonged to the MTA.

A nearby gate slid open to reveal a familiar figure.

"Jovy! How is my fellow tier 6 galactic citizen doing these days? Am I finally cleared to perform my procedure?"

The MTA Journeyman twitched his lips in amusement. "Good day, Ves. Just to be clear, people don't generally mention their citizenship tiers or each other tiers in ordinary conversations. It is considered rude and improper to make unsolicited comparisons of one's status."

"Relax. We're buddies, right? Besides, we both belong to the same tier. We should celebrate this accomplishment!"

Jovie made a helpless expression. Ves was acting more and more familiar and informal around him. This was a type of behavior that he never received from his fellow peers within the MTA. They were all competitors as well as colleagues so their friendships were always marked by a sense of distance and rivalry.

"I don't know why I put up with you sometimes." Jovy said as he beckoned Ves to follow him deeper into the underground MTA facility.

"Hehe. I may be a respectable galactic citizen these days, but I have never forgotten my roots as a space peasant."

"You could adjust your behavior to conform to your new status, you know. I have heard that many space peasants are eager to do so once they have achieved their promotions."

"I'm not a normal mech designer." Ves smirked. "Unlike them, I like to stay true to myself. I think this is more conducive to my work and progression. I may put on different masks depending on the situation that I am in, but in truth I am most comfortable and productive when I am acting like my true self."

Jovy Armalon looked envious. "That makes sense. You have much more freedom to do what you want since you lead your own clan. I am not as free as you. No matter what, I must always maintain the decorum that is expected of a mecher. Behaving otherwise will tarnish the dignity and reputation of our Association."

"Hmmm."

Ves once dreamt of being born within the MTA, but he had long abandoned this silly fantasy.

The Association was a fantastic organization for many reasons, but someone who craved freedom and autonomy would probably hate the ridiculous degree of control and expectations that it set over everyone.

The two chatted a bit before Jovy brought up the most important issue.

"I see you have brought a couple of boxes. They will need to undergo an inspection before you can do whatever it is you need to complete the upcoming procedure. Are they dangerous?"

"No." Ves shook. "They're just space rocks. Slightly special space rocks, but they're pretty much indistinguishable from any other random piece of space junk that you can pick up from a nearby asteroid belt."

"If they're ordinary rocks, then you wouldn't have stored them in those lockboxes. Is there anything special about them that we don't know?" Jovy casually asked and fished for information.

Ves wanted to downplay the value and significance of his P-stones before he developed an  interesting thought.

In the past, he put a lot of effort into hiding and obfuscating the purpose of his P-stones and other spiritually reactive materials.

Now that he had developed a closer relationship with the MTA and a couple of its factions, why should he maintain his paranoid insistence of keeping secrets?

The Survivalists and Transhumanists were already on to him! They already became aware of at least half of his spiritual shenanigans and were constantly finding out more about his work over time.

"These P-stones as I call them don't look special at first, but they are extremely important for my work." Ves admitted after making a conscious choice. "They possess unique characteristics that many other materials lack. I will transmit you a document that details my studies on them. Right now, my biggest problem is that I haven't been able to find any new P-stones as of late, but if I can borrow the power of your Association, maybe you can alleviate my shortage."

If Ves could borrow the MTA's help to obtain more spiritually reactive materials, then he could massively expand the scope of his spiritual engineering work!