The Mech Touch

Ves had gained the clarity that he had been looking for. After thinking about his choices from many different angles, Gloriana helped him find a way out of the maze that he had built up around himself.

In one sense, Calabast was right. He was lucky and privileged beyond any mech designer's wildest dreams. The possibilities teased by the System would have made countless people green with envy!

None of them were useless or invalid to his situation. No matter what he chose, he would always be able to make it work somehow.

What he truly needed to consider was how his choice affected his future work and motivations.

The more defensive choices that the System had presented such as the sixth and seventh upgrade track were not only selfish, but also limited in scope.

They solely existed because Ves frequently worried about his ability to defend himself if he was stripped of all of his guards.

While Ves acknowledged that these concerns were real and legitimate, he did not want to live out the rest of his life while gripped by his own fears.

Perhaps that was not the safest approach he could choose from, but Ves would rather take more risks and live a more fruitful life than to keep hiding away inside a fortress of his own making.

His decision to take his entire clan and alliance on the Trailblazer Expedition reflected his desire and conviction. He was not a person who prioritized safety and the reduction of risks over his more aspirational ambitions.

Ves would feel lost if he no longer did his best to pursue his goals!

Personally, he felt that he had always been at his best when he gave into his passion and put his whole being into his work!

He recognized that a large reason why he worked so hard was because he was trying to seek personal validation. There was nothing wrong with this because everyone craved recognition in one form or another.

He also recognized that he had an ambitious streak that dreamt of pushing his vision onto society. He wanted to convert as many people in the mech community to the wonders of living mechs!

Ves believed so much in the premise that living mechs could become the new standard in the future that he was willing to take many risks in order to make this dream come true.

This was the conviction that could push him all the way to Star Designer!

The last thing that Ves wanted to do was to add more distractions in his life. Anything that did not align with his core activities as a mech designer risked leading him astray.

Ultimately, Ves would be worse off than before in that situation. Realizing his design philosophy and becoming a Star Designer should remain as his highest priorities.

Before Ves headed off to a secure location in order to confirm his choice, he stayed in the garden in order to enjoy a bit of quality time with all of his children.

"Hihihi! Look, Papa! Wendy the Tiger says that I've been a good girl today!" Aurelia boasted.

She presented a plushie tiger towards her father. The fluffy toy in question wagged its tail and acted more like a housecat rather than the predator that it was supposed to represent.

"Good girls share their gifts with their friends~" The tiger toy uttered through its hidden speakers.

Ves lowered himself to the grass and accepted the plushie. The soft and exquisite materials befitted its handmade construction. He knew his wife's craftsmanship well enough to know that she had personally made it for her daughters.

Suddenly, the tiger plushie squirmed and tried to escape from Ves' grasp.

"Meow!"

Lucky, who had been lounging in the vicinity, quickly jumped in the air and tackled Wendy the Tiger!

"Naughty boy! Is this how you treat a lady? Boys are not allowed to touch girls like myself!"

"Meow meow meow!"

"Bad boy~! Bad boy~!"

Ves slowly frowned. What kind of nonsense lessons did his wife program into the interactive toys that she made for her kids?

Both Aurelia and Andraste tried to take Wendy the Tiger back from their father!

"Let go, papa! Wendy will cry if you make her upset!"

At this time, Ves wanted to do nothing more than to take the stupid toy apart and reprogram the stupid tiger's dynamic lesson plans!

Fortunately, Gloriana wasn't the only one that played this game.

He nonchalantly tossed Wendy the Tiger over his shoulder and picked up another interactive plushie.

"Tigers are boring. Play with this instead. Papa personally poured his love into making this toy."

He grabbed a pink miniature mech and placed it in Aurelia's hands.

Compared to the works of his wife, the toys he made for his girls were much more alive. The pink mech truly conveyed his love for his daughters!

Aurelia didn't look too excited by it, though. She passed the pink mech to her younger sister who eagerly embraced the cool miniature mech!

"Look at my future expert mech! Whoosh! Pew pew pew!"

After he finished checking up on his two daughters, he moved over to the sandbox where his son had made a decent attempt at building a fortification.

Marvaine stacked several colorful blocks on top of each other while adding further detail by molding the malleable material they were made out of. He also piled a lot of sand at the bottom in order to give the fortress more structure.

"What are you making, son?" Ves gently asked as he sat next to his industrious heir.

"I am building my new home!" The clever little Larkinson exclaimed. "Mama said that you will take us away from home and bring us all to your cold and dark ship."

"Don't listen to what your mother is telling you. Space isn't scary and ships aren't cold and dark. They are homes just like this little castle that you have built. The only differences are that they look a lot more cylindrical and that they can move around. Wouldn't it be cool to live in a home that can move from one place to the other? There is an entire cosmos out there, Marvaine. There are lots of cool aliens and even cooler tech that we can encounter once we begin our travels. It will be just like that cartoon about that funny captain that is gallivanting across unknown galaxies!"

"I don't want to go to space! I want to stay home!"

Ves looked even more annoyed than before. Gloriana certainly had done her work in instilling her ideas into the heads of their children!

He took his time to put some sense into his son's head before he left with Lucky.

As much as he wanted to spend the rest of his day with his kids, he had a System to attend to. He had already kept the damned thing waiting long enough. Now that he had made up his mind on which upgrade track he would take, there was no reason to delay the matter any further.

Besides, Ves was incredibly eager to receive the rich rewards that he had earned a long time ago. He would have already enjoyed the fruits of his labor if not for the fact that the System had been offline for such a long time!

After rubbing the head of his brown-haired son one last time, he rose up and headed inside the Royal Mansion.

He spared no attention to the tasteful and opulent interior that his wife had personally designed.

He instead walked right through and headed towards a secure section in his personal home that led to an underground entrance.

Fifteen minutes later, he entered a thick and secure chamber that was similar to the one that was built inside the Blinding Banshee.

Although the walls were a lot beefier due to the abundance of space on a planet, it was arguable whether it was more secure. There were a lot of people in Davute, some of whom devoted their entire time to spying on others.

However, Ves did not feel too bothered by that. The System had thoughtfully altered the method of interacting with it so that no one would know what he was truly doing.

It was best to take precautions, though.

"Lucky, go do your job."

"Meow?"

"Fine! I'll feed you an extra lump of high-grade exotic!"

"Meow!"

Lucky grew a lot more enthusiastic after that. The cat dutifully floated around while examining the completely empty chamber.

It was only after he returned while finding nothing suspicious that Ves concentrated his mind and reached out to the System.

His entire consciousness disappeared from the material realm and entered into the same dark and mysterious space.

A sense of weight and gravity overtook Ves despite the fact that he wasn't connected to his body anymore.

Ves took one last time to think over his options.

"Mental Projection can be incredibly powerful under the right circumstances, but it is not really what I am all about. I am not a manipulator behind the scenes who enjoys breaking into other people's heads in order to mess with their lives."

"Mech pilot Cultivation allows me to shore up the other side of the partnership between a mech and mech pilot. Being able to repair and improve genetic aptitudes is worth sacrificing everything else the System is able to offer."

"Spiritual Ascension strengthens my best specialty and allows me to create a lot more powerful spiritual applications. It also grants me a lot more personal power and can help me fight against more esoteric threats."

"Technological Supremacy is no doubt useful in almost every circumstance. Technology is both versatile and strong, and mastering it to a greater extent is always a great way to get ahead in today's society."

"Ultimate Craftsmanship may be a bit redundant due to having Vulcan, but choosing this practical upgrade track sounds like a surefire way to excel in an area that can allow me to make much more powerful mechs and products."

"Unparalleled Combat can be useful in some situations, but why should I do the job myself when there are so many others that excel in this aspect? Fighting by myself sounds like the stupidest idea in the galaxy."

"Personal Piloting Cultivation is similar to the last upgrade track. While it sounds nice to pilot my own mechs, there is no reason for me to compromise the purity of my path and let myself go astray."

Putting all of these options together caused him to settle on just two of them. He had narrowed down his choices to Mech Pilot Cultivation and Spiritual Ascension for a long time, but could not make up his mind on a single selection until recently.

His thoughts lingered on Mech Pilot Cultivation for a moment before he shook his head.

"I believe in the power of my mech pilots. I also believe in the power of my own solutions. What this upgrade track can do, I should be able to do as well. If I go for Spiritual Ascension, I will probably gain the tools and help needed to replicate many of the functions that the System can perform. I just need to build the mechanisms myself from scratch."

This approach fit much better to a mech designer, creator, engineer and service provider such as Ves.

He was already accustomed to solving problems that no one else could solve by developing his own solutions. Choosing Spiritual Ascension not only allowed him to maintain his current approach and outlook towards his work, but also do it a lot better than before!

"Designing and creating new stuff is my true passion! If I want to develop lots of new and powerful innovations that no one else can come up with, then I need to master the field that has been the foundation to my rise in the mech industry!"

Ves had made the decisive choice to double down on his specialization and catch up to the Five Scrolls Compact in terms of spiritual engineering!

"I choose Spiritual Ascension!"