The Mech Touch

Ves slowly woke up feeling warmer and more cozy than ever.

He did not even need to open up his bleary eyes to know that his second daughter was pressed up against his chest. His arms embraced her tiny and deceptively fragile body as if she was a teddy bear.

It was moments like these that made him feel more fulfilled than ever. Though he did not consider himself to be the perfect father, he loved the job and wished that his children grew up slower to prolong the experience.

He still remembered that Andraste had been just a tiny babbling baby a few years ago. Now she had grown up into a cute little girl that talked and jumped around a lot. Her energy was inexhaustible due to her genetic package.

"Papa…" Andraste grinned as she felt his love through her prematurely developed spiritual senses.

With all of the spiritual boosts that Ves, the Superior Mother, Gaia and a couple of other design spirits bestowed on her, her spirituality was already stronger and vastly more developed than most people.

She could already sense that Ves was awake and paying attention to her. She cuddled even closer to his body as a response.

"I love you, baby."

"I love you too, papa~"

Andraste wasn't the only child who had decided to sleep close to her parents this time.

On the opposite side of the bed, Gloriana and their youngest son Marvaine were laying in a similar arrangement.

Marvaine was considerably smaller than his older sisters, but that made him even cuter. Gloriana often felt the urge to treat him like a doll to the point of wanting to dress him up in all kinds of playful outfits.

This time, she had dressed little Marvaine up in a green dinosaur onesie. He looked especially cute in it when he was wearing up his hood that gave him the illusion that he was a cute lizard that made a failed attempt at looking ferocious.

"Mama~"

"There, there, my baby. Mama is here. You can always come to me when you want a hug." Gloriana smilingly said as she stroked her youngest child's back.

Aside from Andraste and Marvaine, Aurelia was present as well.

As the oldest sister, she occupied the center of the large bed. Two cats pressed up against her as if she was a little queen that was surrounded by her bodyguards.

"Miaow~..."

The soft and furry form of Clixie rested in Aurelia's embrace as usual. The collared cat constantly maintained an active bond with the oldest and most spiritually-developed child, allowing the two to deepen their bond even when they were asleep.

"Meow…"

Though Lucky might not share the same intimate bond with Aurelia, the gem cat was also a part of the family.

The whimsical cat pressed up against Aurelia's back, his metallic form offering no discomfort after he made adjustments.

As light levels in the bedroom slowly rose as the morning light of Davute's star increasingly shone through the large windows, everyone slowly gained the energy to start off their long and fruitful days.

Ves was in no hurry to rise from his bed and shave his developing stubble.

His thoughts still lingered on the massive changes that he had experienced in the past period.

The return of the System, the choice of upgrades, the new and impressive System Space, the enormous upgrades to the old System functions, the addition of the Sacred Temple, the explosive revelations concerning divinities and True Gods and more all gave him a lot of food for thought.

He had plenty of time to process the massive implications of all of these changes and additions to his life.

What actually occupied his thoughts at this time was the massive gains he obtained from using up his lottery tickets.

The lottery tickets he had earned from completing the last Supply Mission as well as fabricating four masterwork mechs truly reminded him that it was worthwhile for him to please the System.

He managed to obtain an enormous windfall of goodies yesterday, so much so that he still couldn't wrap his head around what he could do with all of the stuff!

There were a number of goods that he didn't know what to do with. The Makian Tree Bark was an especially vexing lottery prize to him because he did not possess the expertise to make the most out of this organic material.

That was frustrating to him because the Makian Tree Bark was ultimately a prize obtained from a radiant lottery ticket!

Fortunately, there were plenty of other prizes that didn't share the same problem.

He already swallowed three different enlightenment fruits, each of which dumped a huge amount of knowledge in his head.

Though the integration process was seamless, Ves still felt relieved after he enjoyed a deep sleep.

It was only now that he could truly wrap his mind around all of the new and interesting theories and practical information that had taken up residence in his growing memory.

Ves was still new to Beast Design V and Senior-level Stealth and Cloaking. Much of the new theories were rather dry and boring, but there were still plenty of new insights and interactions that compelled him to work out a couple of new mech designs.

He wanted to start a new design round as soon as possible so that he could start on designing a couple of interesting beast mechs and stealth mechs!

However, mech design only occupied half of his thoughts.

The other half was devoted to the more mysterious and mystical enlightenment fruits that he had managed to obtain from the Wishing Fountain.

Swallowing the Heart of Steel Mantra Fruit had already changed Vulcan on a fundamental level.

With the knowledge that he possessed today, Ves recognized that Vulcan's previous spiritual composition was pretty messy.

It was not bad per se, but the incarnation's organic nature as well as his unstructured growth had caused his spiritual makeup to evolve into a complex but rather unfocused arrangement.

What the new and powerful mantra had done was take all of the important building blocks that were previously stacked into a messy hill and piled them up so that they looked like a pretty house!

In other words, Vulcan did not gain any additional power, but became much more efficient at utilizing his existing strength!

This was the power of a mantra that could reshape a life form's entire Divine Core.

It was awfully similar to mech design in a way. When two different mech designers had to develop a machine out of the same stack of materials, the better of the two would undoubtedly be able to make a significantly more powerful machine!

This was the entire reason why mech designers existed in the first place. The mech industry would never be able to accommodate so many different competitors if mechs were simple to the point where alternate designs were incapable of outperforming the initial ones.

While Ves had understood this truth a long time ago, he never really applied the same mentality to other living entities until yesterday!

When Ves thought of all of the design spirits he had made up until now, he wanted to palm his face.

He had overlooked so many details when he initially designed spiritual products such as Trisk and Gaia!

While it might have been inexcusable for him to barely know what he was doing when he just started out, he had been doing this for quite a few years now. The fact that he had yet to think about structuring the Divine Cores of his living spiritual products was a massive oversight!

He wasted so many opportunities to tighten up and speed up the growth rate of his design spirits!

Of course, even if he discovered that he could shape the Divine Cores into a more structured form, that didn't necessarily mean his efforts would be fruitful.

What the System referred to as a Divine Core was the essence of an individual. Any mistake would have serious consequences to the person that relied upon it. The sheer amount of complexity and other intricate elements in the design of the Heart of Steel already made it clear that it took a lot of expertise in order to make focused improvements!

One of the advantages of Ves' unique approach to spiritual engineering was that making his products alive automatically filled up the gaps in his spiritual designs.

By letting nature shape the Divine Cores of his spiritual products, his new design spirits always became functional.

The lack of control along with the reduced efficiency of these entities were hardly a problem to Ves. He had always assumed that their growth function would allow them to correct the flaws in their designs.

That wasn't true enough. While their growth indeed closed up the most obvious gaps, their evolution did not go far enough in improving their existing Divine Cores.

Focused design was able to accomplish a lot more than unstructured growth!

Vulcan agreed with this as well, because his incarnation spent all of his time on studying the Heart of Steel Mantra. The dense amount of information it contained was both mind-boggling.

Much of it was difficult to decipher. While the System granted Vulcan enough understanding to practice its formulas and so on, it did not help with understanding the spiritual principles and mechanisms that made the Heart of Steel so strong!

This was unacceptable to a crafter like Vulcan. The incarnation did not wish to shape his Divine Core around someone else's ideas and concepts.

Though the Heart of Steel was undoubtedly an exquisite design that had probably been perfected over many generations, Vulcan would rather break the equilibrium and settle for a weaker Divine Core if that was the only way he could shape it to his own liking.

This was why Vulcan had already begun a new personal design project that was centered around modifying the existing design of his Heart of Steel!

Of course, doing this was exceedingly risky, so Vulcan did not expect to make any gains in the short term. He had barely advanced his understanding of the most important principles that made the Heart of Steel work, and that was concerning.

Vulcan had already conveyed a request to obtain more knowledge on spiritual engineering in order to facilitate his attempt to reverse-engineer his new heart.

Ves silently nodded. He wanted to prioritize this effort because he had formed a plan to upgrade the Divine Cores of all of his design spirits in the future.

They were already powerful enough when they were in their current organic states. If Ves was able to augment them by designing specialized Divine Cores for them all, then it would be as if he had upgraded a bunch of mechs with vastly stronger parts!

Both Ves and Vulcan needed to work together in order to accomplish this goal. They might even have to involve the T Institute if their own efforts proved to be insufficient.

"What are you thinking about, papa?" Andraste curiously asked as her big eyes looked up at his face.

"Oh, stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Important stuff, like thinking about your next birthday gift! You've grown a bit bigger, haven't you, Andraste?"

"Um, hihihi!"

Ves smiled and kissed his redheaded daughter on the head. He loved her so much and wanted to boost her strength for the possible life she might lead in the future.

He already had a couple of enlightenment fruits in mind for his little girl. He already decided to reserve the Frost Talent Pill until Andraste grew strong enough to meet the requirements.

It was a bit more difficult for him to decide what to do with the Shadow Dance Dagger Style Enlightenment Fruit. He struggled to decide whether he should prioritize safety and hand it over to Venerable Tusa or whether he should be selfish and save it up for Andraste.

However, when he thought about the uncertain risk factors of his upcoming Trailblazer Expedition, he acknowledged that it was too much to deprive this powerful fruit from Venerable Tusa.

His cousin had not only contributed a lot to the clan over the years, but he was also an indispensable guardian of the Larkinson Clan. Making him stronger ultimately benefited every Larkinson under his protection.

Andraste would also be able to enjoy her life with fewer worries as long as Venerable Tusa ripped apart the enemies that tried to do her harm!

"I'll never let the monsters eat your body!"

"Papa!"