The Mech Touch

Ves was no stranger to pain, and the biomedical chamber did its best to respond to the mistakes he made when he programmed its initial instructions.

While he had been cognizant enough to account for his body's reduced sensitivity towards sedatives, he did not properly compensate for the fact that his half-alien body also broke down the dose at an abnormal rate!

The speed in which the sedatives wore off was so quick that by the time the device had cut off his leg, he had already regained much of his original pain sensation!

After the medical chamber practically doused his injured body with sedatives, it at least managed to complete the rest of its job with no further issues.

By the time Ves finally woke up, he awkwardly lifted his body from the chamber and hovered above the growth with the help of his antigrav uniform.

The lingering drugs and chemicals did a good job of suppressing the lingering pains and helping the rest of his body adjust to its diminished state, but Ves wanted to purge them out of his system as soon as possible.

"I can't proceed with the fabrication run if my mind is still impaired." He frowned.

As a somewhat qualified biotech researcher, he understood much better how his abnormal mental and physical state would negatively affect his work.

He couldn't do much about his missing leg, but he could still come up with a way to cleanse his body of most of the chemicals.

Could he handle it, though?

"I have to." He gritted his teeth. "I've worked under difficult circumstances before. A bit of pain is nothing compared to what I can get at the end."

Creating a divine artifact was about making sacrifices. Though Ves did not ascribe to the philosophies of the orven race, he acknowledged at least this much.

The pain he would experience throughout the fabrication process was nothing but another price he would have to pay in order to make the cyborg cat of his dreams.

The possible features and future potential of his upcoming living divine artifact more than compensated for all of his sacrifices!

"Besides, compared to the ancient orvens who initially discovered this method, I am much better off." Ves recognized. "My clan can easily regrow and reattach a new leg for me once everything is over. It will just take a few months before my body is almost exactly the way it was before. Technology is truly great."

It took a bit more time for Ves to recover from his operation and handle the remaining preparation for his crucial fabrication run.

One of the essential requirements to designing a proper cyborg cat was to install the right electrical components and circuitry to control its mechanical functions.

Although Ves tried to substitute that with organic substitutes as much as possible, there were still limits.

"It's best if I maintain a balance. The mechanical side of my divine artifact isn't meant to be an empty shell. It has to be equal to its organic side."

Both sides came with their own pros and cons. Ves aimed to combine as much of their advantages as possible so he could have it both ways.

He wasn't entirely sure whether he succeeded in striking the right balance, but he had a good feeling about this. The cyborg cat design was sound as far as he could tell and every ingredient was alright as far as he could tell.

As he donned his Unending Regalia once again, he noticed plenty of changes compared to before.

His personal suit of combat armor already made adjustments to account for the missing parts of his left leg.

Not only that, it felt a bit more hollow than before.

This was because he partially disassembled it so that he could pull out a number of redundant and less critical components from his advanced armor.

He couldn't help it. His cyborg cat needed circuitry and other advanced components. He couldn't make these essential parts out of a single exotic alloy, so he had to look elsewhere to obtain what he needed.

He built and maintained his Unending Regalia himself so he knew exactly what it could offer to him. The high-quality parts could easily be repurposed, reshaped or reprogrammed to help the cyborg cat control its non-organic systems.

Ves just had to accept that his Unending Regalia lost a bit of functionality as a result, though he tried to minimize the impact as much as possible.

"I originally didn't want to do this, but the only other way I can obtain a bunch of circuits is to buy a device from the Divine Bazaar and break it apart."

That was an unattractive option for several reasons.

First, the devices were all highly advanced, which meant that Ves would never fully grasp its components.

Second, Ves would have to spend even more Ascension Points than he already had at this time.

He already exceeded his original budget. He spent 25 AP on an enlightenment fruit, 35 AP on buying the exotic alloy to form most of the exterior of his cyborg cat and 10 AP to design his divine artifact.

"That's 70 AP in total." Ves grimaced. "Since I probably need to spend a day to make my cyborg cat, I will need to spend at least 1 additional Ascension Point."

This meant that he could only expect a measly profit of 29 Ascension Points at the end.

Was it worth it? Definitely! At this stage, he was even willing to suffer a minor loss if that was what it took to build a more promising divine artifact for himself.

The possibility that the cyborg cat could also play a role in disrupting the unclean whale's actions and save his entire clan from getting teleported deep into alien territory was another major benefit!

"It's better if I can earn a profit, though. I can't obsess too much over the long-term benefits of a powerful divine artifact when that damned prisoner from the Palace of Shame is threatening to cut my life short!"

Earning 29 Ascension Points was not as much as he originally hoped, but it was better than nothing.

After inspecting his ingredients one last time, he centered his mind and thought about his design.

"The design should work. Everything is where it is supposed to be. All of the parts and materials that I have prepared are up to standard. I only have to focus on making the end product."

When Ves next opened his eyes, he entered a state of total concentration.

Even the dull pain that emanated from his missing leg and the rest of his body no longer bothered him that much.

He first activated the machines responsible for altering, shaping and nurturing biomatter.

It felt a bit macabre for him to see his severed leg and carefully preserved legs with his own eyes. He did not even dare to hold it with his own hands.

He merely used a bot to transfer the container that held the limb to the right machine.

Once the limb was in place, he instructed the biotech device to follow an extensive plan to break down and reshape the flesh.

The limited size of the biomatter made it easy for Ves to confine the processes to a single advanced machine. The Workshop of Creation truly offered the best production facilities. Not only were their functions incredibly good, but they were also easy to work with. They were just so fast, precise and reliable that they could prevent many errors that would occur when working with lesser devices.

Ves still took the time to supervise the initial and most important processes. He wanted to make absolutely sure that the biotech machine did not glitch out and waste the raw ingredients!

"I can only do this three more times before I run out of legs."

He could only spare his upper left leg, his lower right leg and his upper right leg in total.

After that, he would have to start with chopping off his arms, which he absolutely did not want to do because he loved working with his hands too much.

"Speaking of handwork, I should proceed with fabricating the mechanical parts for my cyborg mech."

He always felt a bit awkward when working with biotechnology because it didn't involve enough tactile processes.

Ves essentially had to instruct a machine to process raw biomatter into a biological seed and wait for it to grow and mature by absorbing the nutrients in a mineral-rich pool.

He felt frustrated by his lack of direct control over the growth process, but he had to admit that it was rather convenient that he could work on other tasks while the organic side of the cyborg cat gradually took shape.

Ves felt much more at home once he began to work on the mechanical side of his divine artifact. He quickly returned to familiar territory as he processed the diverse collection of parts taken from the Unending Regalia.

The material composition of these parts were diverse. Much of it was made out of a combination of Unending alloy as well as more specialized materials that offered superior electrical conductivity and so on. There were so many different materials that all had their own uses that Ves had to be careful about wasting the limited quantities he had available.

"If I botch these steps, I will have to pull out even more components from my Unending Regelia to replace what I have lost."

His determination to not let that happen added a lot of pressure on his shoulders. He deliberately reduced his pace and spent extra time to make sure he was doing everything right.

"I feel as if I've turned into Gloriana."

No matter what he thought about his wife, he had to admit that she produced much less waste than any other mech designer under normal circumstances.

Eventually, he came to the point where he had to fabricate the structure and the exterior plating of his cyborg cat.

This was the simplest task but also a fairly tricky one considering that he was working with a material that he had never handled before.

[Permanent Mimic Arcutuleum Platinum]

Price: 35 Ascension Points

This metal bar consists of Arcutuleum Platinum, an exotic variant of platinum that is many times harder but is only slightly denser. This metal has undergone special treatment that has lasted for 57 years that has imbued it with an affinity for extraordinary power as well as additional properties. The treatment has made the Arcutuleum Platinum into a permanent mimic substance, which means that it will partially imitate the properties of another material upon contact.

As far as exotic materials went, this one was not as weird as many others. The reason why he settled for this material as opposed to others was because it was spiritually reactive and because of its mimic properties.

Ves didn't really value the ability to mimic other materials. What he was after was a material that conformed to his divine artifact's themes and overall design direction.

He chose Permanent Mimic Arcutuleum Platinum because he suspected that it would promote the fusion and synergy-related functions of his cyborg cat.

"Now that I think about it, this exotic material reminds me of Lucky."

There had to be a connection. Lucky's metallic body was able to absorb or assimilate the strengths of other powerful materials on a permanent basis.

This gave Ves the suspicion that Lucky might be made out of a higher-end version of Permanent Mimic Arcutuleum Platinum.

"Perhaps I am slowly drawing closer to the crowd that originally made Lucky."

Ves was not in a hurry to discover Lucky's origins. He wouldn't be able to do anything if he learned the truth.

In any case, working with Permanent Mimic Arcutuleum Platinum turned out to be a lot more troublesome than he thought.

Its properties were already active in its current form, which meant that every time Ves attempted to manipulate the metal, portions of it would keep mimicking the material properties of his workshop devices and tools!

"Is there a way to stop this madness?!"