The Mech Touch

There was clearly more going on with this freaky lightning storm than he initially realized.

"No wonder the Superior Mother started off so strong after her birth. The lightning baptism she received back then must have reduced all of her flaws and increased her growth potential as a consequence!"

On the one hand, this was good news to Ves. Who didn't like to undergo a comprehensive round of refinement? He could clearly feel he was transcending to a higher state of existence, though only slightly.

His cyborg cat received most of the benefits of this entire sequence of mystical events, so it also experienced the most dramatic changes.

Ves understood that it was for his own good. He was nowhere qualified to ascend to this degree in his current state. He would have never been able to absorb so much powerful galactic energies or resist so much raw destruction. Trying to challenge the lightning storm alone was a surefire way to commit suicide in his opinion!

This was why his cyborg cat served as an excellent surrogate. The divine artifact was able to attract the lightning bolts first because it was a true extension of himself since it absorbed a fragment of his Divine Core.

His cyborg cat may be an extension of his most fundamental self, but it was also a purpose-built product that was designed with a much wider tolerance for damage and a capacity for growth than his primary body and self at the moment.

Although the escalating power of the lightning bolts threatened to exceed the mending speed of his cyborg cat, for now his product was coping remarkably well with this situation.

Sadly, Ves wasn't doing nearly as well even though he was being protected by his own divine artifact at the moment.

"I'm the weak point!"

Even as his mind, Spirituality and body received continuous shocks that destroyed a lot in their wake before subsequently trying to mend the damage, not every part of himself was breaking down as quickly.

His Spirituality was faring the best. This was no surprise as it was his strongest Attribute by far. Ves had always been proud of how much spiritual energy he was able to harness and how finely he could manipulate it. He exercised his Spirituality as if it was a muscle almost every day, and it showed.

Now, his already strong Spirituality was not only handling the incoming damage like a champ, but also absorbed and harnessed the more benevolent creation energy for its own growth.

What Ves cared about the most was that the creation energy was able to act as a bonding agent that allowed him to merge small amounts of the powerful galactic energies into his Spirituality, thereby boosting it in a qualitative fashion!

His Spirituality became more substantive, more resilient, more sensitive, more precise, more versatile and so much more.

Though a part of him regretted that he wasn't receiving as much of a boost as his cyborg cat, he would take what he could get. As long as he was able to survive his current ordeal, his upgraded Spirituality would definitely allow him to boost his subsequent works to a much greater degree!

His mind also received a large upgrade.

He was no stranger to stressing out his mind or pushing it to its limits. The large amount of design work he engaged in was intellectually stimulating and always forced him to exercise his problem-solving capabilities.

Although his mind wasn't coping as well against all of the incoming damage, it was still able to maintain a stable equilibrium. The damage his mind sustained did not exceed its capacity to repair itself with the help of the incoming creation energy, at least for the time being.

He wasn't sure what would change after it survived this violent baptism, but he expected his productivity to soar after this. His ability to design products and conduct research should see massive improvements because of a massive boost in mental capacity and cognitive functions.

"It's as if my mind is becoming a more powerful processor."

His precious Intelligence-related augmentations had already allowed him to perform complex calculations in his mind. The boosts he was receiving right now would supercharge this aspect along with all of his other existing advantages!

"It's a pity that my flesh isn't able to keep up." He sighed.

CRACK!

As another lightning bolt smacked his cyborg cat and his body, he felt as if his brain was literally frying as his relatively vulnerable brain tissue was receiving way more damage than he could cope!

Although his body and more specifically his Jutland organ successfully managed to divert much of the current away from his most vital organs, there was simply too much destructive energy to spare his fragile brain from getting fried!

"I'm literally losing brain cells with every strike!"

CRACK!

"AHHH!"

It was a profoundly painful and distressing experience. His mind needed the support of his brain in order to function.

The rest of his body wasn't coping so well either. Even his Jutland organ that was best equipped to absorb all of the incoming energies was beginning to push closer to its limits.

Ves didn't really care about most of his body. Just liked his sawed off leg, he could make use of many different technological solutions to regrow or replace his missing limbs.

What he couldn't replace as easily was his brain!

It was the most sensitive, important and least replaceable human organ of all. If the ongoing rain of lightning bolts continued to shock him like this without end, then sooner or later the insides of his head would turn into a burnt egg.

"I won't be able to design any mechs anymore if I go stupid!"

Ves experienced a greater sense of crisis than before when he made this realization. The lightning storm was truly being serious about punishing him for his many sins, regardless of how well he had justified his case.

He could already tell that the lightning storm was just warming up at the moment. It hadn't even gotten serious yet because this mystical authority decided that Ves bore the blame for the deaths of so many humans and dwarves that he needed to be taught a lesson!

"Okay, okay! I will behave more carefully and stop acting as recklessly as before?! Is that what you wanted to hear?"

CRACK!

"AAAHHH! I will try my best not to trigger any cataclysmic wars that end up depriving quadrillions of people of their lives! I will try my best to limit the scale of victims. How about I limit any potential casualties to just a few trillion people?"

CRACK!

"AAAAAHHHH! Oh, come on! You can't expect a mech designer to do much better! Almost everything we make is designed to kill! Besides, every other action I take could potentially lead to the outbreak of a war. Do you expect me to lock myself in a cage and limit my interaction with the outside reality for fear of getting even a tiny bit involved in the onset of any violent incidents? That's impossible! Your judging criteria are way too strict!"

CRACK!

"AAAAHH!"

As Ves continued to be 'judged' for his 'sins', the more vulnerable parts of his body were starting to receive serious damage.

He could already smell his burnt flesh from within his suit!

The repeated frying of his central nervous system was also making it more and more difficult for him to maintain his focus and awareness.

He could not allow his cognitive functions to degrade much further. If he could no longer think straight, then he would no longer be able to solve this life-changing crisis!

"How can I prevent my body from failing?"

He tried several different solutions.

He changed his posture. He lifted up his arms. He lied down on the temple floor.

He even tried to leave the Sacred Hearth, but found that he was unable to move much further from his starting point for some unknown reason!

After conducting many quick experiments, Ves concluded that there was no way to avoid this punishment!

No amount of eloquence or movement could bring him away from this torment.

He developed the impression that if he managed to teleport himself to a completely different location, this damned sentient lightning storm would follow suit and continue to do its job!

"If evasion is not a workable solution, then I should put more effort into defense."

He began to treat this as a scenario that was similar to a mech exposed to withering fire.

Ves had already implemented a couple of solutions such as letting his Jutland organ do the heavy lifting.

This was not without a consequence. The Jutland organ was responsible for converting heat and other forms of energy into Worclaw energy, which was incredibly powerful but also highly destructive.

The Worclaw energy cycle that was coursing through his torso became more and more powerful. Only the fact that his body was getting better at coping with the pressure from this high-quality energy was stopping him from exploding.

Ves couldn't care that much about this process at the moment. The destructive damage inflicted by the sequential lightning bolts was a much more acute threat to his health and existence!

"I can't handle so much energy! My body was never meant to cope with so much power!"

Ironically, the limited size of his divine artifact was hindering his ability to cope with the situation. If it was larger and more powerful from the beginning, it could have been able to unload a greater proportion of the incoming strikes, thereby sparing him from much of his current suffering!

As Ves thought about how his cyborg cat was able to absorb much of the violent energies in his stead, his eyes suddenly lit up as he realized that he hadn't exhausted his box of solutions.

"Blinky! Get out and do what you are best at! I might not be able to handle so much excess energy, but you're different!"

Mrow!

Blinky was already getting shocked along with the rest of his Spirituality, but was different once the companion spirit took on a more active role.

The spiritual cat remained in his head but began to change the way he interacted with the destructive energies.

The cat opened his maw and began to suck in a part of what the lightning bolts were delivering.

Both destruction and creation energies entered its deceptively small maw and began to roil inside his stomach.

Mrow mrow mrow!

The destruction and creation energies were of much higher quality and potency than the normal attributed energies that Ves handled on a daily basis.

They were manifestations of fundamental concepts. They were energies that probably stood at the same level as the five elements. Ves even suspected that they ranked higher!

Still, no matter how fancy those energies turned out to be, as long as they entered the Star Cat's digestion system, they rapidly lost their power and transformed into spiritual energy that precisely aligned with his own domain.

As Blinky began to siphon away more destruction and creation energies, Ves began to overflow with far too much life energy than he could harness!

Much of it leaked from his body and dissipated into the environment. Though Ves found this to be a gigantic waste, it didn't matter as long as he was able to preserve his life.

Ves relaxed a bit as the addition of Blinky finally completed his defensive line.

His two cats absorbed so much of the power of the incoming lightning strikes that the proportion that went on to shock the more vulnerable parts of himself were much more manageable.

Of course, receiving less destructive energy also corresponded to receiving less creation energy.

The pace of his personal evolution slowed by quite a bit, but Ves did not mind too much.

"It's nice for me to grow stronger, but everything has a price. I don't have enough money to pay for the full treatment, so I can only settle for the budget option instead."

His body was way too fragile to cope with anything stronger, especially if this lightning storm was determined to continue to rain down punishment for a long amount of time.

Ves would rather play it safe and reduce the incoming energies to a more tolerable level to ensure he could preserve his life at the end!

While he was doing a lot better after putting Blinky to work, he frowned when he noticed that the power of every subsequent lightning bolt continued to grow a little stronger.

"If this goes on, then my current measures won't be enough anymore. I need to prepare another solution!"