The Mech Touch

"No." Ves eventually decided. "As much as your argument makes sense, it is not enough to disregard all of the reasons that object to having any further children at this time. Even if I am in favor of raising another son, I will most certainly bestow him with a name that does not sound anything close to Ylvaine."

"Will you not reconsider sir? The value of prophecies are undeniable. They have already benefited you in the past, and they can give you even more revelations in the future. We have entered the Age of Dawn. With Messier 87 bathing us in exotic radiation, seers such as your future son will be able to make much more powerful predictions."

That made sense. The ubiquity of E energy radiation made it a lot easier to fuel costly abilities.

Ylvaine's main problem in the past had always been his inability to pay the price of gleaning the future of more powerful beings.

The design spirit was unable to make any accurate and direct readings of the future whenever ace pilots, god pilots and other supremely powerful entities became involved!

This was also one of the reasons why Ves looked down on Ylvaine. His future sight could easily be blocked and interfered with if anyone powerful became involved.

Given that uncle Ark and grandfather Benjamin had both become ace pilot candidates at this time, the Larkinson Clan would soon reach a point where Ylvaine's sight would become even more restricted!

The only ways for this design spirit to regain its effectiveness was to become more powerful or figure out a better way to leverage E energy radiation.

It would probably take a lot of time before Ylvaine could overcome these hurdles. That meant that Ylvaine was of little use to Ves in the present.

Ves dismissively waved his hand. "I do not need to rely too much on this. All of this sounds far too sketchy and dangerous to me. I have enough confidence in myself and the rest of our clan. Knowing too much about the future is not always a good thing. It is better to preserve its mystery and avoid getting lost in all of this nonsense. Living in the future is worse than living in the present."

This was what he truly believed. His Mastery experiences had a strong influence on his views.

All of the times his consciousness traveled to the past and completely altered the timeline actually frightened him a lot.

Even though the current timeline already reflected all of the time travel shenanigans, including the ones that he had yet to embark upon, Ves always felt like he was toying with forces that he did not understand!

He did not like it when he lost control. His tolerance for this sort of stuff had diminished. He just wanted to continue to engage in honest mech design work without dealing with any further complications.

Samandra did not give up, though. She presented one more argument to her superior.

"Sir, even if you look down on prophecies, that does not mean that others will have the same attitude. Prophecy and foresight can bestow undeniable advantages when they fall into the right or wrong people. What do you think will happen to you and our clan if your enemies have prophets to advise them while you have no one except for a single design spirit, who you do not even respect?"

Ves immediately frowned. "From what I can gather, none of these supposed prophets are infallible. Didn't you mention earlier that Ylvaine failed to predict the Great Severing, thereby causing all of his prior prophecies and predictions to become invalid? This shows that he can only foresee one or several futures out of an infinite amount of possible outcomes. Since this is the case, there should be ways to exploit this vulnerability and completely scramble any predictions made by hostile parties."

"That is easier said than done, sir." Samandra replied. "Prophets know each other well. When one of them makes predictions that involve another, the latter can not only sense what has happened, but make targeted countermeasures that can invalidate this potential danger. The worst enemy of a prophet is another prophet. Even if you never intend to make proactive use of the abilities of a seer, you can at least be assured that a friendly one can protect you from this angle."

That sounded both dubious and unreliable. While this dynamic sounded similar to the duality of spies working as intelligence and counterintelligence agents, it all became a lot murkier when prophets took the lead!

Ves would much rather create a purpose-built design spirit that could employ a much more effective counter against this sort of crap!

Though Samandra tried to convince Ves of the necessity to birth a son called Ylvaine, the woman failed to get past his obstinacy.

Ves couldn't help but smirk when this outcome came to pass.

"If prophecies are truly useful, then why hasn't Ylvaine fed you with a debate strategy that can successfully win me over?"

Surprisingly enough, the woman did not look too disappointed.

"Who can say that our appeal has failed? While this is hardly the most ideal outcome, we have presented our case to you. It is up to you to decide what to do with the information that you have received. There is still time for the promised son to come forth. So long as you and your wife ever change your mind in the following two years, our glorious savior shall be born."

Why did Ves feel that these words contained another trap? Now, it was impossible for Ves to casually shove this suggestion out of his mind!

Perhaps he would constantly rethink this conversation and question whether it was a better idea to follow the framework set by this prophecy.

This issue was so far out of his area of expertise that he struggled to make sense of it all. Perhaps he needed a second opinion.

"Goldie. What do you think?"

The secure chamber became brighter and warmer when the Golden Cat manifested herself.

"Nyaaaa-"

"Mrow mrow."

The ancestral spirit playfully exchanged licks with Blinky before staring curiously at Ves.

"You should know what we have been talking about. What do you think about this nonsense? Is Samandra being sincere?"

"Nya nya nya."

"I have figured that out myself. Do you really think it is a good idea to follow her suggestion?"

Goldie looked uncertain. "Nyaa... nyaaa..."

"Ugh. So you don't know anything. Well, I can't blame you. This is way outside of your area of expertise as well."

There was only one particular entity that Ves knew of that probably knew a lot more, but he was incredibly reluctant to call her over.

He could do without her interference. Besides, who knew whether she could remain impartial when it came to her own possible grandson?

Women never made sense to Ves! The more irrational they became, the less trustworthy they tended to be. That seemed to be a universal rule.

Of course, it was not as if men were any better.

"You can go now, Goldie."

"Nya!"

Ves ultimately stuck to his decision. Though he had no way of knowing whether he had made the right choice, that was just a fact of life. He did not want his life to be dictated by vague predictions that could only ever make predictions about the highest probability future timelines.

Director Samandra Avikon eventually had to depart from the branch premises without receiving the solid promise and commitment that she was hoping to hear.

Still, the coy smile on her face showed that she still had faith that her earlier appeal might have made a difference.

The woman managed to plant a seed in Ves' mind that could sprout at any point in the next two years.

That was already enough as far as she and Ylvaine were concerned.

Ves let out a tired breath. "Next!"

Fortunately for his sanity, the next visitor did not make any insane requests such as making sure his fifth child would be born as a dwarf.

Ves would have no compulsions of kicking the dwarven envoy straight out of the Bortele System!

"The Eternal Vulcan Empire still relies heavily on mechs to fight against its enemies." High Priest Joja Firebreath gruffly explained. "We have no issue with them. We have many mech designers among our people, and they are more than enough to meet our needs."

"If that is the case, why come to me?" Ves asked.

"We came because there are mechs that only you can design. Our eternal sovereign is not pleased with the inability for our dwarven mech designers to create anything comparable to your famous living mechs."

The Iron Emperor had a good idea. He clearly recognized the strength and potential of Ves' products!

Yet whenever Ves thought about the insane plan that this crazy dwarven leader had in store for the future, his satisfaction immediately made way for dread.

There was no way that Ves wanted to get too closely involved with the Vulcanites!

Even though he was pretty sure that the Red Two already smelled an unusually close relationship between Ves and the Vulcanites, the two did not share any close relations at the moment.

The story would become entirely different if he started to design powerful living mechs for them just like what he had done for the Hexers!

"If you want me to design a batch of mechs for the Eternal Vulcan Empire, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. My schedule is already stuffed. I really do not have the time to fulfill any further commitments."

The dwarven priest smiled. "Our proposal should not slow you down. On the contrary. The opposite should happen. We wish to send a batch of young Novice Mech Designers that have recently graduated from our mech design universities. We would like you to let them work and study under you for a period of several years. This should be long enough for them to learn how to design living mechs from you. As long as they have received enough guidance for them to design living mechs in the future, they can work out the remainder by themselves."

Ves did not not expect to hear such a proposal.

"If you want your dwarves to learn how to design living mechs, why not enroll them into the Eden Institute of Business & Technology? That is the most proper venue for me to systematically teach students on anything they need to know about living mechs at their stage."

"Impossible." Joja Firebreath shook his head and scowled. "Ever since you became a tier 3 galactic citizen, the Eden Institute has become one of the most desired universities overnight. The amount of applicants has skyrocketed. Only Terrans can get accepted into the school. Very few foreigners are accepted anymore, and each of them have paid heavy concessions to get inside."

"That means that there is still a chance."

A bitter expression appeared on the shorter individual's face. "Not for us. Look at us, professor. The Terrans despise our people. We do not match their aesthetic preferences. They see us as ugly, short and unkempt savages that are only fit for drudge work. Under no circumstances has any respectable Terran university enrolled a dwarf. Hardly any of our people live in Terran space in the first place. Those snobby tall folk discriminate against us so much that even the best of us can never earn their appreciation and respect."

That surprised Ves a lot. He actually never thought that the Terrans would brazenly treat the dwarven people in this fashion!

The Terrans had always been nice, respectful and polite to Ves. They never acted too arrogant or stuck-up in his presence, but he knew that was only because his identity and accomplishments had crossed the gap between classes.

It was still hard for Ves to reconcile his good impressions of the Terrans with the much less flattering description that he just heard.