The Mech Touch

Ves' lengthy meeting with his latest Mastery experience host finally came to an end.

As much as Ves and Irene still had a lot more topics to talk about, the busy god pilot had a lot of priorities on her plate. It was unreasonable for her to set aside her immense responsibilities to keep him company for an extended period of time.

Irene still had a few more topics to talk about with Cynthia. The True Gods undoubtedly wanted to discuss more serious matters out of earshot of a mere Senior Mech Designer.

As Ves stood up and reluctantly let go of Emma, he bowed to Irene in respect and gratitude.

He also made an additional request.

"I need a storage medium for this powerful spiritual fragment. It is too conspicuous and dangerous to keep it in an exposed state. I am also doubtful whether any of the hyper materials I have back home is up to the task of containing its power."

This was a legitimate question. The first spiritual fragment that Ves harvested from Emma was back when he had just created her during the time when Irene was still an expert pilot.

Now that both Irene and Emma had become True Gods, the power locked inside the spiritual fragment had reached a whole new level!

Ves already started to entertain dangerous ideas on how he could make use of this amazingly potent spiritual ingredient.

However, it was best if he maintained restraint and kept it as untouched as possible. He knew from past experience that he could use it to summon an energy manifestation of Emma. This could be a powerful lifesaver, especially now that the improved fragment was able to support a much greater extent of her presence than during the Survivalist conference.

In any case, Irene acted on his latest request and made sure to provide Ves with a suitable container for the spiritual fragment.

She raised her arm and began to concentrate for a moment. Her god kingdom began to weaken its restraint just enough for Irene to break the laws of reality once again!

Ves grew amazed as he saw the god pilot employ one of the characteristic powers that was only accessible to True Gods and higher.

A small statue of a cat slowly came into being. The object closely resembled a static image of Emma and appeared to be made of an unknown variety of orange-colored hyper metal that was completely compatible with the destruction attribute.

It took less than a minute for Irene to create the orange cat statue out of thin air.

Ves grew incredibly envious of Irene's ability to conjure up high-quality materials out of nothing. He could employ this power in so many useful ways!

"Thank... thank you, Irene." He said as he carefully took hold of the floating cat statue. It felt warm to his touch. "I will treat it with great respect."

[Do not squander this gift.]

With that, his mother and the god pilot unceremoniously ushered him out of the secure chamber.

His vision blurred for a moment before he ended up in front of a security gate that was manned by the mechers.

"Meow!"

Lucky appeared next to Ves just as the mechers immediately became alarmed at their unexpected appearance.

Fortunately, the mechers soon confirmed their identities and sent them to a command room where a number of staffers and officers oversaw a part of the cleanup operations.

Ves met a familiar friend when he entered the room.

"Jovie."

"Ves."

"I think we need to talk."

The RA Senior nodded and gestured to the side. "I have already prepared a more secure location where we can have a chat."

They moved to a meeting room that promptly activated a jamming field along with other security precautions.

The level of security was not as high as before, but it was fine so long as they didn't talk about anything too important.

"Meow meow meow." Lucky resentfully hissed as Jovie.

"My cat is pretty upset about the lack of warning." Ves said as he sat down at the closest seat. "He has incurred a lot of damage. If Master Xieliq Quan's unexpected electrical blast was any more powerful, then Lucky might not be able to remain in one piece."

Jovie responded with an apologetic smile. "I am not in control here. Others made the decision that it was best to keep you in the dark, so we could not give you any forewarning. If there is anything that we regret, it is that we relied too much on the transphasic energy shields of Phoca Arena for protection. High-tech attack methods that can bypass energy shields entirely are rare, but not unheard of. We mostly assumed that they are only employed in known first-class weapon systems. We sincerely did not expect that the Dustweaver had the ability to launch such an attack a single time."

All of this sounded too easy to Ves. The mechers probably did not feel any remorse at all for using Ves as bait.

"Did you know or suspect that Master Quan was a human traitor?"

"No. Absolutely not. We are not that good, Ves. The cosmopolitans have perfected the art of infiltrating our ranks and hiding their true allegiances from our most effective means of detection. Master Quan is one of the highest-ranking leaders of his cell and most certainly upgraded his countermeasures to an excessive degree. Not even the Destroyer of Worlds should have been able to detect any malice from him until he took action. That is how challenging it is to root these hidden cosmopolitan leaders or sympathizers from our ranks."

It was not entirely the Red Association's fault that Master Quan had been able to threaten Ves to this extent.

Even if a more secure accident threatened to occur, the mechers still weren't completely worried.

From the moment the Destroyer of Worlds arrived from afar and volunteered her services for this secret operation, its success rate had increased to 99 percent!

Not even the arrival of an ancient phase whale could threaten Ves anymore!

This was also the reason why Ves did not feel so upset. Everything ultimately ended well. The various benefits that he received from his latest 'friend' also did much to improve his mood!

He did not miss the instances where Jovie directed wary and curious glances at the new orange cat statue.

It was too bad that Ves was not in the mood to explain. There was no reason for him to inform the mechers what he intended to do with Emma's spiritual fragment. This was strictly private business.

As both mech designers sat at the table, Jovie briefly summarized what happened after Master Quan had been taken into custody.

"Your final challenger may have been the only assassin who took action against your life today, but he is not the only person with hostile intentions. We have been monitoring the entire city and detected hundreds of suspicious individuals, though only a minority of them had designs for your life. The Destroyer of Worlds briefly utilized her god kingdom to conduct her own sweep. Together, we managed to identify dozens of people who looked for opportunities to make their moves or provide support to facilitate the operations."

That sounded incredibly concerning. Even if their chances of taking action were minimal due to the heavy security measures, the fact that they had been lurking in the neighborhood did not reassure Ves.

Aside from that, how many more people with ill intent managed to escape detection? Ves was not naive to think that the RA and the Destroyer of Worlds managed to catch every single threat.

"Did you manage to find any additional cosmopolitans among the captives?" Ves asked.

"Not initially." Jovie admitted. "As long as the cosmopolitans do not make any mistakes, it is fiendishly difficult to distinguish them from the crowd. The good news is that we have temporarily locked the city down. We have shut down all outbound traffic for half a day in order to buy time to root out any backup and support personnel. Our interrogators are working to obtain the names of his accomplices in his cell with the help of the Destroyer of World's god kingdom."

Ves narrowed his eyes. "Before Master Quan tried to take my life, he briefly talked with me about the Cosmopolitan Movement. He claimed that he was a part of the Indigo Cell and actually tried to invite me to become a part of his crazy group."

Jovie chuckled at that. He knew his friend well enough that such an invitation was doomed to fail.

"It is uncommon for cosmopolitans to invite outsiders to join their cells. Every new recruit introduces another security risk. It is much more common for the cosmopolitans to deliver fresh blood to their cells by raising them young. By indoctrinating the minds of children when they are still young, they can instill strong loyalty and prevent them from accepting the lessons taught by our Association. This is one of the many means the cosmopolitans use to maintain their secrecy over the ages."

"That sounds really tricky." Ves remarked. "How much of a problem are the cosmopolitans, exactly? From what it sounds like, many cells are embedded in our society. It is even possible that they had infiltrated the ranks of your Association."

"We employ many invasive detection and monitoring methods to minimize that risk. We are not too worried that the cosmopolitans will be able to abuse their positions within our organization. Their capacity to do damage in other states and organizations is admittedly greater, but as far as we know, the vast majority of the cosmopolitans who are living among us never undertake radical actions. The cosmopolitans are not terrorists. They are activists. They seem extreme in the only times where it is known that they have taken action, but they are outliers rather than the majority. Most cosmopolitans contribute to their cause by using their positions in society to steal valuable intelligence and technological secrets."

That actually made a lot of sense. Ves was not sure how much of that was true, but he grew a bit relieved after he learned that most cosmopolitans were content to stick to their roles as informers.

Ves turned his thoughts to the future.

"Now that we have thwarted Master Quan's attempt at my life, what is the chance that I will suffer another attack?"

"Much less than before." Jovy confidently replied. "The Destroyer of Worlds has personally taken action to save your life. The Ragnarok even made a brief public appearance. That sends a strong message to the public. Her Divinity has essentially signaled her support to you. Anyone who touches you will risk the chance that a god pilot will personally take action to track down the culprits and demolish them in person. Nobody wants to provoke an unreasonably powerful personality."

High-ranking mech pilots were incredibly willful. They placed great value on their promises and friendships. Anyone who tried to test these bonds would definitely make these god pilots furious!

Even the cosmopolitans did not have the strength to confront a god pilot head-on. Nothing good would happen if they provoked a god pilot to the point where the powerhouse went on a personal crusade against the Cosmopolitan Movement!

Ves felt relieved. "I see. I can make use of that. Hopefully, no one will be stupid enough to take action in the coming years. I don't want to get dragged into any trouble. I just want to design my mechs and complete my promotion to a first-class mech designer."

"We would like to see that happen as well."

"Will the Bluejay Fleet receive any reinforcements? I think it is more than reasonable to give me protection that is normally afforded to a tier 2 galactic citizen. After all, the bounty on my head has already reached this level."

"That... is a difficult request to meet." Jovie frowned. "Our core forces are stretched on too many fronts. One of the standards that we must meet in order to satisfy your request is to permanently assign an ace pilot as your principal bodyguard. That alone is problematic as each and every ace pilot is a critical asset in the war."

Ves sighed. "I understand. I will have to raise my own ace pilots."