The Mech Touch

Ves finished his preparations for his upcoming 'correctional' surgery.

He prepared all of his props, including the spiritually-empowered images which would hopefully shape the development of his latest 'spiritual product'.

In general, Ves tried to keep them simple in order to minimize the occurrence of complications.

"What can go wrong will go wrong." He explained to Gloriana. "While that doesn't necessarily translate well to single instances, it's best to minimize the damage by exposing as little vulnerabilities as possible."

"So you've decided to build off William's existing traits and personality rather than take a heavier hand in reconstructing his personality."

"That's right. I'm reducing the difficulty as much as possible and making it so that I can let the process occur as organically as possible."

This meant that his image of the new William corresponded a lot with William's current state.

The new William should be mute and uncommunicative.

The new William should be a calculating but also courageous mech pilot.

The new William years for greater power in order to bring the Urbesh Clan from the brink of dissolution.

The new William ought to be a good team player in battle despite his lack of communication.

All of this 'spiritual programming' corresponded to either the original William or his Nyxie side. Ves just wanted to emphasize the more desirable aspects in order to make sure they transferred to the spiritual product that took over his test subject's mind and body.

He only introduced a couple of original programming in order to achieve some necessary goals.

First, he added in an image which emphasized that William was a completely functional and normal human being.

Even if he turned out to be a spiritual abomination, then at least he shouldn't behave abnormally! Licking other people's arms for no reason or developing a penchant for devouring human flesh was an instant giveaway that something was very wrong with William!

The next set of programming was meant to keep William silent on matters that Ves didn't want to leak. Every memory related to spirituality, mind operations and all this stuff should hopefully disappear from the new William! Even if that wasn't possible, the spiritual product should at least keep his mouth shut!

Ves believed he should be able to get away with these minor additions.

He thought about adding some sort of compulsion to be completely loyal to him, but that was too much intervention. Such an alteration was too large and disruptive, resulting in significant complications that might warp the new William into an entirely different entity!

It was also unnecessary.

"Every spiritual product I've made so far is already predisposed to respect me and look up to me." He explained. "They are all my children in a sense, and each of them regard me as their parent. A significant portion of my spiritual energy runs through their spiritual makeup, as it is necessary to provide them with the spark of life. I think I can rely on this interaction to keep William honest."

"If the new William really ends up like your other spiritual product, then he'll return to a newborn state, at least from a mental aspect." Gloriana pointed out.

"We'll just have to raise him over again. I intend to hand him over to the Larkinsons with the excuse that he suffered from some sort of weird mental trauma that caused him to suffer from amnesia."

"The Larkinsons aren't stupid, Ves. The Avatars have fought alongside William for months during the Sand War. They'll definitely start to wonder why he's completely different."

"I'll do my best to encourage them to cease asking questions." He frowned. "As long as they know what is good for them, they'll stop poking into matters that aren't any of their business."

"Will the Larkinsons be able to train William to the point where he's both a functional human and an expert candidate in time for the deadline of your mission?"

Ves wasn't employing the new William as a design spirit, so he wouldn't progress like his other spiritual products.

This meant that the new William would likely take longer to mature, but Ves believed it was okay. He still had some time left before the deadline approached.

What Ves cared more was whether William would be able to break through to expert candidate in time!

There shouldn't be any problems related to his spiritual potential. It had already grown quite sizable after Nyxie contaminated William's spirituality.

The key and the point of this entire operation was to achieve a unified, coherent mind that was conducive towards the formation of a force of will.

"I forgot about this!" Ves slapped his forehead.

He didn't want to perform a very dangerous operation only to gain nothing in the end! If the new William failed to merge his spiritual potential with his will, then Ves might have well not bothered in the first place!

He halted and tried to think what kind of value, principle or emotion William should adopt as his raison d'être.

Perhaps it wasn't necessary for Ves to make this choice on his test subject's behalf, but he wanted to minimize as much uncertainty as possible.

He couldn't afford his test subject spending years or decades to explore his true self! Skipping this potentially-lengthy process insured that Ves would be able to achieve quick results!

"I'll have to make a choice that best conforms to William's new personality." He rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "One that is powerful enough to make him dedicate his whole life towards."

What did William fight for? Ves actually didn't know. He never bothered questioning the mech pilot properly after he went mute.

Prying answers from a man that wanted to stay uncommunicative was an exercise in futility.

As Ves gazed at his unconscious test subject, he suddenly snapped his fingers. "I don't need to ask him! I'll just lift the answer straight out of his mind!"

Ves proceeded to concentrate and delve into William's unconscious mind and spirituality.

He was already familiar with the division between the original William and the presence of Nyxie. What Ves wanted to do was investigate their respective motivations.

It wasn't difficult to figure out their motivations. The original William wanted to become a powerful mech pilot and be worthy of leading the Urbesh Clan back to power. This was something every mech pilot from the Garlen Empire dreamed of, especially those born into clans and tribes!

As for Nyxie, the ancient alien's motivations were kind of obvious. The alien wanted nothing more than to restore himself to power and dominate the galaxy or something.

"The two aren't exactly the same, but there might be a way for one to feed the other."

Both of them wanted to gain power. Ves preferred the new William to steer his drive towards a more healthy direction such as trying to gain power in the martial-oriented Garlen Empire.

The last thing Ves wanted to see was to create a monstrous butcher in human skin that proceeded to use his extraordinary power to kill as many humans possible!

"I think I know what to do now."

He proceeded to alter and tweak some of the images he made to emphasize this aspect of the original William as much as possible. In fact, Ves might have gone overboard and exaggerated this desire, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing!

As opposed to mech designers who developed a distortion in their personalities as a side effect of their progression, mech pilots needed to develop a strong obsession before they took their first step to godhood!

It was kind of odd how mirrored they were. Who came up with the methods to advance as mech pilots and mech designers? They certainly didn't appear out of thin air shortly after the formation of the Mech Trade Association!

Ves shook his head. This wasn't the time to consider these matters. He had a spiritual procedure to perform.

"There. That should do it. This is as good a motivation as any for a Garlaner."

He wanted to warp the new William into developing an obsession for power. The mech pilot's ultimate goal was not just to restore the Urbesh Clan to power, but also advance to ace pilot and become eligible to succeed as the emperor of the mighty Garlen Empire!

With such an ambitious goal in mind, Ves did not believe that the new William would slack off in his advancement!

"Do you think I've covered everything?" He asked his girlfriend.

She shrugged. "I don't know, but I think you've covered everything that's necessary. It's up to you now to transform William into a mech pilot that can make his clan proud. Prove your worth as a god in the making and a giver of life!"

Ves directed an unamused expression towards her. "Don't be so melodramatic. I'm not a god and I'm not creating life out of nothing."

"I know you can do it! Go on! Make an expert candidate out of William!" She cheered and acted as if Ves didn't say anything!

He gave up on her and focused his attention on William. He made sure to check if the sedates would still keep him unconscious. The last thing he wanted to see was William waking up and screaming murder!

Once he made sure that William was under control and the lab chamber was fully isolated and enclosed, Ves mustered up his spiritual strength and began his operation!

"First step! Shatter the ingredients!"

This was a hard step. Ves had to force himself to think of William as a spiritual product instead of an actual human being!

The moment he did so, Ves felt as if he had crossed a point of no return. Once he took this step, he would never be able to regain the shred of innocence he lost today.

"It's for a good cause!"

He pushed aside all of his doubts and resolutely employed his superior spiritual strength to shatter the split spirituality of Silent William!

Different from a partial and incomplete spiritual fragment, the whole spirituality of a living human being was intrinsically stronger and more durable. However, Ves was so much stronger that he could easily resort to brute force to shatter William's spirit!

The moment he did so, William's unconscious and restrained body buckled as if it had been stabbed in the heart!

An extremely essential part of him had perished! Though his body and mind were still sound and untouched, without a functioning spirit, he was no better off than a clone!

Ves needed to move quickly to minimize the consequences of this crude operation. He shattered the spiritually-empowered images he made before blending the pieces with the shards of Silent William's spirit.

After that, he quickly proceeded to merge the pieces back together. It was just as if he was creating a regular spiritual product like Bravo or the Solemn Guardian.

The fact that the process of piecing together a living human's spirit was no different from creating a spiritual product disturbed Ves on a profound level.

Was Gloriana truly right? Were humans no different from products on a spiritual level?

Whatever the case, the fact that there weren't any significant deviations in the process was also a blessing. The chance of complications should be low as long as nothing came and messed with the operation!

Just as Ves started to relax and settle into a routine, he suddenly noticed a presence that wasn't there before!

Ves honed his spiritual senses towards the new presence and realized that an unwelcome guest had butted into the process at some point!

"What the hell is this?! What is it doing?!"

The new spiritual entity was small but surprisingly concentrated. Not only that, it was doing something to the forming spiritual product that wasn't in his plan!

Ves diverted a spiritual projection to shove it outside William's mind, only for him to fail!

This tiny, concentrated presence was extremely difficult to deal with! Not only that, but Ves recognized its spiritual flavor!

"Cassandra Breyer!" He uttered in shock, attracting a confused glance from his girlfriend! "Damnit! Can't you just stay put like the mummy you are?! Get out of my experiment!"