The Mech Touch

MROWWW!

Blinky's efforts were bearing fruit, though he had to endure far more strain than he had ever experienced up until this point. The digestion system he inherited from the Unending One not only had to process a huge quantity of spiritual energy, but also had to cope with five powerful elements!

The companion spirit's inability to quickly and efficiently digest four out of the five spiritual attributes of Cassandra Breyer left Blinky with little choice but to discharge much of what he absorbed.

This was why his body was surrounded by a growing windmill of four different energies. Though Ves was grateful that the separate spiritual energy outflows didn't interact with the material realm and destroy the Scarlet Rose, they increased the spiritual pressure in Compartment G-13 and made it a lot harder for everyone to remain cognizant!

"Meow…"

While Lucky was barely able to remain conscious, Nitaa had already been knocked out. Ves clenched his teeth and stretched out his hand.

The Larkinson Mandate that was attached to Nitaa's heavy combat armor flew out and fell into his grasp.

Fortunately, the antigrav mechanism built into the brace that protected the precious heirloom was unaffected by all of the spiritual pressure.

"Goldie! Lend me your strength!"

Nyaaaaa!

There was no way that the Golden Cat was oblivious to what was going on. While she was too weak to resist Cassandra Breyer directly, she could still channel a portion of her strength into Ves, allowing him to better resist the pressure.

His entire form glowed in gold, which caused him to form a powerful contrast with Blinky, who was surrounded with a shifting corona of green, blue, brown and red.

"Not enough! The pressure is still too strong!"

Ves needed to borrow more strength, and he knew just where he could obtain an extra boost.

"Vulcan, help me out!" He called as he used his other armored hand to grasp the handle of the Hammer of Brilliance.

His glowing form gained a more bronze tint as Vulcan readily mobilized his own power.

The total protection that Ves gained was just enough for him to move closer to the rampant spiritual sorceress. He cautiously stepped forward, his pace slowing as the pressure continued to increase as he approached the source of the current outbreak.

His spiritual senses became overloaded with different stimuli as different forms of spiritual energy assaulted him despite his borrowed protection.

Cassandra's spiritual energy was more potent and powerful than anything else that Ves had encountered!

Not even his mother or the dark gods could match the power released by this presumed spiritual sorceress!

The more Ves became exposed to the qualities of Cassandra's might, the more he discovered her depth.

Different from other spiritual entities, Cassandra not only maintained numerous powerful elements without any of them conflicting with each other, but also combined them in a way that resulted in incredible synergies!

Ves knew a thing or two about synergies, so he quickly managed to ascertain that Cassandra's power output was disproportionate to the amount of energy she contained.

In other words, she was able to exert far more power than she should! Ves estimated that her power output was at least a hundred times greater!

The reason for this was because of how she combined the five elements in a way that caused them to reinforce each other in an extremely complicated fashion that Ves couldn't even begin to explain, let alone observe in its entirety.

It was all a spinning mess to him, and the current circumstances didn't afford him the time to observe all of the new phenomena.

What he was able to figure out was that Blinky was somehow able to deconstruct Cassandra's amalgamated energies. This made her chaotic energy release a lot less dangerous and a lot more manageable.

The segregated elemental energies released by Blinky were far weaker and much more tame than if they were combined together. They posed much less harm to Ves or the surrounding environment so Ves didn't consider them a threat.

What was also important was that Cassandra somehow lost control of the energy passing through Blinky. The cat was apparently capable of wiping out her spiritual imprint, thereby preventing her from misusing the processed spiritual energy.

Mrow!

Ves initially thought that Blinky wouldn't be able to hang on for long, yet his companion spirit was actually growing a little stronger over time!

Since Blinky was based around Ves' spiritual attributes, the cat was incredibly proficient at handling metal-attributed spiritual energy. It was similar enough to mech-attributed spiritual energy that the cat only needed a small amount of adjustment to get used to the raw energy.

In fact, from his connection to his companion spirit, Ves was even able to learn more about this new and interesting flavor.

"It's… a higher-level spiritual attribute!"

Ves had the feeling that he had always been eating the same monotonous dish like rice for most of his life. This normally didn't bother him as long as he loved to eat rice. He even became more proficient in preparing it in different ways so that he could maximize the variety of his meals.

Yet no matter how much he was able to improve his preparation of rice, it was only a single food!

The metal-attributed spiritual energy from Cassandra Breyer was much more comprehensive in comparison. It encompassed more aspects and possessed a greater breath. It was as if it encompassed an entire food warehouse worth of ingredients!

His exposure to it made Ves realize that his own specialty was actually painfully narrow. Though he improved his ability to design mechs to an extreme, he gained no special improvement in terms of developing starships, infantry gear and other objects.

Normally, this didn't bother him that much. He dedicated his life towards designing mechs, so why should he distract himself by branching out into other fields? Though he dabbled a bit by creating personal gear such as his Unending Regalia, he had no illusions that he could compete against true armorers.

Yet now, Ves had a feeling that if he upgraded his mech domain into a metal domain, he would be able to excel in any productive field!

"Wait a minute, is this what is needed to become a Star Designer?!"

Everyone knew that Star Designers were good at designing everything. They no longer focused solely on designing mechs but put their amazing expertise to use in many other fields for the benefit of humanity.

Ves never really thought how Star Designers were able to do that, but now he suspected that he had inadvertently stumbled upon a possible answer.

His contact with different Master Mech Designers let him know that these powerful figures possessed the strongest and most exuberant mech domains that he knew of. It was hard to imagine that it could become any stronger once they advanced to Star Designer.

"Perhaps… the true answer isn't that their domains became stronger, but that their affinity for mechs transformed into affinity for all metallic creations!"

Ves couldn't even begin to understand how that was possible. It was no wonder that there were so few Star Designers in human civilization! Such a radical transformation was virtually impossible to accomplish!

Yet as long as any Master was able to make the jump, the strength and benefits they gained from such a miraculous change was absolutely amazing!

"What if…"

For a moment, a huge wave of greed overcame Ves. If he was able to absorb and integrate Cassandra's metal-attributed spiritual energy, he could comprehensively upgrade his mech domain and get a headstart on becoming a Star Designer!

His outlook towards Cassandra Breyer changed. His eyes grew hotter as he gazed at the mummified, blackened corpse garbed in an advanced vacsuit.

Before, he was scared out of his wits at confronting such an insanely powerful and most definitely a hostile ghost.

Now, he had the illusion that he was looking at the biggest vault in the galaxy!

"You're a treasure!"

As far as he was concerned, Cassandra Breyer was more valuable than an entire swimming pool filled with high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum! Despite possessing not one, but five powerful spiritual attributes, each of which was equivalent to the energy of a Star Designer!

Certainly, this realization underscored Cassandra Breyer's exceptional identity and threat level even more, but what of it? Greed could make anyone fearless, and Ves felt as if he had become a fearless god pilot at the moment!

"For all of your power, you're still a disabled zombie." He smirked even as the spiritual pressure released by the woman still strained his defenses.

Goldie and Vulcan were constantly expending their own energies in order to protect him, but that was okay. Ves could still call upon more design spirits such as Qilanxo to take over their jobs.

What was important right now was that Ves needed to figure out a way to take advantage of this unique situation while it still lasted!

"Of course, I also need to ensure my own safety." He muttered.

He closely inspected Cassandra Breyer's state in order to make sure that the woman didn't pull off any other tricks as she was trying to accumulate a lot of energy with her mummified hand.

He confirmed that her state was not that good and that she was continuing to leak a lot of spiritual energy as if she was a bursting dam. The uncontrolled nature of this turbulent outpouring reassured Ves that this was not an intentional process.

The lack of change was highly encouraging. Even though Blinky was obviously sabotaging Cassandra's attempt to pull off a big move, she never thought to cut off her energy ball or switch to performing another spiritual technique.

Ves suspected that she wasn't even conscious in the conventional sense at all. It was as if she was acting on instinct or some kind of sub-intelligence was in control of her spiritual existence.

This was great news!

What Ves feared the most was a conscious, sentient and intelligent opponent. Since Cassandra Breyer's behavior did not conform to these traits, it was a lot easier for him to take advantage of her current state!

"Blinky!"

Mrow?

"Feed some of that delicious metal energy to me. Let me try and absorb this delicious flavor!"

Mrow mrow!

"Ahhhh!"

Ves felt as if Blinky had stabbed his Spirituality with thousands of swords! Though the cat was able to tame the foreign energy, its quality and energy level was still far too high!

Metal-attributed spiritual energy turned out to be too high-end for the likes of a mere Journeyman!

He intuitively determined that he needed to be a lot stronger and more developed in order to harness this metal energy properly. As it was, Ves quickly reached his limits after just a few seconds of painful contact!

"I can't integrate this energy at all! I'm not ready!"

While Blinky quickly cut off the poisonous energy transfer, Ves quickly tried to recover. He breathed deeply as he felt as if he had run a marathon. His body wasn't tired but his mind and Spirituality were already worn!

A growing sense of unwillingness surged from his heart. He could see that while Blinky was able to cope with the metal energy better, the spiritual cat couldn't really absorb it. He could only harness it to fuel his own ongoing digestion process.

Did Ves have no other choice but to let all of this delicious high-end energy go to waste?

He should have brought his P-stones!

"Wait a minute, Unending alloy can also hold spiritual energy!"

An interesting glint shone in his eyes as he looked down at his own combat armor. He sent a mental command to Blinky, who cautiously transferred some of the purified metal energy.

The Unending Regalia soon began to absorb a vast quantity of high-quality metal energy, so much so that it had quickly reached its maximum capacity!

"Damn, that fast? I should have brought my P-stones!"

Maybe he should call over his expert mechs. Their larger size meant that they possessed a much larger capacity.

However, Ves quickly rejected this risky notion. Metal energy at those quantities was way too dangerous and would certainly produce a negative influence on both the expert mechs and their expert pilots.

Already, Ves felt increasingly more uncomfortable and stuffy now that his Unending Regalia became charged with so much powerful metal energy.

"I still have one more object!"