The Mech Touch

　　While Ves was easily able to engineer a stable balance when he designed the original Ferocious Piranha model, It was a bit more challenging for the Everchanger to replicate this scheme.

　　Still, this wasn't the first time the Everchanger replicated the glow of the Ferocious Piranha. Venerable Joshua and his expert mech had utilized it before in previous live practice sessions.

　　Once it learned the knack to balancing the glows of three design spirits at once, it only needed a few seconds to formulate the compound glow.

　　Everyone who had been paying attention to this experiment looked closely in order to see how the Everchanger was able to affect the voribugs this time.

　　By now, the insects were incredibly annoyed at being subjected to all of these inexplicable mental influences. They had attempted to move away multiple times. If the Larkinsons hadn't reinforced the bulkheads and stationed foot soldiers to prevent the bugs from slipping out of their cages, the alien creatures would have bugged out by this time!

　　"The voribugs are behaving in a nearly identical fashion to the glow of the Ferocious Piranha. They are showing signs of debilitation."

　　"I can see that." Ves said as he rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "The point of this particular exercise is not to see whether the Everchanger can do a better job than the Ferocious Piranha. This time, we need to engulf all of the alien ships with this glow. Let's disorient them all at once so we can quickly sweep them with ease!"

　　The Everchanger repositioned to the center of the ship formation. After a moment of preparation, Venerable Joshua resonated with the Iridescent Mercury integrated in his expert mech.

　　The resonating exotic reacted to his force of will and quickly caused the Everchanger's glow field to balloon by many times!

　　Many Larkinsons gasped and gazed in wonder as the glowing expert mech managed to affect an enormous volume with its glow.

　　By being able to stretch across kilometers in each direction, the glow field centered around the Everchanger was comfortably able to affect all of the alien starships without omission!

　　Just as expected, the insects soon reacted similar to how they were affected by the Ferocious Piranha. The individual glows themselves did not affect them too strongly, but the constant switch from calm to aggression and back again produced a lot of upheaval that the voribugs weren't able to cope against!

　　A lot of insects twitched and stopped in place. Many of them uttered pained hisses as they drunkenly moved around without direction.

　　A few of the older and more savage voribugs were able to maintain a bit of their wits. While they couldn't shrug off the disorientation effect entirely, they could still attempt to run away from the source!

　　A dozen small drunken-like voribugs crawled towards an exit, only for it to open up and reveal a bunch of Crosser heavy assault troops.

　　Each of the soldiers were armed with heavy shotguns and other equipment that were useful against voribugs!

　　"Fire!"

　　The fleeing voribugs stood no chance and got shot to pieces!

　　"Damn! The noise has startled some of the other bugs. They're starting to regain control of themselves!"

　　"They're still too slow. Sweep them all before they can run!"

　　The cluster of voribugs stood no chance! While the threat of death shocked the older and stronger voribugs into action, they still weren't able to fight as well as before due to the constant mental interference they were suffering from. It was as if they were sitting in the middle of a staring match between an angel and a devil!

　　As Ves and the others observed the efficiency of the extermination operation, they were satisfied with what they observed.

　　The voribugs became a lot easier to kill.

　　The younger ones were too underdeveloped to maintain their wits and became lambs to the slaughter.

　　The older ones were barely any better. They were able to run away but their lack of numbers along with the need to resist the Everchanger's glow caused them to be trivially easy to defeat.

　　"We've detected hundreds of hidden voribugs!"

　　"Kill them as quickly as possible!"

　　Since the Everchanger's glow affected such a large area, not a single corner of the alien ship was left out. The small voribugs that instinctively tried to hide themselves by lowering their activity levels and trying to use other powerful energy emissions as camouflage suddenly stood out now that they couldn't concentrate on hiding themselves anymore!

　　By the time Venerable Joshua became too worn out to sustain the enlarged glow field, the alien vessels had grown a lot calmer!

　　The results were pretty clear to Ves. Without reviewing the data, he estimated that over 80 percent of the voribugs on the ships had been dealt with in quick succession.

　　The lack of resistance and the inability for most of them to run away meant that it took much less manpower to wipe out an insect cluster!

　　Though there were still a fair amount of bugs that had managed to avoid the major sweep, the steep drop in numbers meant that the foot soldiers could hunt them down a lot more effectively than before.

　　"The duration is too short." Ketis concluded as she studied the data. "My husband isn't strong enough to resonate for so long. In the future, he'll be able to maintain this field a lot longer than before."

　　Ves did not look too disappointed. "I am aware of that. This is just a trial. The Everchanger's performance today has provided me with plenty of insights and also helped me confirm a few theories. From what I have observed, I think there is great commercial potential in fabricating an anti-voribug mech in the future."

　　"A mech like that can do more than incapacitate voribugs. They can mess up other weak creatures as well. That can be both good and bad."

　　Ah. She was right. Ves recalled that the MTA had announced a directive about how his products shouldn't be used to terrorize ordinary people.

　　Even though he was back in the Milky Way at the time, he did not think it was invalid in the Red Ocean.

　　He made a decision. "An anti-voribug mech is way too valuable if its glow can affect all life forms. Since I plan to sell it at a low price, I should make sure that it doesn't replace my Ferocious Piranhas and my other products. I think I can tweak its glow so that it only affects voribugs."

　　Ves would have to study a voribug up close in order to make that possible.

　　He instructed his men to keep exterminating the voribugs but at the same time preserve a few samples. They needed to secure at least one elder voribug as well so that he could study what made them different from their younger kind.

　　After he and his staff wrapped up the experimental session, Ketis walked up to him and caught his attention.

　　"Ves?"

　　"Yes?"

　　"I have a request. Can I access those organic statues of yours?"

　　"Huh?"

　　This was not a regular request. Ves paused what he was doing and turned around to study his former student.

　　Ever since she had returned from the evacuation ship, she had behaved a bit more subdued than before. The battle and the act of killing all of those aliens had undoubtedly left a mark on her. Was this why she wanted to borrow his Aspects of Lufa?

　　"If it's about your condition, maybe you should try to figure out your doubts on your own."

　　Ketis shook her head. "That's stupid. I'm not like Venerable Joshua and those other expert pilots. I'm not as stubborn as them. As a mech designer, I have always learned that I should achieve the greatest results for the least amount of effort. Instead of procrastinating and groping around, I can quickly get my answers by using the right glows of your statue. This is the most efficient solution that I can come up with at the moment."

　　"…"

　　Why did he feel as if she was breaking the script?

　　Compared to her husband Joshua, Ketis was actually being smart! Expert pilots and swordmasters typically didn't exhibit that much wisdom.

　　"Well, if you are sure about it, then go ahead. I won't allow you to access the Aspect of Transcendence, though. That thing is way too dangerous and I haven't performed enough studies to figure out how to use it in a responsible manner."

　　Once Ketis received permission, she quickly finished her own tasks before leaving the observation room.

　　Ves watched her go with a bit of concern. He actually wished he could help her more directly, but strong-willed people needed to develop their own ideas.

　　Even if their notions and principles turn out to be wrong, inaccurate or hopelessly stupid, as long as they continued to believe in themselves, they might one day be able to turn their delusions into reality!

　　He wondered how Ketis would be able to resolve her current problems given her special nature. Even he didn't know how she could keep progressing when mech designers and swordsmen needed to adopt vastly different attitudes to get any further.

　　"I hope it will work out."

　　He planned to study the footage of whatever Ketis was about to do later. If she actually succeeded in leveraging the Aspects of Lufa to resolve her current doubts, then he might be able to recognize another potential application for these creations.

　　Later on, Ves sought out Venerable Joshua who had just freshened up and changed his clothes.

　　The expert pilot looked a bit exhausted due to his prior exertion, but he also looked intrigued as he thought about his earlier experiences.

　　"Sir."

　　"Joshua. I have a few questions for you. How has the Everchanger been faring for you? Have you grown closer?"

　　Joshua smiled. "That's a given. I haven't made as much progress as in the beginning, but I am still finding new ways to strengthen my cooperation with my expert mech."

　　"You just cycled through a lot of glows. Did anything stand out to you while you tried them all out during the previous session?"

　　"Hm. Well, the new ones are noticeably weaker. A few of them are also a bit weird to me. I had trouble understanding them. Kalo doesn't have a strong presence and comes across as invisible sometimes. The Titania on the other hand…"

　　"She's taken from an astral beast that is over six millenia old." Ves stated. "You can't treat her like an ordinary design spirit. With all of her age and wisdom, I'm afraid that she might get up to something. Have you noticed anything odd when you channeled her? Did you ever get the feeling you were able to take control over the voribugs with her help?"

　　The existence of design spirits was still vague to most Larkinsons, but Joshua knew better. Ves did not have any reservations bringing them up with his favorite expert pilot. Letting him know more about them

　　"No, absolutely not. The Titania even expressed disgust at them. I think she had an encounter with them before and suffered from it. She can't do much to them in her current state."

　　Well, that made sense. Any resident in the Red Ocean would bump into the voribugs eventually. The longer they lived, the greater the likelihood of encountering the space pests.

　　Though Ves had faint hopes that the Titania would be able to influence the voribugs considering she excelled at controlling her offspring, he had been too optimistic.

　　The two belonged to vastly different species and didn't even get along with each other. It was ridiculous for him to think that the Titania could actually control the voribugs as if she was their queen.

　　The voribugs didn't even have queens as far as he knew!

　　He froze.

　　A strange idea suddenly popped into his mind.

　　What if… he could create his own voribug queen?