The Mech Touch

As Ves thought about how he could push his luminar crystal weapons to the next level, he suddenly received a notification that immediately caused him to set aside his current ideas.

He left the design lab and returned to his grand stateroom where his children along with a couple of cats had already gathered.

"Meow…! Meow…! Meeeeeooow…!"

"Are you finally ready, Lucky!?" Ves eagerly asked as he stepped close.

"Meooooow…"

His three children looked up at him in concern.

"Is Lucky okay, papa?" Aurelia asked as she held Clixie in her arms.

Ves responded with a reassuring smile. "You don't have to worry, my dear. His tummy ache will finally end after today. He's just about ready to use his litterbox this time."

He had waited a long time for Lucky to digest the huge amount of high-quality materials that the cat had unscrupulously devoured in Pima Prime.

There were many times where Ves felt tempted to feed his cat a laxative in order to stop his agonizingly long wait, but he held himself back every time.

Ves couldn't guarantee whether prematurely interrupting Lucky's digestion process would negatively affect the final quality and effects of the newly produced gems.

In order to maximize the value of Lucky's output as much as possible, Ves had to give his cat enough time to process as much materials as possible.

Of course, there was a significant risk that Lucky would end up appropriating all of the nutrition to upgrade his own body further, but Ves already formed an understanding with the gem cat in this regard.

A gem cat existed to produce gems!

How could Lucky possibly continue to function without fulfilling his primary purpose at all? There should be limits to how much he could keep everything he ate to himself. He needed to purge his 'waste products' from his body eventually before they began to harm his body too much.

It was already amazing that the gluttonous beast managed to postpone his bathroom visit for a long time.

"Meeeoow… meeeooow…"

This time, it became clear that Lucky really couldn't hold it any longer. The cat didn't even think about absorbing any further nutrition. He just wanted to remove the source of the pressure inside his body as soon as possible so that he could finally gain relief from his lengthy pain!

Ves sat down on the deck and began to wait for Lucky to get ready.

In the meantime, he distracted himself by playing and cuddling with his children. Their giggling delighted his ears and their happiness warmed his heart.

Mew mew…

Maaaw.

Mrow mrow mrow!

Nyaaaa!

"Miaow miaow!"

The cats also started to play around with each other. Little Mana, Yaika and Denny climbed up the bodies of the likes of Goldie and Blinky or started to wrestle for dominance against each other.

At one point, Ves happily explained what he loved about mech design.

He lifted his hand and activated a projection that showed his iconic works. From the Bright Warrior to the Everchanger, each of them possessed characteristics that no other mech designer could imitate.

"Do you see this mechs?"

His brown-haired kid eagerly nodded. "Those are yours!"

"Yup. They are mine. Each of them are attempts to bring my vision and my ideals to life. I have become so good at this that millions and millions of people are relying on my work every day. Whether it is enforcing the peace or beating up enemies, my mech designs are changing many people's lives for the better. That is what every mech designer aspires to do with their work. We either make a difference in society or we quit the profession and do something else in our lives."

His youngest kid looked with wonder at the projections of his mechs. Marvaine did not pay too much attention to the strength or mech type of the machines.

To him, a humble mech like the Desolate Soldier was just as impressive as an expert mech like the Everchanger.

This was because they were all designed by his impressive father!

"Is it hard to design a mech?" Marvaine curiously asked.

"It is difficult." Ves answered. "While it is relatively easy to design a basic mech if you have studied the right courses, it is incredibly difficult to design one that people want to pilot."

"Huh?" Marvaine looked confused.

Ves grinned and picked up a toy mech that the children had recently played with. The soft plushy version of an orange dinosaur looked cute but was lacking in details.

"It's like designing a toy that kids like you enjoy playing with." He said. "For example, what sort of toy do I want to design? How large do I need to make it? What should be its colors? How should I design its shape? These are only a handful of the many questions that I need to answer in order to design a new mech. Many of the problems that I need to deal with on a daily basis are a lot more technical than what you just heard. I need to use a lot of math and science in order to come up with answers that will allow mechs that weigh multiple tons and consist of millions of different parts to work."

Though Ves used a lot of complicated words that would have caused a normal child of Marvaine's age to feel utterly lost, the boy only grew more enthused at what he heard.

Perhaps he didn't understand all of the words, but he enjoyed the love and passion expressed by his father!

Marvaine reached out and grabbed the orange dinosaur for himself. "I want to design a mech too. Can you teach me, papa?"

Ves chuckled in delight. "Let's wait until you are ten years older before you decide what you want to do in your life. I don't want you to choose too soon and regret your choice. Besides, learning how to design mechs requires a lot of learning. The classes that you have taken so far are nothing compared to the advanced sciences and theories that you need to cramp into your little brain."

"Will you still teach me when I am old enough?"

"Of course I will!" Ves happily replied. "You're my son! I will help you find your own way or allow you to inherit my entire life's work depending on what you want. Don't tell your mother, but I will teach you tricks that I would never pass on to her. This is because she has different ideas about what makes a good mech."

Marvaine looked confused. "What makes mama's mechs different from yours?"

"That is a bit too complicated to explain, but I will keep it simple. My mechs may be flawed, but they are great at working together. Your mother's mechs on the other hand try to be as perfect as possible, but in my eyes they are always a bit empty on the inside."

Marvaine looked back and forth between the projections of mechs that were primarily designed by Gloriana and the ones designed by himself.

"I don't understand…" The little kid said.

Ves smiled and ruffled his baby boy's hair. "You don't need to understand. You should be playing with your toys instead of worrying too much about mechs. Wait until you are older and completed a few science classes before you think about this. If you have decided that you want to design mechs in the future, you will need to make a choice who you want to learn from. You can either learn from me or your mother."

"I don't want to choose. I want papa and mama to teach me everything!"

"That's not possible, Marvaine." Ves gently answered. "We can both teach general subjects to you, but once we start to impart our specialties to you, our lessons will conflict with each other. It is best if you learn from just one of us from beginning to end so that you will learn exactly what you need to know to inherit one of our design philosophies. Of course, if you insist on developing your own specialization, you can do that as well. You can design any sort of mech in the future depending on what you learn. I suggest you think about this early. The sooner you figure out what sort of mech you really want to design, the better we can tailor your studies to your dreams."

Ves actually wanted his son to learn from him but also pursue his own ideas. He knew that it would be a lot harder for Marvaine to engage in his own original research and develop his own innovations if he became too accustomed to relying on other people's work.

On the other hand, Ves really wanted his son to inherit his design philosophy and help him explore living mechs from another angle. The more people working on living mechs, the stronger and more varied they would become over time.

As Ves continued to regale Marvaine about the process of designing mechs in simple terms, Lucky endured a particularly strong spike of pain!

"MEEEEOOOOW!"

"Make way! Lucky urgently needs to go to the bathroom!"

Ves gently set his son aside and stood up while picking up his first cat.

The gem cat felt hot to the touch. It was as if Lucky had turned himself into a furnace in order to process all of the materials he had eaten into other forms!

"Let's give you a bit of privacy, shall we?"

"Meeeeeeow!"

Ves brought his pet to the nearest bathroom of his grand stateroom and closed the hatch to allow the mechanical cat to do his business.

Several minutes went by as Ves waited next to the hatch. He could feel spikes of energy and other activity from the other side of the closed entrance.

Almost five minutes passed until Lucky slowly phased through the hatch.

"Meeeeooowww..."

The cat looked tired to his bones. His stomach no longer bulged and his activity levels had dropped to the lowest point in many years.

Lucky floated to a nearby couch and fell asleep as soon as he landed on a cushion.

Ves no longer paid any attention to his gem cat. He unlocked the hatch as fast as possible before he entered the large and roomy bathroom.

He had already set aside a special metal litter box that was exclusively reserved for Lucky.

Three large and shining gems glinted in the light.

Though Ves did not detect any power from them, he already inferred that each of them were presumably a lot more powerful than the gems that Lucky had produced in the past.

"Please don't be weak!"

Ves quickly approached the litterbox and picked up the three gems in an instant. He eagerly inspected them with his System sight in order to ascertain their effects.

[King's Authority]

The authority of a fallen sovereign is locked within this gem. Increases the control of all transphasic parts of a mech by 100 percent.

[Jeremiah's Inheritance]

The discipline and pursuit of swordsmanship is captured within this gem. Increases the speed of learning swordsmanship and related skills up to a limit by 200 percent.

[Shield of Sacrifice]

The dying wish of a powerful soul is contained within this gem. Increases the damage resistance of a mech up to 100 percent in proportion to the damage it has incurred.

"...What?"

His initial reaction to the gems was not delight, but rather uncertainty.

Though the percentage boosts were impressively high this time, their effects were not as straightforward as Lucky's previous gems.

Ves even had the feeling that Lucky had scammed him once again.

It wasn't until he read the descriptions a second time that he realized that the strength imparted by these gems could be used to produce incredible results as long as he used them in strategic ways!

However, that was not his only gain from today.

The names and descriptions of the gems confirmed a theory that Ves had come up with after studying and making use of Lucky gems for a long time.

"So it's true. The power of these gems are truly derived from the strength of the remnants of powerful spirits…"