The Mech Touch

Ves looked ugly as he processed the list of demands from the Phase King.

A few of the requests weren't that troublesome. Ves already planned to design more transphasic mechs in the future, though most of them would probably be high-end machines so the Phase King would not be able to connect to too many mech pilots.

However, the quantity and quality of spiritual feedback from expert pilots was much better than millions of ordinary mech pilots, so the Phase King should have nothing to complain about!

It was the other demands that unsettled Ves. It appeared that the Phase King not only understood contemporary human society, but also comprehended the status and positioning of the Larkinson Clan.

The Phase King was not a stupid alien beast that was kept in the dark for over a million years.

Though the Phase King had died during the Purgatory Campaign, Ves had successfully preserved the powerful creature in spirit and finally brought him out to the wider cosmos.

Perhaps the Phase King initially couldn't adjust to the drastically larger and more complicated reality around him, but enough time had passed for him to acclimate to modern times as well as his new state of life.

In one sense, that was good because the Phase King appeared to be willing to become a productive member of society. Ves did not raise his design spirits just so that they could laze around and freeload off the spiritual feedback they received from the mechs under their supervision.

However, changes also made the Phase King shrewder and more willing to leverage his power over Ves and the Larkinson Clan.

This made Ves feel as if he needed to be a lot more careful about how he handled this situation.

Any deal he struck with the Phase King would not only affect his relationship with a single design spirit, but would also serve as a template of how he handled other powerful design spirits in the future!

Aware of how much of a precedent that this round of negotiations might set, Ves did not immediately speak out but instead forced himself to pause and think over the situation.

The Phase King introduced a lot of headaches to Ves by making a number of weird and unusual demands.

Ves did not want to indulge the Phase King or any of his design spirits too much. He wanted to make it clear that as their progenitor and the person responsible for providing new channels for spiritual feedback.

He should always remain in charge!

After figuring out how he should handle this issue, he turned back to Helena.

"I can agree to a number of these demands, but the Phase King should not go too far. It is difficult for me to bring a bunch of little brothers to life just so that he can boss them around and pretend that he is a king again. The life that he has lived in the past is gone. He's not even a fish-whale anymore since he has detached himself from his biological roots."

"Hey, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the Phase King doesn't think this way." Helena replied. "I've talked with him for a while and I have noticed that this demand is a lot more important to him than you think."

"What do you mean by that, sister?"

Helena crossed her arms. "You really don't know enough about us. Do you think that gods like us are content with sitting around in the dark while doing nothing else? We all have our own wants and needs. There's an entire plane where your so-called design spirits have started their own lives. No matter whether they are human like my mother or beasts like Qilanxo, they have all tried to find meaning in their lives."

"What are you trying to say, Helena?"

"You can't treat us like employees who are willing to slave for you every hour of the day. We want to relax, have fun and find fulfillment in our lives. We are a lot more human than you think we are. While most of us are able to find our own ways to occupy ourselves, the Phase King is different. He is too used to the idea that he is meant to rule over his lesser subjects. He has spent so much time at the top that he feels lost now that he is alone."

"I see. I didn't know that. I neglected to inquire about the status of my design spirits." Ves belatedly said. "I'll go talk to him directly to figure out what he truly wants."

He closed his eyes and made contact with the Phase King. He conducted a silent discussion which confirmed what Helena had said.

There was no way to lie when communicating directly from spirit to spirit. Ves could feel the desire of the Phase King in a clear and unambiguous fashion. The design spirit truly felt as if he was out of his element without any fish-whales to rule over!

As Ves negotiated with the Phase King about lending his power to blessed weapons, it became impossible to sway the design spirit from this crucial demand.

A king without a kingdom did not have any meaning!

Though Ves managed to negotiate away all of the other troublesome or excessive demands, the Phase King was adamant about becoming a king in truth again!

"It's impossible for me to give you hundreds of fish-whales to boss around in your own private kingdom." Ves told the design spirit. "It is a lot of trouble for me to create even one of them. Even if I agree to your demand, I don't have any fish-whale spiritual remnants on hand, which means I can't bring any genuine fish-whales back to life. I'll have to make new ones based on ingredients taken from your own spirituality."

The need to rebuild a semblance of his own kingdom was so strong that the Phase King did not mind all of these complications.

It didn't matter too much if the new fish-whales weren't identical to the Phaser fish-whales that he reigned over in the past.

This informed Ves that the Phase King wasn't necessarily asking to bring back the individual fish-whales that accompanied him for most of his life.

Instead, the Phase King just wanted to satisfy his own ego and feel as if he was in charge again.

The remaining negotiations progressed a lot faster than before.

In the end, the two signed a symbolic contract that allowed both sides to get what they wanted from each other more or less.

Ves agreed to create a dozen brand-new spiritual fish-whales. There were no excessive requirements for these spiritual entities. None of them had to be as smart, talented or powerful as actual design spirits. It also wasn't necessary to impart them with as much growth potential as the Phase King himself.

With Helena serving as a witness to this ground-breaking agreement between a human and a design spirit, Ves had a sense that he had just made history.

"I think you have done the right thing, Ves." Helena impishly smiled as she fiddled with her Black Lotus. "You're finally treating little old design spirits like us as equal partners rather than your subordinates. We are not like one of the many Larkinsons in your clan. We are all powerful and capable of helping you defeat powerful opponents with our strength. It is only fair to reward us for our contributions."

Though Ves preferred to maintain greater authority over his design spirits, he knew that it wasn't wise to keep exploiting them over the long term.

This was why he relented a bit and took a step back. By making the Phase King happy, he not only obtained the design spirit's gratitude and friendship, but would also be able to count on the powerful creature during times where his help was needed the most.

It was the same as with other close design spirits like Qilanxo and the Superior Mother. Ves knew he could always count on their help because they were so intertwined with him and other Larkinsons.

"Well, let's get this over with so that I can resume my experiment."

Though it was a bit tedious for Ves to create new spiritual products, the Phase King did not ask for much at the start.

Ves first sent out Blinky to collect a dozen small spiritual fragments from the Phase King.

He then processed the fragments before beginning to make brand-new spiritual fish-whales in quick succession.

Naturally, he did not spend that much time and effort on fleshing them out or imbuing them with lots of abilities and such, but the process still took place without any issue.

After all, the spiritual fragments taken from the Phase King already provided enough of a template to create new spiritual life forms that behaved almost identical to the fish-whales that the Phase King reigned over in the past.

Though there were still many differences and inadequacies, by the time Ves ended his exhausting run, a dozen new baby-like spiritual fish-whales aimlessly floated around without a care for themselves or their environment.

"Here you go, Phase King! Take your damn subject so that you can set up your own spiritual kingdom or something!"

The powerful design spirit happily arrived to take his new subjects back to his own private territory in the imaginary realm.

Ves took a brief rest before he finally resumed his original experiment.

He held the experimental luminar crystal pistol that he originally hoped to create a new and stronger class of weapons.

"Phase King, help me out here. Do whatever you can to amplify the power of this gun as much as possible!"

The design spirit answered by expanding his presence over the weapon and increasing his control over the phasewater-infused attack phase crystal.

The Phase King did not possess any understanding on how luminar crystal weapons worked, but he was familiar with its most basic principles.

The creature was only able to exert effective control over the attack phase crystal because that was the only part that Ves had augmented with phasewater.

This crystal began to glow and accumulate more energy as the Phase King tried to find out how he could affect this specific part. The attack phase crystal responded well to his manipulations.

As Ves sensed more and more power building up inside the experimental weapon, he suddenly realized that it might not be a good idea for him to hold such a dangerous object in his hand.

He quickly summoned a bot that could hold the gun in his stead before backing away until he reached a safe distance.

"Show me what you've got!"

Just before the bot pulled the trigger, the silhouette of the Phase King briefly appeared over the gun.

An animalistic ferocity radiated from the weapon as it finally fired a laser beam that not only drilled straight through the initial practice target, but also passed through two more identical dummies before striking the solid metal wall behind!

The pistol wound down while Ves quickly observed the results.

The target dummies each displayed damage that corresponded with getting hit by a laser beam, but it was not as bad as it could have been.

The transphasic laser beam had bypassed most of the obstacles in its way so that it was able to preserve much of its energies before reaching the final target!

The metal wall placed behind the dummies was meant to protect the rest of the workplace from incurring any damage. It was several meters thick and made of thick and dense alloy.

As Ves employed a scanner to study how deep the laser beam had extended, it turned out that this simple weapon that wasn't particularly powerful managed to penetrate the wall by over two meters!

"That is more than enough to damage the internals of a typical mech!" Ves gasped!

If the experimental weapon was able to penetrate so deep with an infantry-grade pistol, how much more would a mech-grade luminar crystal weapon be able to penetrate?

"Now this is a true blessed weapon!"