The Mech Touch

The mood in the high-end workshop grew tense and awkward.

It was hard for an old and grizzled survivor of the heyday of the Vulcan Empire to meet the architect of its rapid collapse and downfall.

How would Ves respond if he was in the dwarf's situation?

He didn't know. It was unimaginable that he could be put into this position himself. How he reacted depended heavily on how much he valued his former state and how much blame he laid at the hands of its purported destroyer.

Master Blacksmith Rogha Dunnerholm might lash out and resort to violence. This was the worst case scenario and would instantly cause the Creation Association to lose a powerful and highly capable craftsman.

Ves did not try to avoid this situation, though. This tension between them existed from the start and it would do neither of them any good if this situation dragged on any longer.

If he wanted to form a sincere cooperation with this former Vulcanite, then he needed to seek a confrontation and let the chips fall where they may. Whether Dunnerholm could reconcile himself with this outcome was ultimately up to him and no one else.

As the old, black-bearded dwarf tried to wrap his mind around the answers given by Ves, Dunnerholm eventually shifted his gaze from Ves' face and went back to staring at a prominent tool hanging from his side.

"That hammer of yours… is that one of your totems?" The old dwarf asked as his eyes became more intense.

"You could consider it that." Ves said. "Not all totems are created equal, however. Statues serve an ornamental purpose. They are symbolic in nature but do not serve a direct practical use. This hammer that I made a long time ago is much different. It is a symbol as well as a tool. Would you like to hold it in your hands?"

The offer surprised Dunnerholm.

"You would allow a dwarf, and one from a condemned state at that, to hold your precious tool?"

Ves responded with a generous smile. "Whether you are a normal human or a heavy gravity variant human doesn't matter to me. All I see in front of me is an artisan that has dedicated much of his life to the smithing craft. I have only seen you work on a single product so far, but that is enough for me to see you are a genuine artisan to be respected, even among mech designers such as myself. Anyone who has immersed himself in the crafts as much as you deserves to hold this hammer as far as I am concerned."

He put his words into action by unlatching the hammer from his toolbelt and offering it to the dwarf at an angle.

Master Blacksmith Rogha Dunnerholm didn't often get flustered or taken aback at situations.

At his level of proficiency, he had become accustomed to taking a leading position. His high status and high skill allowed him to take the initiative instead of letting other people take the reigns.

However, given how quickly Ves offered Dunnerholm to hold an item that was clearly of incalculable value, the dwarf could no longer reference his ideas on how a meeting between himself and the clan patriarch might unfold.

Ves Larkinson behaved so unpredictably and impulsively that the dwarf could not decide how to respond.

Perhaps this meeting may be a trivial matter to the patriarch of the powerful Larkinson Clan, but the master blacksmith had envisioned and simulated this encounter thousands of times in his mind.

When none of those imagined scenarios came close to matching the current situation, Master Dunnerholm simply short-circuited!

"Well?" Ves said in order to wake up the paralyzed dwarf. "Will you take my hammer and hold the first tool that is created with Vulcan in mind?"

"You would… you would truly allow me to hold it?" The dwarf asked as if he still couldn't believe what was happening.

After all, the older man had just confronted Ves in a less than polite manner!

However, it was exactly because this was not as important to Ves that he was willing to casually hand out his hammer. If it worked out, then that was great. If it did not work out, then at least he tried.

Several heavy seconds passed before the dwarf slowly stretched out his meaty, muscled arm. Dunnerholm's dusky skin made for a stark contrast against Ves' paler hand.

Eventually, the former Vulcanite grasped the handle that Ves freely offered.

From the moment Dunnerholm truly held the hammer, a powerful sense of resonance and fulfillment coursed through his body!

It was as if this was the first time that the dwarf truly met the god that he had worshiped since his birth!

This was an extremely odd statement in itself as Ves initially created Vulcan as a tool of revenge against the Vulcan Empire.

In a way, the current incarnation of Vulcan did not truly exist until Ves stopped by the Smiling Samual Star Sector and got ambushed by a bunch of man-hating dwarves.

Yet despite this oddity, Rogha Dunnerholm believed with all of his heart that Vulcan had been with him for almost a century!

The god he felt through his grasp must be the deity that had always watched over the Vulcan Empire!

He and every other dwarf who either emigrated to the state or was born in it shouldn't have been wrong about their beliefs.

It should be impossible for all of them to be deluded by a figment of someone's imagination!

As such, Dunnerholm completely did not entertain the idea that Vulcan was a 'young' god who was barely older than Aurelia, but instead thought he was meeting with an ancient mythical 'human' who had reemerged in modern times!

Ves did not deliberately try to confirm or deny any of the dwarf's notions.

It was so easy for Ves to control Vulcan to make an appearance and put on a show of deception. If done the right way, then it would be trivial to twist Dunnerholm's beliefs and convert him into a devoted slave for the rest of his lifespan!

Ves rejected this option, though.

Abhorrent behavior like this would make him no different than those manipulative cult leaders who utilized faith as a tool to control the ignorant masses!

As a proud secularist who believed in the power of rational science and that everything could eventually be explained, Ves did not want to go backwards.

Aside from that, Ves respected a master craftsman too much to mess around with this guy. It was the same for mech designers. As people who earnestly dedicated their lives to mastering a difficult and intricate craft, creators and makers should not try to drag each other down if they were not direct competitors.

Instead, they should seek to empower and improve each other so that they could advance the state of human industry and human technology as a whole!

In a way, the Mech Trade Association likely sprung forth from this collective desire and imperative, and Ves merely followed the same path.

As Dunnerholm resonated with Vulcan to a much more intimate degree than before, a part of him recognized how deeply Ves had favored him with this generous act.

"I have prayed to him all of my life, but this is the first time I have gotten so close to his greatness." The dwarf shakily said as his deep voice seemed to crack. "This is… beyond what I have ever hoped. This hammer… is a sacred object. To hold it in the hands that I have used to emulate and honor Vulcan by mastering a form of craftsmanship is… indescribable."

Much more was going on than a dwarf holding a hammer.

Due to how extensively Vulcan had become intertwined with the hammer that symbolized his domain, touching it was like making direct contact with the design spirit!

As someone who failed to activate his spirituality and lost the opportunity to do so when he had aged past the point where it was possible, Dunnerholm could have toiled for another century or two but never be able to do more than touch Vulcan's shadow!

To be able to go from reluctantly approaching Vulcan through the power of faith and belief to contacting him directly through the medium of a blessed hammer was an opportunity of a lifetime!

Dunnerholm knew hundreds of Vulcanites in his life who would literally kill in order to grasp the handle of this remarkable hammer for even a single second!

There was no way that he would trivialize this moment! Even now, he was committing every experience, every mood swing and every fluctuation into the depths of his heart and mind.

This life-changing experience permanently branded him, causing his life trajectory to take a different course than before!

Once the dwarf finally regained enough awareness, he gripped the hammer tighter in his strong, meaty fingers and stared up at the human who graced him with this blessing.

"You made this hammer, didn't you? It carries all of the hallmarks of your mechs, and more."

"I did." Ves plainly admitted.

""What is its name?"

"I call it the Hammer of Brilliance. It is one of several totems that I have created that have been imbued with a strong and symbiotic connection to a… different existence. I consider it to be an ancestral heirloom that may not seem like much at the start, but will steadily grow stronger and more impressive as time progresses."

The hammer did not look like an unimpressive object to Dunnerholm!

As someone who mastered the art of blacksmithing and worked with metal all of his life, he could definitely say that he had never held a more remarkable and exquisite piece in his life!

Sure, the hammer's initial craftsmanship did not reach his level, but that was hardly important to him. What mattered was that the hammer was not only made along the lines of Ves' unique design philosophy, but that it had also grown and evolved into a greater object than before!

It was difficult for Dunnerholm to track all of the changes that had taken place after Ves had made this hammer, but as a master blacksmith and a worker who had utilized hammers for his entire career, he could instinctively connect and trace the historical progress it had made.

It helped a lot that the Hammer of Brilliance was a living object in itself. A strong connection formed between the two as the ancestral heirloom not only like Dunnerholm, but freely shared its history and secrets to the dwarf!

Director Samandra Avikon became satisfied with what had happened.

"Mr. Dunnerholm appears to be melding with your hammer to a much greater extent than you, sir."

Ves threw a suspicious glance in her direction. "What are you implying?"

"Perhaps the hammer is better left in Dunnerholm's hand."

This did not entirely surprise Ves. "It is a much more fitting tool in the hand of a blacksmith rather than the hand of a mech designer. Much of my work centers around design rather than production. Even if I get around to making a mech, I make use of large industrial 3D printers or superfabs. Perhaps I might even change my mind and utilize high-tech materializers. Hammering metal by hand is completely impractical when working at the scale of mechs. Mr. Dunnerholm on the other hand tries to do that as much as possible, so hammers are much more intertwined with his profession and his work methods."

The entire experience not only changed Dunnerholm's life, but also taught a few lessons to Ves.

People possessed a remarkable relationship with tools. As humanity was a classical tool-using race, it was vitally important for the best craftsmen and makers to wield the best possible tools.

However, it was also important for different professionals to hold the right tools for the job. Ves created the Hammer of Brilliance in this form in order to form a strong connection to Vulcan, but it was not a form that was particularly conducive to mech design.

Only a blacksmith could use this tool to the best effect.