The Mech Touch



What Helena said at the end shocked Ves beyond his wits.

If there was one big regret in his life, it was his sorrow that his mother hadn't lived long enough for him to grow up under her care.

Though he had reached the age where he no longer particularly yearned for his mother's care, he still possessed a lot of affection for the woman who gave him birth and provided him with his happiest early memories.

Even though the current version of his mother diverged considerably from the gentle and pleasant woman that he remembered from his past, that did not change the fact that he loved her like any child would feel towards a parent.

If there was a way for him to bring Cynthia Larkinson back to life in the flesh, he would definitely pounce on the opportunity.

No matter how difficult it was or how many resources he had to expend in order to make it happen, he would find a way to get it done so that his father could finally spend the rest of his life with his loved one in a more ideal fashion!

Ves stared at this skull which seamlessly contained spiritual energy from two different sources without mixing them up. He did not know why this was important or how it was related to bringing his mother back to life, but he needed an explanation from his spiritual sister!

He turned towards her. Right now, the woman glowed with so much joy that she looked as if she had literally risen from the grave!

"You need to tell me more, Helena. Start with explaining the differences between baseline humans and these so-called primordial humans."

"They are both humans, just like how dwarves are humans that just happened to be built differently." Helena replied. "The differences between modern baseline humans and ancient primordial humans cover other areas, though. In your world, it is similar to the differences between a budget mech and a premium mech, no, expert mech!"

"Are you calling modern humans like myself the cheap and inferior version of the human race?" Ves frowned.

"Baseline humans are not inferior, Ves. It is not my intention to insult this group. They are a product of their times, and the same applies to primordial humans. Many eons ago, human society as you can call it used to be a lot grander. The humans that lived at that time were all powerful beyond what you can imagine. These were glorious times, and one that can not be equaled anymore because the galaxy is no longer able to sustain primordial humans anymore."

Although Ves had already speculated that this might be the case, he still couldn't remain skeptical of this outlandish story.

"Weren't humans supposed to be cave dwellers on Earth at the time?"

"Oh, Ves."

"Hey! It is a legitimate question!"

"This is not an easy question to answer." Helena answered in a more reluctant tone than before. "Our mother has given me a history lesson, but she merely brushed over the major events. I suspect that she does not know much about those periods either. What I can tell you was that a cataclysm occurred that fundamentally broke the Milky Way and possibly regions. The galaxy never became the same again and much of what made primordial humans great… could not be repeated anymore. Do not ask me what happened next. I can only say that after all of the dust has settled, primordial humans have left the stage and the group that you call 'baseline humans' have become the dominant strain."

"..."

This was a heavy history lesson even if it was woefully light on the details. Ves had so many questions that he didn't know where to begin.

"Let me guess." Ves eventually spoke. "The reason why David's skeleton is a suitable raw material to bring our real mother back to life is because… she is also a primordial human, right?"

Helena gave him a brilliant smile. "That is so. Do you know why she is so powerful in life as well as in her unlife? Her race plays a large role in her rise. Primordial humans are powerful, Ves. They are naturally gifted and can easily master powers that are out of reach to baseline humans."

"Are you sure our mother is descended from this group? You just told me that primordial humans went extinct."

"Since when did I say that, brother? I merely mentioned that they have left the stage. That does not mean they have all died out. It is true that the vast majority of primordial humans have died out, but there are still ways for a small population of remnants to maintain small, isolated populations. These enclaves have survived for many ages and some of them still exist up to this day."

Ves became less surprised than before. It was easy enough for him to make this guess after learning that his mother was a descendant of this small but extremely special group of ancient humans.

It explained so much, to be honest.

"Does the Five Scrolls Compact consist of primordial humans as well?"

Helena nodded. "Not entirely, but their upper ranks may as well be completely comprised of them. The leaders of the Compact take great pride in their bloodlines and heritage. As you can imagine, they consider themselves to be racially superior to all of the other variants of humans that are part of modern human society. They have always believed that it is their birthright to reign over lesser humans. They do not even consider baseline humans to be of the same kind as theirs."

That sounded awfully familiar to how the orvens structured their society. The gulf between the upper castes and the lower castes were so enormous that the orvens could not fathom they could get along with each other as equals.

"The Age of Conquest. That was driven by the Five Scrolls Compact, right?" He asked.

"You can say that about the Age of Stars as well, but you can also argue that baseline humans were already doing well for themselves. Mother describes it more as a collective effort. Without the two major strains of humanity working together, their civilization wouldn't have been able to survive the most difficult period and expand so quickly once they gained their stride. It is only later on that differences arose that became increasingly more difficult to resolve."

It was interesting how Helena framed the rebellion of the MTA and CFA as a political affair. The greater truth was probably a lot more profound, and he bet that the Sacred Scrolls played a large role in the disputes.

"Let us get back on track." Ves said. "How does taking David's skeleton back to mother help with bringing her back to life? If she is one of these so-called primordial humans, isn't it easier to just dig up her grave and clone new flesh to wrap around her extremely valuable bones?"

Helena started to circle around Ves, paying constant attention to the glowing skeleton while she did so. "Ah, the situation is not as simple as it sounds. As you know, our mother isn't actually 'dead' in the traditional sense of the word. Yet it is undeniable that she has died. She was already cursed and dying from the moment she fled to the Komodo Star Sector in order to escape pursuit. Her affliction sapped her of all of her strength while she was trying to prolong her life. Bringing you to term and such drained her more than you could ever know. By the time she passed, her bones had already been drained to a much worse state than these bones."

That sounded like a cruel and awful curse. Ves could not imagine what could have laid his powerful mother low. He felt he had been more than correct in his decision to evade the cultists of the Five Scrolls Compact by fleeing to the Red Ocean.

Though it was improbable that he could avoid the tentacles of the Compact forever, he could still delay a confrontation by continuing to go on far-off expeditions that were far removed from planets such as Davute.

"Okay, I get it. Her old body is used up until it has been wrung dry. How does using David's skeleton help? It used to belong to a completely different primordial human. The skeleton doesn't even belong to a female and I am pretty sure that hundreds of thousands of years of resting inside this funeral pyre has caused it to lose a lot of value."

"You know nothing, Ves. From my perspective, these bones are almost perfect. The fact that they belong to a man is not an issue as I am sure they can be reshaped. The fact that they have been so well-preserved in an environment as static and sterile as this abandoned prison facility means that it has remained untainted by any filth. Only time has worn it down, and that is good news because any lingering resentment or other strong attachments have faded away. It has been cleansed down to its deepest parts. Our mother will not experience any backlash by appropriating it. Do you understand?"

"I think so…"

"The complete skeleton of a primordial human is not the material we need to make our mother whole again." Helena seriously said. "We need to gather many other materials, but you do not need to worry about that. Our mother and father can collect the supplementary goods on their own. The primordial skeleton is the core that brings it all together. The ritual absolutely cannot proceed if it is absent."

Ves found it quite coincidental that he got kidnapped to this pocket space before subsequently stumbling upon exactly the right skeleton during a breakout attempt.

Helena's presence was also crucial. If she hadn't been around to encourage him to dig through this pile of alien bones and identify the extraordinary origins of the skeleton, then he may have missed this crucial find entirely!

Although Ves was still interested in trying to get to the bottom of David's story, that was not as important as securing these bones for himself!

"We can't leave this behind to the MTA." He spoke. "Will the mechers be able to recognize the remains of a primordial human?"

"Yes." Helena simply replied.

"Okay. Then we will need to take it away before the Association arrives."

"How will you do that, Ves?"

He grinned behind his helmet. "I have just the trick. I have been waiting to pull this off. I think that the bones are just small enough that I can get away with pulling off this move."

He carefully put down the glowing skull and carefully pulled a few hand bones from David's remains.

Ves studied them for a moment before he opened up a storage compartment in his Unending Regalia that offered enough room for him to stuff the hand bones inside.

"Let's see whether this works." He spoke.

His body shifted in an abrupt fashion. Helena noticed the oddity but did not spot any differences.

"Of course it wouldn't be that easy." He frowned.

He activated another function that caused the bones stuffed in the small compartment to be sprayed with a glue-like substance. It quickly hardened and cased the small bones to be physically attached to the Unending Regalia.

"Let's try this!"

When Ves' body shifted again, Helena became surprised and shocked when she noticed that the storage compartment held nothing anymore!

"Hahahaha! It worked!"

"Did you lose the bones?!"

"No." Ves grinned at her sister. "I just put it in a much safer storage vault. Let me bring in the rest. I can assure you that nothing will go missing."

Though Helena had her doubts about this assertion, Ves quickly proceeded to pull off the same trick.

He started to apply the glue trick to the smallest bones and slowly worked his way up. It became a lot more difficult for him to physically attach the more sizable bones such as the waist bone to his armor, but he managed to solve that by attaching them to the back and pretending that they were backpack modules.

Ves continued to exploit this interaction with Inventorization and the System Space until he had safely brought away all of David's bones aside from the skull.

He originally intended to stow it away as well, but he stopped when he stared at its glowing shape.

"What are you up to now, Ves?"

"Now that you have told me about how awesome primordial humans are, I wonder if I can leverage their exceptional traits."

"How?"

"You'll see."