The Mech Touch

Though Ves had exerted himself quite a lot when he conducted a lot of tests under the supervision of the mechers, phase lords did not get tired so easily.

There were benefits to having a stupendously strong body. Ves felt as if his physique transformed into a nigh-perpetual biological engine that could sustain highly intensive activity for many hours!

Even though he sensed that he would definitely have to pay the price of his heavy exertions by ingesting a lot of nutrients, that could wait until later.

He had already transmitted a request to his personal assistant to roast enough meat to feed all of the spacers serving in the Bluejay Fleet!

"Are you sure about that, boss?!" Gavin asked in a perplexed tone. "Our cooking facilities do not have the capacity to prepare so much food, and I doubt the quality will satisfy their refined palates."

"There is no need to go through so much trouble. I am not intending to invite the mechers over to a meal or anything. What I need is for you to provide as much cooked meat as possible. It has to be both dense and in excess quantity. The more joules of energy you can prepare within a few hours, the better. Just think of it as preparing enough meat to feed a giant exobeast."

"If you want to feed an exobeast, then it is not necessary to cook or process the meat. Wild carnivores are accustomed to tearing raw flesh from the carcasses of their prey."

Ves smirked. "You're right. You can dispense with the tedious roasting process if you think that is a waste of time."

With that chore taken care of, he continued to lead Ves down to one of the spare chambers that was ordinarily used to perform quick tests or examinations on freshly repaired or fabricated mechs.

The security and monitoring systems were not as robust in this underground space, but Ves had gained enough familiarity in his true body that he was confident he could control his powers to an acceptable degree.

However, for safety's sake, he still insisted that Alexa move up to the control room.

Once she had set herself up behind the control panel, Ves had emerged while being followed by a handful of bots that held a large tarpaulin in their grasp.

Though he no longer had access to the Association's nanosuit, he was still able to retrieve a tarpaulin from the inventory. It was normally used to cover up mechs, but it could work equally well as a makeshift robe.

Ves took a deep breath before he unveiled his true body once again!

Ves made another observation as Alexa grew shocked by the inhuman display taking place beyond the shielded windows!

She learned why Ves had taken the trouble to bring over a large synthetic fabric as the bots immediately began to envelop his growing body in the pale gray tarpaulin.

The act of folding and unfolding his true body was easy, but it also consumed a bit of energy.

The larger his body, the more energy consumed in the process.

He should refrain from needlessly enlarging or shrinking his body.

Once he had reached the same size as before, Alexa completely looked gobsmacked as her famous mentor turned into the human equivalent of a biomech!

"Is this what you have been working to investigate with the mechers?"

Ves nodded. "YES. TIME IS SHORT, SO LET US GET TO BUSINESS. PLEASE MONITOR MY ACTIONS CAREFULLY AND FEEL FREE TO SHARE YOUR FEEDBACK. THE MORE IDEAS WE SWAP, THE GREATER THE CHANCE WE CAN STUMBLE UPON A USEFUL NEW APPLICATION. USE THE SENSORS SCANNERS TO PAY ATTENTION TO ANY SPATIAL ACTIVITY, AND USE MAIA TO MONITOR MY E ENERGY ACTIVITY."

As Alexa did as instructed, Ves paid a bit more attention to his mental state.

He had already experienced the rush of power once before, so it was no longer as surprising as before. He became a lot better equipped to suppress the irrational overconfidence that came with gaining the power to crush ordinary humans into pulp!

Getting beaten by a first-class multipurpose mech in less than a second also humbled him a lot. Though it was not pleasant to acknowledge it, the mechers had done him a great favor by beating him up in such an overwhelming fashion!

He did not know what it was like for other phase leaders, but Ves found that he no longer became as susceptible to the mental drawbacks of unfolding his true body.

Of course, that was no reason for him to let down his guard. He bet that the problem would probably return with a vengeance if he ever managed to advance his phase lord cultivation to the point where he could grow as large as the Uranus!

Ves constantly had to remind himself that size truly didn't matter. Operation Night Jazz had decisively shown that even ancient phase whales the size of moons stood no chance against god mechs.

That was truly the factor that helped him rein in his instinctual arrogance.

"Alright, before I proceed with trying out my other ideas, I first want you to record a bit of data. One of the abilities that I have access to after becoming a phase lord is the ability to teleport. It is quite weird to be honest as I shouldn't be able to do it at my stage of body cultivation."

"What should I pay attention to, sir?"

Ves briefly paused before he decided to voice one of his suspicions. "I WANT YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO ANY ACTIVITY GENERATED BY MY JUTLAND ORGAN. THAT IS THE STRANGE ORGAN THAT HAS TAKEN THE PLACE OF MY HEART. DON'T ASK ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT. IT'S A LONG STORY."

"...Okay..."

One minute later, Ves did what he had done before and activated all of the phasewater spread throughout his body.

Though he had not taken any exact measurements of the amount of phasewater circulating through his veins and other tissue, it was definitely a lot!

He carried more than enough phasewater to build a first-class superdrive that was powerful enough to form a warp bubble around a capital ship!

Since that was the case, Ves should be able to do way more with phasewater, even if much of its power was already occupied with sustaining his abnormally strong body.

Crack!

In an instant, the giant robed form of Ves disappeared from one place and instantly appeared twenty giant paces away!

Alexa and her ragdoll cat companion spirit looked impressed, but they had made sure to pay careful attention.

"WELL?" Ves asked in the loud and deep voice of his true body.

He was actually working on lowering the volume of his words, but he found it surprisingly difficult to do so. He found it a lot more difficult to control his breath. It was as if he was holding a lot of repressed power that was constantly trying to explode from his mouth!

Ves was already thinking about designing and constructing an artificial voice box that could directly transmit his words from his cranial implant, which fortunately maintained its functionality in his inhuman state.

"Your Jutland organ did not generate any elevated activity aside from circulating the blood in your body at a faster rate." Alexa replied. "I am not an biotech scientist, so I am unable to understand the full workings of this odd organ of yours. However, the activity that our sensors have measured earlier does not suggest that your Jutland organ was directly involved in your successful teleportation attempt."

"I SEE. THAT CONCURS WITH MY OWN OBSERVATIONS."

He had been paying close attention to the Worclaw energy accumulated in his body. This strange but powerful energy type was known to produce a number of amazing phenomena that the Alshyr race relied upon to become one of the Seven Apex Races of the Milky Way.

Direct teleportation did not happen to be one of their registered abilities, but who knew whether the records were accurate enough.

It turned out that his hypothesis was wrong this time. His Worclaw energy levels had remained virtually the same before and after his teleportation. It was not the reason why he was able to displace his body with disturbing ease.

Ves shrugged his giant shoulders. "I WILL LOOK AT THE DATA LATER. LET US PROCEED WITH MY NEW EXPERIMENT. I HAVE JUST COME UP WITH A FEW POTENTIAL IDEAS ON HOW TO IMPROVE MY MECH DESIGNS GOING FORWARD. I WILL ATTEMPT TO SIMULATE THEM BY USING MY TRUE BODY AS A STAND-IN FOR A PROTOTYPE MECH."

"Mrow."

The relatively tiny form of Blinky emerged out of his head. The Star Cat was not in great shape at the moment, but he was still able to supply a lot of energy from his Blinkyverse if required.

Though Ves had tapped a lot of energy from the internal universe as of late, the Blinkyverse was much larger than his own body!

No matter whether it was virtual or not, it was undeniable that its internal volume had ballooned to the point where it was starting to approach the size of a typical star system!

Blinky was able to store a huge amount of E energy inside this space. Even if it couldn't be filled up to the brim due to the need to simulate an actual space environment, there was still more than enough space than the companion spirit could fill in a short amount of time.

Right now, Blinky had flown close to Ves' spatial barrier and started to disgorge a large quantity of water energy.

"Myah!"

"None of our sensor systems have the capacity to monitor E energy activity, but Maia is able to observe what you are doing with her own senses. Are you trying to replicate an azure energy shield?"

"NOT QUITE. I AM TRYING TO SEE HOW WATER ENERGY INTERACTS DIRECTLY WITH MY SPATIAL BARRIER."

Ves found that the spatial barrier was able to selectively block or allow for the passage of matter and energy depending on his own cognition.

It worked similar to an energy shield generator in that regard.

What Ves tried to do at the moment was to see how well E energy was able to pass through his spatial barrier when it was trying to block its passage.

He found that it was hard for him to block out pure E energy.

This was both bad and good. His powerful Spirituality and his hungry companion spirit were already accustomed to operating in a medium energy environment.

On the other hand, Ves would remain vulnerable to pure E energy attacks, just like other phase lords.

Ves felt that he should be able to tweak his spatial barriers and improve their ability to block energies that traversed through the imaginary realm. He just had to tweak the expression of his Kelsis organ.

This was not his main purpose, though. Once he had concluded this little test, he proceeded to concentrate on what he truly wanted to accomplish!

"Mrow!"

Blinky no longer released any further water energy, but instead disgorged a bit of life energy!

The power of pure creation started to blend into the water energy that was on the verge of dissipating in the environment.

"Myah?"

Both Alexa and Maia looked perplexed as the free-floating water energy gained life!

Under the deliberate direction of Ves and Blinky, the living entity compromised out of water-attributed E energy not only gained a rudimentary intelligence, but also managed to maintain its volatile form despite the lack of a physical anchor.

The strange new energy life form resembled a water elemental, a typical staple creature that was common in many fantasy stories!

"What... what are you doing, sir?"

Ves smirked but did not reply immediately. He instead commanded the so-called water elemental to enter his hand.

He activated the phasewater concentrated in his palm and spread it out at the front!

Wooosh!

He managed to generate a much more coherent water-augmented spatial barrier that actually looked like it was alive!

The water elemental's body had become dispersed in order to support the spatial barrier in a similar fashion to an azure energy shield.

However, the elemental still retained its consciousness, allowing it to influence how its energies were being used!

"What did you create?!"