The Mech Touch

By the time evening came, Ves and his kids had returned to the coast and returned their boat.

Instead of shuttling back to Tixe City, Ves decided to linger a bit longer and moved to a cliff that overlooked the coastline.

Distant boats and human figures still moved about as the local star disappeared below the horizon.

"Come here, Lucky. Dig a firepit on this spot for us, please."

"Meow meow!"

"I don't care that you are not a dog. Just dig."

"Meowww..."

"Aurelia, come here and help me season the fish that you have caught."

His oldest daughter looked a little confused. "Okay, papa. Did you not command the food processing machine to season our fish as it detoxified our catch?"

"Normally, I would have already done so, but I don't want us to rely so much on automated machines and professional servants this time. There used to be a time where I was living the life of an ordinary third-rater. My life was not as luxurious as yours, but I enjoyed a form of joy that has become increasingly harder for me to recall. I do not want you three to grow up without experiencing anything of what it is like to live like normal humans. Now let us get to work and grill these fish over a fire."

Time passed by as they slowly built a rudimentary camp fire. It was not entirely safe to create a fire by burning the local alien tree branches, so Ves had made sure to bring in a few coals.

The slightly toxic air also needed to be taken into consideration. In order to give everyone an opportunity to put down their breathing masks, Ves placed a small air purifier nearby that automatically sucked and filtered out the toxic substances in the surrounding air.

Soon enough, he and his children speared a few processed fish with metal rods and planted them into the soil at different angles.

The fish started to cook in different ways.

"You should lower the angle of your rod. I think you are smoking the fish rather than roasting it. These fish will become much tastier if we bring it close enough to produce the Maillard reaction. That is when our raw food starts to brown and produce yummy substances."

"Meowwww..."

"I haven't forgotten about you, Lucky. I threw in a few exotics and hypers into the coals. I hope you like your food hot."

"Miaow?"

"I know your immune system is great for a cat, Clixie, but it is best for you to wait until we have cooked the fish."

Soon enough, the air started to get filled with smoke, warmth and the combined smells of different alien fish species.

The children impatiently waited for the fish to cook while they chatted with each other.

"Okay, I think they are about done. Be careful about retrieving the fish. The rods are still hot."

Aurelia deftly transferred her own roasted fish to a simple metal plate while Andraste poked her own meal with a meat fork.

Ves helped Marvaine bring his own fish to a plate before cutting it up to make it easier to bite.

"Don't bite into it right away. It is still too hot. In the meantime, let us roast a few vegetables."

Nutrition was extremely important for growing designer children. The processed fish had been partially fortified with additives that made them a bit more beneficial for his kids, but it could not completely replace their regular meals.

However, Ves did not really care about that at the moment. He believed his son and daughters were stronger than that. It should not be that big of a deal if they deviated from their prescribed diets for a single day.

"It tastes weird." Andraste said as she finally dared to bite into her fish. "It tastes worse than I thought."

Ves was not surprised. "That is because the fish hasn't been cooked by professional chefs in an advanced and fully equipped kitchen. It should still taste good in its own way. How do you feel?"

"It... is not as bad as I thought. I remember the moment when I caught this fish myself."

Ves and everyone else smiled. "In an age of automation and specialization, it is rare for us to take care of our own needs. However, I don't think that we should lose the ability to take care of our own basic needs. You should at least know what it is like in case you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to use these skills again. Even if you don't care about that, it's fun, right?"

"Um!" Andraste happily nodded. "Is this what it is like to be a hunter?"

"We only scratched the surface of what they do. There is much more work and effort involved in hunting down more dangerous prey. You won't like it, pumpkin."

'You're lying!"

They continued to chat and eat their inexpertly roasted food.

Sometimes, the fish got so close to the campfire that it burned into char.

Other times, the fish looked mildly cooked on the outside but was still raw on the inside.

They all made plenty of mistakes, but that was okay because they all caught way more fish than they could ever eat by themselves.

Of course, Ves was a noticeable exception to this rule, but his need to keep his true body fed was not as troublesome as he thought.

As long as he did not actively exert his true body, it would remain in a state of dormancy, thereby slowing down his actual metabolism.

His true body could also last for months if not years without eating another meal. He could take his time to address his hunger so long as he devoured a huge amount of food when it was convenient.

"Miaow miaow."

"Meow."

The cats also started to dig into their meals. Clixie elegantly bit into her fish while Lucky effortlessly swallowed the hot metal chunks with hardly any sign that he was burning off his tongue.

Once the kids all had their fill, they began to cuddle up against their father and enjoyed the warmth of the campfire.

Ves held Marvaine on his lap.

The two cats curled up in the laps of his daughter.

"I wish mama was here as well." Marvaine sleepily said.

"Mama wouldn't have allowed us to cook our own meals over a campfire." Aurelia retorted.

Ves felt happy and fulfilled. He wished that he could enjoy these intimate moments forever, but his children only retained their youth for so long.

Due to their busy work and study schedules, it was far too difficult for them to go out and spend a lot of quality time with each other.

This was why Ves made sure to cherish this rare moment as much as possible.

"I love you, papa."

"I love you too, my little ones."

They ended their day by crawling into their camping tent. The circumstances were much more primitive than they were accustomed to, but the children enjoyed it so much that they had difficulty falling asleep.

The Larkinsons continued to visit a number of other hunting grounds in the following days.

They did not always go camping, but they made sure to visit a diverse selection of different biomes.

The children spent most of their time hiking through alien terrain, shooting their rifles at harmless critters and gazing at a lot of larger exobeasts from a distance.

Each trip into wild and uncivilized lands opened the eyes of the children and increased their familiarity with nature.

Ves also derived a lot of benefits from the visits. Life bloomed in so many different forms. The diverse environments also possessed their own characteristic E energy attribute compositions.

If he was lucky enough, he could find interesting new mutated plants and exobeasts that had evolved in strange news ways.

For example, he found a crooked plant that extracted sand particles from the soil and used it to build an organic soil fortress around itself.

This process had been going on for months and already caused the plant to build walls the size of mechs!

He and his children came across an interesting exobeast during a safari in a more dangerous hunting ground in the Shamon Continent.

Their low-flying shuttle flew to a location where they could view a massive eight-legged lizard monster that was large enough to fit half-a-dozen mechs onto its back!

If that was not enough, its legs were tall enough to allow smaller mechs to pass below their bellies!

This monster was so big that it needed to absorb a lot of food in order to sustain itself.

It did so in at least two different ways.

First, its lower body was covered with tentacles that continuously reached down and pulled up any large plant or beast within reach.

Second, it was able to release an extremely weird energy field that caused any bird to suddenly lose their ability to generate lift through their wings!

The fate of any bird that flew within a range of around half a kilometer around this titanic monstrosity was tragic.

The confused avians frantically flapped their wings, only for them to accomplish nothing that could keep the birds aloft!

No matter their size and species, they all plunged to the ground and either died outright or suffered heavy injuries.

If the eight-legged monstrosity happened to be marching away from their crash locations, then the surviving birds would just get eaten by other predators.

The huge mutated beast had practically created a new ecosystem around itself!

Lots of other exobeasts that possessed enough intelligence to understand what was happening eagerly followed the massive creature from behind.

They could easily fill up their stomachs solely by scavenging the organisms that the eight-legged monster disdained to turn around and pick up with its tentacles!

The way those scavengers followed after the eight-legged monster made for a peculiar sight.

It looked as if a crowd of fanatic worshipers obsessively followed after their supposed god!

"Looks familiar, doesn't it, Qilanxo?"

Perhaps this was how primitive and native gods originally came into being in a higher energy environment.

As long as one organism mutated fast enough, they could become so strong that they gained absolute dominance over other organisms in their expansive territories!

"Papa! How can this monster cause all of those birds to fall from the sky?"

"That's easy. It might not look like it, but this creature actually developed a strong affinity towards the wind attribute. He is constantly projecting a large energy field around his body that fundamentally alters the behavior of wind within its range. This powerful field does nothing aside from preventing birds from generating any lift. The physics behind it is a little complicated for me to explain, but somehow this remarkable mutated beast has developed the power to ground all flying creatures!"

Andraste practically pressed her face against the window of the shuttle. "Does it work for mechs and shuttles as well?! Wait, are we about to crash?"

"Haha, we are well outside of this mutated beast's range. Besides, there are still limitations to his power. He can deprive anything from generating any lift, but our shuttle doesn't rely on this force to stay in the air in the first place. Unless the monster can disable the thrusters and antigrav modules of our vehicle, it can do nothing to pull us to the ground."

Ves found this to be disappointing, actually. As soon as he heard about this remarkable monstrosity, he insisted on going on a trip to see it in person.

He wanted to know whether it was worthwhile to transform this huge exobeast into a new design spirit!

Unfortunately, the reality was much less impressive than his expectations. Control over wind was only useful in a narrow set of combat scenarios.

"Oh well. There are plenty of other interesting candidates on the list."

Ves was determined to expand his design spirit collection before he departed from Ocanon VI. It would be too much of a waste if he did not take advantage of the rapid evolution of all of the diverse and unusual wildlife!