The Mech Touch

Of all of his treasures, the five high-grade life-prolonging treatment serums definitely ranked close to the top!

Their monetary value alone was so high that he could readily buy several complete fleet carriers by exchanging just one of them to a large party!

Even first-raters such as the Terrans and the Rubarthans would be willing to pay a fortune to buy the vials off his hands!

Ves did not dare to flaunt them, though. That was way too ostentatious. Who knew if a secret commando group would swoop in and try to rob him blind the next day?

In order to make sure that no one present here was able to recognize what he brought, he had made sure to transfer the serum into a different and less obvious container.

Most serums were stored in classic thin, cylindrical test tubes. Ves didn't know why. Perhaps it was due to tradition.

Whatever the case, after pouring the contents of one of his original vials into an opaque container of a different shape, he wasn't concerned about anyone finding out the true worth of this ingredient.

Though he felt tempted to show it off to the Aducs in order to make it clear how much they should be in debt with him, he did not do anything foolish.

Ves already intended to subvert the new design spirit for his own use, so he figured that he did not owe the Aducs anything more.

What ultimately mattered to him was succeeding in his attempt in turning his new design spirit into a universal life energy generator!

Perhaps it might be way too premature for him to embark on such an ambitious experiment, but Ves thought that the circumstances right now were much more favorable than at any other time.

While neither the Old Lady nor his upcoming spiritual product were based on pure life energy, he believed that the combination of earth, life and wood-attributed energy might lead to remarkable results as long as they were strong and abundant enough!

Feeding an entity that consisted of these attributes with an enormous dose of pure life energy should lead to a huge amount of growth, far greater than that of any other spirits due to the extremely high compatibility between the different energies!

Ever since Ves recently discovered that death energy was able to overwhelm life energy but got hindered by earth energy, he thought a lot more about the compatibility between different attributes.

It should not be a coincidence that the Old Lady had developed a domain of wood, life and earth!

The three each stood for different concepts, but they all nurtured and reinforced each other.

Though his actual theories and assumptions regarding these bold experiments were a little shaky, Ves felt there was enough of a chance of producing an amazing result for him to go through with this costly gamble!

At worst, he would still end up with a powerful earth, life and wood-oriented design spirit! Such an entity could provide a lot of assistance to the Larkinson Clan's mech design projects, biotechnology products and spiritual engineering projects!

"Well, here is hoping that I can obtain more than that." He softly muttered to himself.

He carefully checked the ingredients he prepared due to his heavy commitment to this experiment. At no point did he want to get sloppy and make a mistake because he did not properly go through his checklist!

"Everything is fine."

He took a deep breath. After going through his plan one more time, he felt the time was right for him to proceed.

He took his floating lockboxes to the center of the low hill where a dying and drooping oak tree dominated the view.

Not a single sense of guilt dwelled in his mind as he examined the awful spiritual state of the Old Lady.

Killing her was not the only way he could accomplish his objective, but he figured it was the most expedient course of action.

"I'm sorry, Old Lady, but I need you to make a sacrifice in order to birth a life form with higher potential. You should take comfort in the fact that your successor will be far more powerful and grander than you could have ever imagined in your long years of existence."

This was true, but the main reason he wanted to kill off the Old Lady was to get rid of the baggage and start off with a clean slate!

There was no way that Ves wanted the new entity to retain a strong sense of loyalty and attachment to the Aduc Family!

The Old Lady was hardly in a state to respond to his declaration.

She was practically a fish on his chopping block as far as he was concerned!

"Let's bring out my knife. Blinky! It's showtime!"

Mrow!

His companion spirit had been waiting for this and readily emerged from his mind. Ves did not need to pass on any instructions to his animal half. The purple spiritual cat instantly went to work by approaching the P-stones and using his considerable strength to shatter the spiritual fragments in quick succession!

Each time Blinky did so, he inhaled the fractured shards of compacted spiritual energy, but took care not to digest any of it. The high concentration of different varieties of life energy quickly caused Blinky to exude a different vibe.

It was as if he had turned into an overstuffed bun filled with life!

Mrow!

Blinky felt increasingly more uncomfortable after harvesting so many shards of slightly different varieties of life energy. It was in his nature to digest them and convert them into energy with an attribute that conformed to Ves' domain.

He was never designed to serve as an intangible P-stone!

The Star Cat moved quickly after shattering the spiritual fragments. He zipped over to the Old Lady and dove into her trunk and moved down to where most of the roots emerged.

It was at this place where the spirituality of the Old Lady resided!

The cat did not spare any sympathy towards the wounded and dying spirit and easily killed her with a couple of attacks!

After that, the cat quickly tore apart the spiritual remains of the Old Lady before combining the pieces with the shards that it had gathered moments earlier.

Ves moved closer to the trunk of the tree and pressed his palms against the bark.

The oak tree exuded a significantly different sensation from before. Now that it had become spiritless, the physical body of the Old Lady had lost the essence of its life!

Ves could vaguely feel even now that the tree was deteriorating from the inside. The final source of support had disappeared, which caused this tree to worsen in many different ways.

He faintly heard a few calls of alarms from the rear. The Aducs who were studying the current state of the oak tree all saw how its health had worsened to a faster degree!

If not for the fact that Ves had warned the Aducs beforehand, he was sure they would attempt to mob him or something. The Old Lady was their most precious living relic and one that played a large role in shaping their own philosophies and beliefs!

"C'mon, hurry up, Blinky!"

Mrow mrow mrow!

His companion spirit was already working as fast as possible in order to piece together his strongest and most ambitious living spiritual product to date!

Ves lent a hand to his own cat so that they could complete this important stage as fast as possible.

Using his own spiritual energy as the binding agent, he combined all sorts of shards filled with other varieties of life energy together in a concentrated nucleus or heart of life.

Not only that, he and Blinky shaped a shell in the form of a woman out of the shards that were largely derived out of earth and life energy.

At the same time, they also created a lot of different spiritual components that Ves hoped might play a role in the functioning of the new entity.

After Ves almost put together the form of their new creation, he readied his hidden vial and already began to draw out its potent universal life energy.

He took a deep breath before decisively channeling all of the rich universal life energy into the center of his incomplete creation!

"Take it all and master its essence!"

The flood of rich universal life energy also coincided with the process that granted his new spirit the spark of life!

A huge sense of weight suddenly overcame Ves and every other person in the Green Sanctum!

Though the Aducs were largely confused as to why they experienced a sense of oppression, they all quieted down and waited for the guest from the Larkinson Clan to produce results.

"Mama?" Aurelia questioned as she stopped petting Clixie for a moment.

A massive event was taking place, one that completely dominated the Green Sanctum!

The more sensitive and developed members of the Aduc Family sensed the outburst of life the clearest. Matriarch Erexi Aduc and many other leaders displayed more and more awe as they sensed the increasingly richer emissions of life from the base of the old tree!

Meanwhile, Ves and Blinky tried their best to maintain control over this extreme process.

Both of them came under a lot of strain in their attempts to channel so much universal life energy into their new creation!

They tried their best to transform the universal life energy into a more self-contained ingredient rather than allowing it to merge and feed the other attributes.

It turned out that it was extremely difficult to prevent this natural reaction from taking place!

"Ugh! It's… like trying to prevent sugar from dissolving into water!"

Right now, the new spiritual entity that was just beginning to come to life was so hungry for juice that she eagerly soaked up the rich and attractive universal life energy without any restraint!

"Damnit, I programmed you to leave it alone and save it up! Why are you disobeying my instructions?!" Ves complained.

It couldn't be helped. Telling a spiritual entity to not absorb universal life energy was like telling a man dying from thirst not to drink the refreshing glass of water in his hands!

Ves watched with distress as more and more universal life energy was converted into other forms of energy that were much less precious. Though his spiritual product rapidly increased in strength as a result, he still felt as if he was pouring a bucket filled with phasewater straight down the drain!

"C'mon! Enough is enough! You'll grow fat if you absorb any more!"

40 percent.

60 percent.

80 percent.

Just as the new ancestral spirit absorbed 96 percent, her rapidly-boosted spiritual form finally became saturated!

"Yes! My guess is right!"

Ves finally experienced a lot of relief as 4 percent of the universal life energy of an entire vial of serum remained intact and in a cohesive whole!

The reason why it hadn't disappeared was because his greedy spiritual product finally couldn't absorb any more of the friendly energy! She had literally stuffed herself to her breaking point!

It was as if Ves stuffed an excessive amount of sugar in a glass of water. At a certain point, the fixed quantity of liquid simply couldn't dissolve any additional sugar, causing the remainder to pool at the bottom while remaining intact!

"Hehehe, my gamble paid off, if only barely!"

Saving a fraction of the original universal life energy was better than seeing it disappear entirely!

After a few more seconds, he became relieved as he confirmed that his powerful new spirit no longer messed around with the remainder of precious energy. Instead, she did as he originally programmed and created a small pool in her body that concentrated and protected the remaining universal life energy!

With this remnant core of pure, concentrated life, the new spiritual entity rapidly matured even as she fully came to life!

"Our tree! Look at our tree! She's blooming to life!"

Even as Ves admired the rapid expansion of his most powerful spirit yet, he could feel the bark of the tree becoming moist, strong and filled with vitality!

"Wait, this tree…"

Ves took a few steps backwards while Blinky flew out of the trunk and returned to his side.

Both of them observed with increasing concern as the oak tree that used to be Old Lady not only returned to its prime, but also grew larger and taller before everyone's eyes!

The roots of the oak tree sucked out all of the nutrients in the rich and fertile soil and rapidly converted them into new but incredibly strong plant cells!

"What is happening?!"

"I don't know, but the Old Lady looks better than ever!"

Ves continually had to step back as the Old Lady continued to explode in size, reaching a state that caused the tree to match and exceed the height of a typical mech!

"This is insane!" Pesca Aduc stammered. "An unmodified Earth-based oak tree should never be able to grow in size so fast! How has the Old Lady not exploded yet? This process completely breaks all common sense in my field!"

Nobody had any doubts left about the Larkinson Patriarch's claim that he could 'revive' the Old Lady.

From what it looked like, he did far more than that! He not only brought her back to life, but also granted her such a huge upgrade that her body turned into a tree that seemed to represent an entire world!

As soon as the evocative creation process had reached its final stage, the spiritual product had fully come to life!

The new spiritual entity contained so much life and power that she spontaneously manifested behind the enlarged tree!

To many of the Aducs, it was as if a literal deity had appeared before their eyes!

Each of them couldn't help but sink to their knees in supplication.

"Old Lady…"

"No. She's not the Old Lady." Matriarch Erexi Aduc whispered as she observed the motherly figure made out of earth, leaves and twigs with astonished eyes. "She is someone greater. She… is…"

"Behold, members of the Aduc Family!" Ves ecstatically addressed the gathering in the Green Sanctum! "Through the sacrifice of your Old Lady, I have brought forth Gaia, the Mother of Earth and the Origin of Life!"

Hardly any Aduc could believe what they were hearing.

Did this crazy mech designer truly claim to have created a literal goddess?!

What was even crazier was that Ves claimed to have created not just an ordinary goddess, but arguably one of the most powerful primordial deities of ancient human mythology!

Yet as every Aduc who had revered the Old Lady throughout their lives gazed upon this superior transcendent life form, they all felt in the depths of their soul that Gaia had the power and the identity to prove the Larkinson Patriarch's words true!

"Gaia!" Someone called out.

"Gaia!" A few more Aducs repeated the name.

"GAIA!" Everyone roared at once!