The Mech Touch

The Rim Guardians gave him a deadline of three years to get William Urbesh into shape.

Almost one year had passed, which meant that Ves had two years left to turn him into an expert candidate.

Ves put extensive thought on how to approach William's treatment.

Even the most intensive training from the Larkinsons hadn't put a dent in his psychological affliction. This meant that taking the slow and steady approach likely wouldn't yield any results in the remaining two years.

Ves intended to complete this mission quickly. He didn't want to waste too much time on William.

To do that, Ves needed to follow his own advice and take some risks.

As Ves observed his girlfriend subjecting William to a variety of scans and invasive tests, he mentally went over his possible treatment plans.

Before he could turn William into an expert candidate, he first had to treat his psychological condition.

Only after he completed this step would Ves be ready to consider the next step. No one had ever come up with a method of turning a regular mech pilot into an expert candidate.

If Ves wanted to succeed in pioneering a viable method, he needed to lay the groundwork. He needed to get rid of as many complications as possible.

A crippling fear towards fighting was such a debilitating condition that it could single-handedly ruin everything. Therefore, it needed to go.

The problem was that Ves hadn't been able to come up with a good solution. All he came up with so far were a bunch of flawed solutions. Each of them promised to solve the problem, but demanded a very high price in exchange.

The first solution was his original plan of performing spiritual lobotomization on William. He already dismissed this solution because the dangers were way too big.

Even if he succeeded in cutting off the spiritual tumors without collapsing William's spirituality, what prevented him from growing back another spiritual tumor?

Ves shook his head. "This is by far the worst solution imaginable."

The second solution he came up with was to do the opposite of subtracting from William's spirituality. Instead of cutting away his fear, it might be better to insert some courage.

Ves could draw upon several sources of courage. He could donate his own spiritual energy, for example. He could cut a mote of spirituality from Zeigra, the Solemn Guardian and even the tyrannical Nyxie to obtain the appropriate ingredient!

The only problem was integrating this mote of spiritual courage into William's spiritual potential.

Spirituality consisted of spiritual energy. Spiritual energy was not uniform, but differed by attribute and imprint.

Both needed to match the individual to be able to merge.

For example, the excess spiritual energy that Ves deposited into his P-stones perfectly matched his own attributes and imprint.

Even if his attribute mix changed over time, he could still reabsorb his stored spiritual energy with ease.

Yet what if he tried to insert his excess spiritual energy in someone else���s mind?

From what he knew, there was no reason his spiritual energy would integrate in William's spiritual potential. It was as stupid as injecting William's body with his blood and expect them to get along.

While Ves had developed a spiritual technique that allowed him to manipulate imprints, he had never attempted to expand a living human's spirituality to imprint itself on ownerless spiritual energy.

His successful attempt that led to the creation of Ylvaine's spiritual fragment did not entail many risks. Even if he failed, he wouldn't be able to harm someone who was already dead. He could have simply stolen another relic and tried again.

That would not be the case when it came to a living human like William. Once he made a catastrophic failure, then William's mind and spirituality would sustain severe damage!

The outcome could very well lead to death or permanent brain damage!

Even if he succeeded in expanding a living human's imprint on ownerless spiritual energy, he still had to solve another problem.

William needed to integrate an entire different spiritual attribute.

It would be best if the spiritual attribute was compatible with his existing personality and inclination.

However, that wasn't the case here. Ves wanted to insert a lot of courage in William's spirituality.

Courage happened to be diametrically opposed to William's intrinsic fear. What would happen if opposites met?

"Nothing good."

A violent clash would definitely ensue. Even if Ves inserted enough spiritual energy related to courage to overpower the spiritual energy related to fear, the damage to William's mind might be too much to bear.

To Ves, the second solution was a bit more sound than the first solution, but both inflicted way too much damage while offering few guarantees of success.

Fortunately, he came up with a third solution that promised much less risk.

Normally, Ves considered spiritual contamination to be a detrimental effect. Ves had often been exposed to contamination in various forms. As a mech designer, he used to be sensitive to contamination by another mech designer's design philosophy.

That had changed once he advanced to Journeyman. With his design seed, he no longer needed to worry as much about abandoning his principles and taking over someone else's views towards mech design.

Of course, even if the risks were minimized, they hadn't gone away. His design seed could only sustain so much pressure until it cracked.

Ves scratched his thin. "Fortunately, William isn't nearly as strong."

William did not possess the extraordinary willpower of an expert pilot. Just like Novice and Apprentice Mech Designers, his spirituality was still very malleable.

He just needed to treat it the right way.

Whereas the first two solutions called for adding or subtracting spiritual energy in a very crude fashion, his third solution was a lot more gentle.

Ves wanted to contaminate William's spirituality.

Deliberate contamination was the best alternative he came up with. Spiritual energy was not fixed. If their imprints could change, what about their attributes?

Of course, Ves didn't think it would be so easy.

He first needed to obtain a spiritual spiritual fragment with the right attributes and package it in a way that prevented it from doing damage to William's mind.

The spiritual fragment needed to be strong enough to contaminate William's existing spiritual attributes, but not too strong to the point of inflicting unwanted damage.

"This solution is not entirely without risks." He softly muttered.

When Ves went over his three solutions again and again but believed his last one was the most viable one.

There were still a lot of uncertainties. Would contaminating someone's spirituality also contaminate someone's mind?

Ves hoped so. If possible, he wanted to kill two birds with one stone.

However, he would settle for killing just one bird if that was all he got. He would just have to pick up a different stone to kill the bird that managed to stay alive.

To contaminate a coward's mind with courage sounded crazy, but his intuition did not ring any alarms. With a lack of a better alternative, Ves decided to implement it before he second-guessed his own decision.

First, he had to obtain a spiritual fragment. One that carried spiritual attributes that could overpower William's deepest fears.

The mech pilot was not just a coward, but he was a king of cowards! Just regular courage didn't suffice!

"I need quality instead of quantity!"

Ves reminded himself that William only possessed a tiny bit of spirituality. The spiritual fragment needed to be as small as a mote of spirituality if he wanted to minimize the risk of crushing William's spirituality.

"I have three choices here."

From which source should he draw out this mote of spirituality?

Ves, the mech designer?

Zeigra, the Crown Cat?

Or Nyxie, the ancient alien tyrant?

Though Ves thought highly of his courage, he wasn't so sure if its quality was sound. Perhaps a part of his courage was actually a result of ignorance or opportunism.

"That's more like false courage."

The only advantage of choosing this option was that his control over his spiritual energy was the highest. He could expertly manipulate it because it wouldn't resist his ministrations.

Ves wanted to achieve a solid result. After a bit more thought, he ruled out using his own spiritual energy.

He contemplated his next alternative. It would be fairly easy for him to cut out a mote of spiritual energy from the fragment stored in his overcoat.

While Zeigra's spiritual attributes largely consisted of pride and aggression and so on, they would certainly clash against anything related to fear and cowardice.

Ves considered this option to be better and more effective, if a bit more risky due to his inability to control the fragment as well.

The third option would be to go one step further and draw out a spiritual mote from the most fearless entity he could think of. Nyxie was immensely strong and the quality of his spiritual energy simply couldn't be compared.

With how powerful and effective Nyxie affected people's minds, Ves had no doubt that a spiritual mote taken from the spiritual entity trapped in the Ancient Sarcophagus was incredibly infectious!

The only issue was that Nyxie was incredibly hostile, arrogant and domineering, so much so that Zeigra was like a kitten in comparison!

Yet was that a bad thing in this case?

"Not necessarily."

Why settle for a half-measure like Zeigra when Ves could turn to Nyxie instead?

Ves would never want to contaminate himself with Nyxie's diverse mix of dominance, tyranny and alienness.

He didn't need to. That was what his test subject was for. To Ves, test subjects existed to pay the prices on his behalf!

At worst, William might die or degenerate into a feral human contaminated by an alien spirit.

If this outcome happened, then the only price he paid was failing the mission issued by the Rim Guardians. His life would be completely intact.

He smirked. "I can accept that price."

Though he felt a bit uncertain about settling on this extreme decision, a part of him was incredibly excited.

He really wanted to see what would happen!

Ves started to rub his hands in anticipation. A devious grin was plastered on his face as he outlined and detailed his treatment plan.

He believed it was viable!

Even if he ended up botching the process in some way that resulted in William becoming a psychopath or monster, who cared?

Ves had only been instructed to elevate William into an expert candidate. What did it matter if his mind and spirituality had been twisted by an eldritch alien horror along the way?

As long as the outcome fulfilled the requirements, all the other problems could be left to others!

"Hahaha! I'll just let others clean my mess!"

The moment he formed his plan of action, he withdrew from the lab and workshop floor and visited the vault.

There, he first retrieved some P-stones, his only F-stone and his B-stone lockbox. He then retracted the Ancient Sarcophagus from its storage place.

"Hello, Nyxie. It's time for your regularly-scheduled haircut." He grinned.

Some time later, Ves put everything back aside from his B-stone lockbox that contained a P-stone holding in an angry spiritual fragment.

"I can save this up for my next original mech design project." He nodded.

He only winced a bit at the price he paid to obtain this fragment. The offensive charge in his F-stone had been reduced by another nine percent.

He used a bit less charge than last time because he didn't need more strength. He had a better handle on Nyxie's strength now and hadn't been going in blind this time.

"Maybe nine percent is still too much." He muttered.

In any case, Ves not only obtained a powerful spiritual fragment that he could save for later, but he could also cut tiny motes from it to use for other purposes.

The only issue now was how much he should treat the mote before using it as a contaminant?