The Mech Touch

Ves felt like vomiting.

Since when had the System become so generous all of a sudden?!

The Cursed Sword Birth Mission was such a scam!

What B-Rank Mission? It may as well be D-Rank in his eyes!

The requirement to gather 999 intelligent beings so that they could be tortured and killed was of no particular difficulty!

Ves and Ketis could easily instruct the expeditionary fleet to capture any random alien warship and transfer the prisoners of war into their custody.

Since the Mission did not specify any particular demands for the sacrifices aside from the need for them to be alive, organic and capable of bleeding, practically any alien species fighting on the frontlines would do! Perhaps the only unsuitable species among the 13 major alien races were the phase whales and the zzamayels.

The phase whales were too big and scarce. It was a massive waste to gather 999 of them to conduct a grand ritual just to empowered a single sword.

The zzamayels were too strange. They were more like jellyfish than traditional animals, and they did not even bleed as far as Ves knew of their strange biology.

That still left plenty of other alien species that were perfectly suitable for this ritual. In fact, there was no need to wait for the Golden Skull Alliance to capture the aliens. Many other forces had managed to capture a huge amount of prisoners of war across the frontlines.

Most of them ended up getting tossed out of the airlock or thrown into the nutrient pack production facilities. There were far too many low-ranking alien soldiers who possessed very little valuable intelligence and took too much space and resources to contain.

Since prisoner swaps between the two hostile sides were not established, there was little incentive to keep so many alien prisoners.

Even the biotech institutions could only conduct experiments on so many aliens at a time. It was a real pain to keep them all healthy and stable enough as every species possessed special needs and requirements that were difficult for humans to satisfy.

In any case, with so many aliens getting captured all of the time, it should be easy enough for the Larkinson Clan to buy several thousand of them. In fact, now that Ves thought about it, there was no need to resort to any outside parties at all. The Larkinson Biotech Institute still kept tens of thousands of sapient aliens locked inside the biomes of the Dragon's Den. He could instruct the LBI to transfer them to Ketis right away.

So long as the captives were in place, Ketis could start the ritual right away. Whether she wanted to empower the Bloodsinger or a brand-new blade forged out of different materials, there should not be any major issue in completing this mysterious ritual!

Ves believed that creating a Cursed Sword was as good as done once all of the pieces fell into place. Not only would Ketis gain a powerful new weapon that possessed a huge amount of research value, she would also earn 250 whopping Ascension Points, which was enough to redeem for extremely valuable goodies such as the Evil-Breaking Peach Wood Sword Manual Enlightenment Fruit!!

If she worked hard to complete a few other Missions, then she might be able to exchange the Seven Emotions Sword Styles - Joy Chapter Enlightenment Fruit!

Despite all of these temptations, Ketis looked completely unmoved. Her disgust grew stronger. She clearly did not react positively to Ves' persuasion.

"I am not like you, Ves." She snarled at him. "You may not see any issue with conducting a bloody ritual that calls for the slaughter of 999 alien beings, but I see this differently. Even when I was still a pirate in the frontier of the old galaxy, my fellow Swordmaidens and I have always held onto our bottom lines. We follow a strict code of honor that was rare among the scum of the frontier. We Swordmaidens have always believed that our core strength is based on discipline. Do you know what that word means, Ves?"

"I have an impression on what it means, but I guess you hold onto a different definition."

"Apparently. Discipline is a sword that stands for self-control. It is the ability to keep ourselves sober and rational in situations where our more primal parts of ourselves want to go wild. More than that, discipline is also the strength to stick to what we think is right even when we are tempted to do wrong. This is one such situation. I do not know what motivations the System has in mind for tempting me to break my code in exchange for a large payoff, but I will not allow it to tarnish my honor."

"It's just a bunch of aliens, you know. How can it be dishonorable for you to kill a few aliens? Sure, torturing them before you can finally chop off their heads is distasteful, but who cares when there is a war going on? The native aliens have never been merciful towards us humans. It is either kill or be killed. I really don't think that it matters how we treat them before they inevitably get offed. Every alien taken captive during this war gets killed anyway. You just have an opportunity to extract more value out of their short lives before you can finally release them from their mortal suffering."

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Ketis furiously shouted towards Ves! "This is not about the aliens! I don't care about them! I don't think they should have the same rights as humans! What I care about is myself! Do you truly think I can prevent my heart from becoming stained if I act despicably against aliens as opposed to humans?"

"Uhh…"

"It isn't possible! If I want to maintain a clean and pure heart towards swordsmanship, I must comport myself with honor, dignity and respect, especially now that I have become a swordmaster that everyone looks up to. Ugly behavior will only cause my soul to become ugly as well. It doesn't matter if other people think I am completely in the right for inflicting unnecessary pain and torture onto alien soldiers who tried to wipe out all of humanity. Just because they have awful intentions towards our race doesn't mean that we have to stoop to their level. I am a swordmaster. I am better than these mortal beings. To become a sword saint, I must uphold the ideals of a saint. If I fall for the trap set by the System, I do not think I can become the saint that I have envisioned for myself anymore. Even if my future path is not cut off, I do not think I will like the person who I will become a few decades later."

"..."

Ves grew speechless for a moment. He never thought that his casual advice would lead to such a strong and principled outburst.

He could see where Ketis was coming from. She was not as pragmatic as himself. She still clung to the ideals that Ves had long considered naive. She was much better fit for the ideals of the Larkinson Clan than himself.

That was fine.

Ves actually liked it more if Ketis still retained her bottom lines and was willing to stick to her noble principles.

"I am sorry." He eventually broke the silence. "I shouldn't have tried to push you to accept this Mission. I may have inducted you into the Mech Designer System, but you should have complete control over how you interact with it. You don't need to listen to my advice. You are more than capable enough to make your own decisions."

Ketis calmed down by this time. "Apology accepted. I know that you mean well. Let us just move on. I can take a look at the other Missions at another time."

The pair left the Mission Hall and moved to the next facility.

"The Workshop of Creation is a place that I have not really used all that much. On the surface, it allows you to pay AP to make use of the excellent workshop equipment. As far as I know, it can give you access to the best tools available to humanity. If you truly want to construct an incredibly valuable mech or piece of equipment, you can think about creating it here instead of in reality. You just have to make sure you can explain where you made it to other people."

"You sound as if there is more to this Workshop than is apparent on the surface."

"There is. If you look closely at the rules, you can essentially pay 1 AP to stay in the System Space for 24 hours. You might not understand the significance of this yet, but let me ask you a question. We have already been inside this mysterious System Space for many minutes. How much time do you think has passed in reality?"

"...Nothing?"

"Close enough. Only a fraction of a second has passed in reality. It is like we have entered into a spacetime bubble that works opposite to the one that has currently engulfed Bridgehead One. As long as you have the AP to spare, you can stay here for weeks, months or even years on end to work on stuff and complete Missions without worrying about wasting any time in reality."

It was only now that Ketis understood how valuable it was to be able to spend an entire day inside the System Space without any apparent time passing in reality!

Just like Ves, Ketis had also learned that mech designers were short on time. There was so much they could do, and so little time in a day to take care of all of their priorities.

"I see. Is this one of the reasons why you have been able to progress so quickly? How much time did you actually manage to save while making use of the services of this Workshop?"

"Not as much as you think, Ketis. There are certain cases where it is worthwhile to spend 1 AP to essentially get an extra day of time, but I much prefer to save my AP for other stuff."

That reminded him that he still had a bunch of Missions that he had yet to make any progress in. He really should begin to work on a few of them despite his busy schedule. Many Missions came with a time limit where Ves would have to pay a small but significant penalty if he failed to satisfy their conditions!

Besides, Ves was also sick and tired of having virtually no AP left in his pocket. His little gifts to Ketis may have made her happy, but it had also caused his pathetic AP reserve to shrink even further!

Ves quickly finished his explanation of the Workshop of Creation before he led Ketis to the next step.

"Is this a gate? Where does it lead to? Does it allow you to teleport to another place?"

"Not quite. This is the Time Gate. It is a little bit complicated to explain its full functions."

He began to give Ketis an exhaustive introduction of the Time Gate. The reason why he did this was because he believed that Ketis would definitely pounce on the opportunity to experience how other mech pilots controlled their swordsman mechs.

Since that was the case, he did not want her to blunder without knowing what she could or could not do. Each Mastery opportunity was precious, and it was important for Ketis to get the most out of her first jaunt through space and time.

Ketis initially looked unbelieving. Though the other facilities of the Mech Designer System already sounded fantastic enough, the Time Gate completely broke her boundaries on what it should be capable of! She never expected that this relic actually made time travel available to its users!

"Is this… real? Did you really manage to travel back in time and change human history?"

"It's real, believe me. Who do you think the Destroyer of Worlds got her companion spirit from?" Ves smirked.

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