The Mech Touch

As far as companion spirits were concerned, Blinky was not the strongest in terms of direct combat.

The companion spirits of the expert pilots and most notable ace pilots of the Larkinson Clan could easily beat up Blinky if they wanted. Their power was partially derived from their principals, who happen to possess a lot of extraordinary willpower.

Ves on the other hand was a mech designer. He did not have any direct way to complement his companion spirit in battle. The most he could do was to dive deeper into E-technology and craft different forms of equipment for the Star Cat beforehand.

This was fine. Ves did not create Blinky with the intent to empower him. Blinky existed to assist and complement Ves instead.

In this capacity, Blinky had proven to be a qualified companion spirit. The purple spiritual cat not only possessed greater sensitivity towards E energy than Ves, but also possessed a huge reservoir of E energy based on many different attributes.

The Blinkyverse ensured that Ves would never run out of any type of E energy no matter his location. It was also constantly expanding and absorbing more ambient E energies all of the time.

At this time, the Blinkyverse was still in the beginnings of the fourth stage. There was a huge gap between forming a single star system and forming an entire galaxy.

The good news was that the accumulation of lots of E energy sped up the process of absorption and integration. The larger the Blinkyverse, the faster its pace of growth!

The bad news was that the thresholds required for it to reach another stage were also exponentially more demanding!

Ves had little idea how long it would take for the Blinkyverse to reach the fifth stage under normal circumstances. It may take decades at the very least. He needed to find a way to speed up Blinky's cultivation so that he could provide even greater help than what he was capable of at the moment.

When Ves casually bastardized the Dark Apostle Self Defense Manual to turn the object of worship from a terrible ancient dark god whose name he did not dare to speak to Blinky, the process was not as difficult as he thought.

The cultist staff fighting method was unfortunately embedded with a lot of foreboding and nonsensical prayers, each of which was designed to put the practitioner in the right mindset to harness a specific aspect of the darkness element.

Ves wanted to remove all of these crazy components, but doing so was counterproductive because he wouldn't be able to produce any cool effects anymore.

He had no choice but to leave all of the overt religious components untouched. He instead chose to work around them by changing the target deity into his own companion spirit.

This wouldn't work with any other spiritual entity, but Blinky happened to be special!

As Ves began to replicate the more advanced techniques with the Oceancaller, he actively put himself in a special mindset while trying to draw from Blinky's darkness energy reserves.

"Oh mighty Blinky, I beseech you to bring forth your terrible gaze so that you may drown these souls with your dark embrace!"

Ves adjusted the grip of his Oceancaller and began to perform a horizontal sweep!

This attack was different than usual due to the darkness energy that launched from the relic!

The wave of darkness energy crashing against the side of the mountaintop did not particularly look impressive, but it was enough for Ves to gauge the effectiveness of his hasty modification work.

"I knew it wasn't so simple."

A proper Dark Apostle with this level of skill would have been able to call forth a much wider sweep of corrosive dark energies that would have inflicted much greater harm!

Ves already knew why his bootleg version of this move paled in every aspect.

First, he used the wrong language. The original techniques were supposed to be performed alongside prayers with the use of a long-dead language. Ves assumed that intent alone was enough to generate greater harmony, but this assumption turned out to be inaccurate.

Second, changing the subject of contract cultivation to a much different entity messed up a lot of different stuff.

The Dark Apostles fine-tuned their fighting methods to the specific brand of darkness produced by their ominous deity.

Blinky's variation of darkness was like a very cheap and poor-quality version!

The disparity in strength, quality and accents threw the original extraordinary staff techniques completely out of whack.

Ves would have to spend a lot of time on breaking down the original staff fighting style and build an entirely new one that was optimized with Blinky as the principal source of darkness energy.

He did not have the time or interest to go through all of that trouble. The story may be different if he was more like Ketis, but he never intended to become a serious soldier. He only wanted to become strong enough to fend off a hostile phase lord.

"I am not getting my money's worth." He concluded.

There was a huge depth to modifying extraordinary fighting methods. It was not as simple as he assumed. He developed a lot more respect for Ketis as a result. Her mastery, insights and passion into swordsmanship was so strong that she was able to create all kinds of extraordinary sword styles!

Ves did not possess an equivalent foundation, so he could never replicate her kind of work unless he became a lot more serious about becoming a warrior.

If he wanted to increase his combat power in the short term, he could think of only two viable options.

The first was to revert to the original method and form a pact with the ancient dark entity worshiped by the extinct cult.

Suffice to say, Ves was far too afraid to resort to this solution!

The second was to find a way to improve the other variables that affected the height of his combat power.

He looked at the relic that he used as his staff. "I'm sorry, Oceancaller. I can feel your disgust. I know you don't like to channel darkness energy, but I may not have a choice."

The replica of the Oceancaller was a flute that was largely aligned towards the water element, with a special focus on oceans and other related sub-attributes.

Even though the Mistress of the Oceans used the original relic to murder the populations of entire planets to satisfy her greed, the Oceancaller did not actually possess a relation to the darkness element. It was not designed to channel this power, and trying to do so anyway not only displeased the high-level relic, but also reduced the efficiency of his actions.

However, Ves had no other choice. There was not enough high-quality materials left for him to design and fabricate a large staff that would be sturdy enough to stay in one piece in a clash between phase lords.

"It would have been great if I learned a staff fighting style that is based on the water element instead." He sighed.

Unfortunately, he could only make use of what the Tree of Possibilities had on hand.

If changing the staff was not an option, then maybe he could improve Blinky or his own darkness qualifications.

Ves briefly thought about whether it would be possible to pluck the Iron Resonant Crucifix Crown from Vulcan's Divine Core and place it on his head.

He immediately shook his head. "I'm not that crazy!"

Besides, the crown was a relic that was obviously biased towards the metal element, so even if it made him stronger, it wouldn't synergize with his new fighting skills.

What else could he improve?

"Maybe I can increase my own comprehension of the darkness element."

He already gained a lot of admittedly unwanted insights and understanding of the power of darkness. That subsequently affected his domain, causing darkness to become slightly more prominent in relation to life and mechs.

If he strengthened the darkness component even further, Ves would be able to channel the power of this element a lot more efficiently than what he was capable of at the moment.

In fact, compared to real Dark Apostles, Ves was incredibly incompetent in comparison!

"How can I do that in a hurry? I have already exhausted my AP for the time being."

Only one solution came to mind.

His lottery tickets.

The golden lottery tickets were highly inconsistent, but Ves was bound to obtain at least a decent prize from his radiant lottery ticket!

While he still felt the urge to keep them in reserve so that he could save them for a rainy day, his current circumstances could already be characterized as such a terrible occasion.

Given that the Dark Apostle Self Defense Manual did not give Ves the confidence he needed to fight and win against an enemy phase lord, he was seriously thinking about whether he should expend those lottery tickets!

"It's not necessary!"

Sure, Ves' hastily modifications to the staff fighting style may have caused him to lose a lot of power, but that did not mean he lost all of his combat effectiveness. He had already turned into a competent staff wielder, and that was enough for him to hold his ground against an equal opponent.

Ves was not actually a Dark Apostle or a soldier. He was a mech designer who just happened to be a lot more versatile than usual.

The right approach that he should take was to stop thinking about replicating the strength of others, and develop his own combat system based on his own unique qualifications.

He was a phase lord, for example.

Was it possible to blend in the power of space with the power of darkness to produce a stronger compound effect?

He also had other means such as Blinky and his first Chosen Envoy. He was sure he could employ Blinky in another fashion as well. The remnants of Imon Ingvar had already recovered a decent bit after resting in the Sacred Temple.

His raiment and other external equipment could also provide him with additional advantages. He just wished he had more time and resources at his disposal so that he could have built a proper phase lord-sized suit of armor for himself.

"I also can't forget that I am not alone."

He could count on the support of plenty of friendly mechs and warships if he chose to deploy onto the battlefield.

This was useful in many ways. If he was weak at offense, then he could just focus on defense and do his best to create openings for his comrades in arms.

In short, Ves may still be relatively weak as far as lesser phase lords were concerned, but he should no longer be a liability on the battlefield!

"It would have been great if I had access to a virtually unending source of E energy like the time I fought to preserve the Dominion of Man during her tribulation, but…"

Was it possible that he could obtain a substitute from a radiant lottery ticket?

Maybe.

Ves did not have complete confidence that he would be able to draw such a prize. The random and uncontrollable nature of lottery draws still deterred him from using up his radiant lottery ticket.

In the end, Ves decided to bet on his current strength and decided to leave his lottery tickets in reserve.

His mentality drove him to challenge himself on the battlefield.

The enlightenment fruit was so powerful that it had hardened his bones and strengthened the muscles of his gigantic true body.

The changes were not drastic, but it was as if Ves had turned from an erudite phase lord to a martial phase lord!

This allowed Ves to perform movements and withstand shocks a lot better than before, even if his physical Attributes had not actually changed.

This wave of optimization not only tuned his body into a much finer organic combat machine, but also boosted his confidence in a way that Ves could not resist.

He was not a true soldier or warrior, but his newly gained fighting skills granted him a sense of courage that he previously lacked.

"It's no wonder that high-ranking mech pilots like to push their limits all of the time. They must be subjected to much stronger impulses!"

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